United States Secretary of State
Which position did John Foster Dulles hold from 1953 to Apr 1959?
John Foster Dulles John Foster Dulles ( ; February 25 , 1888May 24 , 1959 ) was an American diplomat , lawyer , and Republican politician . He served as United States Secretary of State under President Dwight D . Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959 and was briefly a U.S . Senator for New York in 1949 . He was a significant figure in the early Cold War era , advocating an aggressive stance against communism throughout the world . Born in Washington , D.C. , Dulles joined the New York City law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell after graduating from George Washington University Law School . His grandfather , John W . Foster , and his uncle , Robert Lansing , both served as United States Secretary of State , while his brother , Allen Dulles , served as the Director of Central Intelligence from 1953 to 1961 . John Foster Dulles served on the War Industries Board during World War I and he was a U.S . legal counsel at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference . He became a member of the League of Free Nations Association , which supported American membership in the League of Nations . Dulles also helped design the Dawes Plan , which sought to stabilize Europe by reducing German war reparations . Dulles served as the chief foreign policy adviser to Thomas E . Dewey , the Republican presidential nominee in 1944 and 1948 . He also helped draft the preamble to the United Nations Charter and served as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly . In 1949 , Dewey appointed Dulles to fill the vacancy caused by the illness and resignation of Senator Robert F . Wagner . Dulles served for four months before his defeat in a special election against Herbert H . Lehman . After Dwight Eisenhower won the 1952 presidential election , he chose Dulles as Secretary of State . Throughout his tenure , Dulles favored a strategy of massive retaliation in response to Soviet aggression and concentrated on building and strengthening Cold War alliances , most prominently the North Atlantic Treaty Organization . He was the architect of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization , an anti-Communist defensive alliance between the United States and several nations in and near Southeast Asia . He also helped instigate the 1953 Iranian coup détat and the 1954 Guatemalan coup détat . Dulles advocated support of the French in their war against the Viet Minh in Indochina but rejected the Geneva Accords between France and the communists , instead supporting South Vietnam after the Geneva Conference in 1954 . Suffering from colon cancer , Dulles resigned from office in 1959 and died later that year . Early life . Born in Washington , D.C. , he was one of five children and the eldest son born to Presbyterian minister Allen Macy Dulles and his wife , Edith ( née Foster ) . His paternal grandfather , John Welsh Dulles , had been a Presbyterian missionary in India . His maternal grandfather , John W . Foster , had been Secretary of State under Benjamin Harrison , and doted on Dulles and his brother Allen , who would later become the director of the Central Intelligence Agency . The brothers attended public schools in Watertown , New York and spent summers with their maternal grandfather in nearby Henderson Harbor . Dulles attended Princeton University and graduated as a member of Phi Beta Kappa in 1908 . At Princeton , Dulles competed on the American Whig-Cliosophic Society debate team and was a member of University Cottage Club . He then attended the George Washington University Law School in Washington , D.C . Early career . Upon graduating from law school and passing the bar examination , Dulles joined the New York City law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell , where he specialized in international law . After the start of World War I , Dulles tried to join the United States Army but was rejected because of poor eyesight . Instead , Dulles received an army commission as major on the War Industries Board . Dulles later returned to Sullivan & Cromwell and became a partner with an international practice . In 1917 , Dulless uncle , Robert Lansing , the then-Secretary of State , recruited him to travel to Nicaragua , Costa Rica and Panama . Dulles advised Washington to support Costa Ricas dictator , Federico Tinoco , on the grounds that he was anti-German , and also encouraged Nicaraguas dictator , Emiliano Chamorro , to issue a proclamation suspending diplomatic relations with Germany . In Panama , Dulles offered waiver of the tax imposed by the United States on the annual Canal fee , in exchange for a Panamanian declaration of war on Germany . International diplomacy . Versailles Peace Conference . In 1918 , President Woodrow Wilson appointed Dulles as legal counsel to the United States delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference where he served under his uncle , Secretary of State Robert Lansing . Dulles made an early impression as a junior diplomat . While some recollections indicate he clearly and forcefully argued against imposing crushing reparations on Germany , other recollections indicate he ensured Germanys reparation payments would extend for decades as perceived leverage militating against future German borne hostilities . Afterwards , he served as a member of the War Reparations Committee at Wilsons request . He was also an early member , along with future First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt , of the League of Free Nations Association , founded in 1918 and after 1923 known as the Foreign Policy Association , which supported American membership in the League of Nations . Dawes Plan . As a partner in Sullivan & Cromwell , Dulles expanded upon his late grandfather Fosters expertise , specializing in international finance . He played a major role in designing the Dawes Plan , which reduced German reparations payments and temporarily resolved the reparations issue by having American firms lend money to German states and private companies . Under that compromise , the money was invested and the profits sent as reparations to Britain and France , which used the funds to repay their own war loans from the U.S . In the 1920s Dulles was involved in setting up a billion dollars worth of these loans . After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 , Dulless previous practice brokering and documenting international loans ended . After 1931 Germany stopped making some of its scheduled payments . In 1934 Germany unilaterally stopped payments on private debts of the sort that Dulles was handling . In 1935 , with the Nazis in power , Sullivan & Cromwells junior partners forced Dulles to cut all business ties with Germany . Dulles was then prominent in the religious peace movement and an isolationist , but the junior partners were led by his brother Allen , so he reluctantly acceded to their wishes . Fosdick controversy . Dulles , a deeply religious man , attended numerous international conferences of churchmen during the 1920s and 1930s . In 1924 , he was the defense counsel in the church trial of Reverend Harry Emerson Fosdick , who had been charged with heresy by opponents in his denomination ( the event which sparked the continuing Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy in the international Christian Churches over the literal interpretation of Scripture versus the newly developed Historical-Critical method including recent scientific and archeological discoveries ) . The case was settled when Fosdick , a liberal Baptist , resigned his pulpit in the Presbyterian Church congregation , which he had never joined . Advisor to Thomas Dewey . Dulles was a prominent Republican and a close associate of Governor Thomas E . Dewey of New York State , who became the Republican presidential nominee in the elections of 1944 and 1948 . During the 1944 and the 1948 campaigns , Dulles served as Deweys chief foreign policy adviser . In 1944 , Dulles took an active role in establishing the Republican plank calling for the establishment of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine . In 1945 , Dulles participated in the San Francisco Conference as an adviser to Arthur H . Vandenberg and helped draft the preamble to the United Nations Charter . He attended the United Nations General Assembly as a United States delegate in 1946 , 1947 , and 1950 . Dulles strongly opposed the American atomic attacks on Japan . In the immediate aftermath of the bombings , he drafted a public statement that called for international control of nuclear energy under United Nations auspices . He wrote : Dulles never lost his anxiety about the destructive power of nuclear weapons , but his views on international control and on employing the threat of atomic attack changed in the face of the Berlin blockade , the Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb , and the advent of the Korean War . They convinced him that the communist bloc was pursuing expansionist policies . In the late 1940s , as a general conceptual framework for contending with world communism , Dulles developed the policy known as rollback to serve as the Republican Partys alternative to the Democrats containment model . It proposed taking the offensive to push communism back , rather than to contain it within its areas of control and influence . U.S . Senator . Dewey appointed Dulles to the United States Senate to replace the Democratic incumbent Robert F . Wagner , who had resigned for ill health . Dulles served from July 7 to November 8 , 1949 . He lost the 1949 special election to finish the term to Democratic nominee Herbert H . Lehman . In 1950 , Dulles published War or Peace , a critical analysis of the American policy of containment , which was favored by the foreign policy elite in Washington , particularly in the Democratic administration of Harry S . Truman , whose foreign policy Dulles criticized and instead advocated a policy of liberation . U.S . Secretary of State . When Dwight Eisenhower became president in January 1953 , Dulles was appointed and confirmed as his Secretary of State . His tenure as Secretary was marked by conflict with communist governments worldwide , especially the Soviet Union ; Dulles strongly opposed communism , calling it Godless terrorism . Dulless preferred strategy was containment through military build-up and the formation of alliances ( dubbed pactomania ) . Dulles was a pioneer of the strategies of massive retaliation 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 . Dulless hard line alienated many leaders of nonaligned countries when on June 9 , 1955 , he argued in a speech that neutrality has increasingly become obsolete and , except under very exceptional circumstances , it is an immoral and shortsighted conception . Throughout the 1950s , Dulles was in frequent conflict with non-aligned statesmen who he deemed were too sympathetic to communism , including Indias V.K . Krishna Menon . Iran . One of his first major policy shifts towards a more aggressive position against communism occurred in March 1953 , when Dulles supported Eisenhowers decision to direct the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) , then headed by his brother Allen Dulles , to draft plans to overthrow Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran . That led directly to the coup détat via Operation Ajax in support of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , who became the Shah of Iran . Vietnam . In the 1950s , Dulles worked to reduce French influence in Vietnam and asked the United States to attempt to co-operate with the French in the aid of strengthening Diems army . Over time , Dulles concluded that he had to ease France out of Vietnam . In 1954 , at the height of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu , Dulles helped plan and promote Operation Vulture , a proposed B-29 aerial assault on the communist Viet Minh siege positions to relieve the beleagured French Army . President Eisenhower made American participation reliant on British support , but Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden was opposed it and so Vulture was canceled over Dulless objections . With Dien Bien Phus fall to the communists , Dulles fell out with Eden . At the 1954 Geneva Conference , which concerned the breakup of French Indochina , he forbade any contact with the Chinese delegation and refused to shake hands with Zhou Enlai , the lead Chinese negotiator . He subsequently left to avoid direct association with the negotiations . Asia and the Pacific . As Secretary of State , Dulles still carried out the containment policy of neutralizing the Taiwan Strait during the Korean War , which had been established by Truman in the Treaty of Peace with Japan of 1951 . Dulles also supervised the completion of the Japanese Peace Treaty in which full independence was restored to Japan under American terms . In 1950 , Dulles helped initiate the ANZUS Treaty for mutual protection with Australia and New Zealand . In 1954 , Dulles architected the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization , providing for collective action against aggression . The treaty was signed by representatives of Australia , Britain , France , New Zealand , Pakistan , the Philippines , Thailand , and the United States . In 1958 , Dulles authorized the Secretary of the Air Force to state publicly that the United States was prepared to use nuclear weapons in a conflict with China over the islands of Quemoy and Matsu . Guatemala . The same year , Dulles participated in the instigation of a military coup by the Guatemalan army through the CIA by claiming that the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenzs government and the Guatemalan Revolution were veering toward communism . Dulles had previously represented the United Fruit Company as a lawyer . Thomas Dudley Cabot , former CEO of United Fruit , held positions of director of International Security Affairs in the State Department . John Moore Cabot , a brother of Thomas Dudley Cabot , was secretary of Inter-American Affairs during much of the coup planning in 1953 and 1954 . Egypt . In November 1956 , Dulles strongly opposed the Anglo-French invasion of the Suez Canal zone in response to Egypts nationalization of the canal . During the most crucial days , Dulles was hospitalized after surgery and did not participate in the U.S . administrations decision making . By 1958 he had become an outspoken opponent of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and prevented Nassers government from receiving arms from the United States . That policy allowed the Soviet Union to gain influence in Egypt . Personal life . Family . Both his grandfather , Foster , and his uncle , Robert Lansing , the husband of Eleanor Foster , had held the position of Secretary of State . His younger brother , Allen Welsh Dulles , served as Director of Central Intelligence under Dwight D . Eisenhower , and his younger sister Eleanor Lansing Dulles was noted for her work in the successful reconstruction of the economy of post-war Europe during her twenty years with the State Department . On June 26 , 1912 , Dulles married Janet Pomeroy Avery ( 1891–1969 ) , granddaughter of Theodore M . Pomeroy , a former United States Congressman and Speaker of the House of Representatives . They had two sons and a daughter . Their older son John W . F . Dulles ( 1913–2008 ) was a professor of history and specialist in Brazil at the University of Texas at Austin . Their daughter Lillias Dulles Hinshaw ( 1914–1987 ) became a Presbyterian minister . Their son Avery Dulles ( 1918–2008 ) converted to Roman Catholicism , entered the Jesuit order , and became the first American theologian to be appointed a Cardinal . Non-governmental organizations . Dulles served as the chairman and cofounder of the Commission on a Just and Durable Peace of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America ( later the National Council of Churches ) , the Chairman of the Board for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace , and a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1935 to 1952 . Dulles was also a founding member of Foreign Policy Association and Council on Foreign Relations . Death . Dulles developed colon cancer , for which he was first operated on in November 1956 when it had caused a bowel perforation . He experienced abdominal pain at the end of 1958 and was hospitalized with a diagnosis of diverticulitis . In January 1959 , Dulles returned to work , but with more pain and declining health underwent abdominal surgery in February at Walter Reed Army Medical Center when the cancers recurrence became evident . After recuperating in Florida , Dulles returned to Washington for work and radiation therapy . With further declining health and evidence of bone metastasis , he resigned from office on April 15 , 1959 . Dulles died at Walter Reed on May 24 , 1959 , at the age of 71 . Funeral services were held in Washington National Cathedral on May 27 , 1959 , and he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery , in Arlington , Virginia . Legacy . Dulles was posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom and the Sylvanus Thayer Award in 1959 . A central West Berlin road was named John-Foster-Dulles-Allee in 1959 with a ceremony attended by Christian Herter , Dulless successor as Secretary of State . The Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles , Virginia and John Foster Dulles High , Middle , and Elementary Schools in Sugar Land , Texas ( including the street ( Dulles Avenue ) where the school campuses are located ) , were named in his honor , as is John Foster Dulles Elementary School in Cincinnati , Ohio , and a school in Chicago , Illinois . New York named the Dulles State Office Building in Watertown , New York in his honor . In 1960 the U.S . Post Office Department issued a commemorative stamp honoring Dulles . At Princeton University , Dulless alma mater , a section of Firestone Library is dedicated to Dulles , named the John Foster Dulles Library of Diplomatic History , which houses , among many American diplomatic documents and books , the personal documents of John Foster Dulles . The library was built in 1962 . This quote is sometimes misattributed to Dulles : The United States of America does not have friends ; it has interests . The words were spoken by President Charles de Gaulle of France , and the misquotation may be attributed to Dulless visit to Mexico in 1958 , where anti-American protesters carried signs bearing de Gaulles quote . Popular culture . Dulles was named Time magazines Man of the Year for 1954 . Entertainer Carol Burnett rose to prominence in the 1950s singing a novelty song , I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles . When asked about the song on Meet the Press , Dulles responded with good humor : I never discuss matters of the heart in public .