President Truman's Secretary of State (1949-53), Dean Acheson was a crucial figure in the shaping of the postwar world. The result of a major commemorative conference, this volume brings together ten distinguished diplomatic historians, commissioned to write on various aspects of Acheson's career, based on primary archival research.

Preface - Acknowledgements - Introduction; P.H.Nitze - The Rise and Fall of Economic Diplomacy: Dean Acheson and the Marshall Plan; M.J.Hogan - Dean Acheson and the Atlantic Community; L.S.Kaplan - Acheson, the Bomb, and the Cold War; R.L.Messer - Loy Henderson, Dean Acheson and the Origins of the Truman Doctrine; B.L.Kuniholm - China's Place in the Cold War: The Acheson Plan; N.B.Tucker - Dean Acheson and the Japanese Peace Treaty; T.Igarashi - Frustrating the Kremlin Design: Acheson and N.S.C.68; S.L.Rearden - Negotiating from Strength: Acheson, the Russians and American Power; M.P.Leffler - Marshall and Acheson: The State Department Years, 1945-51; F.C.Pogue - Foreign Economic Policy in Dean Acheson's Time and Ours; W.Diebold - Index