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| DAVID TALBOT |
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| ALLEN DULLES |
DAVID TALBOT goes back to Dulles’ early
years as a corporate lawyer in the 1920s and 30s with offices on Wall Street and, along with his brother John Foster Dulles,+
had a rich clientele both in
the United States and abroad. During WWII Allen was station-chief in Switzerland for the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), a spy agency for
the Allies and the forerunner of the CIA. Noteworthy is the role Dulles and other operatives played in creating the infamous "ratlines" for escaping Nazi scientists, military strategists, and elites. Dulles was particularly proud of his involvement in keeping Reinhard Gehlen, Hilter's intelligence chief, out of the hands of the advancing Russians (who would have shot the Nazi official) as the war raveled to its close. And during the post-war years, Dulles even had him installed as West Germany's top security chief, giving the CIA a direct channel to valuable information about the Cold War scene in Europe (not-to-mention what Gehlen could reveal about Nazi Germany's security operations).
AFTER the war, the perceived threat of
international communism brought into being the CIA, and Talbot details how the
agency evolved from an intelligence gathering service to one that practiced
election interference, covert operations, and "executive actions". One
thing I found interesting was the level of influence both Dulles brothers
had on the direction American foreign policy took vis-à-vis the USSR. During the 1950s, the brothers successfully promoted a harder line against the communist state than President Eisenhower would probably have taken. Foster, as Secretary of State, handled diplomatic initiatives against the Soviets and their allies while Allen handled the covert
war against the communists.
TALBOT shows us how the
'sausage is made' behind the scenes in government and elite circles, and partly answers the question Truman grappled with decades
earlier: Just what is the role of a secret intelligence agency in a democracy? And, save for a few years following the 1975 Church Committee hearings in Congress set up to investigate CIA abuses1 that temporarily clipped the agency’s wings, the answer is that the CIA's role in the intelligence game is to do just
about anything it wants, or felt it needed, to do. Within reason, of course.
TWO REVELATIONS stood out for me:
One I’ve mentioned—the hard line taken against the USSR that was promoted
by the Dulles brothers which increased tensions in the already strained
relations between America and Soviet Russia post-WWII.
The second I’d never heard before—that in early November 1963, there was a second plot to assassinate
President Kennedy as he entered the campaign season. Kennedy was due to visit Chicago in a similar fashion as he would later tour Dallas. Marksmen were to be stationed along the parade route to kill the incumbent
president as his motorcade drove to O’Hare Stadium for a rally. Details of the
plot are sketchy, and I feel slide into the realm of “conspiracy theory”, but I
don’t dismiss entirely the possibility; there are some curious coincidences between the two assassination
plots, particularly their Cuban ex-pats connection....
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| N. MACHIAVELLI 1469-1527 |
TALBOT’S BOOK details Dulles’
personal life—his marriage, his mistresses, his relationship with his children,
his friendships, and so on, and the reader is left with the impression of a man
who holds great secrets pridefully, and who acts with icy rationality, seeing
others as mere pawns for him to use, even those closest to him. Dulles would elevate people or sacrifice
them as the situation warranted, and I see him as a psychopath, enabled and intoxicated by
the secret levers of power he came to control and wield. Even after his dismissal
as director of the CIA by Kennedy in 1961 following his Bay of Pigs debacle, Dulles maintained ties with many of the agency's high-ranking officers and with the expanding “deep state”, acting as an éminence grise
behind
the scenes, influencing CIA policy until his death in 1969. Machiavelli would have been proud.
Talbot structures his biography
of Dulles chronologically, providing the reader with details of his many
doings in the cloak and dagger business.
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| BAY OF PIGS 1961 |
SOME of Dulles’ top 10 hits might
ring a bell:
👉1948: Italy: In the general
elections, suitcases of cash were used to defeat the leftist Popular Democratic
Front party.
👉1953: Iran: Promoted a coup in Iran
to defeat the incumbent socialist prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh and installed puppet ruler Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. [Blowback bigtime! c. 1979. Ed.]
👉1954: Guatemala: Successfully promoted another
coup to depose
the democratically elected, though left-leaning, Guatemalan President, Jacobo Árbenz. Incidentally
American Sec. of State John Foster Dulles planned the coup while his brother Allen
worked out the mechanics. They were quite the team!
👉1960: Democratic Republic of the Congo:
Operatives handed over left-leaning Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba to opposition rebels. He was later
executed. (That’s one way to keep your hands clean.)
👉1961: Cuba: Bay of Pigs. Oopsie!
👉1963: Kennedy assassination?
👉1963-64: Dulles is a committee
member on the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President
Kennedy. Talbot makes it clear this was a case of the fox
guarding the hen-house. The ex-CIA chief influenced which avenues of
investigation the committee took and, funnily enough, they all led to the “Lone
Gunman” and self-described “Patsy”, Lee Harvey Oswald.
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| DALLAS 1963 |
“But what I was really trying to do was a biography on the American power elite from World War II up to the 60s. That was the key period when the national security state was constructed in this country, and where it begins to overshadow American democracy [and where] you have the dynastic struggles between these power groups within the American system for control of the country and the world.” (Mother Jones)
HE ADDS, “I focused on
those elements that I thought were important to understanding him. I think that
you can make a case, although I didn’t explicitly say this in the book, for
Allen Dulles being a psychopath.” (Mother Jones)
TALBOT goes into considerable detail around the CIA’s
possible involvement in the assassination of JFK and makes it clear that Dulles'
deep-seated hatred for the president after his dismissal by him in 1961 was a strong
motive for the ex-CIA chief to seek revenge. JFK was loathed among the
ranks of the Cuban diaspora in Miami, who never forgave him for the Bay of Pigs
fiasco, and the contacts Dulles had in their circles after 1961 is just one of
several disturbing scenarios Talbot presents that suggest Dulles and rogue CIA
operatives were complicit in killing the American president.
"He had to be
removed. [Kennedy] That’s what I think the consensus [among elites, operatives] finally
was about him. And Dulles would have been the person, as the executor of this
kind of security wing of the American establishment, who would have been given
this job." (Mother Jones)
WHEN ASKED whether today's surveillance system in the United States can be seen as a legacy of the Dulles' years, Talbot concludes:
“That same kind
of dynamic was revived or in some ways expanded after 9/11 by the
Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld administration. Those guys very much were in keeping with
the sort of Dulles ethic, that of complete ruthlessness. It’s this feeling of
unaccountability, that democratic sanctions and regulations don’t make sense in
today’s ruthless world.” (Mother Jones)
I'LL END HERE by
recommending Talbot’s compelling and disturbing biography of a modern-day
monster.
Cheers, Jake.
_______________________________________
* Great title, BTW.
+ Foster was Secretary of
State under Eisenhower from 1953-59.
1. MK-ULTRA,
for example.
Movies and documentary of interest:
"Executive Action" 1973, Burt Lancaster.
"JFK", 1991, Kevin Costner. (written and directed by Oliver Stone)
"JFK Revisited: 2021, Through the Looking Glass" documentary. (written by Oliver Stone)
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