John Foster Dulles

Dulles was born in Washington, D.C., eldest of five children of Presbyterian minister Allen Macy Dulles and his wife, Edith (née Foster). Allen Macy Dulles mixed theological liberalism with stern orthopraxy.{{Cite web |date=2025-01-25 |title=Archives |url=https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/archives/cul-4492444 |access-date=2025-01-25 |website=Columbia University |language=en}}

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 grew up in Watertown, New York and spent summers with their maternal grandfather in nearby Henderson Harbor. The brothers were also homeschooled, as their parents distrusted public education.Ferrell, Robert H. (1963). The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy: John Foster Dulles Cooper Square Publishers, New York, NY, p. 4Goold-Adams, Richard (1962). The Time of Power: A Reappraisal of John Foster Dulles Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, p. 24{{Cite web |title=Q&A with Stephen Kinzer {{!}} C-SPAN.org |url=https://www.c-span.org/video/?315393-1/qa-stephen-kinzer |access-date=2024-03-17 |website=www.c-span.org}}

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.{{cite news| url=http://theprince.princeton.edu/princetonperiodicals/cgi-bin/princetonperiodicals?a=d&d=Princetonian19050519-01.2.7& |access-date=April 1, 2014|date=May 19, 1905| title=Freshman Debate|newspaper=Daily Princetonian}}{{Cite web|title=About the Cottage Club|url=https://www.cottageclub.net/about-cottage-club|access-date=January 3, 2021|website=University Cottage Club|language=en-US}} He then attended the George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C.

Upon passing the bar examination, Dulles joined the New York City law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, where he specialized in international law. After US entry into World War I, Dulles tried to join the 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.Pruessen, pp 15–20.

In 1917, Dulles’ uncle, Robert Lansing, the then-Secretary of State, recruited him to travel to Central America.{{Cite web|title=DULLES, JOHN FOSTER: Papers, 1950–1961|url=https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/finding-aids/pdf/dulles-john-foster-papers/scope-and-content.pdf|access-date=February 28, 2021|website=DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER LIBRARY}} Dulles advised Washington to support Costa Rica's dictator, Federico Tinoco, on the grounds that he was anti-German, and also encouraged Nicaragua's 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.Pruessen, pp 20–28.

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 Germany's reparation payments would extend for decades as perceived leverage militating against future German-born hostilities. Afterwards, he served as a member of the War Reparations Committee at Wilson's request. He was also an early member, along with 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.Pruessen, pp 29–57.

As a partner in Sullivan & Cromwell, Dulles expanded upon his late grandfather Foster's 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.Pruessen, pp 87–108.

File:John Foster Dulles by Sapajou 1938.png

After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Dulles's 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. After the Nazi Party came to power, Dulles expressed sympathies for Adolf Hitler, requiring his legal staff in Berlin to sign "Heil Hitler" on all of Sullivan & Cromwell's outgoing mail; fearful of the optics, Sullivan & Cromwell's junior partners forced Dulles to cut all business ties with Germany in 1935. Nonetheless, Dulles and his wife continued to visit Germany until 1939.{{Cite book |last=Talbot |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MeE_BgAAQBAJ |title=The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government |date=2015-10-13 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=978-0-06-227621-6 |language=en}} He was 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.Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy, The Life of Allen Dulles (1994), pp. 91–93, 119–22Ronald W. Pruessen, John Foster Dulles: The Road to Power (1982), pp. 115, 123

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 sparked the continuing Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy in the international Christian Churches over the literal interpretation of Scripture against 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.Harold H. Vences, "The Controversy Surrounding the Ministry of Harry Emerson Fosdick in the First Presbyterian Church of New York City, 1922–1925." (1972) Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects. 741. [https://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/etd/741 online].

During the Second World War, Dulles engaged in Post-War Planning under the auspices of the Federal Council of Churches Commission on a Just and Durable Peace. Appointed in December 1940 at the behest of the theologian Henry P. Van Dusen, Dulles developed a vision of post-war order underpinned by a federal world government, taking inspiration from the ecumenical ideology of liberal Mainline Protestantism and the United States' experiences with federalism. In essence, Dulles sought to persuade allied war leaders to work toward reviving a more robust League of Nations. The core elements of this vision were spelled out in March 1943 with the publication of the book Six Pillars of Peace. Dulles was largely unsuccessful in persuading Franklin Delano Roosevelt to embrace such a radical platform, as the United States would issue the more moderate Moscow Declaration, but his work helped to build widespread consensus about the need for a United Nations.Andrew Preston, Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith (2012), pp. 384–409

Dulles was a prominent Republican and a close associate of Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, who became the Republican presidential nominee in the elections of 1944 and 1948. During the 1944 and the 1948 campaigns, Dulles served as Dewey's 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 The British Mandate for Palestine.Isaac Alteras, Eisenhower and Israel: U.S.-Israeli Relations, 1953–1960 (University Press of Florida, 1993), {{ISBN|0-8130-1205-8}}, pp. 53–55

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:{{cite book|author=John Lewis Gaddis|title=Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy Since 1945 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=79RJheQYvq8C&pg=PA65|year=1999|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=65|isbn=9780198294689 }}

{{blockquote|If we, as a professedly Christian nation, feel morally free to use atomic energy in that way, men elsewhere will accept that verdict. Atomic weapons will be looked upon as a normal part of the arsenal of war and the stage will be set for the sudden and final destruction of mankind.}}

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.Neal Rosendorf, "John Foster Dulles' Nuclear Schizophrenia," in John Lewis Gaddis et al., Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy since 1945 (Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 64–69

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 Party's 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.Detlef Junker, Philipp Gassert, and Wilfried Mausbach, eds., The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945–1968: A Handbook, Vol. 1: 1945–1968 (Cambridge University Press, 2004){{page needed|date=January 2021}}

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.Pruessen, 398–403.

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."Pruessen, 433–441.

Despite being a prominent Republican and having been a close advisor to Truman's opponent Dewey, Dulles became a trusted advisor of Harry Truman, especially on the issue of what to do with Japan, which was still under U.S. military occupation.{{Cite book|last=Kapur|first=Nick|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ|title=Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2018|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|pages=28|isbn=9780674988484}} In his role as an external "consultant" to Truman's State Department, Dulles became the key architect of the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty which ended the U.S. occupation of Japan, as well as the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which ensured that Japan would remain firmly in the U.S. camp in the Cold War and allowed the continuing maintenance of U.S. military bases on Japanese soil.{{Cite book|last=Kapur|first=Nick|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ|title=Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2018|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|pages=12, 38–39|isbn=9780674988484}}

In 1951, Dulles also helped initiate the ANZUS Treaty for mutual protection with Australia and New Zealand.

Following the 1953 death of Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson, President Eisenhower considered appointing Dulles in his place. In his later life Eisenhower is said to have considered only two men for the job: Dulles and eventual nominee Earl Warren.{{cite book|last=Richardson|first=Elmo|title=The Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower|year=1985 |page=108|publisher=University Press of Kansas |isbn=0700602674}} The Evening Star in fact initially viewed Dulles as the third most likely candidate after Warren and Thomas E. Dewey,{{cite news|last=Hines|first=William |title=Past Chief Justices' Record Will Help Eisenhower Pick Successor|work=Evening Star|location=Washington, District of Columbia|date=September 13, 1953|page=A-27}} while some Republican insiders at the time of Vinson's death actually thought Dulles was more likely to be chosen for the post than Warren.‘Dulles May Get Vinson’s Post’; The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 9, 1953, p. 14 Dulles was viewed by the press as too favourable to big business,{{cite news|last=Brandt|first=Raymond P.|title=A New Chief Justice: Eisenhower Must Make Historic Decision – Will President Appoint the Best Man Available or Will He Listen to Partisan Politicians|work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|location=St. Louis, Missouri|date=September 27, 1953|page=1C}} and in Eisenhower's own memoirs as too old to potentially wield significant influence upon the Court. Besides the issue of age, Eisenhower did not want to deprive himself of Dulles's valuable contributions in the field of foreign policy.

File:John Foster Dulles, Richard Nixon, and Sukarno, Presiden Soekarno di Amerika Serikat, p2.jpg in front of Richard Nixon, 1956]]

When Dwight Eisenhower succeeded Truman as 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."Gary B. Nash, et al., The American People, Concise Edition Creating a Nation and a Society, Combined Volume (6th Edition). New York: Longman, 2007, p. 829 Dulles's 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."{{cite book|author=Stephen E. Ambrose|title=Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938, Ninth Revised Edition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5lzMtwXckcEC&pg=PT109 |year=2010 |publisher=Penguin|page=109|isbn=9781101501290}}

Dulles's hard line alienated many leaders of non-aligned 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."{{cite book|author=Ian Shapiro |title=Containment: Rebuilding a Strategy against Global Terror|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i7L6if3mwzsC&pg=PA145 |year= 2009|publisher=Princeton University Press|pages=145–|isbn=978-1400827565}} In a June 1956 speech in Iowa, Dulles declared non-alignment to be "immoral", further castigating the Non-Aligned Movement.{{cite journal |last1=Rakove |first1=Robert B. |date=24 August 2015 |title=The Rise and Fall of Non-Aligned Mediation, 1961–6 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07075332.2015.1053966 |journal=The International History Review |volume=37 |issue=5 |pages=991–1013 |doi=10.1080/07075332.2015.1053966 |s2cid=155027250 |access-date=14 March 2023}} Throughout the 1950s, Dulles was in frequent conflict with non-aligned statesmen who he deemed were too sympathetic to communism, including India's V. K. Krishna Menon.

One of his first major policy shifts towards a more aggressive position against communism occurred in March 1953, when Dulles supported Eisenhower's 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.[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB28/ The C.I.A. in Iran] That led directly to the coup d'état via Operation Ajax in support of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who regained his position as the Shah of Iran.

During the First Indochina War, Dulles stated that he expected a French victory against the communist Viet Minh forces, stating, "I do not expect that there is going to be a communist victory in Indochina".{{Citation |title=Hearts and Minds (1974) | date=January 15, 2018 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzxNRoGoSKU |access-date=2024-01-28 |language=en}} 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 Diem's army. Over time, Dulles concluded that he had to "ease France out of Vietnam."{{cite book|last=Immerman |first=Richard H. |title=John Foster Dulles: Piety, Pragmatism, and Power in U.S. Foreign Policy |location= Wilmington, Delaware |publisher =Scholarly Resources | year=1999 |page=98 | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=lmhQkeaQMQEC&pg=PA98|isbn=9780842026017 }}

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 beleaguered French Army. President Eisenhower made American participation reliant on British support, but Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden was opposed to it and so Vulture was canceled over Dulles's objections.{{Citation|last=Kowert|first=Paul |title=Groupthink or deadlock: when do leaders learn from their advisors?|edition=illustrated|publisher=SUNY Press|year=2002|isbn=978-0-7914-5249-3|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3kUWAycjBsMC&pg=PA67 67–68]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3kUWAycjBsMC}}{{Citation |last=Tucker|first=Spencer|title=Vietnam|edition=illustrated |publisher=Routledge |year=1999 |page=76 |isbn=978-1-85728-922-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FEpuVkgzFJYC}} French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault later said that Dulles had offered him the use of atomic bombs to end the siege.{{cite book |last1=Duiker |first1=William |title=U. S. Containment Policy and the Conflict in Indochina |date=1994 |publisher=Stanford University Press |page=166}}

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. Dulles also opposed the conference's plan to partition the country of Vietnam and hold elections for a unified government, insisting that the anti-communist State of Vietnam should remain the legitimate Vietnamese government. He subsequently left to avoid direct association with the negotiations; Dulles's exit contributed to the Geneva Conference's failure to resolve the conflict in Vietnam.{{cite book|last=Logevall|first=Fredrik|title=Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam|publisher=random House|year=2012| pages=555–58 |isbn=978-0-679-64519-1}}{{Cite book |last=Kinzer |first=Stephen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LVb4-1l1gF4C |title=The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War |date=2013-10-01 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-1-4299-5352-8 |language=en}}

As Secretary of State, Dulles carried out the "containment" policy of neutralizing the Taiwan Strait during the Korean War.Immerman, Richard H. John Foster Dulles Piety, Pragmatism, and Power in U.S. Foreign Policy (Biographies in American Foreign Policy). New York: SR Books, 1998. p. 37 Later, at Geneva, Dulles objected to any proposals by China and the Soviet Union for a diplomatic reunification of Korea, thus leaving the Korean conflict unresolved.{{Cite book |last=Bailey |first=Sydney D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lWOxCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA168 |title=The Korean Armistice |date=1992-07-13 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-349-22104-2 |language=en}}

In 1954, Dulles designed the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), 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.{{cite book |last1=Rhodes |first1=Richard |title=Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb |date=1995 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |isbn=0-684-80400-X |pages=569–70 |edition=First }}

After having resisted revision for many years, from 1957 to 1959, Dulles oversaw the renegotiation of a revised version of the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty, which was eventually ratified in 1960, after his death.{{Cite book|last=Kapur|first=Nick|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ|title=Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2018|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|pages=40|isbn=9780674988484}}

File:President Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles in 1956.jpg

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 Árbenz's government and the Guatemalan Revolution were veering toward communism. Dulles had previously represented the United Fruit Company as a lawyer.{{cite book |last=Cohen |first=Rich |year=2012 |title=The Fish that Ate the Whale |location=New York |publisher=Farrar, Straus & Giroux |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=NduF6Gw0JJkC&pg=PA186 186]}} Thomas Dudley Cabot, former CEO of United Fruit, held the position 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.Dube, Arindrajit, Kaplan, Ethan, and Suresh Naidu (2011), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126 (3) pp. 1375–1409, [https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/126/3/1375/1854794 Coups, Corporations, and Classified Information]

In November 1956, Dulles strongly opposed the Anglo-French invasion of the Suez Canal zone in response to Egypt's nationalization of the canal. During the most crucial days, Dulles was hospitalized after surgery and did not participate in the U.S. administration's decision making. By 1958, he had become an outspoken opponent of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and prevented Nasser's government from receiving arms from the United States. That policy allowed the Soviet Union to gain influence in Egypt.{{cite book |author=Cole Christian Kingseed|title=Eisenhower and the Suez Crisis of 1956|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AqsJLxe2VHEC&pg=PA117 |year=1995|publisher=LSU Press|page=117|isbn=9780807140857}}

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.{{cite web|last1=Pomeroy|first1=Bill|title=Honorable Theodore Medad POMEROY|url=http://sites.rootsmagic.com/PomeroyEltweed/individual.php?p=5115|website=rootsmagic.com|publisher=American Pomeroy Historic Genealogical Association|access-date=October 19, 2019}} 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.[http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2003/06/03/News/90YearOld.Still.Active.At.University-493935.shtml "90-year-old Still Active at University"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930184840/http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2003/06/03/News/90YearOld.Still.Active.At.University-493935.shtml |date=September 30, 2007 }}, The Daily Texan 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.

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.

Dulles developed colon cancer, for which he was first operated on in November 1956 when it had caused a bowel perforation.{{cite book| author=Lerner BH| title=When Illness Goes Public: Celebrity Patients and How We Look at Medicine| publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2006| page=[https://archive.org/details/whenillnessgoesp00lern/page/81 81ff]| isbn=978-0-8018-8462-7| date=November 20, 2006| url=https://archive.org/details/whenillnessgoesp00lern/page/81}} 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 cancer's 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.{{Cite web |title=Death of John Foster Dulles - 1959 Year In Review - Audio - UPI.com |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/Audio/Events-of-1959/Death-of-John-Foster-Dulles/ |access-date=2022-07-15 |website=UPI |language=en}} Funeral services were held in Washington National Cathedral on May 27, 1959, and he is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington County, Virginia.{{cite web |url=https://ancexplorer.army.mil/publicwmv/#/arlington-national/search/results/1/CgZkdWxsZXMSBGpvaG4aAWY-/ |title=Burial Detail: Dulles, John F. (Section 21, Grave S-31) |work= ANC Explorer|publisher=Arlington National Cemetery |id=(Official website)}}

File:John Foster Dulles bust, Dulles Airport, Virginia.jpg

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, Dulles's 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.{{cite web|url=http://www.oakhills.k12.oh.us/dulles/index.html |title=J.F. Dulles Elementary |access-date=December 18, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090129103830/http://oakhills.k12.oh.us/dulles/index.html |archive-date=January 29, 2009 }} 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, Dulles's 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.{{Cite web|url=http://etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/dulles_library.html|title=Dulles Library of Diplomatic History|website=etcweb.princeton.edu|access-date=February 5, 2020|archive-date=June 2, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100602144954/http://etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/dulles_library.html}}

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 Dulles's visit to Mexico in 1958, where anti-American protesters carried signs bearing de Gaulle's quote.{{cite news|title=Dulles in Rio|newspaper=New York Times|date=August 10, 1958}}

Dulles was named Time magazine's Man of the Year for 1954.{{Cite web |date=2007-09-30 |title=Man of the Year – TIME |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,892871-1,00.html |access-date=2022-07-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930044846/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,892871-1,00.html |archive-date=September 30, 2007 }}

Entertainer Carol Burnett rose to prominence in 1957 singing a novelty song, "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles".{{cite book|last=Adir|first=Karin|title=The Great Clowns of American Television|year=1988|publisher=McFarland & Company |location=Jefferson, North Carolina|pages=51–2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5jr9L--C4tMC&pg=PA51|isbn=9780786413034}} When asked about the song on Meet the Press, Dulles responded with good humor: "I never discuss matters of the heart in public."{{cite web |last1=Colbert |first1=Stephen |title=Carol Burnett Was "The World's Worst Guest" On Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show" |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCDTvvVr6Hk |website=The Late Show with Stephen Colbert |publisher=YouTube |access-date=27 March 2024 |date=March 27, 2024}}

• Vietnam War
• Brinkmanship
• New Look
• Peaceful Evolution theory

{{Notelist}}

{{Reflist}}

{{refbegin|30em}}

• Anderson, David L. "J. Lawton Collins, John Foster Dulles, and the Eisenhower Administration's "Point of No Return" in Vietnam." Diplomatic History 12.2 (1988): 127–147.
• Challener, Richard D. "The Moralist as Pragmatist: John Foster Dulles as Cold War Strategist." in The Diplomats, 1939–1979 (Princeton University Press, 2019) pp. 135–166. [https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv8pz9nc.10 online]
• Dingman, Roger. "John Foster Dulles and the Creation of the South-East Asia Treaty Organization in 1954." International History Review 11.3 (1989): 457–477.
• Gerson, Louis L. John Foster Dulles (1967), a major scholarly study [https://archive.org/details/johnfosterdulles17gers/page/n7/mode/2up online]
• Goold-Adams, Richard. John Foster Dulles; a reappraisal (1962) [https://archive.org/details/johnfosterdulles00gool online]
• Greene, Daniel P. O'C. "John Foster Dulles and the End of the Franco-American Entente in Indochina." Diplomatic History 16.4 (1992): 551–572.
• Guhin, Michael A. John Foster Dulles: a statesman and his times (Columbia University Press, 1972) [https://archive.org/details/johnfosterdulles00mich online]
• Hoopes Townsend, Devil and John Foster Dulles (1973) {{ISBN|0-316-37235-8}}. a scholarly biography [https://archive.org/details/deviljohnfosterd0000hoop online]
• Inboden III, William Charles. "The soul of American diplomacy: Religion and foreign policy, 1945–1960" (PhD diss. Yale University, 2003) [https://www.proquest.com/openview/848a9e652a45f97e3bfe8d3028711485/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y online].
• Immerman, Richard H. John Foster Dulles: Piety, Pragmatism, and Power in U.S. Foreign Policy (1998) {{ISBN|0-8420-2601-0}} [https://archive.org/details/johnfosterdulles0000imme online]
• Immerman, Richard H. "John Foster Dulles." Dictionary of American Biography (1980) [https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/BT2310014374/GPS?u=wikipedia&sid=GPS&xid=21c53cbb online]
• Kinzer, Stephen. The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War. Times Books (2013). {{ISBN|0805094970}}.
• Marks, Frederick. Power and Peace: The Diplomacy of John Foster Dulles (1995). {{ISBN|0-275952320}}. [https://archive.org/details/powerpeacedip00mark online]
• Mosley, Leonard. Dulles : a biography of Eleanor, Allen and John Foster Dulles and their family network (1978) [https://archive.org/details/dullesbiographyo00mosl online]
• Mulder, John M. "The Moral World of John Foster Dulles: A Presbyterian Layman and International Affairs." Journal of Presbyterian History 49.2 (1971): 157–182. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23327286 online]
• Nelson, Anna Kasten. "John Foster Dulles and the Bipartisan Congress." Political Science Quarterly 102.1 (1987): 43–64. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2151484 online]
• Pruessen, Ronald W. John Foster Dulles: The Road to Power (1982), The Free Press {{ISBN|0-02-925460-4}} [https://archive.org/details/johnfosterdulles00rona online]
• Ruane, Kevin. "Agonizing Reappraisals: Anthony Eden, John Foster Dulles and the Crisis of European Defence, 1953–54." Diplomacy and Statecraft 13.4 (2002): 151–185.
• Snyder, William P. "Dean Rusk to John Foster Dulles, May–June 1953: The Office, the First 100 Days, and Red China." Diplomatic History 7.1 (1983): 79–86.
• Stang, Alan. The Actor: The True Story of John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, 1953–1959. Belmont, Mass.: Western Islands (1968). {{OCLC|434600}}.
• Toulouse, Mark G. The Transformation of John Foster Dulles: From Prophet of Realism to Priest of Nationalism. Mercer University Press (1985).
• Toulouse, Mark G. "The Development of a Cold Warrior: John Foster Dulles and the Soviet Union, 1945–1952." American Presbyterians, vol. 63, no. 3 (1985), pp. 309–322. {{JSTOR|23330558}}.
• Tudda, Chris. The Truth is Our Weapon: The Rhetorical diplomacy of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles (2006)
• Wilsey, John D. God's Cold Warrior: The Life and Faith of John Foster Dulles (2021). {{ISBN|978-0802875723}}.

{{refend}}

{{Commons category|John Foster Dulles}}

{{Wikiquote|John Foster Dulles}}

{{CongBio|D000522}}

{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooksby=yes|viaf= 62342717}}

• {{Gutenberg author |id=6512| name=John Foster Dulles}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=John Foster Dulles}}
• {{Internet Archive film clip|id=gov.archives.arc.95966|description="Longines Chronoscope with John Foster Dulles (February 1, 1952)"}}
• [http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/br86b3576 John Foster Dulles Papers at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University]
• [http://eisenhower.archives.gov/Research/Finding_Aids/D.html Papers of John Foster Dulles, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library]
• [http://alsos.wlu.edu/qsearch.aspx?browse=people/Dulles,+John+Foster Annotated bibliography for John Foster Dulles from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060828134051/http://alsos.wlu.edu/qsearch.aspx?browse=people%2FDulles%2C+John+Foster |date=August 28, 2006 }}
• FBI files on John Foster Dulles at the Internet Archive
• {{PM20|FID=pe/004340}}
• [https://www.mediathek.at/nc/type/8000/searchQuery/937/hash/850YysaC// John Foster Dulles] (Radio Reports partially in German) from the archive of the Österreichische Mediathek

{{s-start}}

{{s-npo}}

{{s-bef|before=Nicholas Murray Butler}}

{{s-ttl|title=Chairman of the Carnegie Endowment|years=1946–1952}}

{{s-aft|after=Harvey Hollister Bundy}}

{{s-bef|before=Walter W. Stewart}}

{{s-ttl|title=Chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation|years=1951–1952}}

{{s-aft|after=John D. Rockefeller III}}

{{s-ppo}}

{{succession box

| title = Republican nominee for
U.S. Senator from New York (Class 3)

| years = 1949

| before = Thomas J. Curran

| after = Joe R. Hanley

}}

{{s-off}}

{{succession box

|title= United States Senator from New York

|years= July 7, 1949 – November 8, 1949

| alongside = Irving Ives

| before = Robert F. Wagner

| after = Herbert H. Lehman

}}

{{succession box

| title = United States Secretary of State

| years = January 26, 1953 – April 22, 1959

| before = Dean Acheson

| after = Christian Herter

}}

{{s-ach}}

{{succession box

| title = Time Person of the Year

| years = 1954

| before = Konrad Adenauer

| after = Harlow Curtice

}}

{{succession box

| title = Recipient of the Sylvanus Thayer Award

| years = 1959

| before = Ernest Lawrence

| after = Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

}}

{{s-end}}

{{Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority|state=autocollapse}}

{{USSenNY}}

{{USSecState}}

{{Eisenhower cabinet}}

{{Cold War}}

{{Time Persons of the Year 1951–1975}}

{{USCongRep-start|congresses= 81st United States Congress |state=New York}}

{{USCongRep/NY/81}}

{{USCongRep-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dulles, John Foster}}

Category:1888 births

Category:1959 deaths

Category:American people of the Vietnam War

Category:Burials at Arlington National Cemetery

Category:Cold War diplomats

Category:New York (state) Republicans

Category:Military personnel from Washington, D.C.

Category:Politicians from Watertown, New York

Category:Recipients of the Medal of Freedom

Category:Princeton University alumni

Category:Rockefeller Foundation people

Category:United States secretaries of state

Category:American Presbyterians

Category:Deaths from cancer in Washington, D.C.

Category:George Washington University Law School alumni

Category:Dulles family

Category:Republican Party United States senators from New York (state)

Category:Time Person of the Year

Category:United States Army officers

Category:Eisenhower administration cabinet members

Category:Sullivan & Cromwell partners

Category:Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Category:American anti-communists

Category:20th-century United States senators