Poetry

were saved, and the Marshall Plan and NATO followed, preserving the liberties of Western Europe.

In 1949 Acheson succeeded George C. Marshall as secretary of state. “You know,” Truman said when he offered him the job, “twenty guys would make a better secretary of state than you, but I don’t know them. I know you.” In retrospect the selection of the architect of the Truman Doctrine seems an inspired one, but at the time there was much unhappiness.