John Foster Dulles

John Foster Dulles ( ; February 25, 1888 – May 24, 1959) was an American politician, lawyer, and diplomat. A member of the Republican Party, Dulles served as United States Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 until his resignation in 1959 (due to his colon cancer diagnosis) and was briefly a Senator from New York in 1949. He was a significant figure in the early Cold War era, who advocated an aggressive stance against communism throughout the world.

Born in Washington, D.C., John Dulles joined the leading New York law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell after graduating from George Washington University Law School. His grandfather, John W. Foster, and his uncle, Robert Lansing, both served as United States Secretary of State, while his brother, Allen Dulles, served as the Director of Central Intelligence from 1953 to 1961. John Foster Dulles served on the War Industries Board during World War I and he was a U.S. legal counsel at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. He became a member of the League of Free Nations Association, which supported American membership in the League of Nations. Dulles also helped design the Dawes Plan, which sought to stabilize Europe by reducing German war reparations. During World War II, Dulles was deeply involved in post-war planning with the Federal Council of Churches Commission on a Just and Durable Peace.

Dulles served as the chief foreign policy adviser to Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican presidential nominee in 1944 and 1948. He also helped draft the preamble to the United Nations Charter and served as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly. In 1949, Dewey appointed Dulles to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Democratic Senator Robert F. Wagner. Dulles served for four months before his defeat in a special election by Herbert H. Lehman.

Despite having supported his political opponents, Dulles became a special advisor to President Harry S. Truman, with a focus on the Indo-Pacific region. In this role from 1950 to 1952, he became the primary architect of the Treaty of San Francisco, which ended World War II in Asia, the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty, which established the U.S.–Japan Alliance, and the ANZUS security treaty between Australia, New Zealand, and United States.

After Eisenhower won the 1952 presidential election, he chose Dulles as Secretary of State. Throughout his tenure, Dulles favored a strategy of massive retaliation in response to Soviet aggression and concentrated on building and strengthening Cold War alliances, most prominently the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He was the architect of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), an anti-communist defensive alliance between the United States and several nations in and near Southeast Asia. He also helped instigate the 1953 Iranian coup d'état and the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan government. Dulles advocated support of the French in their war against the Viet Minh in Indochina but rejected the Geneva Accords between France and the communists, instead supporting South Vietnam after the Geneva Conference in 1954. Suffering from cancer, Dulles resigned from office in 1959 and died a month later. Provided by Wikipedia