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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Dean Acheson
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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Dean Acheson
(1893-1971)
DEAN ACHESON
Awarded by
President Lyndon B. Johnson
September 14, 1964
An architect of the defense and growth of a flourishing Atlantic community, his moral resolve and intellectual grasp have placed all free men in his debt.
Jan. 8, 1951
Biography
US lawyer, statesman. He was prominent in the development of the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and NATO. Dean Acheson was the consummate statesman of his time; he looked and played the role to perfection. In 1946, from his State Department office in Washington, he facilitated George Marshall's negotiations in China. The following year, when Marshall became secretary, Acheson, as undersecretary, administered the department and implemented its reorganization. A month before Marshall made his historic speech at Harvard, Acheson gave a preliminary aid-to-Europe address at a state teachers' college in Mississippi. Lacking his boss's reputation and stature, Acheson was largely ignored or criticized; Senator Arthur Vandenberg objected to his commitment of taxpayers' dollars without congressional approval. Acheson, nevertheless, proved to be one of the Marshall Plan's staunchest supporters. As secretary of state between 1949 and 1953, he was a principal architect of America's foreign policy at the start of the Cold War. As Secretary of State under President Harry S. Truman from 1949-52, he supported aid for the French fight against the Viet Minh in Indochina. In 1968, his advice to President Johnson was a polar opposite to his earlier advocacy; believing the United States could not prevail in Vietnam, he urged Johnson to seek a negotiated settlement to the war.
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Medal History
