Allen Welsh Dulles (/ˈdʌlɪs/DUL-iss; April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was an American lawyer who was the first civiliandirector of central intelligence (DCI), and its longest serving director. As head of theCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the earlyCold War, he oversaw numerous activities, such as the1953 Iranian coup d'état, the1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, theProject MKUltra mind control program, and theBay of Pigs Invasion in 1961. As a result of the failed invasion of Cuba, Dulles was fired by PresidentJohn F. Kennedy.

Allen Dulles
5thDirector of Central Intelligence
In office February 26, 1953 – November 29, 1961
President	Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy
Deputy	Charles P. Cabell
Preceded by	Walter Bedell Smith
Succeeded by	John A. McCone
4thDeputy Director of Central Intelligence
In office August 23, 1951 – February 26, 1953
President	Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower
Preceded by	William H. Jackson
Deputy Director of Central Intelligence for Plans
In office January 4, 1951 – August 23, 1951
President	Harry S. Truman
Preceded by	Position established
Director ofOffice of Strategic Services
In office June 13, 1942 – September 20, 1945
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman
Preceded by	William J. Donovan
Succeeded by	John A. McCone
Personal details
Born	Allen Welsh Dulles (1893-04-07)April 7, 1893 Watertown,New York, U.S.
Died	January 29, 1969(1969-01-29) (aged 75) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Resting place	Green Mount Cemetery
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Martha "Clover" Todd ​ ​ (m. 1920)​
Children	3
Relatives	John Foster Dulles (brother) John Watson Foster (uncle) John Welsh Dulles (grandfather) Miron Winslow (great-grandfather) Harriet Winslow (great-grandmother) Avery Cardinal Dulles (nephew) Dulles family
Education	Princeton University(BA) George Washington University(LLB)

Dulles was a member of theWarren Commission that investigatedKennedy's assassination. Aconspiracy theory suggesting that Dulles and the CIA were somehow involved in Kennedy's assassination and its potential cover up in the Warren Commission have been subject to popular debate among historians, political commentators, and conspiracy theorists. In 1979, theHouse Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that the CIA was not involved in the assassination of Kennedy.^[1]

Between his stints of government service, Dulles was a corporate lawyer and partner atSullivan & Cromwell. His older brother,John Foster Dulles, was theSecretary of State during theEisenhower administration and is the namesake ofDulles International Airport.^[2]

Dulles was born on April 7, 1893, inWatertown, New York,^[3] one of five children ofPresbyterian minister Allen Macy Dulles, and his wife, Edith (née Foster) Dulles. Allen Macy Dulles mixed theological liberalism with stern orthopraxy.^[4]

He was five years younger than his brother,John Foster Dulles,Dwight D. Eisenhower'sSecretary of State and chairman and senior partner ofSullivan & Cromwell, and two years older than his sister, the diplomatEleanor Lansing Dulles. His maternal grandfather,John W. Foster, was Secretary of State underBenjamin Harrison, while his uncle by marriage,Robert Lansing was Secretary of State underWoodrow Wilson.^[5] Growing up in aparsonage, Dulles was made to attend church daily. As his parents distrusted public education, Dulles washomeschooled by various private tutors.^[6][7]

Dulles graduated fromPrinceton University, where he participated in theAmerican Whig–Cliosophic Society.^[8] He taught school inIndia before entering the diplomatic service in 1916.^[9] In 1920, he married Martha "Clover" Todd (March 5, 1894 – April 15, 1974). They had three children: daughters Clover and Joan,^[10] and son Allen Macy Dulles II (1930–2020), who was wounded and permanently disabled in theKorean War and spent the rest of his life in and out of medical care.^[11]

According to his sister, Eleanor, Dulles had "at least a hundred" extramarital affairs, including some during his tenure with the CIA.^[12]

Initially assigned toVienna, he was transferred toBern, Switzerland, along with the rest of the embassy personnel shortly before the U.S. entered the First World War.^[13] Later in life Dulles said he had been telephoned byVladimir Lenin, seeking a meeting with the American embassy on April 8, 1917,^[13] the day before Lenin left Switzerland to travel toSaint Petersburg aboard a German train. After recovering from theSpanish flu he was assigned to the American delegation at theParis Peace Conference, along with his elder brother Foster.^[14]

In 1921, while at the US Embassy inIstanbul, he helped exposeThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a forgery. Dulles unsuccessfully attempted to persuade theUS State Department to publicly denounce the forgery.^[15][16]

From 1922 to 1926, Dulles served as chief of theNear East division of theDepartment of State. He then earned a law degree fromGeorge Washington University Law School and took a job atSullivan & Cromwell, the New York firm where his brother, John Foster Dulles, was a partner. He became a director of theCouncil on Foreign Relations in 1927, the first new director since the Council's founding in 1921. He was the Council's secretary from 1933 to 1944 and its president from 1946 to 1950.^[17]

During the late 1920s and the early 1930s, he served as legal adviser to the delegations on arms limitation at theLeague of Nations. He met withAdolf Hitler,Benito Mussolini, Soviet Foreign MinisterMaxim Litvinov, and the prime ministers of Britain and France.^[18] In April 1933, Dulles andNorman Davis met with Hitler in Berlin onState Department duty. After the meeting, Dulles wrote to his brother Foster and reassured him that conditions under Hitler's regime "are not quite as bad" as an alarmist friend had indicated. Dulles rarely spoke about his meeting with Hitler, and future CIA directorRichard Helms had not even heard of their encounter until decades after the death of Dulles and expressed shock that his former boss had never told him about it. After meeting with German Information MinisterJoseph Goebbels, Dulles stated he was impressed with him and cited his "sincerity and frankness" during their interaction.^[19]

In 1935, Dulles returned from a business trip to Germany concerned by theNazi treatment ofGerman Jews and, despite his brother's objections, led a movement within the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell to close their Berlin office.^[20][21] The effort was successful, and the firm ceased to conduct business in Nazi Germany.^[22]

As theRepublican Party began to divide intoisolationist andinterventionist factions, Dulles became an outspoken interventionist, running unsuccessfully in 1938 for the Republican nomination in New York'sSixteenth Congressional District on a platform calling for the strengthening of U.S. defenses.^[22] Dulles collaborated withHamilton Fish Armstrong, the editor ofForeign Affairs magazine, on two books,Can We Be Neutral? (1936), andCan America Stay Neutral? (1939). They concluded that diplomatic, military, and economic isolation, in a traditional sense, were no longer possible in an increasingly interdependent international system.^{[23][page needed]} Dulles helped some German Jews, such as the banker Paul Kemper, escape to the United States from Nazi Germany.^[24]

Dulles was recruited into theOffice of Strategic Services byWilliam J. Donovan in October 1941, after the outbreak of the World War II in Europe, and on November 12, 1942, he moved to Bern, Switzerland, where he lived atHerrengasse 23 for the duration of World War II.^[25] As Swiss Director of theOSS,^[3] Dulles worked on intelligence about German plans and activities, and established wide contacts with German émigrés, resistance figures, and anti-Nazi intelligence officers. He was assisted in intelligence-gathering activities byGero von Schulze-Gaevernitz, a German emigrant. Dulles also received valuable information fromFritz Kolbe, a German diplomat, one whom he described as the best spy of the war. Kolbe supplied secret documents about active German spies and plans for theMesserschmitt Me 262 jet fighter.

Dulles was in contact with the Austrian resistance group around the priestHeinrich Maier, who collected information through many different contacts with scientists and the military. From 1943 onward, he received very important information from this resistance group aboutV-1,V-2 rockets,Tiger tanks,Messerschmitt Bf 109,Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, and other aircraft and the related factories. This helped Allied bombers to target war-decisive armaments factories. In particular, Dulles then had crucial information forOperation Crossbow andOperation Hydra. The group reported to him about the mass murder in Auschwitz. Through the Maier Group and Kurt Grimm, Dulles also received information about the economic situation in the Nazi sphere of influence. After the resistance group was uncovered by the Gestapo, Dulles sent American agents to Austria to contact any surviving members.^{[26][27][28][29][30]}

Although Washington barred Dulles from making firm commitments to the plotters of the July 20, 1944attempt to assassinate Hitler, the conspirators nonetheless gave him reports on developments in Germany, including sketchy but accurate warnings of plans for Hitler'sV-1 andV-2 missiles.^[31]

Dulles was involved inOperation Sunrise, secret negotiations in March 1945 to arrange a local surrender of German forces in northern Italy. His actions in Operation Sunrise have been criticized by historians for offering German SS GeneralKarl Wolff protection from prosecution at the Nuremberg trial, and creating a diplomatic rift between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. After the war in Europe, Dulles served for six months as theOSS Berlin station chief and later as station chief in Bern.^[32] The Office of Strategic Services was dissolved in October 1945 and its functions transferred to the State and War Departments.

In 1947, Dulles served as a senior staffer on theHerter Committee.^[33]

In the1948 Presidential election, Dulles was, together with his brother, an advisor to Republican nomineeThomas E. Dewey. The Dulles brothers andJames Forrestal helped form theOffice of Policy Coordination. During 1949 he co-authored theDulles–Jackson–Correa Report, which was sharply critical of the Central Intelligence Agency, which had been established by theNational Security Act of 1947. Partly as a result of the report, Truman named a new Director of Central Intelligence, Lieutenant GeneralWalter Bedell Smith.^{[citation needed]}

Smith recruited Dulles into theCIA to oversee the agency's covert operations asDeputy Director for Plans, a position he held from January 4, 1951. On August 23, 1951, Dulles was promoted to deputy director of Central Intelligence, second in the intelligence hierarchy. In this capacity, in 1952–53 he was one of five members of theState Department Panel of Consultants on Disarmament during the last year of theTruman administration.^[34]

After the election of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, Bedell Smith shifted to the Department of State and Dulles became the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence. Dulles played a role in convincing Eisenhower to follow one of the conclusions of the State Department Panel report, that the American public deserved to be informed of the perils of possible nuclear war with the Soviet Union, because even though America held numerical nuclear superiority, the Soviets would still have enough nuclear weapons to severely damage American society regardless of how many more such bombs the United States might possess or how badly those U.S. weapons could destroy the Soviets.^[34]

The Agency's covert operations were an important part of theEisenhower administration's newCold Warnational security policy known as the "New Look".

At Dulles's request, President Eisenhower demanded thatSenatorJoseph McCarthy discontinue issuingsubpoenas against the CIA. In March 1950, McCarthy had initiated a series of investigations into potentialcommunist subversion of the Agency. Although none of the investigations revealed any wrongdoing, the hearings were potentially damaging, not only to the CIA's reputation but also to the security of sensitive information. Documents made public in 2004 revealed that the CIA, under Dulles's orders, had broken into McCarthy's Senate office and fed disinformation to him in order to discredit him, in order to stop his investigation of alleged communist infiltration of the CIA.^[35]

In the early 1950s, theUnited States Air Force conducted a competition for a new photo reconnaissance aircraft.Lockheed Aircraft Corporation'sSkunk Works submitted a design number called the CL-282, which married sailplane-like wings to the body of a supersonic interceptor. This aircraft was rejected by the Air Force, but several of the civilians on the review board took notice, andEdwin Land presented a proposal for the aircraft to Dulles. The aircraft became what is known as theU-2 'spy plane', and it was initially operated by CIA pilots. Its introduction into operational service in 1957 greatly enhanced the CIA's ability to monitorSoviet activity through overhead photo surveillance. The aircraft eventually entered service with the Air Force.^[36] The Soviet Unionshot down and captured a U-2 in 1960 during Dulles's term as CIA chief.^[3]

Dulles is considered one of the creators of the modern United States intelligence system and was a guide to clandestine operations during the Cold War. He established intelligence networks worldwide to check and counter Soviet and eastern European communist advances as well as international communist movements.^{[37][24][38][page needed]}

In 1953, Dulles was involved, along withFrank Wisner,^{[39][page needed]} inOperation Ajax, the covert operation that led to the removal of democratically elected prime minister ofIran,Mohammad Mossadegh,^[40] and his replacement withMohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran. Rumors of a Soviet takeover of the country had surfaced due to the nationalization of theAnglo-Iranian Oil Company.^[41] By coincidence, on August 18, 1953, Dulles was taking a vacation in Rome while the Shah fled there after a setback in the coup, and the two met while checking in to theHotel Excelsior. The meeting turned out to be fortuitous for the United States and the coup. CIA and independent historians say that the meeting was happenstance, but conspiracy theories abound.^[42]

PresidentJacobo Arbenz Guzman ofGuatemala was removed in 1954 in aCIA-led coup carried out under the code name Operation PBSuccess.^[43]

Eduardo Galeano described Dulles as a former member of theUnited Fruit Company's Board of Directors.^[44] However, in a detailed examination of the connections between the United Fruit Company and the Eisenhower Administration, Immerman makes no mention of Dulles being part of the United Fruit Company's Board, although he does note that Sullivan & Cromwell had represented the company.^[45]

Dulles was strongly opposed to Congolese Prime MinisterPatrice Lumumba. In 1960 a plan to kill Lumumba was considered and Dulles allocated $100,000 to the plan, but it never materialised.^[46] Dulles believed that Lumumba posed "a grave danger as long as he was not disposed of".^[47]

Several failed assassination plots utilizing CIA-recruited operatives and anti-Castro Cubans directly against Castro undermined the CIA's credibility. The reputation of the agency and its director declined drastically after theBay of Pigs Invasion fiasco of 1961. President Kennedy reportedly said he wanted to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds."^{[citation needed]} However, following a "rigorous inquiry into the agency's affairs, methods, and problems ... [Kennedy] did not 'splinter' it after all and did not recommend Congressional supervision. Instead, President Kennedy transferred the CIA's command of foreign paramilitaries to the Department of Defense under the close supervision and control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff which would also report on CIA plans and operations to the President."^[48]

During theKennedy Administration, Dulles faced increasing criticism.^[3] In autumn 1961, following theBay of Pigs incident and theAlgiers putsch againstCharles de Gaulle, Dulles and his entourage, includingDeputy Director for PlansRichard M. Bissell Jr. and Deputy DirectorCharles Cabell, were forced to resign. On November 28, 1961, Kennedy presented Dulles with theNational Security Medal at the CIA Headquarters inLangley, Virginia.^[49] The next day, November 29, the White House released a resignation letter signed by Dulles.^[50] He was replaced byJohn McCone.

Dulles referred to the Bay of Pigs failure as "the worst day of my life"^[51] and developed a strong dislike of Kennedy, later telling journalistWillie Morris "that little Kennedy, he thought he was a god".^[52] Dulles found life outside the CIA difficult, with his friendJames Angleton recalling "He had a very difficult time to decompress".^[53]

Later, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, on November 22, 1963, PresidentLyndon B. Johnson appointed Dulles as one of seven commissioners of theWarren Commission to investigate theassassination of the U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Some historians later criticized the appointment, noting that Kennedy fired him. Therefore, he was unlikely to be impartial in passing the judgments charged to the Warren Commission. In the view of journalist and authorStephen Kinzer, Johnson appointed Dulles primarily so that Dulles could "coach" the Commission on how to interview CIA witnesses and what questions to ask because Johnson and Dulles were both anxious to ensure that the Commission did not discover Kennedy's secret involvement in the administration's illegal plans to assassinate Castro and other foreign leaders.^[54][55]Robert F. Kennedy also urgedLyndon Johnson to put Allen Dulles on the Warren Commission most likely fearing revelation of Kennedy's clandestine involvement in Cuba.^[56]

In 1966,Princeton University'sAmerican Whig-Cliosophic Society awarded Dulles theJames Madison Award for Distinguished Public Service.^[57]

Dulles published the bookThe Craft of Intelligence in 1963,^[58] and editedGreat True Spy Stories in 1968.^{[citation needed]}

He died on January 29, 1969, ofinfluenza, complicated bypneumonia, at the age of 75, inGeorgetown, D.C.^[2][3] He was buried inGreen Mount Cemetery inBaltimore, Maryland.^[59]

• Liberation (1970–1971), a multinational fictional film series that shows Dulles in a photograph torn apart byJoseph Stalin inFilm IV: The Battle of Berlin.
• Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973), a Soviet television miniseries in which Vyacheslav Salevich depicts Dulles's role inOperation Sunrise duringWorld War II.
• In theBlackford Oakes novels (1976–2005), a spy series written byWilliam F. Buckley Jr., Dulles is portrayed in several books, acting in his role as director of the CIA.
• JFK (1991), a film that depictsJim Garrison, aNew OrleansDistrict Attorney, as suspecting Dulles as a participant in the cover-up surrounding Kennedy's assassination and attempts tosubpoena him.
• The Commission (2003), a fictional film that depicts Dulles, played byJack Betts, as a participant in theWarren Commission and investigator into the Kennedy assassination.
• The Good Shepherd (2006), a fictional film in whichWilliam Hurt portrays the fictional head of the CIA, Phillip Allen, who appears to be based on Dulles.
• The Company (2007), an American miniseries based on the novelThe Company: A Novel of the CIA (2002) by American novelistRobert Littell.
• The Honor of Spies (2009) in theHonor Bound series and also theMen At War series, a novel series written byW.E.B. Griffin and his son. Dulles is portrayed as part of the European Head of the OSS and the Swiss Agent in Charge respectively.
• Nick and Jake (2012), a novel co-written byTad Richards andJonathan Richards and published byArcade Publishing. Allen Dulles is depicted as plotting a coup to overthrow the government of France.^[60]

• Bridge of Spies (2015), a movie about the exchange ofRudolf Abel andFrancis Gary Powers, depicts a conversation betweenJames B. Donovan (portrayed byTom Hanks) and Dulles (portrayed byPeter McRobbie).
• Central Intelligence (2024) is a ten-part dramatisation of the emergence and development of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) told from the perspective of Eloise Page. Broadcast on BBC Radio 4, the series featuresEd Harris as Allen Dulles.

• "The Power of the President Over Foreign Affairs."Michigan Law Review, vol. 14, no. 6 (April 1, 1916), pp. 470–478.University of Michigan Law School.doi:10.2307/1275947.JSTOR 1275947.
• "New Uses for the Machinery for the Settlement of International Disputes: Discussion."Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, vol. 13, no. 2 (1929), pp. 100–104.doi:10.2307/1172785.JSTOR 1172785.
• Dulles, Allen Welsh (April 1, 1927).Coolidge, Archibald Cary (ed.). "Some misconceptions about disarmament".Foreign Affairs. Vol. 5, no. 3. New York, NY:Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). pp. 413–424.doi:10.2307/20028543.ISSN 0015-7120.JSTOR 20028543.
• Dulles, Allen Welsh (October 1, 1932).Armstrong, Hamilton Fish (ed.). "Progress toward Disarmament".Foreign Affairs. Vol. 11, no. 1. New York, NY:Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). pp. 54–65.doi:10.2307/20030483.ISSN 0015-7120.JSTOR 20030483.
• Dulles, Allen Welsh (April 1, 1925).Coolidge, Archibald Cary (ed.). "Alternatives for Germany".Foreign Affairs. Vol. 25, no. 3. New York, NY:Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). pp. 421–432.doi:10.2307/20030052.ISSN 0015-7120.JSTOR 20030052.
• Dulles, Allen Welsh (May 10, 1965).Boudin, Michael; Breyer, Stephen (eds.). "Review: [Untitled]: Reviewed work: Communism and Revolution: The Strategic Use of Political Violence by Cyril E. Black, Thomas P. Thornton".Harvard Law Review. Vol. 78, no. 7. Cambridge, MA: The Harvard Law Review Association (Harvard Law School). pp. 1500–1502.doi:10.2307/1338919.ISSN 0017-811X.JSTOR 1338919.LCCN 12032979.OCLC 46968396.

• Dulles, Allen Welsh (2003).Armstrong, Hamilton Fish (ed.). "That Was Then: Allen W. Dulles on the Occupation of Germany".Foreign Affairs. Vol. 82, no. 6. New York, NY:Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). pp. 2–8.doi:10.2307/20033751.ISSN 0015-7120.JSTOR 20033751.

• Dulles, Allen Wells;Armstrong, Hamilton Fish (1936).Can We Be Neutral? (1st ed.). New York, NY:Harper & Brothers/Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).OCLC 513361.
• Dulles, Allen Wells;Armstrong, Hamilton Fish (1939).Can America Stay Neutral (1st ed.). New York, NY:Harper & Brothers.OCLC 256170.
• Dulles, Allen Welsh (1947).Germany's underground (1st ed.). New York, NY:The Macmillan Company.LCCN 47002566.
• The Marshall Plan. Co-authored by Michael Wala. Providence, RI: Berg, 1993.ISBN 978-0854963508
• Dulles, Allen Welsh; Petersen, Nancy (1996). Petersen, Neal H. (ed.).From Hitler's Doorstep: The Wartime Intelligence Reports of Allen Dulles, 1942–1945 (1st ed.). Pennsylvania, PA:Pennsylvania State University Press.ISBN 978-0-271-01485-2 – viaGoogle Books.
• Dulles, Allen Wells (1966).The Secret Surrender: The Classic Insider's Account of the Secret Plot to Surrender Northern Italy During WWII. Popular Library. Vol. 60 (1st ed.). Guilford, CT:Harper & Row.ISBN 9789160042242.
• Dulles, Allen Welsh (1963).The Craft of Intelligence: America's Legendary Spy Master on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering for a Free World(PDF). Guilford, CT:The Lyons Press.ISBN 1592282970.

• Great True Spy Stories. New York:Harper & Row (1968).

• Foreword toTo the Bitter End: An Insider's Account of the Plot to Kill Hitler, by Hans B. Gisevius. New York:Da Capo Press (1998).ISBN 978-0306808692.

• John Foster Dulles
• Dulles' Plan, apost-Cold War conspiracy theory centering around an alleged plan to destroy the Soviet Union

• Hastings, Max (2015).The Secret War: Spies, Codes and Guerrillas, 1939–1945. London:William Collins.ISBN 978-0007503742
• Peyrefitte, Alain (2011).C'etait de Gaulle. Distribooks.ISBN 978-2253151852
• Sharp, Tony (2014).Stalin's American Spy: Noel Field, Allen Dulles and the East European Show-Trials.Hurst.ISBN 978-1849044967
• Talbot, David (2015).The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government.HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0062276216
• von Lingen, Kerstin (2013).Allen Dulles, the OSS, and Nazi War Criminals: The Dynamics of Selective Prosecution.Cambridge University Press.ISBN 978-1107025936

• Allen Dulles atFind a Grave
• Allen Dulles atOpen Library
• Allen Dulles atWorldCat

Works available online

• Works by Allen Dulles atInternet Archive
• Works by Allen Dulles atForeign Affairs
• Works by Allen Dulles atJSTOR
• Works by Allen Dulles atOnline Books Page

Archival materials

• to Allen Dulles atCentral Intelligence Agency
• Personal papers at theSeeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library atPrinceton University
• FBI file on Allen Dulles
• "The Role of Intelligence in Policy Making" (RAM). Audio recording of a lecture given by Dulles.