DEAN ACHESON’S OFFICE was a mess.
Tall, handsome, and impeccably dressed, with a neatly clipped mustache, Acheson did not look like a man who thrived amid chaos. But on this cold and clear February morning, there was a good reason for the disorder surrounding the undersecretary of state. Along with the rest of his department, Acheson was preparing to leave his ornate quarters. The Department of State had occupied the south wing of the vast State, War, and Navy Building (today called the Eisenhower Executive Office Building), a French Second Empire–style edifice next to the White House, for more than sixty years, but was about to decamp to new headquarters in nearby Foggy Bottom. Mark Twain had called it “the ugliest building in America,” and President Truman considered it a “monstrosity,” but the old bureaucratic headquarters had provided a rococo counterpoint to the neoclassical mansion next door, and its European pretensions suggested the burgeoning role the United States government wished to play on the world stage. For most of State’s occupancy of the old building, that aspiration remained unfulfilled.
Whatever its architectural merits, the State Department was an uncomfortable place to work. Acheson, who occupied lofty rooms connected to the secretary’s office by a narrow corridor, would later recall that he and his colleagues “stifled under the full blast of the summer sun aided by its reflection from the roof of the portico just under the corridor window and unabated by any such newfangled contrivance as air conditioning. We stifled all winter, too, through equal inability to control the government’s heating system.”
The War and Navy departments had outgrown their allotted space and moved elsewhere, and now State would soon follow, allowing the “monstrosity” to become a part of the White House complex, housing the Executive Office of the president. The transfer to Foggy Bottom would provide a vast increase in space, and would symbolize a degree of independence from the watchful gaze of the president and his aides. Countless records, a veritable archive of American diplomacy, had to be packed and transported.
But the upheaval attending the move was nothing compared to the changes set in motion by the delivery that day—Friday, February 21, 1947—of two “blue papers,” as formal diplomatic notes from the British Foreign Office were known. The British ambassador, Lord Inverchapel, had been instructed to deliver the notes directly to the secretary of state, General George Marshall. But Marshall, who had only recently returned from a lengthy diplomatic mission to China to take up the post of secretary, was away in Princeton to deliver a speech. There were diplomatic niceties to be observed; the ambassador could not be seen to deliver the notes to a lowly clerk. Thus, H. M. Sichel, the first secretary of the British embassy, was dispatched from the big Sir Edward Lutyens–designed British embassy on Massachusetts Avenue to the old gray building on Seventeenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
With a practiced indifference that belied their stunning historic impact, Sichel delivered the notes to Loy Henderson, a senior State Department official with responsibility for the Near East and Africa. While their contents did not come as a complete surprise, as the British and American governments had for months been discussing the strategic importance of Greece and Turkey, the impact of their delivery on international affairs was seismic.
Henderson immediately conferred with his colleague John D. Hickerson, deputy director of the Office of European Affairs. Both immediately grasped the far-reaching implications of the British diplomatic message, and the new responsibilities that would soon be thrust upon the United States. They wasted no time in delivering the notes to the undersecretary.
Acheson later described them as “shockers,” and knew in the instant that he read them that the world had changed forever.
The first of the two was the biggest shocker. It began innocuously enough: “His Majesty’s Government are giving most earnest and anxious consideration to the important problem that on strategic and political grounds Greece and Turkey should not be allowed to fall under Soviet influence.” But as Acheson read further, the full import of the note became clear. After a summary of previous discussions between the British and American governments on the topic, and an accounting of British support for the two troubled nations up until that time, the otherwise bland dispatch climaxed with the following stark admission: “His Majesty’s Government have already strained their resources to the utmost to help Greece and have granted, or undertaken to grant, assistance up to 31st March, 1947 to the amount of £40 million. The United States Government will readily understand that His Majesty’s Government, in view of their own situation, find it impossible to grant further financial assistance to Greece.” There was no time to lose; the deadline was less than forty days away, and the note concluded with a request that “the United States government will indicate their position at the earliest possible moment.” With much of Greece on the verge of starvation and the royalist government under constant rebel assault, a failure to act by the United States would be catastrophic.
The second note concerned Turkey. The British and American governments had previously committed to share the burden of military and economic aid to enable it to resist outside influence. Weakened by war and the still fairly recent loss of its once-large empire, Turkey was vulnerable to the voracious appetite of the Soviets, who became focused on the strategically vital Dardanelles, off Turkey’s Gallipoli peninsula. But the British were now warning their American allies that they would no longer be able to honor their previous offer of economic aid, and any future involvement would be limited to a modest military presence. The guarantee of a stable and free Turkey would now be placed squarely on Truman’s shoulders.
Lord Inverchapel was the diplomatic representative of an empire both bankrupted and broken by two world wars. From 1939 to 1945, Britain had extended itself militarily and economically in nearly every corner of the world, and its citizens had paid a heavy price. Sixty thousand civilians had been killed in merciless German bombing raids during the Battle of Britain, and many more citizens lost their homes. Wartime rationing had made luxuries out of the most basic necessities of life. And in the aftermath of that epic suffering, Britain faced one of its harshest winters in history just months after the war’s end. Massive snowdrifts buried vast sections of the country, paralyzing transport and further damaging Britain’s economy.
Thus did the mighty British Empire, which had ruled the waves and much of the world for centuries, pass the baton of world leadership to its former colonies. In a speech at West Point years later, Acheson would famously observe that Britain had lost an empire and not yet found a role; he might have mentioned that he had been a witness to that demise. Just as Churchill stood alone against Hitler’s war machine in 1940, it would now be Harry Truman’s government standing alone against Stalin’s designs on Western Europe seven years later.
Acheson swung into immediate action, ordering his staff to gather relevant personnel from the European and Near Eastern divisions and prepare reports on Greece’s and Turkey’s economic and military needs. There would be no rest for the State Department’s leadership that weekend. But Acheson’s team knew what was expected of them, and appreciated his managerial approach. As one aide recalled:
Meeting with members of his own staff, Acheson never stated an opinion or conclusion until everyone present had an opportunity to give his own ideas about the subject and suggest a remedy. By questions he stimulated others to talk, while he listened and took occasional notes. When every aspect of the matter had been carefully and fully considered, he would summarize what he had heard, point out conflicts in points of view, attempt to reconcile them, introduce facts and reasoning that might not have appeared, and finally suggest a solution. It was as though he were aware that his own logic and facility of expression might, if brought into play too early, intimidate full expression. Doubts usually fell away at the close of Acheson’s meetings and ended in agreement, each person present feeling that his view had made a major contribution.
Only then did the undersecretary of state pick up the telephone. It was time to brief the president, a task he had performed many times before. Truman and Acheson had established a cordial and comfortable relationship through their regular meetings in the Oval Office. But with this call, he was alerting the commander in chief that a new era in American foreign policy—and world history—had begun. The president had a keen sense of the past; he once said to his aides, “If a man is acquainted with what other people have experienced at this desk, it will be easier for him to go through a similar experience. It is ignorance that causes most mistakes.” Having already made more momentous decisions in two years than most presidents do over two terms in office, Truman also had a wealth of personal experience to guide him. The United States was fortunate at that critical juncture to have a chief executive whose outlook was influenced by the example of his most successful predecessors.
In characteristically brisk and businesslike fashion, Truman endorsed Acheson’s initial actions and ordered that a report be delivered to him and Secretary of State George Marshall by Monday. The story of their fruitful diplomatic collaboration, which would culminate in Acheson’s appointment as secretary of state in 1949 (a post he would hold for the entirety of Truman’s second term), was about to begin one of its most critical chapters.
Henderson and Hickerson wasted no time. Both were seasoned diplomats with decades of experience who had held numerous postings across the world. As keen observers of the international scene, they recognized the momentous shift that was under way, but the British memos had confirmed their fears while putting them in a position to finally begin implementing the ideas and policies they had both long nurtured.
That evening, Acheson’s team gathered their staff together to analyze the challenges facing US policy makers and prepare a memorandum for Marshall’s review.
The United States was blessed at that moment with a formidable array of diplomatic talent, but perhaps the most intellectually gifted of those meeting that evening to sketch out the future of America’s foreign policy was George Kennan. Forty-three years old, a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Kennan had steeped himself in international affairs since childhood, moving to Germany and learning the language as a young boy. After graduation from Princeton, he joined the Foreign Service and had postings throughout Europe before deciding to specialize in Russian affairs. His linguistic abilities and intellectual gifts granted him an understanding of the arcane workings of the Soviet Union beyond that of most of his contemporaries. Kennan was horrified by the brutality and oppression that Stalin inflicted upon the Russian people and convinced him that the dictator harbored expansionist designs. While in his first Russian posting, Kennan found himself out of step with Ambassador Joseph Davies, who was a hapless diplomat somehow seduced by Stalin’s rough charm. But several years later, as deputy chief of mission under Ambassador Averell Harriman, Kennan’s warnings about Stalin’s Soviet Union found a more receptive audience.
It was with his “Long Telegram” of February 1946—a foundational document in American Cold War foreign policy—through which George Kennan established himself as an invaluable player in Washington. This lengthy diplomatic cable to his superiors in the Truman administration warned:
At bottom of Kremlin’s neurotic view of world affairs is traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity. . . . For Russian rulers have invariably sensed that their rule was relatively archaic in form, fragile and artificial in its psychological foundation, unable to stand comparison or contact with political systems of Western countries. . . . They have learned to seek security only in patient but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival power, never in compacts and compromises with it.
It was no coincidence that Marxism, which had smoldered ineffectively for half a century in Western Europe, caught hold and blazed for first time in Russia. Only in this land which had never known a friendly neighbor or indeed any tolerant equilibrium of separate powers, either internal or international, could thrive a doctrine which viewed economic conflicts of society as insoluble by peaceful means.
With Kennan in the chair, there was little doubt that the meeting would swiftly produce a set of vigorous policy recommendations. No notes on the discussion survive, but history records that none around the table that night had any reservations about what the United States had to do next. This gathering of like minds was determined to see America take its rightful place as the leader of the free world. Kennan and the group agreed that a draft memorandum should be immediately prepared that evening and further reviewed over the weekend.
On Saturday, further meetings were held that included senior military officials whose expertise and blessing would be vital if the initiative was to succeed. Though weary from four year of war with Germany and Japan, most military leaders had long cast a skeptical eye toward Moscow. The memorandum was revised and redrafted as officials raced against the clock to provide the most comprehensive case they could for saving Greece and Turkey.
Finally, it was done. In terse, uncompromising language, the memorandum warned that if the United States failed to come to the aid of those fragile nations, it “would lay these countries open to Russian domination,” and Britain “may consider herself compelled to pursue policies of her own with regard to these countries.” The consequences would be dire: “a widespread collapse of resistance to Soviet pressure throughout the Near and Middle East and large parts of western Europe not yet under Soviet domination.” The memorandum urged a program of both military and economic aid, declaring that “half-way measures will not suffice and should not be attempted.”
The memorandum recommended “further steps” should President Truman approve the proposal, including discussing the issue “privately and frankly . . . with appropriate members of the Congress,” drafting the necessary legislation, and adopting measures “to acquaint the American public with the situation and with the need for action along the proposed lines.”
Less than two years after the Allied victory in Europe, the United States was now on the verge of leading a fight against one former ally while the other sat helplessly on the sidelines. It was time for the American president to defend the world in its fight against communism. But would Harry Truman dare to engage in that historic struggle? And if he did, would Americans follow?