Evening star., 1953-02-19
Wife of Secretary
OF Stute Is
Widely Travelled
By IsobeIIe Shelton

John Foster Dulles that she
spends all of her time opening
or closing houses or flying to
the four corners of the world.
The wife Of the new Secre-
tary of State is currently get
ting settled into her fourth home
in Washington in as many years,
and she has long since lost track
of how many hundreds of thou
sands of miles she has flown
and how many times she has
crossed the Atlantic and Pa
ciflc.
Ever since the San Francisco
Conference in the spring of 1914,
at which Mr.. Dulles was the
Republican Party's official OBJ
server, he has had q series of
diplomatic assignments of ever
increasing Importance from the
Truman administration.
Most of these assignments
have involved globe-girdling
travels. and with a few notable
exceptions Mrs. Dulles has gone
along with him.
The exceptions include the
Foreign Ministers Conference in
Moscow in 1947, when the Rus
slams banned wives from the
delegations; President-elect
Eisenhower'S post-election con-
feuences with his top advisers
aboard the Cruiser Helena, a
stag affair, and Secretary Dulles
recent whirlwind trip through
Western Europe.
II think I would just have been
a nuisance on that last trip"
she declares. They moved
around so very fast. But I plan
to go on his next one.
II think Foster Gas every one
calls her husbandD figured out
we had gone 100000 miles just
in the last two years." she added.
II know we made four trips to
Japan and back on the Japanese
treaty"
Fortunately. Mrs. Dulles loves
to fly. She occupies her time on
long hops working crossword
puzzles, while her husband is
devouring 25-cent mystery books
at a great rate. One of her jobs
is to keep him supplied with
fresh mysteries.
The new cabinet wife is deeply
interested in her husbands diplo-
matte ventures, and whenever
the meetings he attends are open
to the public she is among the
spectators. During closed ses-
sions she goes sightseeing, usu-
ally accompanied by wives of
other Americans in the delega-
ton.
II try to bring back one SOU
venir from each trip, even if
it's just a little ash tray" she
says. THE trouble is there are
so many now I'm getting them
all mixed up"
The Dulles town house in
New York is a treasure trove of
beautiful objet dart collected
in such a fashion, many of them
by Mrs. Dulles. many more in
herited from earlier Dulleses,
who also were active diplomatic
caly.
). Many more lovely pieces have
been installed in the eight-room
French provincial house they
have purchased here on Thirty
second street. The unusual
looking whitened red brick house,
with a genuine old slate roof, is
perched on a hill overlooking
Rock Creek Park. The back end
of the property actually de-
scends down hill to the edge of
the creek itself. Crocuses already
are in bloom behind the house,
and Mrs. Dulles has been told
the hillside soon will be mass
of blooms.
Mrs. Dulles has spent most of
her time since her arrival here
getting the house in order.
II think I actually picked the
house because of its library,
which is set off on one side of
the house and even has it's own
private entrance" she says. "It
will be so nice for Foster to be
able to work there. He could
even have a visitor come in
privately without interfering
with guests in the other part of
the house
The Secretary's big desk and
comfortable chair are at the end
of the room, in a sunny window
overlooking Rock Creek. A
handsome Chinese red-lacquered
screen conceals a televiSion set
on the other side of the room
("I hate the thing staring at
me in the face" Mrs. Dulles ex-
plainS). Two sofas are up
holstered in a hubby red fabric.
of the same shade as the screen.
The white bookshelves lining
most of the wall space are about
half filled with foreign policy
and reference works that Foster
needed right away" his wife