World War, Cold War and the House of Dulles DULLES: a Biography Of

World War, Cold War and the House of Dulles

E $12.95

stood. Whatever the case, Eden was,

ister. By DANIEL YERGIN erately misleading—or an emotionally DULLES: A Biography of Elea- overwrought Anthony Eden misunder-

that he told him that he would go on August 2, 1956, so grateful to Dulles les and Their

down in history as a great foreign min- nor, Allen and John Foster Dul-

Dialllanies Vade. 530 pp.

reason, nobody knows whether body's going to know really for at least

said afterwards. "And for this same

twenty-five years, the reason being doing a good job or a bad job." that all the returns aren't in," Dulles

foreign minister indeed. For he had to believe that Dulles was a very bad

Nations—after having set in motion

now more than a quarter century has

expedition. Instead, the United States led the condemnation in the United passed since Dulles became secretary the Suez Canal in the first place. But

thought Dulles had promised Ameri-

can support to the Anglo-French Suez the events that had led Nasser to seize DANIEL YERGIN Is the author of Shattered

Cold

State.

"You know, nobody knows and no-

Shortly after, of course, Eden came

make himself clear, or was delib-

ITHER John Foster Dulles did not

War

and The National Security

Peace: The Origins of The

Family Network.

I'm

of state, and some perspective is possi-

vide it in the form of a joint biography of Foster with his brother Allen and ble.

Leonard Mosley undertakes to pro-

ments, such as they are, are embedded

in his fast-moving narrative. But this is marily for the story and the charact-

sister Eleanor. His analysis and judg-. an enjoyable book that one reads pri-

hooks, is a fluent writer.

history, of American foreign policy

ers. Mosley, the author of 25 or so from the First World War into the

offers a social history, really

Ziturtratian by Pay Driver for The %Unerring= Poet

In Dulles,

family

he 1960s, with a goodly offering of the Indeed, Mosley's book is so struc- kind of gossip that is conventionally tured and so populated with vivid per- described as spicy. sonalities that any television mogul Mosley's real skills are as a narrator. with a minimum degree of intelligence As in a novel, characters appear and would recognize the potential here for reappear. One is Noel Field, first intro- a superb 10-part mini-series, a sort of duced at age 12, when Allen Dulles Upstairs, Upstairs. met him in Switzerland. When Dulles But what of the protagonists them- asked the boy about his ambition, selves? The Dulles siblings came from Field replied, "Bring peace to the a family of missionaries and diplomats. world." A world war later, back in A grandfather add uncle had both Switzerland, Field, by then a secret been secretaries of state, and Foster communist, managed to insinuate him- seemed predestined_ himself for the self with and use Dulles, who was the job. He served with Keynes and Mon- OSS station chief. Revenge came in net on the reparations commission at 1949, when the CIA managed to pass Versailles, then went back to New the word eastward that Field was a York and corporate law at Sullivan CIA agent (which he was not), and so and Cromwell. In the late 1930s, bored set in motion the great Stalinist purges and restless, with legal success, he in Eastern Europe. turned his attention back to inter- Another ominous character who national politics, and began maneuver- moves through these pages is Kim ing in such a way that he was soon the Philby, who as the Washington liaison Republicans' chief foreign policy between British and American intelli- spokesman. But it was not until he was gence in the late 1940s proved to be 65 that he became secretary of state_ one of the Soviet Union's most useful Of Dulles' two great achievements in spies ever. Philby, now living in foreign policy, one predated his secre- Moscow on a KGB stipend, has the last tary of stateship. This was his central word, of a sort, in a 1976-1977 corre- role in shaping the Japanese peace spondence with Mosley, published as treaty, which laid the basis for Ameri- an extensive appendix. Philby is really ca's close relation with modern Japan. quite condescending in his Judgments Equally important was his role after on America's former foremost spy, de- becoming secretary in cementing scribing Allen Dulles as "bumbling," American relations with the Federal "lazy," and guilty of "compulsive re- Republic of Germany. sort to cliche." That impression, Mos- There was much else that was ques- ley argues, was a deliberate act, for tionable—the failure to respond posi- Dulles was actually on to Phil by's tively to the opportunity provided by tricks, and came close to nabbing him. Stalin's death in 1953, and the confu- (Phitby's correspondence is interesting sion and mishaps involved in the en- not only for what he says, but also for tire Suez affair. One cannot help but the tone—ironic, self-satisfied, smug, wonder what difference it would have and filled with a scorn for Americans made had the 1956 Hungarian Revolu- that may well cloak a resentment which partly explains his treachery.) ----(Continued on page G4) tional danger diffused any trouble- some questions about the CIA's power BOOK WORLD/MARCH 26. 11973 and role and independence. But the organization probably grew too fast and in too many directions so that Allen, never a particularly good administra- tor, had increasing difficulty in main- Dulles taining control. . If Foster's career culminated in anticlimax, then Allen's ended in humilia- (Continued from page G1)---- tion, in the form of two episodes of tion not occurred at the same time as overreaching that brought him down. Suez. Perhaps the real truth about Dul- The first was the U-2 affair; the sec- les' years as secretary were that they ond, the Bay of Pigs, in which, Mosley were an anticlimax, that despite the suggests, Allen and the CIA were made rhetoric, and the partisan differences, the scapegoats for other's failures. But they pretty much continued where as a nation, we still have no clear con- Acheson and Co. had left off. Dulles sensus on the question that was cen- himself seemed to recognize this. "You tral to Allen's public life, the wig of know, Paul," Mosley quotes him as say- the intelligence community in a demo- ing to Paul Nitze, "I really don't disa- cratic society. gree at all with the Acheson Eleanor's story is somewhat differ- policies... I'm in general agree- ent. Early on, Mosley declares: "During ment" The real balance of forces and all but the final months of the Eisen- interests, not rhetoric about rollback hower era it was the Dulles family and liberation, determined U.S. for- which managed and manipulated the eign policy. - foreign affairs of the United States, While Foster is the dominating prep.-• and, in consequence, decisively in- mice in the book, just as he apparently fluenced the rest of the world"—Fos- dominated his siblings, Allen and Elea- ter at State, Allen at the CIA, Eleanor nor emerge from the book as more on the Berlin desk in State. But this, it human characters. For Allen, the craft seems, is somewhat misleading. Allen of intelligence was a passion, and this and Foster were certainly a team— charming, engaging, manipulative per- their only major disagreement being son brought even more energy to it in the late 1830s on the dangers posed than (according to Mosley) he did to his by Hitler (Foster was complacent). energetic pursuit of attractive women. Allen's story is really the story of the development of America's intelligence apparatus. As we continue to learn today, there Is considerable uncer- tainty about the relations of intelligence and covert activities to our sort of political system. It was Henry Stim- Even so, the book does not really de- son who, decades ago, opposed coun- velop their relationship. Not at all terespionage on the grounds that gent- clear is how they interacted with each lemen do not read other gentlemen's other, nor what the significance was of mail. At the time of the planning for this sibling suzerainty at State and the the Bay of Pigs, Dean Rusk bad a cer- CIA. Mosley's psychologizing about the tain distrust for Allen Dulles for that effects on Allen of being born with a very reason—because be had. discov- club foot lcorrected while he was still ered that the CIA had taken to open- an infant) is not particularly convinc- ing the private mail of the Rockefeller ing. Foundation during the period that The relationship of Eleanor to her Rusk was at its head. Yet it is also true two brothers is even murkier. It is very that nations do compete with each hard to understand how her life inter- other, and, it can hardly be in a na- sected with theirs. What seems to have tion's long-term interests to pretend characterized Eleanor was her reso- otherwise. lute independence. She does not ap- Allen did more than anybody else to pear to have been part of the Dulles shape the CIA into a powerful, for- team. Hers is the story of a very intelli- midable, broad-ranging, independent gent, intellectual, capable, forthright organization. And for a time, he him- woman, trying to find her own path self was riding high, very high. He pro- and shape her own life at a time when tected the CIA against McCarthyism such efforts by women were highly much more effectively than his unorthodox. Some recognized her brother did for the State Department. talents- After she published a book All doors were open. The overriding called The French Franc in the 1920s, sense of national purpose and interna- John Maynard Keynes wrote her, "Yours is the best book on monetary Inflation that I know." She was penalized for being a woman, and she ,was penalized for, as much as helped by, being a Dulles. She had more ad- versity to overcome than either of her brothers. Her marriage to a melan; choly Jewish scholar ended in much personal and family grief. Eleanor's is the strongest voice In the book, the most interesting character and at least in my reading, the real hero. "Born two generations late'," Mosley writes in his notes. "what a mark she would have made in this age of sexual equality." That she gave considerable interview time to Mosley is obvious, as it is equally obvious now that she regrets it. For a controversy has erupted between her and Mosley over the book's accuracy. She charges that much of the.lnfOrmation she gave Mosley in the interviews was misinter- preted or misstated, and that the book is laced with errors. It appears to me that Mosley has done alone a good deal of interview and archival research, es- pecially for a book aimed at a popular audience. How well-digested that research is and how careful he has been is another question. The informed reader will notice a number of mista- kes that might easily have been caught. Dean Rusk, for example, was never a lawyer. But more important, Mosley miscon- strues and really misses the fascinat- ing development of Foster's attitude toward the Soviet Union. As late as February 1945, Dulles could write pri- vately to a Reader's Digest editor, "The very fact that millions of Ameri- cans share your view that we should distrust the Russians is, I think, a reason why Russia should distrust us. . . . A task of the future will be to clear up such mistrust" But a year later, in 1948, he was already warning readers of Life in a two-part article against the Kremlin's plans for a Paz Sooietica and advising Americans to maintain a strong military establish- ment and go to church more often. But Mosley suggests that Dulles only de- cided there was "something baleful" about Stalinism In 1949! Similarly, Mos- ley misses the essence of Dulles' post- war clash with General Lucius Clay— the former championing France, the latter, the three western zones of Ger- many. Many points of contention in the Dulles/Mosely controversy have less to do with this kind of substance. While I am puzzled about the accuracy question, I have no doubt that even a few extra weeks of checking could have eliminated a certain avoidable. sloppi- ness. ❑ The Dulles Dilemma

CASE of Dulles: A 900." T Biography of Leonard. Allen Jim Wade now steps into the and John Foster Dulles and Their fray. "We can not stand by and ig- Family Network by Leonard Mos- nore the alleged 900 'errors' that E. ley is not yet a "case" in the legal L. Dulles claims are in the book, sense, and might never become nor can we ignore the allegations one, since James O. Wade, pub- of errors by Professor Richard Ull- lisher of The Dial Press/James man and John Bartlow Martin in Wade Books, is understandably re- their respective reviews in the luctant at this point to discuss the New York Times Book Review possibility of litigation. But Jim (2/26/78) and the Chicago Tribune Wade tells me he'd like to see "at Book World (2/26/78)." Wade also least one or two" of the alleged 900 .points out that a New York Times instances of inaccuracy that Elea- piece by Herbert Mitgang (3/9) says nor Dulles, sister of Allen and John that Mosley describes the former Foster Dulles, has charged the C.I.A. director as a "libertine." That book with. So far, they've received word is never used in the book. no such list of errors, only the Eleanor Dulles' allegation lin the press release issued by Universal press release) states that "the fic- Public Relations of 441 Lexington tion continues throughout the Avenue in New York, headlined book to the final pages, when the "Eleanor Dulles Comments on New author describes a conference Book About Dulles Family." In the which supposedly took place be- press release, Ms_ Dulles is quoted tween Foster Dulles and the Presi- as commenting, "When fiction dent in 1960 about the Bay of Pigs masquerades as history, the reader project—one year after Foster's should be given some warning," death." Mosley actually wrote that and the press release goes on to say the Foster Dulles-Eisenhower con- that she "has compiled a list of er- versation took place in 1959 (when rors nearly as long as the book it- Foster was still alive), but that self. On most pages where she is Allen revealed the conversation to quoted, a correct quotation is fol- Richard Bissell in 1960. As to the re- lowed by a number of incorrect butts] of the book reviews, publish- quotations. She has conveyed this ers and authors are always writing Information to the author with the letters to the editors, and will no hope that the publisher will cor- doubt go on doing so, but in the rect the many errors should fur- case of Dulles: A Biography, a full ther printings be planned." selection of the Book-of-the-Month In a Q & A interview in The Club, and therefore a heavy-money Washington Star, Eleanor Dulles book for a political biography, the specified that the errors were defense is rather more defensive "hundreds. Counting the inconse- than usual. ❑ quential ones, perhaps as many as -Leonore Fleischer