Dean Aheson
Dean Gooderham Aheson (ur. 11 kwietnia 1893 w Middletown, Connecticut, zm. 12 października 1971 w Sandy Springs,Maryland), amerykański polityk i dyplomata.
Wspułtwurca Doktryny Trumana. Studiował prawo na uniwersytetah Yale i Harvarda, a w1941 podjął pracę w Departamencie Stanu na stanowisku podsekretaża (1945-1947), a następnie sekretaża stanu w administracji Trumana (1949-1953).
Do jego osiągnięć należało wprowadzenie w 1947 w życie Planu Marshalla, silne wspieranie idei utwożenia NATO (1949). Jego książka "Present at the Creation" (1969) została uhonorowana Nagrodą Pulitzera.
Miał znaczny wpływ na politykę zagraniczną USA w początkowym okresie zimnej wojny.
Jest autorem tzw. "Planu Ahesona", ktury stanowił podstawę uhwalenia pżez Zgromadzenie Ogulne ONZ Rezolucji "Uniting for Peace" w 1950 r. Rezolucja ta pżekazywała w ręce Zgromadzenia Ogulnego kompetencje Rady Bezpieczeństwa w pżedmiocie utżymania pokoju, gdyby ta znalazła się z pżyczyn politycznyh w stanie paraliżu decyzyjnego.
Early life and career
Dean Gooderham Acheson was born in Middletown, Connecticut. His father, Edward Campion Acheson, was an English-born Church of England priest who, after several years in Canada, moved to the U.S. to become Episcopal Bishop of Connecticut. His mother, Eleanor Gertrude Gooderham, was a Canadian-born granddaughter of prominent Canadian distiller William Gooderham (1790–1881), founder of the Gooderham and Worts Distillery. Like his father, he was a staunch Democrat and opponent of prohibition.
Acheson attended Groton School and Yale College (1912–1915), where he joined Scroll and Key Society, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa[3] and was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Phi chapter). At Groton and Yale he had the reputation of a partier and prankster; he was somewhat aloof but still popular with his classmates. Acheson's well-known, reputed arrogance—he disdained the curriculum at Yale as focusing on memorizing subjects already known or not worth knowing more about—was early apparent.[citation needed] At Harvard Law School from 1915 to 1918, however, he was swept away by the intellect of professor Felix Frankfurter and finished fifth in his class.
During wartime service in the National Guard, in 1917 he married Alice Stanley. She loved painting and politics and served as a stabilizing influence throughout their enduring marriage; they had three children: David, Jane, and Mary. At that time, a new tradition of bright law students clerking for the U.S. Supreme Court had been begun by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, for whom Acheson clerked for two terms from 1919 to 1921. Frankfurter and Brandeis were close associates, and future Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter suggested that Brandeis take on Acheson.[4]
Economic diplomacy
A lifelong Democrat, Acheson worked at a law firm in Washington D.C., Covington & Burling, often dealing with international legal issues before Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed him Undersecretary of the United States Treasury in 1933. When Secretary William H. Woodin fell ill, Acheson suddenly found himself acting secretary despite his ignorance of finance. Because of his opposition to FDR's plan to inflate the dollar by controlling gold prices, he was forced to resign in November 1933 and resumed his law practice.[5] In 1939-1940 he headed a committee to study the operation of administrative bureaus in the federal government.Cold War diplomacy
Later, in 1945, Harry S. Truman selected Acheson as his Undersecretary of United States Department of State; he retained this position working under Secretaries of State Edward Stettinius, Jr., James F. Byrnes, and George Marshall. And, as late as 1945 or 1946 Acheson sought détente with the Soviet Union. In 1946, as chairman of a special committee to prepare a plan for the international control of atomic energy, he wrote the Acheson–Lilienthal report. At first Acheson was conciliatory towards Joseph Stalin.
The Soviet Union's attempts at regional hegemony in Eastern Europe and in Southwest Asia, however, changed Acheson's thinking. From this point forward, one historian writes, "Acheson was more than 'present at the creation' of the Cold War; he was a primary architect."[8][9] Acheson often found himself acting Secretary during the Secretary's frequent overseas trips, and during this period he cemented a close relationship with President Truman. Acheson devised the policy and wrote Truman's 1947 request to Congress for aid to Greece and Turkey, a speech which stressed the dangers of totalitarianism rather than Soviet aggression and marked the fundamental change in American foreign policy that became known as the Truman Doctrine.[10] Acheson designed the economic aid program to Europe that became known as the Marshall Plan. Acheson believed the best way to contain Stalin's Communism and prevent future European conflict was to restore economic prosperity to Western Europe, to encourage interstate cooperation there, and to help the American economy by making its trading partners richer.
On June 30, 1947 Acheson received the Medal for Merit from President Truman.[11]
In 1949, Acheson was appointed Secretary of State. In this position he built a working framework for containment, first formulated byGeorge Kennan, who served as the head of Acheson's Policy Planning Staff. Acheson was the main designer of the military allianceNATO, and signed the pact for the United States. The formation of NATO was a dramatic departure from historic American foreign policy goals of avoiding any "entangling alliances."