The Statecraft of Dean Acheson
When Dean Acheson was appointed Under Secretary of State in September, 1945, I. F. Stone wrote in The Nation: “He has been pro-De Gaulle, anti-Franco, strongly opposed to the admission of Argentina to the U.N., and friendly to the Soviet Union … of all the men now in the Departrrient, Acheson was by far the best choice for Under Secretary, and it is no small advantage to pick a man who already knows a good deal about the inner workings.” Stone went on to note that one of Acheson's strongest assets was “in his relations with Congress. He deserves a generous share of the credit for the passage of the Bretton Woods legislation, and he played no inconsiderable part in the Senate's approval of the Charter.” In order to placate Acheson's reactionary critics, Tom Connally reassured trie Senate that he would “never have voted for Mr. Acheson's confirmation [as Under Secretary] unless it had been implicitly understood that he would not have a predominant voice in foreign policy.”