When george washington took office, the territory now known as the United States had been for many years a pawn in the struggle between Europe's great powers. It might easily have remained so had not Washington set about the invention of a firm but flexible foreign policy. Reuter discusses the ways that Washington and his administration, while dealing with the day-to-day expediencies of establishing a new nation safe from both her friends and enemies, set the precedents which would govern both the manner and matter of American foreign policy for a century and a half.