Evil in American Diplomacy

JOHN FOSTER DULLES

At the end of 1949, after the Russian coup in Czechoslovakia, the first Russian atomic test, and the convictions of Alger Hiss and Dr. Klaus Fuchs, Senator Joseph McCarthy stated, “This must be a product of a great conspiracy.” (Hoopes 202-203)

Religion is personally important to policymakers, so they cannot ignore the views of organized religion. Unfortunately, diplomatic historians do. There has been an assumption that leaders like John Foster Dulles used religion cynically. (Preston 8)

In order for America to participate in the Great War (now known as the First World War, “the large organizations of liberal Protestantism placed their services in the hands of the Wilson administration and its war campaign.” (Preston 264)

Among the leaders of these groups was John Foster Dulles. (Preston 264)

Although Americans recognized the cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union during World War II, that was when amicability ended. “John Foster Dulles, a leading voice of mainline Protestantism, told a 1942 religious conference in England that the Soviet-American alliance was purely a matter of converging interests, not systems and that the feeling in America was strongly anti-Russian.” (Preston 363)

After the defeat of Nazism in 1945, Dulles became consumed with anti-communism. He thought it more dangerous than fascism. (Preston 406)

During World War II, John Foster Dulles “worked tirelessly” to establish the United Nations. Nevertheless, he insisted that the United States be able to withdraw. In the beginning, he foresaw a “world flourishing in a just and durable peace; now, he foresaw a new apocalypse if atheistic, materialistic, autocratic, militaristic communism was not stopped. The U.S. must not appease “evil” again. (Preston 407)

When the United Nations was established in San Francisco in 1945, Dulles grew concerned about Soviet influence. (Preston 407)

Dulles believed in the “Monroe Doctrine and the Inter-American System, even though they undermined the universalism that should have provided the U.N.’s very foundation.” (Preston 407)

Dulles and Christianity 

“At its very foundations, then, America’s diplomacy was a spiritual diplomacy - it could be no other way, and nor should it be. This, at least, was the gospel according to John Foster Dulles.” (Preston 464)

Preston ties John Foster Dulles's ecumenism to his support of a “united Western Europe that could stand as a bulwark against the spread of communism” (Preston 461).

Citing St. Paul, one must “carry the shield of the faith. . . . this has led to the promotion of peace: Christian pacifism, anti-interventionism, anti-imperialism, and internationalism.” (Preston 8)

After it was established in 1940, the Federal Council of Churches selected legalistic Presbyterian layman John Foster Dulles to lead its Commission on a Just and Durable Peace.” Dulles was a stubborn Calvinist. (Preston 385)

Dulles’s Style of Diplomacy

After a meeting in 1942, “British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden . . . called hime [Dulles] the wooliest type of useless pontificating American. Heaven help us! . . . a preacher in world politics . . . little regard for the consequences of his words.” (Preston 385)

Winston Churchill famously said Dulles was the only case of a bull I know who carries his china closet with him.” (Preston 385)

Thus, John Foster Dulles earned “the reputation of a war monger.” (Preston 460) “By the mid-1950s, Dulles and the mainline clergy [FCC] had completely lost faith in one another. As John MacKay, president of the Princeton Theological Seminary . . . reflected, Dulles lacked a constructive approach to America’s role in the world. I cannot but feel that in this, Mr. Dulles was not really true to his deepest self and insights, which he had formerly expressed. For his part, Dulles thought the churches had simply lost touch with the realities of geopolitics.” (Preston 460)

John Foster Dulles could not understand the subtle nuances of international relations. (Hoopes 459)

Dulles walked a fine line in his public discussions of war and peace. “Many were appalled by a public relations ineptitude that cast grave doubt upon the nation’s professions of peaceful intent and tarnished the attractive image that Eisenhower had conveyed at the summit just seven months before.” (Hoopes 310)

Soviet Union

Perhaps ironically, perhaps not, but Dulles became “one of the leading American proponents. . . . of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.” (Preston 458-459) He reasoned that the Soviets could manipulate the United Nations but not NATO. NATO was necessary for Western civilization to survive. (Preston 459)

John Foster Dulles was not concerned with an overt military invasion of Western Europe by the Soviet Union. “Soviet aggression is primarily against individual rights and freedoms while the communists use terror to stifle opposition.” (Preston 433)

Dulles looked at the Soviet Union as a threat to peace. (Preston 454)

“The heart of the problem and the reason we face the danger of war with the Soviet Union . . . is that the Russian system in its present mood is one of very extreme intolerance and of the feeling that it is right and justified to use any available method, including force and violence to eliminate those who don’t share the views they think are right. Not cool like us. Instead of negotiating with the Soviets, who would never do so in good faith.” (Preston 454)

Someone pointed out that Dulles had described American behavior as well. He acted with, “Why do we have to run all that down?” (Preston 454)

In 1946, Dulles compared the Soviet Union “to the Islamic hordes who had swept over much of Christendom in the Middle Ages.” (Preston 455)

Although the Federal Council of Churches “called for disarmament,” Dulles argued for a strong military. (Preston 455) He criticized them for “not facing up to the Russian problem.” (Preston 455) The liberals in the FCC felt upset at “Dulles’s newfound anticommunism.” (Preston 456) On the other hand, he was accused of being used by the pacifists. (Preston 456)

Constant contradictions

In 1947, while recognizing Soviet security concerns, “he still insisted that there was a Soviet threat, but it was one based on penetration, propaganda, and terrorism that could be defeated through vigilant containment.” (Preston 456)

However, in 1950, he claimed that there was no threat of war. (Preston 456) Nevertheless, our nuclear weapons production increased. 

In 1955, Dulles credited any United Nations success to a world that believed in God. He predicted the fall of communism, and after that, “the world could finally unite as one.” (Preston 463)

Dulles debated Josef Hromadka, a Czech theologian who stated that the West was deluding itself . . . when it imagined it possessed freedom and others did not.” (Preston 483)

The tensions between Dulles’s anticommunism and his ecumenism, once buried deep within . . . he had to counteract a dangerous threat to the unity of the Christian West.” (Preston 457)

Dulles’s point of view and things mixed “anticommunism and American nationalism with ecumenical internationalism. But as the Cold War deepened, his anticommunism and nationalism began to eclipse his ecumenical internationalism.” (Preston 457)

Dulles - “Marxian communism is atheistic and materialistic. Its leaders reject the concept of moral law.” (Preston 457)

In January 1954, John Foster Dulles claimed that the free world must “retaliate instant against open aggression by Red Armies.” (Hoopes 127)

This would allow the West to “move to the political offensive. There existed a moral or natural law determining right and wrong to which men must . . . conform or meet with disaster, and America was the chosen age of God’s vengeance. This law has been trampled by the Soviet rulers, and for that violation, they can and should be made to pay.” (Hoopes 127)

The most important Dulles point of view and things was his disregard for the resistance to colonialism and insistence that these movements were controlled and run by international communism beginning in Moscow through Peking. (Hoopes 204-205)

Dulles defined international issues as “Soviet Communism starts with an atheistic, Godless premise.” (Hoopes 83)

President Truman’s containment policies were good as far as they went. “But they had failed to save Eastern Europe or China.” Truman’s containment policies presumed to divide the world with the Communists. The Communist dictatorships must be pressured in order to force its failure. (Hoopes 83)

Essentially, Dulles argued for a moral crusade “in which democracy everywhere must prevail.” (Hoopes 84)

To stop the spread and turn back communism, he began to support “subversion and paramilitary activities.” He argued for going on the offensive. (Hoopes 115)

Dulles’s views and things, however, “reflected an inflated estimate of Chinese and Russian power in Asia and of Chinese-Russian policy coordination, and it gave rather too little weight to the thrust of dynamic local forces determined to change the status quo in the name of anti-colonialism, self-determination, or a better economic deal.” (Hoopes 115)

Dulles was hardly alone in this misjudgment. The rest of “official Washington, the press, and the general public believed these ideas as well.” (Hoopes 116)

John Foster Dulles wrote in War or Peace, “that if the Communist government of China in fact proves its ability to govern China without serious domestic resistance then it, too, should be admitted to the United Nations.” (Hoopes 262)

Dulles again switched his point of view and things. After reading much about Lenin, he came to believe that the Mao regime was a Russian instrument. After the Chinese intervention in Korea, Dulles opposed “China’s admission to the United Nations.” (Hoopes 262)

Dulles continued his “morally righteous" speech when he spoke of changes in the post-World War II world. Many churchmen at this speech at the National Council of Churches opposed Dulles’s points of view and things. They supported U.N. membership for the People's Republic of China and argued that the U.S. should recognize its government. (Hoopes 458) This hurt Dulles’s precious feelings. He believed recognizing the PRC “would be a well-nigh mortal blow to the survival of the non-Communist governments in the Far East.” (Hoopes 458)

Dulles believed there was a conflict between Christianity and Communism. “He defined the Cold War explicitly as a moral rather than as a political or economic conflict.” (Hoopes 66)

John Foster Dulles firmly believed that the Soviet Union was determined to expand. The U.S. would deter this with “reasonable military strength because they believe in force.” However, Dulles also believed that military force had limitations and that the West needed “an affirmative demonstration that our society of freedom still has the qualities needed for survival. We must show that our free land is not a spiritual lowland, easily submerged, but a highland that, most of all, provides the spiritual, intellectual, and economic conditions which all men want. . . . men are created as the Children of God, in His image. The human personality is thus sacred, and the State must not trample upon it.” (Hoopes 65-66)

Dulles believed that “all major policies since World War II were, he thought, reactive, negative, emergency measures, alarming in both their budgetary implications and their tendency to militarize American society.” (Hoopes 126)

GEORGE KENNAN

Dulles had a serious conflict with the author of the U.S. containment policy. George Kennan questioned Dulles’s policy of “liberation.” (Hoopes 155)

Immediately after the start of the Korean War, George Kennan argued “that the United States should make clear its intention to stop military operations at the 38th parallel and interpose no obstacles to Chinese Communist membership in the United Nations.” (Hoopes 155)

Dulles countered that increased U.S. military spending could not be justified “unless Communist China was clearly categorized as an enemy.” Kennan expressed his deep concern that American defenses must rely on “working our people up into an emotional state.” (Hoopes 155)

Dulles now “regarded Kennan as a dangerous man.” (Hoopes 156)

Right Wingers 

The far-right congressional leadership following the leadership of Senator Joseph McCarthy distrusted President Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles’s “internationalism.” (Hoopes 153)

Eager to have Senator Joseph McCarthy on his side, Dulles defended the senator’s illegal interference in foreign policy. (Schrecker 258)

Contrary to a right-wing investigation questioning the loyalty of State Department Employees John Carter Vincent and John Paton Davies, Dulles found they were not security risks.” (Hoopes 153)

Dulles dismissed the “China experts targeted by the China Lobby.”(Schrecker 257)

Not wanting any remaining Truman people, he fired anticommunist John Paton Davies. (Schrecker 258)

John Foster Dulles removed books from State Department libraries overseas. He discouraged “the use of anything produced by a person whose ideology or views are questionable or controversial. . . . Terrified foreign service officers rushed to jettison books by Communists as well as such offenders as Whitaker Chambers, NAACP head Walter White, and the Secretary’s own cousin, diplomatic historian Foster Rhea Dulles. For lack of storage space in a few installations, some of the discarded volumes were burned.” (Schrecker 257)

ATOMIC BOMB and NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Following the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, John Foster Dulles, as a church leader, was one of those who “warned Americans in the starkest terms to suspend atomic war or risk armageddon. (Paul Ham. Hiroshima Nagasaki: the real story of the atomic bombings and their aftermath. 377 2011)

The Federal Council of Churches opposed the atomic bomb. After the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Dulles opposed “further use of the bomb and hinted that only international control of atomic energy would ensure peace.” (Preston 380)

John Foster Dulles, a leader in the Federal Council of Churches, “urged that the U.S. no more atomic bombs on Japan.” He feared that atomic weapons would be accepted as normal and “the state will be set for the sudden and final destruction of mankind.” (Lifton and Mitchell, 25-26)

He later changed his mind.

John Foster Dulles was ambivalent about using the atomic bomb. In an interview, he “regarded the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an unnecessary slaughter of helpless civilians, but later he felt that perhaps terrible event was a restraining influence on the Soviet leaders, and he boasted about his willingness to go to the brink of war to intimidate the communists.” (Lifton and Mitchell, 214)

Not using atomic weapons “would be viewed not as evidence of weakness . . . but of moral and physical greatness” (Lifton and Mitchell, 25-26).

Interestingly, Dulles supported internationally “monitored” nuclear disarmament. He told President Eisenhower that “Nuclear weaponry was too fast a power to be left for the military use of any one country.” (Preston 461)

In 1959, John Foster Dulles “coined the phrase massive retaliation to explain that the United States would use its overwhelming nuclear superiority to respond to any kind of communist expansion. Massive retaliation was bad enough, but two years later Dulles made it even worse with famous strategy of brinkmanship.” (Preston 460)

VIETNAM WAR

In early 1954, the French informed United States Secretary Of State John Foster Dulles “that the war was going badly.” (Fall 108)

If the Chinese attacked the French in Vietnam as they attacked the U.S. forces in Korea, the U.S.  would begin bombing. Dulles and others wanted to attack anyway. (Fall 297)

While Congressman John F. Kennedy doubted that the French allowed independence in Indochina and some in the State Department holding similar views, “Secretary Of State John Foster Dulles foresaw victory by the end of 1954, and others, including Vice-President Richard Nixon, declared that it was impossible to think of anything but victory.” (Shaplen, The Lost Revolution 94)

However, in March 1954, Dulles “prudently did not commit the United States to any support action on behalf of the French.” (Fall 297) He told French General Paul Ely “that the United States could not afford to engage its prestige in a military operation and suffer a defeat which would have worldwide repercussions.” (Fall 298)

Secretary of State Dulles gave a speech to the Overseas Press Club on March 29, 1954, in which he detailed “Chinese Communist involvement with the Vietminh.” This revealed that the French had intelligence units at the Chinese-Vietnamese border.

Dulles expressed concern over possible communist domination in Southeast Asia. Confrontation was worth the risk, he argued. Southeast Asia was extremely important “to the free world.” (Fall 298)

“Dulles warned that the fall of Indochina might well lead to the loss of all of Southeast Asia and that the United States might eventually be forced back to Hawaii.” He feared not supporting the French could cause them to abandon the war. (Fall 300)

He admitted to Congress that he had not consulted with our allies about providing aid to the French. (Fall 301)

This contradicted Dulles telling French General Paul Ely that the U.S. would give “serious consideration” to bomb in defense of Dien Bien Phu. (Shaplen, The Lost Revolution. 95) At the same time, Dulles feared that unilateral American intervention would be construed as “colonialism.” (Shaplen, the Lost Revolution. 95)

His “solution was to create a broad Asian-European alliance, which he hoped would give legal international sanction to intervention in Indochina. . . . His mistake lay in trying to shove [it] down the throats of America’s allies . . . in such a hurry that they couldn’t possibly digest it.” ((Shaplen, the Lost Revolution. 95)

France’s Foreign minister during their Indochina war “commented acidly in his memoirs that the calculated risk policy of the late Secretary Of State had been one which involved a great deal of calculation but no risks, and that the present the United States must shoulder almost alone in Vietnam came from there.

After the fall of Dien Bien Phu, John Foster Dulles honored the French soldiers and blamed the British for not agreeing to a united action to prevent its fall. He also blamed the U.S. Congress because it was they who would be required to declare war. (Fall 417-418)

International lawyer and former diplomat Dr. Victor Bator believes pressure from conservative Republicans caused this. (Shaplen, The Lost Revolution. 95) Dr. Bator wrote that “Dulles’s moral and spiritual strength . . . made his ant-communist fervor a blending dogma and deprived him of flexibility when wisdom demanded it.” (Shaplen, the Lost Revolution. 97)

Dulles and other top Eisenhower admiration officials met with U.S. Congressional leaders requesting a “joint resolution permitting him the use of air and naval power in Indochina.” (Fall 300)

Religion influenced Dulles and Eisenhower to support the Roman Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem to rule a Buddhist country, South Vietnam. (Preston 449) Dulles supported Diem. (Shaplen, The Lost Revolution. 127)

It took John Foster Dulles until June 15, 1954, to tell the French definitively that the United States would not commit its own troops and planes to the Indochina War. (Francis Fitzgerald 101-102)

John Foster Dulles’s refusal to “support . . . a diplomatic settlement” in Indochina extended the war. The Russians and the Chinese wanted to avoid a military confrontation. (Hoopes 202)

Dulles regarded “the Indochina crisis as a major testing ground for his theory of deterrent warnings based on readiness to threaten massive retaliation.” (Hoopes 224)

There was political turmoil in France over continuing their war in Vietnam, known as the French War in Vietnam. Dulles and the rest of the Washington diplomatic corps did not care. They insisted on fighting communism, which they viewed as dominated by Moscow. Not understanding nationalism and the resistance to colonialism, Dulles “warned in September 1953 that the Chinese Communist regime should realize that” another intervention by them such as occurred during the Korean War might result in the U.S. attacking China directly. The U.S. insisted that the French continue the fight for freedom. “The U.S. would supply the arms.” (Townsend Hoopes. The Devil and John Foster Dulles. 204-205)

However, in 1954, “Republican Asia-firsters remained a reckless and destructive cabal.” (Hoopes 203) Dulles didn’t react. After all, “he shared many of their views: their militant anticommunism, their impatient unilateralist tendencies, and their belief that America possessed the power - and the moral right to use it - to make the world safe for a moral America. . . . He endorsed rollback and liberation in Asia.” He referred to 1953 French Indochinese proposals as “deeply gratifying because they removed the colonial stigma from the struggle. . . . making it far easier for Americans to support victory for the anti-communist forces with a clear conscience. . . . 

Dulles had little concern over France keeping its Indochinese colony. He and the rest of the Washington foreign policy establishment worried about “International Communism.” So much so that Dulles warned the Chinese that America would expand the war if the Chinese invaded, as they had done in Korea. (Hoopes 204-205)

When the French informed the Americans that the war was lost, Dulles insisted that they fight on to prevent the “Communist domination of Southeast Asia. . . . With magisterial arrogance, he then issued his own statement” that” there have been no military reversals . . . I do not expect that there is going to be a Communist victory in Indo-China.” He articulated his belief in the supremacy of military forces over diplomatic activity. (Hoopes 208)

Radford ironically informed French general Ely that the U.S. would bomb near Dien Bien Phu to assist the French garrison. He would later state that the use of atomic weapons would have broken the “siege of Dien Bien Phu.” (Townsend Hoopes. The Devil and John Foster Dulles. 208)

Dulles referred to any agreement acceptable to the communists as “appeasement.” (Townsend Hoopes. The Devil and John Foster Dulles. 236)

Hoopes refers to Ho Chi Minh as a Communist-trained leader, forgetting that although a communist, he was a nationalist who wanted to free his country from French rule. (Hoopes 204)

Red China

The Taiwanese Nationalist Chinese government of Ching Kai-shek occupied the islands of Quemoy and Matsu, which are very close to the Chinese mainland. The Red Chinese wanted those islands and Formosa but had no military ability to take at least Formosa. (Hoopes 276-277)

Dulles made it clear that the U.S. could use nuclear weapons if the Red Chinese attacked Quemoy and Matsu. Admiral Redford assured Dulles that the use of “nuclear weapons represented no special menace to noncombatants.” (Hoopes 277)

The world considered that the United States more than exaggerated the significance of the “two flyspeck islands” off of the Chinese coast. The liberal New Republic called Dulles’s policy “indefensible.” (Hoopes 449)

Upon becoming Secretary of State in 1953, John Foster Dulles met with British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden. The British expressed concern over Eisenhower’s change in policy regarding protecting Taiwan by being “defensive.” This might encourage Taiwan to engage in military actions against Red China. ((Hoopes 167)

Korean War

Dulles supported Truman at the beginning of the Korean War. (Hoopes 114)

However, after the Chinese invaded, he changed his tune and denied he had supported Truman’s policies earlier. (Hoopes 114)

“This Dullesian shift of position seemed to combine a genuine new fear of Chinese Communist expansion with a case of political cold feet.” (Hoopes 114-115) He feared the Soviet Union would join the Chinese. And that they planned to force the United States out of Asia. (Hoopes 115) 

The Korean War wreaked havoc on the United States, and Dulles, as Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, wanted to end it. (Hoopes 185) Victory was no longer the goal. 

In addition, they unleashed the Seventh Fleet, disclosure of plans to enlarge the South Korean Army, the dispatch of more American Airpower to Korea, the placement of nuclear missiles on Okinawa.” (Hoopes 185)

Following the armistice in Korea, Eisenhower and Dulles implemented their “doctrine of deterrence.” (Hoopes 187)

Middle East

There had been resistance to America’s one-sided support for Israel. Dulles wanted to change that. (Hoopes 184)

In 1954, Egyptian President Nasser refused American military aid, saying it infringed on Egyptian sovereignty. (Hoopes 320)

He opposed “disarmament and unconditional dialogue,” believing they would allow the Soviet Union to invade Western Europe. (Preston 454)

The Americans ignored that essentially was a colonial power and those colonized by the West were unhappy. “Yet Eisenhower and Dulles, who continued to fold every complex world crisis into the simplistic binary of the Soviet-American Cold War, did not seem to be able to grasp this very basic point.” Reinhard Niebuhr called it “giving military strategy a false priority in our total strategy that merely belied the social and political realities with which we must come to terms.” (Preston 490)

Decolonization and Things

Dulles differed from other Eisenhower administration officials by supporting “foreign aid to the decolonizing worlds.” (Preston 461)

Dulles believed himself an anti-colonialist. However, he noticed that the Soviets and the Red Chinese gave more generous aid to Third World nations, which could leave them “to achieve unfettered independence.” (Hoopes 489)

Japan 

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles's arrogance is easily documented. In addition, there is the irony of a Republican political leader ignoring the law and assuming strong executive control. (New Cambridge History of Japan) For example, conservatives in post-World War II Japan “hoped to negotiate changes that would allow the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JDF) to dispatch troops overseas.” One Japanese conservative “clearly took for granted that the constitution would be amended . . . he was slow planning for them [the U.S.] to withdraw early.” (New Cambridge History of Japan 174)

In 1955, the Japanese tried to renegotiate the “security treaty.” Secretary Of State John Foster Dulles asked [Japanese Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Maoru] if Japan could dispatch troops abroad before revising its constitution. (New Cambridge History of Japan 174-175)

“It seems likely that Dulles concluded then that the Japanese government would ignore its constitution, and so the Americans did not need to worry about the legal contradiction by rearmament.” (New Cambridge History of Japan 175)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Fall, Bernard. Hell in a Very Small Place. 1967, French historian and journalist who wrote influential books ignored by U.S. officials. He was killed in Vietnam in 1967.

2. Fitzgerald, Francis. Fire in the Lake. 1971. Journalist and writer of this classic work on the Vietnam War.

3. Lifton, Robert Jay and Greg Mitchell. Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial. 1995

4. Preston, Andrew. Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy. 2012. Andrew Preston is a professor of history at Cambridge University who specializes in American foreign relations.

5. Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are The Crimes: McCarthyism in America. 1998. The Great Ellen Schecker wrote this most authoritative book on McCarthyism and hysterical anticommunism. 

6. Shaplen, Robert. The Lost Revolution. 1955