Dulles, John Foster, 1888-1959

Variant names
Dates:
Birth 1888-02-25
Death 1959-05-24
English,

Biographical notes:

An American lawyer, born in Washington, D.C., Dulles served as counsel to the American commission to negotiate peace (1918-1919), member of the reparations commission and supreme economic council (1919), American representative at the Berlin debt conference (1933), and as U.S. secretary of state (1953-1959).

From the description of John Foster Dulles oral history collection : transcripts, 1964-1967. (Princeton University Library). WorldCat record id: 80717390

John Foster Dulles (1888-1959), was a graduate of the Princeton Class of 1908 who served as Secretary of State of the United States for President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

From the description of John Foster Dulles collection, 1943-1974 (Princeton University Library). WorldCat record id: 313653330

John Foster Dulles (1888-1959), American diplomat, was secretary of state under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

From the description of Dulles, John Foster, 1888-1959 (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration). naId: 10580912

John Foster Dulles was a lawyer, U.S. senator and secretary of state. He served in World War I as a major and on the War Trade Board. He was appointed a U.S. senator by N.Y. governor Thomas Dewey (1949) and drafted and negotiated the peace treaty with Japan for President Truman (1950). He was appointed secretary of state by President Eisenhower in 1953.

From the description of John Foster Dulles papers, 1888-1961 (bulk 1908-1959) (Princeton University Library). WorldCat record id: 77834874

Diplomat.

From the description of Reminiscences of John Foster Dulles : oral history, 1949. (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 122620009

Dulles became secretary of state in January 1953; Christian Archibald Herter succeeded him in April 1959.

From the description of Dwight D. Eisenhower presidential papers (Ann Whitman file) relating to John Foster Dulles, 1952-1959. (Princeton University Library). WorldCat record id: 78517875

John Foster Dulles (1888-1959), the fifty-third Secretary of State of the United States for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, had a long and distinguished public career with significant impact upon the formulation of United States foreign policies. He was especially involved with efforts to establish world peace after World War I, the role of the United States in world governance, and Cold War relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.

From the guide to the John Foster Dulles State Department records, 1953-1959, (Princeton University. Library. Dept. of Rare Books and Special Collections.)

From the guide to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library files relating to John Foster Dulles, 1951-1959, (Princeton University. Library. Dept. of Rare Books and Special Collections)

John Foster Dulles was an American lawyer and statesman, best known as the Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Born into a prominent family - a grandfather and an uncle both served as Secretaries of State - Dulles was educated at Princeton University, the Sorbonne, and George Washington University Law School. He became a prominent lawyer, and served in various roles at the requests of many politicians, including Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman. As Eisenhower's Secretary of State, 1952-1959, Dulles believed in uncompromising strength, and had a significant impact on foreign policy, especially the Cold War. He was widely respected, accorded numerous honors, and was named Time's Man of the Year for 1954.

From the description of John Foster Dulles letter to Milton Guggenheimer, 1947 Sept. 25. (Pennsylvania State University Libraries). WorldCat record id: 123906115

American Sec'y of State.

From the description of Autograph letter signed and typewritten letters signed (3) : Washington D.C. and Montego Bay, Jamaica, to Mrs. John C. Hughes, 1952 Jan. 3-1958 Dec. 28. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270744171

United States secretary of state, 1953-1959.

From the description of John Foster Dulles press conference excerpts, 1953. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 754867370

Biographical/Historical Note

United States secretary of state, 1953-1959.

From the guide to the John Foster Dulles press conference excerpts, 1953., (Hoover Institution Archives)

John Foster Dulles (1888-1959), the fifty-third Secretary of State of the United States for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, had a long and distinguished public career with significant impact upon the formulation of United States foreign policies. He was especially involved with efforts to establish world peace after World War I, the role of the United States in world governance, and Cold War relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Dulles was born on February 25, 1888 in Washington, D.C. to Allen Macy Dulles and Edith Foster. He attended Princeton University, graduating in 1908. During this time, he had his first experience with foreign affairs, serving as secretary to his grandfather, John Watson Foster, during the Second Hague Peace Conference in 1907. After graduation, he studied philosophy and international law for a year at the Sorbonne in Paris, and then attended the George Washington University Law School, earning his LL.B. in 1911. Dulles married Janet Avery on June 26, 1912 and they had two sons, John Walsh and Avery, and one daughter, Lilias Pomeroy (Mrs. Robert Hinshaw).

After his graduation from law school, Dulles joined the prestigious New York law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, which specialized in international law. He worked there from 1911 to 1949, rising to become a senior partner. During World War I, Dulles served as assistant to the chairman of the War Trade Board, and then as counsel to the reparations section of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, and as a member of the American delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, serving as Bernard Baruch's chief legal advisor on the Reparations Commission and also serving on the Supreme Economic Council. After returning to Sullivan and Cromwell, he continued to be active in organizations concerned with world affairs, and to express his views on the United States' role in the world through speeches, articles, and the book War, Peace and Change published in 1939. In 1941 he accepted the chairmanship of the Commission to Study the Bases of a Just and Durable Peace, established by the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. Dulles presented their "Six Pillars of Peace" plan to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1943, as a plan for establishing international cooperation for peace. Throughout his career, Dulles continued to be a prominent lay spokesman for the Protestant church.

Dulles became increasingly involved in politics at the onset of the Cold War. He represented the United States at the San Francisco organizational conference for the United Nations in 1945, and in many subsequent sessions of the United Nations General Assembly. He served as New York's junior senator from 1949 to 1950, replacing Senator Robert F. Wagner, who resigned due to ill health. Dulles then served as special representative of President Truman, with the rank of ambassador, negotiating the Japanese Peace Treaty of 1951 and the Australian, New Zealand, Philippine and Japanese Security Treaties of 1950-1951. During his negotiations, he observed the growing antagonism between the United States and Soviet Union which subsequently hardened his anti-Communist stance.

In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Dulles Secretary of State. His tenure was marked by a close working relationship with the President, staunch anti-Communism, and a philosophy of "collective security" which led to numerous mutual defense treaties. Recognizing that NATO would only provide for the defense of Western Europe, Dulles initiated the Manila Conference in 1954 that resulted in the formation of the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), an agreement between eight nations for the defense of Southeast Asia, and was influential in establishing the 1955 Baghdad Pact for the defense of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan. He was also known for enunciating a policy of "massive retaliation," whereby any attack on U.S. interests anywhere in the world by the Soviet Union or China would be met with an attack on those countries, including the possible use of nuclear weapons.

Several notable international events marked Dulles's tenure. In 1955, in an effort to induce President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt to support the West, Dulles offered to provide financing for the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile River to produce electrical power and for irrigation. However, Dulles withdrew the offer in July 1956 after receiving protests from United States cotton interests and Jewish-Americans, and after Nasser purchased weapons from Czechoslovakia, suggesting he was aligning with the Soviets. Nasser responded by nationalizing the British-owned Suez Canal. Without notifying the United States, Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt in October 1956 but failed to capture the canal. Dulles condemned the action at the United Nations, and under economic pressure from the United States, the allies withdrew by early 1957.

Concurrent with the Suez crisis, an uprising in Hungary resulted in the establishment of a new government committed to withdrawing the country from the Warsaw Pact. The Soviets responded with military force, leading the Hungarians to appeal to the United Nations for aid, pleas that were ignored, allowing the Soviets to subsequently crush the revolt and maintain their grip on Eastern Europe.

In 1958, tensions between Communist China and Taiwan threatened to break out into war when Communist China renewed their shelling of the islands of Jinmen and Mazu and the United States avowed not to appease Mao Zedong. Dulles convinced Taiwan's Chiang Kai-shek to renounce the use of force against mainland China and to withdraw some troops from Jinmen and Mazu, and the Chinese ceased their shelling. Also in 1958, the Soviets threatened to sign a peace treaty with East Germany, terminating the joint occupation of Germany established after World War II, unless a satisfactory agreement was reached within six months. In what would be his last international trip as Secretary of State, Dulles traveled to Europe to reassure Chancellor Konrad Adenauer that the United States would maintain its commitment to West Germany. Eventually, the Soviets agreed to negotiate without a deadline.

Stricken with cancer, Dulles resigned as Secretary of State in April of 1959. He died on May 24, 1959 in Washington, D.C.

From the guide to the John Foster Dulles Papers, 1860-1988, 1945-1960, (Princeton University. Library. Dept. of Rare Books and Special Collections.)

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Subjects:

  • United States
  • American history/20th century
  • American politics and government
  • Anti-communist movements
  • Cabinet officers
  • Cabinet officers
  • Cabinet officers
  • Cabinet officers
  • Cabinet officers
  • Cold War
  • Communist strategy
  • Diplomacy
  • Diplomatic and consular service
  • Diplomatic and consular service, American
  • Diplomatic and consular service, American
  • Diplomats
  • Diplomats
  • Executive power
  • International organization
  • Security, International
  • Nuclear power
  • Nuclear weapons
  • Nuclear weapons
  • Nuclear weapons and disarmament
  • Presidents
  • Presidents
  • Statesmen
  • Statesmen
  • Statesmen
  • Statesmen
  • Treaty-making power
  • World War, 1914-1918
  • World War, 1914-1918
  • World politics
  • World politics
  • World War, 1939-1945
  • World War, 1939-1945

Occupations:

  • Diplomats
  • Public officers
  • Statesmen

Places:

  • Japan (as recorded)
  • United States (as recorded)
  • United States (as recorded)
  • United States (as recorded)
  • Korea (as recorded)
  • Korea (as recorded)
  • Suez Canal (Egypt) (as recorded)
  • Indochina (as recorded)
  • United States (as recorded)
  • United States (as recorded)
  • Korea (as recorded)
  • United States (as recorded)
  • United States (as recorded)
  • Middle East (as recorded)
  • India (as recorded)
  • Japan (as recorded)
  • India (as recorded)
  • United States (as recorded)
  • United States (as recorded)
  • Pakistan (as recorded)
  • China (as recorded)
  • China (as recorded)
  • United States (as recorded)
  • Japan (as recorded)
  • Pakistan (as recorded)
  • Japan (as recorded)
  • United States Foreign relations 1953-1961. (as recorded)
  • United States (as recorded)
  • United States (as recorded)
  • Indochina (as recorded)
  • Indochina (as recorded)
  • Middle East (as recorded)
  • New York (State) (as recorded)

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