David Campion Acheson was born in Washington, D.C. on November 4, 1921 to Dean Acheson and Alice Caroline Stanley. At the time of his birth, Acheson's father was a clerk for Supreme Court JusticeLouis Brandeis. His parents had three children: Jane Acheson, who married Dudley Brown, David Campion Acheson, and Mary Eleanor Acheson, who married William Bundy, an attorney, analyst with the CIA, and foreign affairs adviser to presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson Acheson attended the Groton School, graduating in 1939. In the fall of '39, Acheson entered Yale University and joined the Naval ROTC. While he was at Yale, he was inducted in the honor society of Skull and Bones, ultimately graduating in 1942. In 1948, Acheson received a law degree from Harvard.
Family
Acheson's paternal grandfather was Edward Campion Acheson, an English-born Church of England priest who, after several years in Canada, moved to the U.S. to become Episcopal Bishop of Connecticut. Acheson's paternal grandmother was Eleanor Gertrude Gooderham, the Canadian-born granddaughter of prominent Canadian distiller William Gooderham, who was a founder of the Gooderham and Worts Distillery. Acheson's mother Alice was a painter, and his maternal grandparents were Louis Stanley, a railroad lawyer and Jane C. Stanley, was a watercolorist. His great-grandfather was John Mix Stanley, a renowned painter of American Indian life in the Wild West. His mother graduated from Wellesley College and over the years exhibited her oil paintings and watercolors at New York's Wildenstein and Washington's Franz Bader Gallery, and in such museums as the Corcoran and the Phillips Collection. Her subjects included scenes of Washington, portraits and landscapes of exotic lands she visited over the years.
Career
Military service
In 1942, he was commissioned in the Navy and served until 1946 in the Pacific theater. He saw action in the Solomon Islands, New Guinea and the Philippines. He was ensign to Lieutenant and served on destroyer escorts from 1943 through 1945. For his service he was awarded 4 battle stars.
David Campion Acheson Jr., an architect and principal of Acheson Doyle Partners Architects, who married Susan D. Sturges in 1986
Peter W. Acheson, an independent film maker who married Mary Vaux, a freelance writer
Patricia taught at the Cathedral School from 1959 until the mid-1960s and had earlier taught at the Potomac and Madeira Schools. She wrote books for students of American history including America's Colonial Heritage, Our Federal Government, and The Supreme Court. She died of emphysema on March 7, 2000. Acheson resided in the Foggy Bottom section of Washington, D.C., and served on many government committees including the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle "Challenger" Accident. Acheson died at home in Washington, D.C. on August 16, 2018 at the age of 96.
Published works
Affection and Trust: The Personal Correspondence of Harry S. Truman and Dean Acheson, 1953-1971
