JOHN FOSTER DULLES

AND THE GOSPEL OF CORPORATE INTERNATIONALISM

by

William Jefferson Hedrick II

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of

The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Bachelor of Arts in History with Honors

Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Florida Atlantic University

Boca Raton, Florida

APRIL 28, 2015

 2

JOHN FOSTER DULLES

AND THE GOSPEL OF CORPORATE INTERNATIONALISM

by

William Jefferson Hedrick II

This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate’s thesis advisor, Thesis Advisor, and
has been approved by Other Member of the Advisory Committee. It was submitted to the faculty of
The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in History with Honors.

SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE:

____________________________

Name of Thesis Advisor

Thesis Advisor

____________________________

Name of Other Member of Advisory Committee

______________________________

Chair, Department of History

______________________________

Dean, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

_____________

Date
 3

Senior Central Intelligence Agency officer Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of Theodore

Roosevelt, painted a vivid image of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles as an apex

predator in his notes from August of 1953:

One of my audience seemed almost alarmingly enthusiastic... Despite his posture, he

was anything but sleepy. His eyes were gleaming; he seemed to be purring like a
giant cat. Clearly, he was not only enjoying what he was hearing, but my instinct told
me that he was planning as well…1

Dulles was listening as Roosevelt debriefed President Dwight D. Eisenhower on the

success of Operation Ajax, the Central Intelligence Agency’s first major covert operation.

Ajax was the codename for the military coup d’etat which ousted Iranian President

Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, the brainchild of Dulles, Eisenhower’s Secretary of State,

and his brother, CIA Director Allen Welch Dulles. The operation’s success bolstered

Eisenhower’s confidence in the efficacy of covert operations, which in turn led to a string of

State Department/CIA-directed operations during the 1950s and early 1960s.2 One of the

most polarizing figures of the 20th century, John Foster Dulles introduced the concepts of

brinkmanship, massive retaliation, mutually assured destruction, and the domino theory to

the American lexicon.3

In a January 1956 Life magazine article, Dulles told Life correspondent James

Shepley, “The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is a necessary art... If

you cannot master it, you inevitably get into war. If you try to run away from it, if you are

1 Kermit Roosevelt, Countercoup:The Struggle for the Control of Iran (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979), 209-10.
2 Stephen Kinzer, The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, And Their Secret World War (New York: Time
Books/Henry Holt and Co., 2013), 146.
3 John Foster Dulles, "Policy for Security and Peace," Foreign Affairs, April 1954,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/71092/john-foster-dulles/policy-for-security-and-peace (accessed Apr. 4,
2015)
 4

scared to go to the brink, you are lost...We walked to the brink and we looked it in the

face.”4 More than simply rhetoric, brinkmanship had been defining characteristic of Dulles’

personality since his youth.5

Secretary Dulles was the driving force in United States foreign policy from 1953

until his death due to cancer in 1959. Given his status as one of the most strident of the

Cold War Hawks, it may appear counterintuitive that Dulles’ early reputation was built

upon his pursuit of a just and durable peace in Europe. Beginning in 1919, as a member of

the German Reparations Committee at the Paris Peace Conference, Dulles spent two

decades defending the spirit of the Versailles treaty, simultaneously criticizing the heavy

burden it placed on the German economy through reparation payments. Dulles envisioned

an international body capable of providing diplomatic solutions to what he referred to as

“the war system.” His vision was driven in part by the central role he played in authorship

of the Treaty of Versailles’ Article 231, also known as the “War Guilt Clause,” which

assigned full culpability for World War I on Germany. In addition, Dulles doggedly sought a

successful model to replace the failed League of Nations, the single piece of statecraft that

Dulles and the other members of the United States’ diplomatic entourage hoped would be

Woodrow Wilson’s greatest legacy. A consistent element in his essays and speeches

throughout his early career was his belief that the Treaty of Versailles was flawed from its

inception, primarily due to the Allies’ desire for punitive reparations from Germany. Dulles

4 James Shepley, “How Dulles Averted War” Life, January 16, 1956, 78.
https://books.google.com/books?id=fz8EAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Life+Magazine+1956+dulles&hl
=en&sa=X&ei=GV8gVba0KIv6sAXFoIP4Bg&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false. (accessed via
GoogleBooks on April 4, 2015).
5 Eleanor Lansing Dulles, Eleanor Lansing Dulles, Chances of a Lifetime: A Memoir (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1980), 380.
 5

stressed the critical importance of his role on the reparation committee, as well as that of

the United States, was in maintaining a just and durable peace, saying:

It had been apparent from the day when the Commission was first conceived
at the Peace Conference that an American upon that Commission would hold the
balance of power, that his impartial and detached judgement upon the problems of
the Commission would permit their solution. It was equally apparent that if
Americans held apart, the hereditary jealousies and honest differences of the
nations of Europe would prevent any solution.6

In addition to his diplomatic duties and growing expertise in international law,

Dulles showed a capacity for holding conflicting ideologies simultaneously. The primary

focus of his duties as a young lawyer involved representing both corporations and banking

interests, who were seeking to profit from the profoundly lucrative international bond

market that flourished in the Interwar period. Due to his tenure as a member of the War

Reparation Committee at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Dulles was subsequently

chosen to serve on the Dawes Committee in 1924. The committee was tasked with

providing a framework for German reparation payments without specifying an overall

amount. Dulles, representing American financier J.P. Morgan, served as one of the portals

through which investment capital flowed into a broad range of public and private central

European interests.7 Dulles vigorously defended the loans authorized by the Dawes

Commission as essential to the German economy and a boon for American investors. The

1924 Dawes Act authorized private investors to loan billions of dollars to Germany so it

could pay its debt from World War I. During the United States Senate’s Committee on

Banking and Currency Porcino hearings of 1934, the official findings identified one of the

6 John Foster Dulles, “Dulles to John W. Davis, ” Dulles Papers (July 18, 1924): quoted in Ronald W. Pruessen,
John Foster Dulles: The Road to Power (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1982), 84-85.
7 Pruessen, John Foster Dulles, 66.
 6

catalysts for the collapse of the United States banking industry of 1929, as the

irresponsible, reckless management of foreign securities and loans.8

Dulles continued to represent German clients through most of the 1930s, but faced a

professional crisis with the impending hostilities of World War II, even facing

unsubstantiated criticism for holding pro-fascist sympathies.9 In March of 1937, German

tanks rolled into Prague, Czechoslovakia, signaling the first major crisis of World War II. As

a specialist in the European theater, the two decades Dulles had invested in establishing his

influence within German corporate and financial circles was jeopardized. In addition to

serving as legal counsel to German industrialists, including industrial giants I.G. Farben,

Dulles also served on the board of numerous transnational corporations with large German

holdings, including serving as Director of the Consolidated Silesian and Steel Company.10

Dulles’ opposition to the Roosevelt administration placed him in the political minority for

the first time in his career. He had enjoyed access to the upper echelons of government

throughout his life, beginning as a close friend and associate of President William Howard

Taft’s sons, Robert and Charles, and continuing through his working relationship with

Herbert Hoover at the Paris Peace Conference.11 Dulles saw himself as an internationalist,

or non-interventionist, strongly opposed to war with Germany. Not only was the Roosevelt

Administration stridently interventionist, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Securities Act of

1934 directly attacked the foreign securities business, Dulles’ professional expertise..

8 Stock Exchange Practices. U.S. Congress. Senate. 1934 Committee on Banking and Currency. 73d Cong., 2d
sess., S. Rept. 1455. http://www.scribd.com/doc/73235213/Pecora-Commission-Report-Stock-Exchange-
Practices-Report-1934. (accessed April 26, 2015), 177-195.
9 Thomas E. Dewey, interview Dulles Oral History Project: quoted in Pruessen, John Foster Dulles, 84-85.
10 Pruessen, John Foster Dulles, 130-131
11 Pruessen, John Foster Dulles, 32.
 7

Dulles responded to the legislation with a reserved but lengthy rebuttal in Foreign Affairs

magazine, placing the blame on isolated individuals, rather than the industry as a whole.

For the first times in his professional life, John Foster Dulles found himself on the outside of

the governmental power structure, looking in.

With war seemingly unavoidable, Dulles focused on finding a solution that would

prove effective in avoiding war where the League of Nations had failed. In July of 1937,

Dulles attended the Conference on Community, State and Church in Oxford, England,

presented by a consortium of international theological groups. Ecumenism had garnered a

large following in the 1910s and 1920s, a religious movement dedicated to affecting world

peace through the combined efforts of international religious organizations. Dulles became

closely associated with the Federal Council of Churches, an American ecumenical

organization that was a primary sponsor of the conference. Praising the council’s efforts to

affect international peace, Dulles began to define his political philosophy in his first book,

War, Peace, and Change, (WPC)(1939), upon his return to New York. WPC was Dulles’

treatise analyzing the flaws in the interwar community of nations, including his solution for

world peace. Dulles wrote that he had developed his opinions through his participation in

the German Reparations Committee of the Treaty of Versailles.12

In essence, Dulles’ theory provided for the creation of a new world order, couched in

Woodrow Wilson’s liberal internationalism. Dulles’ theory was not a repetition of

Wilsonian principles, however. Whereas Wilson was a strong proponent of self-

determination, Dulles was convinced that the impetuous of war lay in nationalism and the

12 John Foster Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 1st ed. (New York: Harper, 1939), ix.
 8

“hero/villain” group authority. He argued that, rather than waging total war against

belligerent, “dynamic” nations, it was essential to allow these nations the elasticity to

expand, forcing less powerful or “static” nations to absorb their aggression. Dulles opined

that the community of nations should provide the flexibility for enterprising nations to

absorb territory and resources from their weaker neighbors, in the interest of avoiding

total war. Ultimately, he argued that the means to abolish “the war system” lay in an ill-

defined international body, guided by the moral authority of the major Western religions,

and tempered by the pragmatic, dispassionate altruism of transnational corporations and

cartels.13 In the manner which one would expect of a brilliant legal mind, Dulles’ references

were artfully evasive, his prose vague and lofty.

If Dulles experienced a spiritual epiphany at Oxford in 1937, none of the religious

rhetoric that characterized his later writing was evident in WPC. Although he spoke of

religion as central to his philosophy, he did not speak in terms of passion and salvation.

Dulles spoke of religion in almost clinical terms, as if he had identified a valuable resource

that, if developed skillfully, could serve as greater purpose. WPC provided Dulles a pivotal

point with which to establish his political philosophy, as well as a vehicle to promote his

agenda after the end of the coming war. His association with the Federal Council of

Churches allowed Dulles an established political base, complete with publication and

distribution infrastructure with which to project his message. The final step in his

transformation was to adopt the language of his constituency, a skill at which he proved

remarkably adept.

13 Dulles, War, Peace, and Change, 50,58, 60, 69, 103, 104
 9

Dulles’ philosophy, which I have dubbed Corporate Internationalism, was a political

ideology designed to create an international body that operated autonomously,

independent of nationalistic sovereignty. In order to achieve this, Dulles sought to build a

public constituency composed of “dynamic” Americans, those who believed in God, free

market economics, and the power of American invincibility. To build his political base,

Dulles created a public persona using familiar religious imagery and fiery rhetoric. In

doing so, he hoped to create a cartel of international capital that would replace the failed

League of Nations, ultimately providing a completely unrestricted, unregulated

international market based on laissez faire capitalism. John Foster Dulles’ ultimate goal

was the creation of a New World Order, independent of national sovereignty.

John Foster Dulles reached the pinnacle of his career when he rose to the position of

Secretary of State in 1952, claiming the office once held by both his grandfather and uncle.

Of the scholarship addressing Dulles’ early career, Ronald Pruessen’s John Foster Dulles:

The Road to Power, provides the most detailed analysis. Pruessen addressed in specific

terms the individual corporations involved and detailed figures regarding loans Dulles

negotiated. The detail provided on the structure of cartels was essential, bearing further

inspection.

Although much of the focus of research available regarding the Treaty of Versailles

centers on Article 231, also known as “The Guilt Clause,” no attention is given to the part

Dulles played in drafting the article.14 Little, if any scholarship appears to exist regarding

Dulles’ reconciliation of the hostilities between his two primary mentors, Wilson and

14 MacMillan, Paris 1919, 489.

 10

Lansing. Of even greater curiosity is that the issue of German reparations became the

touchstone of Dulles’ emerging philosophy, expounded at length in WPC. In his book,

Dulles incorporated elements of both men’s worldviews into an incongruous emulsion of

laissez faire internationalism, rooted in Western religiosity. Finally, given the Dulles/Foster

clan’s proclivity to debate diplomatic events, historians have devoted little or no attention

to any conversation, debate, or even opinion Dulles gleaned from the ongoing family

political dialogue, which certainly addressed the issue.

Regarding Dulles’ religiosity and conversion, the broad consensuses of historians

mildly question the sincerity of Dulles’ piety, but the extant scholarly literature spends little

time on the nature of the conversion or in analysis of its bearing on WPC. Pruessen stands

alone in addressing the importance of the media structure within the Federal Council of

Churches. As with the rest of his book, Pruessen provided extensive detail on each event,

delving slightly deeper on each subject. Even given this attention to detail, he did not

analyze Dulles’ motivation for writing the book, or the identity the audience to which he

was speaking. Although Richard Immerman’s, John Foster Dulles: Piety, Pragmatism, and

Power focused primarily on Dulles’ tenure after World War II, Immerman spoke directly to

Dulles’ search for a constituency.15 Less critical of Dulles’ sincerity, Immerman clearly

identified the mutual benefits gained by both the Federal Council of Churches (FCC) and

John Foster Dulles, but does not address the nature of the theology espoused by the Oxford

Conference on Community, State, and Church. Little information is available within the

15 Richard H. Immerman, John Foster Dulles: Piety, Pragmatism, and Power in U.S. Foreign Policy. Wilmington,
DE: Scholarly Resources, 1999.
 11

Dulles scholarship regarding the nature of 1937 conference, or the theological nature of the

ecumenical movement itself.

Given the prolific information is available regarding the life and times of John Foster

Dulles in his later years, very little research speaks to what is the most extensive

representation of his political philosophy, WPC. In great part, any true analysis or further

discussion of Dulles’ tome was quickly overshadowed by events in Europe. It is clear that

Dulles thought war was unavoidable by the late 1930s and sought to contribute his analysis

to the national debate, but was also frustrated by how broadly his solutions to avoid

hostilities were dismissed.

The existing Dulles scholarship is inadequate in two essential areas. Primarily, it is

unbalanced, focused primarily on his tenure as Secretary of State during the Eisenhower

Administration. Although Dulles’ legacy at the State Department is essential to the

historical record, his body of work prior to holding public office provides a clearer

understanding of what may have shaped crucial decisions later in life. In the case of John

Foster Dulles, the apparent paradox between the young diplomat at the Paris Peace

Conference and the pre-eminent Cold Warrior who was “willing to risk nuclear annihilation

in order to blow a hole in the Iron Curtain” begs further investigation.16

Secondly, no attention is given to the most essential question of any book. Who was

the audience to whom Dulles was writing in WPC, and what was his message? If taken at

face value, Dulles was effectively fiddling while Rome burned around him. Looking more

deeply, he was fully aware of the crisis that lay ahead and fell back on tried and true

16 Immerman, Dulles, 45.

 12

strategy. Dulles carefully analyzed the situation at hand, and developed an effective plan

that allowed him both to develop a constituency that would allow him to pursue public

office; and to create a manifesto for his conservative allies that detailed his political

philosophy.

The philosophy espoused by Dulles in WPC will be referred to as Corporate

Internationalism, a system that designed to utilize the dispassionate justice and

international scope of laissez faire capitalism to provide the flexibility necessary to

accommodate dynamic (aggressive) forces, thereby avoiding the specter of total war.

Dulles’ investment in Germany had played out, and he was forced to redirect his energies in

new directions. In 1937, John Foster Dulles returned to the path on which he had begun his

journey, following in the footsteps of John Watson Foster and Robert Lansing into the

theater of diplomatic service. In preparing for this journey, he devised a strategy that

would allow him to build a political power base with the an eye cocked toward attaining

the office once held by both his grandfather and favorite uncle. In writing War, Peace, and

Change, Dulles established a platform that was highly attractive to his potential donors.

Simultaneously, Dulles’ publications through the Federal Council of Churches, allowed him

to reach a captive audience that included the congregations of a broad range of America’s

major religious institutions. In short, Dulles found a platform that could speak to two

audiences- the first being a relatively small group of international capitalists with financial

resources capable of funding a national campaign. The second, equally important, were the

millions of God-fearing Americans who made up the congregations within the FCC;

Americans of deep faith who would rarely question the validity of information received
 13

from their local pastor, and just as rarely missed a chance to exercise their patriotic duty at

the ballot box.

Diplomatic Scion

In order to understand Dulles, it’s imperative to understand something of his family

history, especially in reference to his illustrious grandfather and uncle. John Watson

Foster, Dulles’ grandfather, began his legal career in 1855. After the Civil War, Foster

accepted an offer from President Ulysses S. Grant in 1869 to join the United States

diplomatic corps, later serving every President from Rutherford B. Hayes to Theodore

Roosevelt. A widely published author on international diplomacy, Foster was a founding

member of the American Society of International Law and the Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace.

Even at an early age, Dulles assumed an air of self-confidence and competence that

resulted in his younger siblings seeing him as a second father.17 His own father came from

a long line of religious scholars and Presbyterian ministers. While attending college at

Princeton University, Dulles majored in philosophy, which at the time was an indication of

a career path in theology. Dulles sought to bridge the chasm between his father’s desire

that he follow him into the clergy and the exciting world of international diplomacy

represented by his grandfather. He compromise by declaring his goal to become “a

17 Eleanor Lansing Dulles, 14.

 14

Christian lawyer.”18 In explaining his decision, Dulles argued that he was not capable of

meeting or exceeding the standard set by his father.19

The very concept of a “Christian lawyer” begged further definition. Much later in

life, Dulles found little piety in the world of international law, considering the amorality of

capitalism to be one of its virtues. It was the absence of morality in law that provided the

impartiality Dulles felt necessary to resolve transnational disputes. Dulles argued in War,

Peace, and Change that it was this very dispassion that made international corporate

entities ideal to serve as peacekeepers, saying: “Corporations have no souls; they cannot

transit to heaven or hell and enjoy its delights or suffer its pains. Therefore, corporations

are immune from moral law.”20

It may simply have been Dulles’ youthful idealism with which he sought to bridge

the chasm between the profane and the profound, simultaneously serving both the law and

the Lord. A more realistic and somewhat cynical reading of Dulles resolution might

identify this as an early example of Dulles’ deft facility in using diplomacy, coupled with a

measured, well-considered argument, to resolve a seemingly untenable situation.

Diplomats Abroad

Toward the end of his senior year of college at Princeton, Dulles enjoyed the first of

many professional opportunities provided by his grandfather. General Foster received a

personal request on behalf of the Chinese Emperor to serve as a representative of the

18 Hoopes, Devil and John Foster Dulles, 17.

19 Hoopes, Devil and John Foster Dulles, 20.
20 Eleanor Lansing Dulles, 23.
 15

Chinese delegation at the Second Conference at The Hague.21 The elder statesman secured

a minor position for his grandson as a secretary to the delegation, a task in which Dulles

both excelled and enjoyed.

Dulles returned to college in the fall of 1907, graduating as Valedictorian and

winning a $600 scholarship for one year’s study in Paris.22 While at the Sorbonne, Dulles

studied philosophy under Henri Bergson, who introduced him to the theory of change as a

constant. Dulles would later included elements of Bergson’s theory in his developing

philosophy. In addition to his study under Bergson, Dulles also took his first course in

international law while at the Sorbonne.23

Upon returning from France, Dulles moved to Washington, D.C. to attend law school,

moving in with General Foster, who owned a large mansion in the capital24 Living in the

Foster household placed him at the epicenter of Washington society. Through his

grandfather’s prestige and associations, Dulles gained access to the Washington’s political

and social elite, including the White House. He became close friends with the sons of

President William Howard Taft, Robert and Charles, and became a popular guest at many

White House social soirees. Charles Taft later accompanied Dulles to the 1937 Oxford

Conference on Community, Church, and State, discussed at length later in this paper.25 It is

21 John W. Foster. Diplomatic Memoirs. Vol. 2. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1909.
https://books.google.com/books?id=ctATAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA2&dq=diplomatic+memoirs+part+2&hl=en&sa=
X&ei=tTMpVfrmI6flsAT59oCIAw&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=grandson&f=false. 2:212. (accessed
April 11, 2015).
22 Eleanor Lansing Dulles, 28.
23 Townsend Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles, 23.
24 Lipsius and Lisagor, A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the Law Firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, 62.
25 Heather A. Warren, Theologians of a New World Order: Reinhold Niebuhr and the Christian Realists, 1920-
1948, (New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1997), 73.
 16

during this time that Dulles began to demonstrate what would be one of his greatest assets,

his ability to network and build professional alliances.

Dulles returned to his family home in Henderson Bay after law school, spending

sixteen hours daily cramming for the New York Bar Examination. Simultaneously, he began

dating a local girl named Janet Avery. At the end of the summer, he drove to Rochester,

New York to take the bar exam- a five-hour journey in that period. Carefully calculating

exactly how many correct answers necessary to pass, he left the test unfinished, racing

back to the lake for a pre-arranged rendezvous with Janet. When Dulles sailed back into

Henderson Harbor that evening, Janet Avery and Foster Dulles were engaged. In her

memoirs, Chances of a Lifetime, sister Eleanor Lansing Dulles shared the story as an early

example of Dulles’ brinkmanship, indicating it was one of her brother’s “‘calculated risks,

which were later to become an element of his foreign policy.”26 Dulles very carefully

assessed his immediate situation, his short- and long-range goals, and then developed a

strategy to move his goal from the abstract to the concrete in an expeditious manner.

Although Dulles had not yet found work as a lawyer, his grandfather indicated each

of his grandchildren would inherit $20,000 upon his death. Evidently pleased with his

choice in partners, Foster told Dulles he could draw on his inheritance after his wedding. 27

Rather than illustrating an impetuous streak in his nature, this episode illustrates the

discipline and confidence Dulles employed throughout his life to great effect. He exhibited

a propensity to bundle several issues together, pushing his abilities and resources to the

brink, staring failure in the face, and then resolving his conflict in one fell stroke.

26 Eleanor Lansing Dulles, 381.

27 Mosley, Dulles: A Biography of Eleanor, Allen and John Foster Dulles and Their Family Network, 26.
 17

Robert Lansing

As John Watson Foster’s career waned, the career of Dulles’ uncle, Robert Lansing,

reached the pinnacle of his power and influence. On June 15, 1915, Secretary of State

William Jennings Bryan resigned in opposition to President Woodrow Wilson’s bellicose

response to the sinking of the Lusitania.28 Lansing had not impressed the President; Wilson

initially dismissed him as “not enough man” to replace Bryan. Wilson’s closest advisor,

Colonel Edward M. House, held a slightly higher opinion of Lansing and convinced the

President to appoint him to the office vacated by Bryan. House recorded his thoughts

regarding Lansing’s appointment in his journal:

I think the most important thing is to get a man without too many ideas of his own
and one that will be entirely guided by you without unnecessary argument, and this,
it seems to me, you will find in Lansing. I only met him once and then for a few
minutes only, and while his mentality did not impress me unduly, at the same time I
hope that you have found him able enough to answer the purpose indicated.29

Wilson was notably intolerant of opinions contrary to his own, and Lansing had

spent thirty years debating foreign policy with the imposing John Watson Foster. Lansing’s

tendency to express his opinion freely to his superior ultimately proved his undoing.

Robert Lansing served as Secretary of State until February of 1920, a period that proved

pivotal to Dulles’ career. His familial loyalty to the young Dulles provided access to the

upper echelons of government for many of the young lawyer’s most valuable clients,

28 A Scott Berg, Wilson (New York: G.P. Putnam, 2013), 366-68.

29 William Jennings Bryan, “The Resignation of Mr. Bryan as Secretary of State,” The American Journal of
International Law 9, no. 3 (July, 1915):
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.fau.edu/stable/2187101?seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents. (accessed April 11,
2015).
 18

boosting the prestige of both Dulles and his employer, the Sullivan & Cromwell Law Firm of

Wall Street.

World War I

In April 1917, the United States declared war on Germany and John Foster Dulles

enlisted in the Army. Due largely to family connections, he rose quickly from military

intelligence to a short-lived seat on the Army’s War Trade Board. Lansing had arranged to

have his nephew attached to the delegation as assistant to Vance McCormick, a Chicago

banker and chairman of the War Trade Board. The goal of the War Trade Board was to

serve as the gateway for any commerce between the United States and the defeated Central

Powers of Europe.

The conflict between Lansing and Wilson provides another example of Dulles’ ability

to pragmatically adapt to divergent interests. Although Lansing never flagged in his

attempt to assist the President in gaining Congressional approval for the Versailles treaty,

he felt Wilson had badly mishandled negotiations, and did not support the League of

Nations. In his memoirs about his tenure at the Paris Peace Conference, Lansing shared the

his assessment of the final treaty:

It must be admitted in honesty that the League is an instrument of the mighty to

check the normal growth of national power and national aspirations among those
who have been rendered impotent by defeat. Examine the Treaty and you will find
peoples delivered against their wills into the hands of those whom they hate, while
their economic resources are torn from them and given to others. Resentment and
bitterness, if not desperation, are bound to be the consequences of such provisions.
It may be years before these oppressed peoples are able to throw off the yoke, but as
sure as day follows night the time will come when they will make the effort.30

30 Robert Lansing. The Peace Negotiations, a Personal Narrative. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co.,
1921. https://archive.org/stream/peacenegotiatio02lansgoog#page/n298/mode/2up. (accessed April 16,
2015), 273.
 19

The conflict had a long-lasting effect on Dulles, who had been optimistic for Wilson’s

efforts at the Conference, especially the possibilities presented by the League of Nations.

Dulles later echoed Lansing’s comments in WPC, which were published in The Peace

Negotiations: A Personal Narrative in 1921: “So long as force is the only mechanism for

assuring international changes then a purported renunciation of force is a nullity. Far from

being “sacred” it would be iniquitous, even if it were practicable, thus to put shackles on the

dynamic peoples and condemn them forever to acceptance of conditions which might

become intolerable.”31 Given the close relationship Dulles enjoyed with his uncle and in

consideration of the years spent debating foreign policy under the mentorship of General

Foster, it strains credulity that Lansing did not discuss his situation with his nephew.

Nonetheless, Dulles never weighed in on the debate. Although Dulles railed against the

inadequacies of the Treaty throughout his life, he never criticized Wilson’s actions. Rather

than placing any blame on a failure in Wilson’s approach, or the lack of ability for the

reparations committee to affect an equitable solution, he instead placed the preponderance

of blame on French, British, and American greed, and their willingness to enforce solutions

through force of arms.32

Article 231, the “War Guilt Clause”

Stepping quickly into a new position at the Central Bureau of Planning and Statistics

in late 1918, Dulles was chosen to serve as liaison to Colonel Edward House’s “Inquiry”

31 Dulles, War, Peace, and Change, 49-50.

32 John Foster Dulles . "The Allied Debts." Foreign Affairs. March 2, 2015.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68345/john-foster-dulles/the-allied-debts. (accessed March 2,
2015).
 20

committee, sent over in advance of Wilson’s entourage to assess the possibilities of a

peaceful settlement to World War I. In doing so, Dulles created a niche for himself as the

primary conduit between the Central Bureau and Wilson’s inner circle, which included the

most influential economic advisors of the day. This appointment provided the gateway to

inclusion in the American delegation of the Supreme Council’s Commission on the

Reparations of Damages, led by McCormick, William Lamont, Norman Davis and Bernard

Baruch. Dulles served as legal counsel for the Commission, comprised of representatives

from England, France, and Italy. The commission met secretly all spring composing the

reparation clauses, including Article 231, for the Treaty of Versailles.33

The article read:

Article 231. The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts
the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to
which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been
subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of
Germany and her allies.34

Even though the Central Powers included the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires,

only the German Empire remained, and as such, the full burden of economic catastrophe,

brought on by the war, lay squarely on Germany’s shoulders.

When the Treaty of Versailles was presented to the German delegation on May 7,

1919, they were asked to sign a blank check. Though the treaty was unambiguous in it

assignation of guilt, they made no provision regarding the actual amount of the debt to be

33 Pruessen, John Foster Dulles: The Road to Power, 29-31.

34 “Peace Treaty of Versailles Articles 231-247 and Annexes Reparations,” Brigham Young University Library,
http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/versa/versa7.html. (accessed April 2, 2015).
 21

paid, the amount of payments, or the term available for repayment. To further exacerbate a

volatile situation, the disparity between Allied and German expectations in regard to the

amount owed was profound. Of even greater complexity was defining what “loss and

damage” would entail. Were losses and damages to be defined specifically as those

contained within the battlefields of Belgium and Poland, or would countries like England,

who participated in the fighting without being directly threatened, be provided reparations

for economic disruption and loss of munitions? Germany expected to lose territory, as well

as providing reparations for lost property and livestock within the actual theater of war.

The theater of operations in World War I was restricted to the areas directly

adjacent to the trenches, leaving most of Europe’s countryside and cities untouched.

England felt it was due recompense for its financial losses, estimated at roughly

$120,000,000,000. France wanted money as well, but more importantly wanted to reduce

Germany’s ability to regain economic, which would disallow prevent rearmament for the

foreseeable future. In addition to demanding $220,000,000,000 in reparations, the French

additionally wanted all territory up to and including the eastern bank of the Rhine River to

provide ample notice of future aggression. Wilson and the United States took a high-

minded approach, claiming America only wanted peace- and repayment of the

$22,000,000,000 in loans it had extended to its allies.35 It was this $22,000,000, owed by

the French and English to the United States, that would be central to both Dulles and the

world at large for the next two decades.

Council on Foreign Relations

35 MacMillan, Paris 1919, 180-185.

 22

Dulles wrote his first criticism of the inadequacies in the Treaty of Versailles for the

October 1922, inaugural edition of Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs magazine was published

by Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an independent think tank that became increasingly

influential in American foreign policy. The CFR was composed of powerful businessmen

and politicians, concerned with the status of Europe in the wake Congress’ refusal to ratify

the Treaty of Versailles.36 Foreign Affairs became essential to anyone concerned with

United States foreign affairs; much in the same manner The Wall Street Journal was to the

financial sector. “The Allied Debts,” published in October of 1922, was Dulles’ first formal

attempt to argue the flaws in the treaty within a public forum. In his essay, Dulles stated

that the war was not simply a case of German aggression. Echoing what would be a

recurring theme in later essays, Dulles reminded the Allied nations of their willing

complicity in hostilities, going further to suggest that the production of munitions and

supplies for the war effort provided some profitability, offsetting the final cost to the

aggrieved nations. Dulles noted that all combatants, including the United States, entered

the war with the broadly understood agreement that each nation would shoulder its cost of

the adventure. He wrote,

Actually, the war was conducted on the definite understanding that each belligerent
should pay for any resources furnished by a co-belligerent, whether acquired for the
prosecution of the war or otherwise. This was the basis which from the first
prevailed as between the Allies, and when we entered the war we adopted the
accepted arrangement. France and Italy paid for British coal and ships. We paid for
the transportation of our troops in British ships and for the French services and
materials, which our troops used in France. Further, under the legislation permitting
as Treasury advances to enable the Allies to acquire war supplies from us,

36 “Council On Foreign Relations History,” Council on Foreign Relations, http://www.cfr.org/about/history/

(accessed April 22, 2015).
 23

repayment was explicitly prescribed and the Allied Governments willingly gave
their promises to repay.37

Unfortunately, the Allies were not interested in justice nearly as much as re-establishing

post war economies and retribution of perceived German culpability.

Providing detailed monetary charts to illustrate the debts owed to the United States

by each European nation, Dulles argued against forcing Germany to pay reparations

beyond the practical ability of the German economy to meet those obligations. Of primary

concern was the lack of a system to balance the inequities of trade between nations. Cash

payments placed a burden on the German economy that did not account for the fluctuating

value of raw products in the marketplace, or the far greater value if exported as finished

products. Reparations also influenced Germany’s economy in the context of the loss of

previously productive territories, including the highly industrialized Saar valley, Silesian

coal, and all of their colonial holdings.38

Dulles used The Saturday Evening Post, Atlantic Monthly, Time, and Life magazines to

publicly opine throughout his professional career. While these publications were popular

and opened Dulles to a wider audience, Foreign Affairs allowed him to speak directly to

leaders in government, business, finance, and others with a shared understanding of

international diplomacy. He continued a close association with both the council and the

journal throughout his life, publishing eight major papers between 1922 and 1959. In his

choice of publications, Dulles not only showed a nuanced understanding of the power of the

37 John Foster Dulles, “The Allied Debts,” Foreign Affairs, October 1922, 1,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68345/john-foster-dulles/the-allied-debts (accessed April 21, 2015)
38 MacMillan, Paris 1919, 464-465.
 24

media, but also demonstrated an intuitive facility in using the media to project his message

to a specific audience.

The Dawes Plan

The Paris Peace Conference formed the Dawes Commission of 1924 in an attempt

to resolve the reparation issue. Charles G. Dawes, Chicago banker and later Vice President

under Calvin Coolidge, was appointed to chair the commission. Given that none of the 440

articles of Treaty of Versailles specified the exact amount of reparations, Dawes was

charged resolving the impasse. The commission proposed the sale of U.S. Treasury-backed

bonds to eager American investors, resuscitating the existing economic and industrial

infrastructure of Germany and central Europe. Still unable settle on an amount of total

reparations, the Dawes Commission instead established the mechanisms in which to

facilitate the flow of investment capital into Europe, established the term for loan

maturation, and lowered the potential amount of individual payments.39

Initially, the Dawes Plan appeared to work. As long as the German economy neither

stalled nor outside investment ceased, the system would continue to function. The plan

was little more than a pyramid scheme, however, and echoed many of the themes in Dulles’

October 1922 Foreign Affairs essay. The U.S. Government provided loans for Germany,

enabling them to repay their war debt to England and France. Great Britain and France

would then pay their war debts to the United States. American financier J. P. Morgan

agreed to underwrite $200,000,000 to foreign banks, which would in turn loan the money

39 United States Department of State: Office of the Historian. “The Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, German
Reparations, and Inter-Allied War Debts.” https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/dawes. (accessed
April 2, 2015).
 25

to German interests. The bonds generated from these loans would then be offered to

American investors. 40 Germany’s finance minister, Hjalmar Schacht, later described the

post-Dawes Act loan activity in Berlin during the 1920s by stating,

Foreign agents besieged captains of industry and municipal authorities with offers
of loans. It was also impossible to pass from the Adlon Hotel [in Berlin] without
being buttonholed by some financial representative who would enquire whether
there were no business or municipal concern to whom he could offer a loan.41

Instead of serving as a benevolent and stabilizing force in European economics, Schacht

clearly implied that the lending atmosphere was unscrupulous and predatory in nature.

Investors flocked to the opportunities, and investment capital poured into Germany

and Austria. In one instance, loan agents approached a Bavarian hamlet in need of

$125,000, convincing its leaders to ultimately sign a $3,000,000 loan. 42 J. P. Morgan

retained Dulles as its legal counsel, and John Foster Dulles became one of the most

influential players in the European bond market. Between 1924 and 1930, Dulles

negotiated loans for various German interests, through American investors, of at least

$505,200,000.43

The Young Plan and the Great Crash

Europe’s economy never stabilized, and by 1926, many in America’s finance

industry began criticizing the loan programs promoted by the Dawes Plan. Dulles often

characterized his work as “being issued under the Dawes Plan. ” When pressed by a rebuke

from the State Department, he admitted, “I do not mean under the control of the

40 Pruessen, John Foster Dulles, 70-72.

41 Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, Confessions of the Old Wizard: The Autobiography of Hjalmar Horace
Greeley Schacht (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1955), 204.
42 Lipsius and Lisagor, A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the Law Firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, 91
43 Pruessen, John Foster Dulles, 79-80.
 26

organization set up by the Dawes Plan, but that it was in accordance with the general

recommendation contained in the Dawes Plan that capital should be supplied to German

manufacturing interests.”44

In October 1926, Dulles published an essay aimed at his critics, dismissing any

discrepancies as a product of his critics’ deficient accounting practices. He went further to

accuse the State Department of overextending its authority in relation to German loans.

Again using Foreign Affairs as his bully pulpit, Dulles struck a defiant tone;

The Department of State in its statement frankly recognized that it had no legal
power to require American bankers to consult it. The statement was, in form,
merely a request that the bankers would "cooperate" with the Department of State
in view of the bearing of their operations "upon the proper conduct of affairs" and
"in view of the possible national interests involved.45

Dulles’ diatribe challenged the authority of the President of the United States, arguing that

the margins between sovereign nations was outside the jurisdiction of the United States.

He further implied that international commerce should fall solely under the purvey of

transnational corporate and financial bodies, an argument he expounded upon in WPC.

Against mounting criticism for greater regulation of the loan process, Dulles argued

to transfer management of the loan program out of the State Department entirely, moving

it to the Commerce Department. Dwight W. Morrow, U.S. ambassador to Mexico and a

partner at J.P. Morgan, responded to Dulles’ October 1926 essay in the next edition of

Foreign Affairs, published in January of 1927. “Who Buys Foreign Bonds?” scolded lending

institutions for risking the life savings of average Americans by in engaging high-risk

44 Lipsius and Lisagor, A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the
Law Firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, 91.
45 John Foster Dulles, “Our Foreign Loan Policy,” Foreign Affairs, October 1926,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68729/john-foster-dulles/our-foreign-loan-policy. (accessed April
18, 2015).
 27

investments. Morgan brought the issue to a human level: “The answer to the question

about who buys foreign bonds is clear. The purchasers are people all over the United

States who are investing their savings.”46 Without making a specific charge, Morrow

questioned the integrity of those international investment brokers selecting investment

opportunities. He continued,

After all, the people who buy bonds must rely largely upon the judgment of the
offering houses. They must believe that their investment banker would not offer
them the bonds unless the banker believed them to be safe. There is no such thing
as absolute security. But while the banker may make mistakes, he must never make
the mistake of offering investments to his clients which he does not believe to be
good.47

Morrow highlighted a point not addressed in Dulles’ arguments, the possibility that Dulles’

faith in the Dawes Plan was either misplaced or disingenuous. Although Dulles had argued

that the economic burden of punitive reparations would almost certainly result in further

hostilities, he saw no reason to limit the level of debt with which Germany burdened itself

in the process of facilitating the lucrative international bond market. Dulles’ rationale can

be found in the following passage from WPC: “Whenever a person is selected to act in a

representative capacity as part of a human authority he is supposed to act only on the

behalf of the group that selected him. The welfare of others outside of this group cannot be

his concern.”48 Dulles was no longer speaking as a member of Wilson’s diplomatic

entourage, but as the legal representative for J.P. Morgan and the investors they served. He

46 Dwight W. Morrow “Who Buys Foreign Bonds?,” Foreign Affairs, January 1927,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68751/dwight-w-morrow/who-buys-foreign-bonds. ( accessed
April 19, 2015).
47 Morrow, Foreign Affairs.
48 Dulles. War, Peace, and Change, 23.
 28

had adopted the position of opposing the economic burden of reparation, but greatly

profited from fees billed for facilitating the economic burden he argued against.

A full decade had passed since the signing of the Treaty of Versailles without a

comprehensive plan to define the full amount and term of German reparations. The Young

Plan of 1928 was the final attempt to settle the issue, placing the total cost of reparations at

$29,000,000,000. Further, it set the term at 58 years, and provided another $300,000,000

in loans.49 Unfortunately, it was too little, too late. The Stock Market crash in October of

1929 effectively ended the Young Plan. Although many American firms and businesses

were hit hard by the Depression, the workload at Sullivan & Cromwell actually increased

due to foreclosures and bankruptcy.50 Incorporating a new business or providing legal

services for a company facing bankruptcy were simply two of the many services offered to

clients at the Law Firm of Sullivan & Cromwell. For John Foster Dulles, business was

booming.

In 1930, Dulles personally arranged for a single loan for $285,000,000 from J.P.

Morgan & Company, to Germany’s Brüning government. Hitler’s National Socialist German

Worker’s Party had threatened to take control of the government in the election, and the

loan was a stopgap to avoid what appeared to be inevitable. Hoping to provide additional

capital to keep the sitting government solvent, that single loan was almost equal to the full

amount authorized by the totality of the Young Plan. In May 1933, Dulles addressed a

mixed group of investors at a meeting of the Foreign Policy Association in Berlin. He

49 “The Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, German Reparations, and Inter-Allied War Debts,” United States
Department of State: Office of the Historian, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/dawes.
(accessed April 2, 2015).
50 Lipsius and Lisagor, A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the Law Firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, 105-107.
 29

offered optimistic projections for the German economy, praising the outlook for a full

recovery. Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, the preeminent German economist and a long-term Dulles

associate, followed Dulles at the lectern. Schacht was an imposing figure in German

finance, holding the posts of president at Reichsbank and Dresdner Bank, the German

financial institutions that served as a conduit for American investment capital. Known as

“The Old Wizard” and often referred to in terms of his academic genius, Schacht’s

comments offered a stark contrast to Dulles’ optimism. Schacht forewarned the assembled

bankers of Germany’s impending 1933 loan default, while making note of the $285,000,000

loan to the failing government. As the New York Times described his speech,

He [Schacht] laid down the proposition that if the Reichsbank should continue to
endeavor to supply bills of exchange for the German debt service, the inevitable
consequence would be a collapse of the mark more calamitous than that of 1923. He
added emphatically that the Reichsbank would not assume responsibility for or
permit such a catastrophe.51

Germany defaulted on over $1,000,000,000 of debt in 1933, turning all the capital invested

in central Europe, much of it personally negotiated by Dulles for clients at Sullivan &

Cromwell, turned into worthless paper.52

New Deals

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in the fall of 1932 with over 57.4 percent of

the popular vote, one of the largest margins in American history. On May 27, 1933,

Roosevelt signed the Securities Act, designed to protect against fraudulent loans and

51 Guido Enderis, “Schacht Says Reich Can't Meet Credits: Reichsbank

President Asserts Transfers On Private
Debts Are Draining Reserves.,” ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times, May 30, 1933
http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.fau.edu/hnpnewyorktimes/docview/100648382/6FD09FE3A0AF456E
PQ/1?accountid=10902. (accessed March 12, 2015).
52 Lipsius and Lisagor, A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the Law Firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, 123.
 30

securities. Dulles responded in the October edition of Foreign Affairs, directing his

comments at the Securities Act and its impact on reparation payments. He noted the

dramatic decline in foreign loans over the preceding five years, and struck a more

conciliatory tone than in his 1926 article. Dulles agreed that some response had been

necessary for the unprincipled few who misrepresented their investments, and referred to

“unintended, undesired, and harsh consequences,” of an otherwise reasonable policy.53

Repeating his argument that reparations were untenable, he said individual nations

did not wish to default, but rather could not borrow the necessary capital, due to the new

regulations. Dulles further argued a wide variety of perceived failures in the legislation,

stating the Germans would default on over $1,000,000,000 of loans and bonds if they

weren’t provided more cash. He insisted (without questioning the wisdom of making the

loans), a precedent had been established during the interwar period. Failure to provide

further loans would cause the system to collapse. He briefly alluded to the inherent value

of possessing foreign securities in the unlikely event of war, recognizing his awareness of

the likelihood of impending hostilities.

Dulles closed by reiterating that the current policy, despite its best intentions, was not

adequate. It was necessary to educate the public to the intricacies of international

economics and return to the status quo of the free market, as a better understanding of free

market economics would allow greater strides toward international peace.54

53 John Foster Dulles. “Our Foreign Loan Policy.” Foreign Affairs, October 1926.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68729/john-foster-dulles/our-foreign-loan-policy. (accessed April
18, 2015).
54 John Foster Dulles. “The Securities Act and Foreign Lending.” Foreign Affairs. October,
 31

With the Democrats in the White House, Dulles no longer had direct access to the

Presidency. Throughout his career, he had been in the vanguard of American diplomatic

policy, achieving success equaled by few of his peers. In terms of his diplomatic career, the

wind had gone out of his sails. His grandfather had been named Secretary of State at the

age of 66 and his Uncle Bert at 49. In 1935, Dulles turned 47, and his prospects of equaling

the diplomatic stature of his elders were slim. Professionally, the loan programs he had

designed, making so many investors rich, were roundly criticized, even from his peers

within the finance industry. Many of the firms he once counted as clients had declared

bankruptcy, and a growing contingent in Sullivan & Cromwell lobbied to close the Berlin

office. Allen Dulles, by then a partner in the firm, later recalled, “You couldn’t practice law

there. People came to you asking how to evade the law, not how to respect the law. When

that happens, you can’t be much of a lawyer.”55

Ecumenism and the New World Order

The implosion of the Ottoman, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and German empires at

the end of World War I created a fertile environment for the growth of new ideologies.

Woodrow Wilson opened Pandora’s box with the concept of self-determination, an idea

quickly embraced by those seeking cultural, religious, or regional autonomy.56 Many who

sought stability and structure in the chaotic landscape of interwar Europe turned to the

example of Italy’s National Fascist Party. As the first fascist dictator of Europe, Mussolini

built on a deep reservoir of nationalism couched in the glory of the Roman Empire and the

1933. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/69379/john-foster-dulles/the-securities-act-and-foreign-
lending. (accessed March 23, 2015).
55 James Srodes, Allen Dulles: Master of Spies (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1999), 183.
56 McMillan, Paris 1919, 11-13.
 32

Catholic Church. Il Duce identified the nerve center of the Italian psyche, an

accomplishment quickly recognized in Germany. Inspired by Mussolini’s march to Rome in

1922, Hitler failed in his first attempt to import Mussolini’s fascism to Germany. He

attempted to make a similar march in Bavaria, only to be arrested and imprisoned for his

role in the Beer Hall Putsch in 1925. As the German economy continued to deteriorate,

Germans reassessed Herr Hitler, electing him chancellor in 1933.

The first two decades of the 20th century not only fostered the growth of political

ideologies, but theological philosophy, as well. Ecumenism, the belief in an international

body composed of members from all Western religions, became popular in the first half of

the twentieth century. Ecumenism is based in the concept of theological realism, and built

a strong following in the first quarter of the century. Ecumenical theology envisioned the

practical application of Christian principles in the context of modern politics and society.

The goal of the movement was not the development or analysis of theological doctrine, but

a dialogue that sought to create a new world order rooted in the Western theological

tradition, which in turn could eliminate war in the modern world.57

The Great Depression of the 1930s was a disaster of international scope, affecting all

elements of society. Individual communities responded variously to the crisis. The

German National Socialist Worker’s Party rose to power and created a schism within the

German Evangelical Church. Two prominent theologians, Karl Barth and Dietrich

Bonhoeffer, spoke publicly against the Nazi regime and boycotted an organizational synod,

held to determine doctrine. The boycott led to a schism in the German Evangelical Church,

57 Warren, Theologians of a New World Order, 5.

 33

divided between the Nazi’s Reich Church and Bonhoeffer’s Confessing Church. Faced with

escalating brutality by the Nazis, Bonhoeffer enlisted the aid of international academics and

ecumenical leaders to spread awareness for the plight of his church. Bonhoeffer’s efforts to

raise consciousness of the rise of German fascism ultimately led to the 1937 Oxford

Conference on Community, State, and Church.

Samuel McCrea Calvert, a founding member of the ecumenical movement and a

representative of the Federal Council of Churches, visited Germany to investigate reports of

civil rights abuses against Jews. During his visit, Calvert witnessed a nationwide

conference of Deutsche Christen, a nazification of Germany’s Evangelical church, as well as

the siege of a Confessing Evangelical Church by Nazi troops. Calvert reported his

observations to council chairman Adam Smith Brown upon his return, and both added their

voices to the growing number of prominent American clergymen concerned with events in

Europe .58 Alarmed by Nazi persecution of minorities, religious leaders sought a means to

address fascism in theological terms. America’s clergy looked to the ecumenical movement

to provide a response to the rising anti-Semitism in Germany. Returning to the United

States, Calvert enlisted the Council of Life and Work and Faith and Order, another leading

ecumenical group, to develop a strategy to support Bonhoeffer’s church. In 1934, Calvert,

along with Life and Work chairman, Bishop G.K.A. Bell, staged the Theological Discussion

Groups as a forum for theologians to join forces with foreign policy experts to effect a new

world order. While conducting its annual conference in Fanø, Denmark, Bell formally

recognized the Confessing Church and condemned the Reich Church. He simultaneously

58 Warren, Theologians of a New World Order, 56-58.

 34

announced “The World Conference on Church, Community, and State,” scheduled to take

place June 1937, in Oxford, England.59

Bell and Calvin chose J.H. Oldham, secretary of the International Missionary Council,

to chair the conference, at which point Oldham resigned his post at the council, in order to

devote his full attention to the conference. Invitees at the conference included celebrated

evangelist Harry Emerson Fosdick, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace, Reinhold

Niebuhr from the Federal Council of Churches, Charles P. Taft, and John Foster Dulles.60

Dulles attended a similar conference in Geneva in 1936, but was unimpressed. He

was more enthusiastic about his experience at Oxford, and developed a close relationship

with Niebuhr and William Adams Brown upon his return to the United States.61 The

council had been an active ecumenical presence in American theology since its inception in

1908, and had a well-developed infrastructure.62 Dulles was so impressed by the Federal

Council of Churches that he accepted the chair for the committee tasked with the

publishing the speeches given at the conference.

Dulles’ association with the Federal Council of Churches provided advantages for

both the council and Dulles. Although significant in the world of theology, the council

wished to politicize, but lacked credibility in international affairs. The Dulles family

tradition of theological eminence was well known among New England’s theological circles.

Dulles’ own sobriquet of the “Christian lawyer” made him the perfect candidate to

transition between the worlds of temporal and divine power for the more conservative

59 Warren, Theologians of a New World Order, 56-59.

60 Warren, Theologians of a New World Order, 73-93
61 Townsend Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles, 55.
62 Warren, Theologians of a New World Order, 11.
 35

theologians. Significantly, the organizational structure of the Federal Council of Churches

included publishing and distribution capabilities, as well as an extensive mailing list of the

churches and other religious organization it served. This provided Dulles with a ready-

made mailing list for his future political constituency.63

It was at the Oxford conference that Dulles reportedly experienced a religious

transformation. The nature of his epiphany is circumstantial, with little in the public

record speaking directly to any specific event. Dulles’ history suggests additional

motivations for his interest, even after allowing from altruism. In their planning, the

organizers of the conference sought to frame the dialogue in terms of international

diplomacy and the secular issues of the day. Dulles’ address to the conference, “The

Problem of Peace in A Dynamic World,” might easily have been published in Foreign Affairs,

rather than in a collection of spiritually based essays. His speech is noteworthy in that he

began to develop the themes of change and elasticity into his narrative, ideas that he will

elaborate upon more fully in WPC.

War, Peace, and Change

When Dulles returned to New York in the summer of 1937, he still hoped to avoid

war, but accepted that it was an increasingly futile battle. Within a year he would turn 50,

having spent the last two decades expanding his reputation and fortune. As successful as

he was, his accomplishments still fell considerably short of his illustrious elders. The single

defining moment in his life, the Treaty of Versailles, had failed. Earlier that year, German

tanks had rolled into Prague, Czechoslovakia, launching the Nazi juggernaut. Dulles’

63 Warren, Theologians of a New World Order, 100.

 36

response at this pivotal moment was to revert to the model that had served him so well

throughout his career. Carefully analyzing his situation, Dulles analyzed the situation,

accepted the untenable nature of further activity with his former European clients, and

began to plan for the inevitable peace that would follow hostilities.

Although he continued as managing partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, Dulles began to

devote considerable time to his efforts with the Federal Council of Churches. His speech at

the Oxford Conference was published as an essay, “The Problem of Peace in A Dynamic

World,” and served as the basis for War, Peace, & Change. In WPC, John Foster Dulles set

out to correct the mistakes made by the Treaty of Versailles. He noted, “Despite the League

of Nations and the Pact of Paris (Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928) the war system still prevails

and all the peoples live under it’s menace. But the high hopes people have put on the

League of Nations and the Pact of Paris have proven illusory.”64

Dulles was making specific reference both to the impending war, and to the impotence of

the League of Nations to hinder it. Combining elements of his unique version of

internationalism with Henri Bergson’s belief in the constancy of change, Dulles began with

the primary concept in his philosophy, the division between static and dynamic entities:

By “static,” we refer to those who are sufficiently satisfied with what they have- in
the way of possessions or opportunities- not to want what any important change in
the structure of society in which they live. By “dynamic” we refer to those who
desire the structure of their society to be changed or their group enlarged in order
to give greater scope to their energy or adventurous disposition or in the hope of
thereby improving, relatively or absolutely, their material or social status.65

64 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 3

65 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 30.
 37

Dulles had substituted the more traditional identifiers “the haves and have-nots” with

“dynamic” and “static,” clearly identifying with dynamic forces.66 He then launched into a

lengthy treatise on the history of force and conflict, defining what he referred to as the “war

system,” defined as “those waged by professional armies without great risk or burden to

the civilian population. War had not only been legal, he wrote, but celebrated. In the past,

humans were motivated chiefly by greed, and wars were localized and limited to the

gentry. He further elaborated, “The history of the human race is largely a history of the

effort to reconcile selfishness with gregariousness. The elimination of the war system is

the final and most difficult phase of this age-long effort.” Dulles juxtapositioned this with

his concept of “totalitarian war.” He explained the difference by clarifying that, “The

prosecution which requires the conscription of the entire population and its resources. It

subjects all to great personal risk and suffering and to enormous material loss incident

both to direct destruction and to the dislocation of all peacetime industries.”67 Its notable

that throughout his discussion of peace and war, Dulles never focused on the human cost,

but spoke in terms of economic and material loss; specifically as it related to the disruption

of commerce. In context of his experience in finance and international law, the term “risk”

was used to describe a constant variable common in enterprise, rather than risk to one’s

life and limb. Dulles believed the world was polarized between “dynamic forces” that

sought to engage in enterprise, expansion, and commerce; “static forces” were content with

their lot, seeking only contentment and stability.

66 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 30-32

67 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 53.
 38

Dulles used ambiguous language when he spoke about a “group authority,” and used

indistinct generalizations to refer to whatever group authority fit the example at hand. He

stated that, “A tendency on the part of political authorities to conceive of their tasks in

terms of short-range results, in an effort to placate those particular forces which most

imminently threaten an overturning of authority.”68 This brings to mind the fascist powers

rising in Europe, but it can also be seen as an extension of Dulles’ argument in “The Security

Act and Foreign Lending.” In fact, the language is often so vague as to allow broad

interpretation of literal translation. By avoiding specifics, Dulles could provide a subtext to

his writing that was identified by his intended audience of corporate internationalists. At

the same time, the overall tone of the book remained prosaic enough to be embraced by the

far less sophisticated congregations of the Federal Council of Churches as a morally-driven

effort to find a solution to world peace.

Dulles moved on to discuss the efforts made to limit war, and defined the results in

the context of either political or ethical solutions. Political solutions inevitably served

national and self-interest and were beholden to the interest of the polity. The ethical

solutions offered by the major religions held promise for Dulles, but they had limitations as

well:

Religions, in theory or in practice, conceive of their deity as having jurisdiction and

interest substantially coterminous with that of the social group it worships. Such a
group is sometimes a national group. Sometimes it embraces more than one
national group. But a single religious group never yet embraced all national
groups.69

68 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 33-34

69 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 19.
 39

Dulles was addressing both the issue of clerical fascism in Italy and the Reich Church in

Germany. Both churches had become enmeshed in the fascist nationalism of their host

countries, and exemplified Dulles’ reservations regarding religious institutions.70 His

rhetoric was again indistinct in the hope of avoiding the alienation of Catholics, both in

America and within the ecumenical community. Dulles suggested that while the ethical

solution had historically proven ineffective, religion still held promise to expand its

influence to encompass all nations.71

Dulles then turned to the limits of political solutions. The problem of solutions by

government was that they relied on a group authority that held allegiance only to that

group. Again, Dulles made a vague reference that could easily be read as either referring to

Papal complicity in Mussolini’s power structure, or the broad array of financial regulations

legislated by the New Deal. Once in power, the group authority would “seek to develop for

themselves a role far transcending that which explains their being.”72

Dulles explained the need to provide flexibility for dynamic nations in terms of

appeasement. He argued that the ability for group authorities to have the elasticity to

allow these dynamic forces to expand without rupturing was an essential component in a

just and durable peace. Again, he defined all groups as either static or dynamic, the

vagueness of his terminology allowing him to refer to Germany’s nationalistic expansion.

In legal terms, the mark of a strong argument is one that will stand, even when the

principals in the equation are altered. In the same manner Dulles labeled Germany , Italy

70 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 83.

71 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 132-133.
72 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 34.
 40

and Japan “dynamic” polities,73 the same argument serves in the context of the Monroe

Doctrine and Roosevelt’s Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.74 Although not technically a

colonial empire, American corporate entities had made extensive investment in the “static”

nations of Central and South America. Dulles had served as chief legal counsel for many of

these corporations, including his association with the ubiquitous United Fruit Company, an

association dating back to 1917, that would prove instrumental in his later career.75 Any

future incursions into the “static” “Banana Republics” would be served by the same

argument.

Dulles felt Germany’s aggression was not only expected in context of the oppressive

reparation schedule, but simply the natural function of a dynamic nation. He saw Hitler as

the nationalistic hero of a dynamic state that had not been allowed to exercise its

enterprising nature, and as a result was left with no recourse other than war. In order to

eliminate the threat of “totalitarian war,” Dulles felt it was imperative that the international

community had the flexibility necessary to stretch, accommodating such filibusters rather

than resorting to the resolution found in the force of arms.76

Dulles laid a framework that then allowed him to address the limits of international

law, echoing his rebuke in “Our Foreign Loans” from October of 1926. The crux of his

argument was that treaties constituted a law within a nation, but further “constitute

bargains driven between two or more parties dealing at arm's’ length and each seeking

only to advance its particular interests.” Treaties between nations are only as good as the

73 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 145.

74 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 141.
75 Pruessen, John Foster Dulles, 22.
76 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 88.
 41

will of all the participants to enforce any given agreement. Dulles believed that

international treaties were plagued by aggressive nationalism, a dynamic that he felt

manageable, if not non-existent, in international cartels with interdependent interests.77

Much of WPC is long-winded, alternately expounding on a series of analogous

tangents and providing observations on human nature. When he returned to his topic,

Dulles explored what later sociologists identified as “the cult of personality.” The group

authority evolved into the nation-hero and nation-villain, personifications of the virtues

and failings each group identifies in it and its enemies. Mussolini, Tojo, Stalin, and Hitler

were obvious examples, but considering his position on the limitations of national

jurisdiction in international affairs, it is reasonable to include Franklin Roosevelt. Dulles

further obscured his references, drawing a parallel between fascism, communism, and

democracy: “We have large groups of people who feel an emotional loyalty to communism

or fascism or democracy. The terms, as popularly used, are largely catchphrases, having

but vague intellectual content. But they serve as slogans useful for the arousing of mass

emotion.”78 Dulles believed strongly that one of the primary causes of war was the

elevation of the “hero” authority figure to near deity status, imbued with superhuman

virtues that reflected the state’s self identity. What may begin as a diplomatic

disagreement between two powerful leaders quickly became a moral crusade against evil.79

77 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 40

78 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 103.
79 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 111.
 42

Dulles also challenged the integrity of the media, accusing the media of facilitating

the goals of the nation-hero/villain with the primary goal of selling copy.80 While he

pointed to the manner in which Goebbels used propaganda to construct the public image of

Hitler, he also recognized the value of propaganda in much broader terms. The manner in

which Dulles consistently accessed the media throughout his career as a means to publicize

his positions appeared disingenuous and diffused his argument. Many of the leading

publishers of the day were close friends; his association with Foreign Affairs, Saturday

Evening Post, and Atlantic Monthly is well documented. Dulles was aware of the power of

media, and possessed a sophisticated understanding in how to use it to his best effect. He

noted, “Scientific developments have created the radio, talking movies and loud-speakers.

They have made it possible to have a widespread, simultaneous distribution of emotion-

exciting pictures.”81 Dulles would later develop a close relationship with Henry Luce,

publisher of Time and Life, and his new relationship with the Federal Council of Churches

proved a vehicle for disseminating his ideas. Dulles was careful in WPC to specify his

concern was primarily with secular media, an indication he sought to avoid alienating his

new theological association with the Federal Council of Churches, publisher of a wide

variety of religious information for dissemination within its member churches.82

Dulles’ focus on the commercial aspect of international relations reflect his work as

legal counsel, and often involved interests that operated in the political margin between

nationalities. The internationalists and investors Dulles had represented throughout his

80 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 65.

81 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 56.
82 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 112.
 43

career decried tariffs and other interference in the transit of commerce. Although Dulles

identified the faults that inhibited commerce and corporate entities from taking a greater

role in international relations, he made a strong case for the ability of capitalism to work

effectively across boundaries. Dulles opined, “The corporation is an institution whereby

capital is brought into fruitful cooperation with physical labor, providing tools of quantity

and quality such that production, per unit of labor, has enormously increased.”83 Although

commerce could not resolve all conflicts independently, Dulles clearly identified

international capital as a means of providing the economic stability necessary to affect a

“political” solution.

Dulles devoted a chapter to his argument regarding the inefficacy of treaties and the

weakness of international law, but he stopped short of criticizing the process and by

extension his complicity. He used this section as a platform in which to both defend the

work of Wilson’s Peace delegation, while simultaneously providing justification for its

failure and that of the League of Nations. In defending the his role in the League of Nations,

Dulles noted that,

Those nations which dominated the League- the victors of the World War-
conceived the League primarily as an instrumentality for perpetuating the status
quo. No thought was given to setting up machinery to effect changes from time to
time in those treaties and in those international conditions “whose continuance
might endanger the peace of the world”(Article 19).84

Dulles also admitted the folly of the Dawes Act, noting, “international trade, if it is made

possible and can be sustained only by credit operations, is both unsound and dangerous,”85

83 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 21.

84 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 81-82.
85 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 79
 44

tangentially addressing the overzealous bond market he had helped to create in the 1920s.

Dulles reached the heart of his argument when he discussed “False or Inadequate

Solutions.” He demonstrated a masterful use of what grammarians refer to as “the royal

we.” By speaking from the first person plural, Dulles implied broad consensus on many of

his more controversial statements: “We have seen that the precipitant of modern war is

primarily ideology and that economic contacts are seldom the cause.” Dulles once again

dismisses economics as a primary source of conflict, distancing himself from accusations

that the impending hostilities were brought about in part by the German loan default.

While the ideology of fascism was omnipresent in the final years precipitating World War

II, Hitler’s argument, and by extension his popularity with the German people, was at least

in part based on the economic crisis catalyzed by German reparations. Dulles appeared to

contradict himself, providing a reasonable explanation for Anschluss and other German

expansionism: “It is partly because certain dynamic peoples feel repressed within areas of

inadequate economic opportunities that there grows up a sense of confinement- of

claustrophobia- which leads to a desire for greater freedom- a so-called “place in the sun.”86

Dulles identified with Neville Chamberlain’s concept of appeasement, and believed such

aggression was an inevitable element of international relations. Dynamic nations tended

toward aggression to satisfy their dynamism, making appeasement preferable to

“totalitarian” war.

One of the elements that identify Dulles’ post-conversion philosophy was his liberal

use of biblical scripture and proselytization, elements that are noticeably absent from WPC.

86 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 77.

 45

If Dulles’ epiphany was of a profound spiritual nature, it bears consideration that it took

five years for any noticeable change in his lexicon. Dulles spoke of religion in sociological

terms in WPC, possibly due to his desire to speak to two vastly different audiences. When

he did speak in terms of religion, he argued that most of the faithful were not

fundamentalist, and that few accepted literal interpretations of the Bible:

Intellectually, they (believers in a literal translation of the Bible) realize that

this text contains statements which cannot be reconciled with one another or with
what they accept as scientific or historic truth. But they accept the whole as an act
of faith. They feel that either all must be true, or none need be true. They do not
permit reason to cast doubt on what is to them a source of vital, spiritual strength.87

In one of the few examples of Dulles’ invocation of religious syntax in WPC, Dulles justified

limiting the sovereignty of nations with a parable,

Christ taught that we should render unto God that which is God’s. The finest
qualities of human nature are too delicate and too powerful to be put blindly at the
disposal of other humans who are primarily concerned with their own kingdom- not
the bringing into being of the Kingdom of God.88

In citing biblical verse, Dulles drew his religious audience into his argument of the

obstacles in the peace process that were exacerbated by national self-interest. The

ecumenical ideology championed at the Oxford Conference on Church, Community, and

State provided a means to effect an “ethical” solution to the struggle against “the war

system,” avoiding what Dulles saw as religion’s greatest flaw, the tendency toward

nationalism. Dulles insisted that, “There is ample evidence that religious concepts remain

87 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 83.

88 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 117.
 46

potentially inspiring and able to create a spiritual unity which overrides national

boundaries.”89

In his conclusion, Dulles finally reached back to his days at the Sorbonne, addressing

change as it related to the title of his book. He had spoken of the pervasive nature of

change earlier, in terms of the need for flexibility in treaties, specifically referring to

Articles 10 and 19 of the Treaty of Versailles. As he closed, Dulles referred specifically to

Henri Bergson, noting what he referred to as the general laws of change: “Change is a

result of the dynamic prevailing over the static. There is always resistance to change, just

as there is always the impulse to change. However, by and large, the dynamic prevails over

the static.”90 Dulles pressed the reader to determine the identity of both the dynamic and

static, forcing a comparison between enterprise and aggression. Speaking in general terms

allowed him to identify the aggression of the German state as dynamic rather than simply

oppressive, while justifying the spirit of enterprise that drove the bond market of the 1920s

as dynamic, rather than economically destructive. Had Dulles allowed that the 1920s bond

market was destructive, he would have invalidated his philosophy due to his implicit

complicity in the causation of hostilities.

Dulles finished without ever fully defining his thesis. His early analysis of ethical

and political situations was resolved by implying that some combination of both remains

essential to peaceful relations. WPC was in many ways a history of the failed efforts to

eliminate the war system without offering concrete suggestions of improvement. If Dulles

returned from Oxford in 1937 after experiencing a religious epiphany in his personal faith,

89 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 119.

90 Dulles, War, Peace and Change, 138.
 47

it was not in evidence in his first major work. Religion was addressed in the same

dispassionate, stoic manner as every other subject in the book. If Dulles was fundamentally

changed by his spiritual reawakening, it is simply not apparent in his first major

philosophical work. The professorial tone he employed throughout WPC brings to mind

the comments Sir Alexander Cadogan recorded after meeting Dulles a few years later,

“Monday, 13 July [1942]: Lunched with A. [Prime Minister Anthony Eden] in his flat. J. F.

Dulles there….. J.F.D. the wooliest type of useless pontificating American… Heaven help

us!”91 John Foster Dulles’ pontifications in WPC were an attempt to provide closure for the

three disparate threads deeply intertwined throughout Dulles’ life: the spirit of free

enterprise and manifest destiny embodied in the Fosters, the missionary theology of the

Dulles, and the failed legacy of Woodrow Wilson’s Treaty of Versailles. The result was an

ill-defined synthesis of ethical and political solution, providing a balance of power never

fully explained. The ethical solution, embodied in the ecumenical theology espoused at the

1937 Oxford Conference on Community, State, and Church, presented the moral structure

necessary to join cultures and nationalities beyond geopolitical boundaries. Corporations,

amoral but pragmatic, provided the discipline and capital necessary to manage local

conflict, while the ecumenical ideology held a moral compass to ensure justice. It was this

corporate internationalism that John Foster Dulles hoped would prove successful where

the League of Nations had inadequate, providing him a measure of redemption for his part

in its failure .

The Commission for the Study of the Bases for a Just and Durable Peace

91 Townsend Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles, 53.

 48

In 1939, Dulles wrote a final essay in Foreign Affairs defending the part he played in

the Paris Peace Conference, reviewing Charles G. Dawes memoir of the period, A Journal of

Reparations. From that point forward, Dulles looked to his future. His association with the

Federal Council of Churches proved fruitful. After negotiating for primary control of its

organizational mission, Dulles accepted the chair of the Committee to Study the Bases of a

Just and Durable Peace in February of 1941.92 His first publication through the council was

a response to the Atlantic Charter, a policy paper supporting the spirit of the alliance

between Roosevelt and Churchill, but arguing against American intervention in World War

I.93 The pamphlet is notable for the absence of any religious overtones, and was distributed

to all member churches on the council. Even five years after his experience at Oxford,

Dulles was still speaking in a secular voice. The shift in his narrative was only evident

when writing for distribution, specifically to member churches of the Federal Council of

Churches; not, as would be the case in later years, when speaking to the public at large.

The true measure of the value in Dulles’ new association came in 1943. The

Committee for a Just and Durable Peace called leaders of government, finance, industry,

theology and education to a symposium and book release, held at Rockefeller Center in

New York. Dulles’ speech, “The Six Pillars of Peace,” illustrated a significant change in the

style in which he spoke, his speech shifting from the duplicitous legalese he employed to

such great effect in his early career, to a language defined by the righteous and the damned:

In 1940, the Federal Council of Churches voted to set up a Commission to study the
bases of a just and durable peace...We have urged upon the churches that they

92 Immerman, John Foster Dulles, 21.

93 John Foster Dulles, Long Range Peace Objectives: Including an Analysis of the Roosevelt-Churchill Eight Point
Declaration (New York: Federal Council of Churches, 1941)
 49

inculcate in men the qualities that Christ taught. We have pointed out that Christ's
way was not to tell men what to do in relation to worldly matters, but to give them
qualities of vision, of mind and of soul so that they would be enlightened and filled
with a righteous faith. We have not sought, indeed we have opposed, the preaching
from the pulpits of politics and economics. We have said to the churches, give us
men and women possessed of Christian qualities, and then our citizenry can be
counted on to take enlightened action.94

Dulles had identified the Federal Council of Churches as the best platform in which to

access the dynamic population of America; those people who filled the pews up in churches

across the nation every Sunday would become his electorate.

The Commission to Study the Bases for a Just and Durable Peace shipped 450,000

copies in the first publication run of “The Six Pillars of Peace.”95 Dulles remained closely

associated with both the commission and the Federal Council of Churches throughout the

World War II. He published a number of essays, pamphlets and other publications while

chairing the commission, each more pious than the last. By the time that Dulles entered the

political arena in 1948, he had embraced his public image as a “Christian lawyer,” honoring

the promise made to his father in his youth.

Roosevelt’s death in 1945, presented long awaited opportunity for conservatives.

Dulles’ interest in the commission waned in favor of new opportunities in the post-war

political landscape. He had provided the corporate and diplomatic credentials necessary to

politicize their organization, and the council had served him well, greatly contributing to

94 John Foster Dulles. “Six Pillars of Peace: Cement Unity Now with United World Collaboration, Lecture;

Commission to Study the Bases of a Just and Durable Peace, New York, NY.” March 18, 1943.
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1943/1943-03-18a.html. (accessed February 22, 2015).
95 Andrew Preston, Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 394-95.
 50

his recognition as America’s most famous Christian lawyer. This reputation would serve

him well in his future battles against the godless atheism of Stalinist Russia.

Conclusion

One of John Foster Dulles’ great passions was sailing. Taught to sail by his

Grandfather Foster, Dulles family legend tells of how a young Foster made it back to port

with his siblings, time and again just ahead of a storm.96 Sailing not only requires a sixth

sense attuned to a coming tempest, but a good sailor must know the precise moment to

change tack, switching direction to avoid catastrophe. John Foster Dulles was intelligent,

intuitive, and incisive. Although Dulles came from a rich tradition of missionaries and

theologians, nothing in his record prior to the “Six Pillars” speech provides any indication

of growing religiosity.

The question arises as to how deeply the spirit had actually moved John Foster

Dulles. Dulles’ son Avery, who switched from the Presbyterian Church of his youth to

Catholicism, went on to achieve renown as a respected theologian. When interviewed for

The Devil and John Foster Dulles, Rev. Dulles told historian Townsend Hoopes, “[Father] was

somewhat selective in his reading of the New Testament, but he did read it frequently and

he got themes from it which he felt harmonized with his own philosophy of life.”97

Rev. Dulles gently indicated that his father’s penchant for Bible study was far more in the

spirit of bolstering arguments than personal enlightenment. Thomas E. Dewey, famous for

his failed run for the Presidency against Harry S. Truman in 1948, had known Dulles since

the early 1930s. Dulles served as a foreign policy expert in Dewey’s campaign, hoping to

96 Eleanor Lansing Dulles, 13.

97 Mosley, Dulles, 98.
 51

finally attain the office of Secretary of State. Dewey was not as reserved as the Rev. Dulles

in regard to Dulles’ piety. He thought Dulles had fallen into atheism during the Interwar

Period.98 That both the Rev. Dulles and Governor Dewey felt compelled to address Dulles’

piety is significant, as it illustrates a broader question as to a disparity between the

powerful faith he publicly professed and true depth of his spiritual reawakening.

Dulles was intermittently active in the effort to establish the United Nations. While

he provided position pieces for Dewey at the Dumbarton Acres conference, he never

committed fully to its inception. In one of the last essays published in Foreign Affairs,

Dulles distanced himself the project arguing that, while laudable, the United Nations

contained many of the same flaws that doomed the League of Nations. Once Dulles had re-

emerged in domestic politics and his career was stabilized, his efforts to implement his

philosophy waned.

Dulles went on to drastically re-imagine his philosophy in regard to affecting world

peace. Making an abrupt reversal upon accepting the position as President Eisenhower’s

Secretary of State, Dulles dismissed elasticity and flexibility in favor of containment and

massive retaliation. He increasingly saw the dynamic expansion of American interests in

the Western Hemisphere as a sign of the power of democracy, while firmly embracing the

nationalism of the “hero group authority.” Rather than an international consortium of

mutually empathetic capitalists, Dulles now saw the world in terms of polemics; America,

the great hero nation, protector of the “Free World,” clenched in mortal combat with the

evil forces of globally advancing communism. Although his pursuit of a just and durable

98 Townsend Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles, 50.

 52

peace had disappeared with the advent of the Cold War, the fiery, evangelical rhetoric had

served him well, eventually becoming an iconic element of post-World War II American

politics.

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One of the central points of WPC was that the absences of nationalism in
international corporations ensured the justice of the free market, and for that
reason only an international marketplace independent of nationalistic influence had
the potential to effect and maintain world peace. This was especially germane in the
area of international treaties, one of the greatest sources of conflict. By encouraging
peaceful international relations via corporate cooperation in international
commerce. coupled with the moral structure of ecunemical organizations to
provide a successful with the internationalism of Woodrow Wilson’s failed League
of Nations. In doing so, With war imminent, WPC gave Dulles a means to change
course, restructuring his assets in order to implement his plans.