Acheson Country - Softcover

Acheson, David C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393331083 ISBN 13: 9780393331080

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993

Synopsis

This is a personal memoir of Dean Acheson, written by his son, who, in writing the book, wished readers to see the personal side of the statesman. The memoir shows us Dean Acheson at home with his wife, Alice, his friends and children, before and after his tenure as President Truman's Secretary of State.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

A loving son's captivating reminiscences of his famous father. While starchy Dean G. Acheson played a leading role in shaping America's post-WW II foreign policy (e.g., as Harry Truman's secretary of state), the author focuses on the private rather than the public man. The episodic text offers, among other matters, anecdotal accounts of the senior Acheson's at-ease relationships with Truman, Felix Frankfurter, Endicott Peabody (Groton's headmaster), his own father (an Anglican bishop), attorney-partners (at the Washington, D.C., firm of Covington Burling & Rublee), and other notables. Included as well are details on what the elegant attorney-diplomat wore and how he tended his modified guardsman mustache, plus notes on divisions of labor at the family's Georgetown home and rural Maryland farm. A fond if demanding paterfamilias, Acheson pŠre also stands revealed as a lover of martinis, avid tennis player, occasional prankster (whose Fourth of July feats with cherry bombs kept local cattle herds on edge), and skilled woodworker--albeit a failed equestrian. Engaging, human-scale perspectives on a worldly wise eminence whose personal principles and foibles help explain his accomplishments on a large stage. (Photographs, plus a foreword by David McCullough--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

Engaging but slight, this collection of vignettes limns a "personal character portrait" of Dean Acheson, Truman's Secretary of State (1949-1953). David Acheson, editor of This Vast External Realm: Essays of Dean Acheson , writes about his father warmly and fluidly. Dean Acheson's upbringing acquired "a distinctly nineteenth-century flavor" from his teachers, his father and his senior law partners, all of whom encouraged him to face life with a sense of vigor and adventure. His wife Alice, a good complement, was flinty and unpretentious. Acheson reveled in Fourth of July fireworks, practiced weekend cabinet-making for escape from his work because, he held, "loafing is not relaxing; concentration is," and wore wild colors at home in summer as a release from conformity. There are minor anecdotes regarding Truman and Felix Frankfurter. More substantial are the author's final reflections on his father's values of fairness, honesty, service and realism, and his affectionate regard for people who shared those values. This was the basis, according to the author, of Acheson's devotion to Truman. Photos not seen by PW .
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0393331083
• ISBN 13: 9780393331080
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 220