John Foster Dulles

John Foster Dulles (February 25, 1888 – May 24, 1959) was an American politician, lawyer, and diplomat who served as United States secretary of state under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 until his resignation in 1959. A member of the Republican Party, he was briefly a U.S. senator from New York in 1949. Dulles was a significant figure in the early Cold War era who pushed for an aggressive rollback campaign against communist regimes and their allies throughout the world.

Born in Washington, D.C., 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 U.S. secretary of state, while his brother, Allen Dulles, served as the director of central intelligence from 1953 to 1961. Dulles served on the War Trade 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 advisor to Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican nominee for president in both 1944 and 1948. He also played a significant role in drafting the preamble to the United Nations Charter and represented the United States at the UN General Assembly. In 1949, after the resignation of Robert F. Wagner, Dewey appointed Dulles to the U.S. Senate for New York. However, his tenure lasted only four months before he was defeated in a special election. 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, and on behalf of the United States and Allied Forces established a peace deal with Japan, formally ending World War II in the Pacific. He then shifted focus on security alliances and by 1952 had established both the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty and the ANZUS security treaty between Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.