Both Sides of Creation: The Public and Private Careers of Dean Acheson

Abstract

A song kept running through my mind while I read Douglas Brinkley's fine study of postcreation years of Dean Acheson. Actually, it was less than a song, really only a few lines since they are all I remembered of tune, but they echoed like soundtrack of a strip of looped film. The movie: White Christmas. In one scene, Bing Crosby goes on Ed Harrison Show to send a singing invitation to men of the Old Man's World War II army division. Appealing to former soldiers, Bing sings questions: can you do with a general when he stops being a general / Oh, what can you do with a general who retires? We can pose same question for presidents, secretaries of state, and other leading government officials. What can they do when they leave a post they trained a lifetime to occupy? Europeans have learned to deal with these problems. In France, George Ball has observed, they can be pensioned off to some government-owned bank. In Britain, they might join loyal opposition in House of Commons or even be elevated to a seat in House of Lords. In United States, however, problem is more ticklish. Few are returned to House or Senate. Some dabble in law; others accept positions in political think tanks or form their own organizations; a distinct minority build houses and garden. If few write their memoirs, most oversee writing of such volumes. I suspect really important ones discover imaginative ways to fill up their days as they wait for call from those in power and in need of crucial advice. Retired presidents and secretaries of state, like retired World War II generals, become something of national trusts, sources of wisdom. After all, they more than anyone else shaped world in