ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses and evaluates Truman administration management norms and decision-making behaviors. Married less to the politics of China policy at home than his predecessors and unencumbered by the bureaucratic competition of the Roosevelt administration, Truman sought to deal with China through his two most trusted lieutenants, George C. Marshall and Dean Acheson. What emerged, the chapter demonstrates, was a consequential, albeit ephemeral, nuance on China issues. This condition for Truman did not begin immediately. The first years were characterized by perplexing and misunderstood roles, amalgamating in the failure of the Marshall Mission to China. The premise of this failure, owed to Truman’s inexperience with China and its manifold problems, forced him to relive many of Roosevelt’s original China mistakes. However, Truman proved both receptive and adaptive. His support for the publication of the China White Paper demonstrates the great authority he gave to the State Department and the China experts. This period represented the pinnacle of State Department professionalization on China policy. By the final years, however, the politics of China in the United States forced consequential and misunderstood trade-offs in foreign policy. The cost of protecting policy and aims in Europe was China expertise and nuance in government.
