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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.

— Dean Acheson Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

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More quotes by Dean Acheson

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.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Dean Acheson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.