31 quotes
How could the USA champion individual freedom in the world generally while denying it to an important minority in its own country.
A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.
Vietnam was worse than immoral — it was a mistake.
The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull. This is not always easy to achieve.
I will undoubtedly have to seek what is happily known as gainful employment, which I am glad to say does not describe holding public office.
Acheson "never for one moment believed that the holding of office was a source of power – it was an obligation of service."
Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)
"Force can overcome force, but a free society cannot long steel itself to dominate another people by sheer force."
Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)
Great Britain has lost an Empire and has not yet found a role.
Not all the arts of diplomacy are learned solely in its practice. There are other exercise yards."
Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)
Unfortunately, the hyperbole of the inaugural outran the provisions of the budget.
Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)
In the State Department, one never lacks for helpful suggestions.
Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)
In response, Acheson wrote to "tell a tale of large conceptions, great achievements...Its hero is the American people."
Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)
"I was a frustrated schoolteacher, persisting against overwhelming evidence to the contrary in the belief that the human mind could be moved by facts and reason."
Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)
President Truman used to say that budget figures revealed far more of proposed policy than speeches.
Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)
"The simple truth is that perseverance in good policies is the only avenue to success..."
Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)
"… talk should precede, not follow, the issuance of orders."
Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)
"The qualities which produce the dogged, unbeatable courage of the British, personified at the time by Winston Churchill, can appear in other settings as stubbornness bordering on stupidity."
Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)
Plainly plenty of work was waiting to be done. The question was: would the State Department do it? I proposed to have a shot at finding out.
Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)
"The conclusion was...unpalatable to believers in American omnipotence, to whom every goal unattained is explicable only by incompetence or treason."
Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)
I must plead guilty as any of escaping into immediate busywork to keep from the far harder task of peering into a dim future, which, of course, should be one of a diplomat's main duties.
Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)