Allen Welsh Dulles
 |
Allen W. Dulles |
Allen Welsh Dulles (
April 7,
1893 –
January 29,
1969) was the first civilian
Director (
1953-
1961) of the
Central Intelligence Agency and a member of the
Warren Commission.
Dulles was the younger brother of
John Foster Dulles,
Eisenhower's
Secretary of State, and the grandson of
John W. Foster, another U.S. Secretary of State and brother to diplomat
Eleanor Lansing Dulles. His uncle (by mariage)
Robert Lansing also was a U.S. Secretary of State. His nephew,
Avery Dulles, is a
Cardinal of the
Catholic Church and a
Jesuit priest.
Dulles was active in the
Office of Strategic Services in
Berne,
Switzerland during
World War II. He worked on intelligence regarding
German plans and activities. Dulles's career was jump-started by the information provided by
Fritz Kolbe, a German diplomat and a foe of the
Nazis. Kolbe supplied secret documents regarding active German spies and plans regarding the
Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter.
In the
1948 Presidential election, Allen Dulles was Republican nominee
Thomas E. Dewey's chief advisor. The Dulles brothers and
James Forrestal helped form the
Office of Policy Coordination.
In
1953 Dulles became the first civilian director of the
Central Intelligence Agency, which had been formed in
1947 as part of the
National Security Act; earlier directors had been military officers. The Agency's covert operations were an important part of the
Eisenhower administration's new
Cold War national security policy known as the "New Look".
Under Dulles's direction, the CIA established
MK-Ultra, a top secret
mind control research project which was managed by
Sidney Gottlieb.
At Dulles' request,
President Eisenhower demanded that
Senator McCarthy discontinue issuing
subpoenas against the CIA. In March, McCarthy had initiated a series of investigations into potential
communist subversion of the Agency. Although none of the investigations revealed any wrongdoing, the hearings were still potentially damaging, not only to the CIA's reputation, but to the security of sensitive information as well. During the time, Dulles was personally overseeing
Operation Mockingbird, a program which influenced
American media companies.
Dulles went on to be successful with the CIA's first attempts at removing foreign leaders by covert means. Notably, the elected
Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh of
Iran was deposed in
1953 (via
Operation Ajax), and
President Arbenz of
Guatemala was removed in
1954.
During the
Kennedy Administration, Dulles faced increasing criticism. The failed
Bay of Pigs Invasion and several failed
assassination plots utilizing CIA-recruited operatives from the
Mafia and anti-Castro Cubans directly against
Fidel Castro undermined the CIA's credibility, and pro-American but unpopular regimes in Iran and Guatemala that he helped put in place were widely regarded as brutal and corrupt.
Dulles published the book
The Craft of Intelligence (ISBN 1592282970) in
1963.
On
November 29,
1963 President
Lyndon Johnson appointed Dulles as one of seven commissioners of the
Warren Commission to investigate the
assassination of the U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
Despite his knowledge of the several assassination plots by the CIA against Castro, he is not documented to have mentioned these plots to any investigating authorities during the Warren Commission.
In
1969 Dulles died of
influenza, complicated by
pneumonia, at the age of 75. He was buried in
Greenmount Cemetery in
Baltimore, Maryland.
The Craft of Intelligence : America's Legendary Spy Master on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering for a Free World ISBN 1592282970
Marshall Plan ISBN 0854963502
The Secret Surrender : The Classic Insider's Account of the Secret Plot to Surrender Northern Italy During WWII ISBN 1592283683
Classic Spy Stories ISBN 1592284841
*
*Audio stream of Lecture given by Dulles : 'The Role of Intelligence in Policy Making' [
1]
