"Is It True...?"

The rumor that would not be downed in Washington was that Secretary of State Dean Acheson would be out by the first of the year. The election gave it new impetus. "I would assume with these election results," said Harold Stassen, "that Secretary Acheson would resign." G.O.P. National Chairman Guy Gabrielson felt the same way. Republican Senators, including Joe McCarthy and Bourke Hickenlooper, began warming up for new investigations of the State Department.

At his first post-election press conference, Dean Acheson was ready for the question. "I should say that happily the interpretation of election returns in the United States does not fall either within my responsibility or within my competence," he began.

"And so far as my intention to resign is concerned, I have no such intention whatsoever. I may say that several of you have asked me about that for some time, and in a most delicate and sympathetic way, and there is a slight tone in your voice, as though you were saying, 'Is it true that you have leprosy?'"

Acheson was obviously pleased with the way he had phrased his answer, and he gave reporters permission to quote it direct. But it was just the kind of toplofty response that his critics found hard to take and his friends found hard to defend. It did nothing to stop the rumors. Dean Acheson owed his job to just one man, Harry Truman, who has said he considers him one of the "great Secretaries of State." The President was apt to stick by him the more he was attacked. Acheson's peril, however, lay not so much with critics of his foreign policy, as with its friends, who feared that his unpopularity jeopardized the policy. It was their outspoken worrying that lent credence to reports that within a month or two Acheson would quit. Most scuttlebutt simply had him returning to private law practice, but elaborate guessing said that he might step up to the Supreme Court and be replaced by Chief Justice Fred Vinson.

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