Category Archives: George Marshall

Maximalist: America in the World from Truman to Obama

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maximalistAn early quibble about the book is that it did not lead off (at least that I found) with a definition of Maximalist. From reading the book I’m guessing it means taking an extreme foreign policy position. The problem with that simplistic definition is that Truman took an extreme position in several foreign policy matters, to include the “Truman Doctrine” that kept Turkey and Greece out of the clutches of the Soviets and the Marshall Plan that rescued Europe. Reagan also took extreme positions in standing up to the Soviets, or, in Reagan’s words, “the Evil Empire.” Those “extreme positions” presented America as an aggressive world power.  Obama could also be called a “Maximalist” by my simplistic definition. He took extreme positions that resulted, in my opinion, in sending a message that he is disinterested in the U.S. being a world power.

Despite my quibble, the book does describe the major foreign policy positions of the Presidents from Truman to Obama. Truman had given up on cooperation with the Soviets by 1947. He went before Congress to ask for emergency economic and military support to Turkey and Greece to countermand the “Iron Curtain,” as originally named by Churchill. Marshall expanded Truman’s policy of countering the Soviets while helping desperate people in Europe when he announced what would be known as the “Marshall Plan” at a Harvard commencement in June 1947. Marshall attended meetings with the Soviets fearing that the U.S. language had been too strident. He returned convinced that the criticism of the Soviets had been accurate and appropriate. He said in a nationwide radio address that the Soviets were “…clearly adapted to absolute control. They could only lead to dictatorship and strife.” The message from all sides of U.S. foreign policy became the rallying cry originated by Robert Murphy, senior diplomat to Germany, “The United States must run this show.”  Stalin made a huge strategic blunder by ordering all Eastern European diplomats to pull out of the “Marshall Plan” talks. That decision allowed the plan to focus on the countries the U.S. really wanted to support and significantly reduced the costs.

The U.S. policy of “containment” of the Soviets caused them to be more aggressive. They brought down the democratic government of Czechoslovakia in a Communist coup in February 1948 and began the Berlin blockade. One prominent dissenter of the containment policy was George Kennan, who had warned of Soviet intentions in his “Long Telegram” to the U.S. State Department. Kennan had changed his mind and wrote an allegedly anonymous article under the pseudonym “X.”  That article advocated that, “The State Department’s best-informed and most brilliant Soviet expert believed there was no real Soviet military threat to speak of. There was, in turn, no need to do anything about it.” Continue reading →

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

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present-at-creationThis autobiography by Dean Acheson, who was President Harry S. Truman’s trusted Secretary of State, is filled with information that would be interesting to anyone wanting to know more about the people and policies of the Truman administration. It is a very long book (over 700 pages excluding notes, references, and the index), and it is in small font. The title is derived from a quote from King of Spain Alphonso X, the Learned, 1252-1284, “Had I been present at the creation I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe.” I certainly had the impression that Mr. Acheson had no lack of confidence in his ability to make wise decisions about solutions to problems or making accurate judgments about people. There were a few cases where he writes that decisions proved to be a mistake, but those were the exception. He either writes with admiration and often affection for people or with open contempt. I don’t recall anyone being described other than in the two extremes. I also don’t recall a single circumstance where he describes Harry S. Truman with anything other than admiration. I have read in other sources that the respect was mutual; Harry considered Acheson his “second in command.” The office of the Vice President was vacant until Truman and his running mate, Alben Barkley took office in 1949 after winning the election in 1948. I don’t recall Barkley being prominently mentioned.

The book follows Acheson’s State Department career chronologically from being an Assistant Secretary of State 1941-1945, Under Secretary of State 1945-1947, to his tumultuous years of Secretary of State 1947-1953.  My primary interest in reading the book was the decisions of the Truman administration in containment of the Soviet Union during the Cold War and whether Acheson and others in the State Department were, as described by critics, “in the pocket of the Soviets.” To the contrary, Acheson describes relations with the Soviets in a non-flattering manner beginning early in the book. He says the Soviet diplomats “…cultivated boorishness as a method of showing their contempt for the capitalist world, with which they wanted minimum contact…” He mentions one Soviet diplomat named Oumansky who was killed in “…a plane crash of suspicious cause…” and that “…we felt no sense of loss.” Acheson would eventually come under constant attack and suspicion during the “red scare era,” but I never found an instance in the book where he displayed anything but distrust of Stalin and the Soviets. Continue reading →

Partners in Command

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The subtitle of this book by Mark Perry is “George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace. The book begins with a chronology of George Marshall’s and Dwight Eisenhower’s lives, their military service, and the major battles of World War II. The focus is on the European theatre. Review of the chronology and the listings of major military commanders and politicians at the end of the epilogue give a quick snapshot of the events of World War II. That would be useful to a casual reader, because the book is written in incredible detail. A major focus of the book is the constant and difficult conflict between the Americans and the British. The conflicts occur at nearly every step of the planning and execution of military plans. The descriptions are undoubtedly historically accurate, but I found them tedious to read.

The Prologue describes the remarkable relationship between Confederates Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson and their connections with the Virginia Military Institute where George Marshall was a student and teacher. “In time he came to revere Lee and Jackson, and throughout his life he named them the two men he admired most.” The book describes that Lee chose Jackson to lead the fight and George Catlett Marshall chose Dwight Eisenhower as his partner in command. Continue reading →