John Foster Dulles

John Foster Dulles (February 2, 1888–May 24, 1959) was an American statesman who served as Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 - 1959. He was a noted Cold Warrior advocating an aggressive stance against communism around the world. He advocated support of the French in their war against the Viet Minh in Indochina and famously refused to shake the hand of Zhou Enlai at the Geneva Conference in 1954.

He was also the older brother of Allen Welsh Dulles, head of the CIA under Eisenhower.

John Foster Dulles, the son of a Presbyterian minister, was born in Washington D.C., and attended public schools in New York. After attending Princeton University and George Washington University he joined the New York law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, where he specialized in international law. He tried to join the United States Army during the First World War but was rejected because of poor eyesight.

In 1918 Woodrow Wilson appointed Dulles as legal counsel to the United States delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference. Afterwards he served as a member of the War Reparations Committee. Dulles, a deeply religious man, attended numerous international conferences of churchmen during the 1920s and 1930s. He also became a partner in the Sullivan & Cromwell law firm.

Dulles was a close associate of Thomas E. Dewey who became the presidential candidate of the Republican Party in 1944. During the election Dulles served as Dewey's foreign policy adviser.

In 1945 Dulles participated in the San Francisco Conference and worked as adviser to Arthur H. Vandenberg and helped draft the preamble to the United Nations Charter. He subsequently attended the United Nations General Assembly as a United States delegate in 1946, 1947 and 1950. He also published War or Peace (1950).

Dulles criticized the foreign policy of Harry S. Truman. He argued that the policy of "containment" should be replaced by a policy of "liberation". When Dwight Eisenhower became President in January, 1953, he appointed Dulles as his Secretary of State.

As Secretary of State Dulles spent considerable time building up NATO as part of his strategy of controlling Soviet expansion by threatening massive retaliation in event of a war. Dulles was also the architect of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) that was created in 1954. The treaty, signed by representatives of the United States, Australia, Britain, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand, provided for collective action against aggression.

Dulles was one of the pioneers of Mutually Assured Destruction and brinkmanship. In an article written for Life Magazine Dulles defined his policy of brinkmanship: "The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art." His critics blamed him for damaging relations with communist states and contributing to the Cold War.

Dulles upset the leaders of several non-aligned countries when on 9 June, 1955, he argued in one speech that "neutrality has increasingly become an obsolete and except under very exceptional circumstances, it is an immoral and shortsighted conception."

In 1956 Dulles strongly opposed the Anglo-French invasion of Egypt (October-November). However, by 1958 he was an outspoken opponent of President Gamal Abdel Nasser and stopped him from receiving weapons from the United States. This policy seemingly backfired, enabling the Soviet Union to gain influence in the Middle East.

Dulles, suffering from cancer, was forced by his declining health to resign from office in April, 1959 and died in Washington on 24 May, 1959.

Washington Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia is named after him.

Carol Burnett first rose to prominence in the 1950s singing a novelty song, "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles"; more recently, Gil Scott Heron commented "John Foster Dulles ain't nothing but the name of an airport now" in the song "B-Movie".

John Foster Dulles

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