Word: achesonism
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President Eisenhower's decision to remove the Seventh Fleet as defense for the Communist China mainland marked a complete repudiation of one of the strangest policies in the history of the U.S.: the Truman-Acheson policy of suppressing the Chinese Nationalist government of Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek...
...Chinese Nationalists finished their withdrawal from the mainland across the 100-mile straits to Formosa in December 1949. (Four months earlier, Dean Acheson had tried to write off the Nationalists with the China white paper-an official attack on a friendly power without precedent in the history of international relations.) The island was important to the defense of the Pacific and doubly important as the base for what was still the best and largest anti-Communist army in Asia. But the State Department maintained a stiff anti-Formosa policy...
Beyond the Perimeter. This weird policy drew increasing criticism. The Joint Chiefs of Staff objected to it. General Douglas MacArthur objected. And so did Defense Secretary Louis Johnson. In January 1950, Johnson having gone off to sun himself in Florida, Dean Acheson fenced the military men back into their Pentagon dugouts, got Harry Truman to overrule a Joint Chiefs of Staff decision to strengthen Formosa. Said Truman: "The U.S. Government will not provide military aid or advice to the Chinese forces on Formosa." Acheson sealed the policy in his National Press Club speech of Jan. 12, 1950, which placed Formosa...
...facts show Vincent acted consciously against U.S. interests, the public should hear them fully. If Dulles finds insufficient grounds for the dismissal, he should reinstate Vincent with an expression of full confidence. In either case, Dulles, who has enough prestige with Congress to defend his department as Acheson could not, must not let political pressure replace diplomatic competence in the Foreign Service. By showing up the Department's confidence in itself he can help it regain the confidence of the public...
Last week, when the official record of Wilson's testimony was released, it was clear that he had not been as bad as his press. Engine Charlie certainly lacked Dean Acheson's clipped, lawyerlike evasiveness, and he did not talk in the language of the Congressional Record (he called Senators "you men" not "the distinguished Senators"). He was inclined to be chatty, but at least part of that was the result of the Senators' tendency to ask him questions which he had already answered. Unaccustomed to the senatorial habit of saying everything three times, he thought they...