Word: asia
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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There was a case to be made for keeping Dean Acheson. His removal would deeply disturb Western Europe, which generally admires him and shares his distaste for involvement in Asia. Western Europe already has ample reason to regard the U.S., embroiled in its foreign policy debate, with uncertainty and bewilderment. Acheson is widely regarded as the most forceful man in the Cabinet. In the diplomatic arena, he is a skillful expositor of policies. Harry Truman leans heavily on Acheson for the knowledge of foreign affairs which he himself lacks. The entire Administration, including many...
...record, there is no question that Acheson, more than anyone else in recent years, has determined U.S. foreign policy. On the record, that policy has disastrously failed in Asia. The misreading of the Red Chinese was an error which Acheson principally compounded, and for which he must take the responsibility...
Around the State Department, the old animus against Chiang Kai-shek still persists, for Chiang is the symbol of a mistake, hanging like the ancient mariner's albatross around the U.S. neck. The U.S. had shrunk from any embroilment in Asia. The Korean intervention was not actually Asiatic policy but a 180° turn from it; it was carried out to make a moral point. As a matter of basic policy, the U.S. had determined, as it did in World War II, that the place it would much prefer to fight, if it has to fight, is in Europe...
...that decision will be made in Moscow, not in Washington. And since the U.S. insists on minimizing Asia, why not (Stalin may reason) pick off the rest of Asia, starting with Korea, continuing with Indo-China, gobbling up Malaya and Indonesia, meanwhile rattling the saber in Europe to distract American effort...
...patient Russians' slow, cold calendar, Asia may come first, Europe later. It may not be later than the U.S. thinks, but earlier...