Present At The Creation

Even among those who have been stung by his wit or bled by his logic, there are few who question the proposition that Dean Acheson has been one of the strong-est, most successful American statesmen of the century. His own record of his years of public service is Present at the Creation.

"He may be savage in his criticism," James Reston has written, "but there is no bolder mind in Washington today, no more thoughtful friend, no better public servant, no better talker or writer, and no more eloquent critic in a city that has for-gotten the function of eloquence, criticism and style. . . . He writes better than any man in public life today."

Dean Acheson was not only present at the creation of the postwar world, he was one of its chief architects. He joined the Department of State in 1941 as Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and, with brief intermissions, was continuously involved until 1953, when he left office as Secretary of State at the end of the Truman years. Throughout that time his was one of the most influential

minds and strongest wills at work. It was a period that included World War II, the reconstruction of Europe, the Korean war, the development of nuclear power, the formation of the United Nations and NATO. It involved him at close quarters with a cast that starred Truman, Roosevelt, Churchill, de Gaulle, Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Attlee, Eden, Bevin, Schuman, Dulles, de Gasperi, Adenauer, Yoshida, Vishinsky, and Molotov and included a host of the great, the near great, and the small.

The processes of policy making, the necessity for decision, the role of power and initiative in matters of state are analyzed from a personal, penetrating viewpoint. Dean Acheson's portraits are drawn with wit and warmth; some are etched in acid, others are adorned with praise either fulsome or small — but all are complete.

Present at the Creation is the story of an era on which the history of the world pivoted and it is written by the man whose eye was perhaps clearest, perspective the broad.t, and mind the most decisive. It it almost certainly the best-written and probably the most important book to come from the high echelons of state since the writings of Winston Churchill.