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    The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War
    Unavailable
    The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War
    Unavailable
    The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War
    Ebook660 pages11 hours

    The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War

    By Stephen Kinzer

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A joint biography of John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, who led the United States into an unseen war that decisively shaped today's world

    During the 1950s, when the Cold War was at its peak, two immensely powerful brothers led the United States into a series of foreign adventures whose effects are still shaking the world.

    John Foster Dulles was secretary of state while his brother, Allen Dulles, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this book, Stephen Kinzer places their extraordinary lives against the background of American culture and history. He uses the framework of biography to ask: Why does the United States behave as it does in the world?

    The Brothers explores hidden forces that shape the national psyche, from religious piety to Western movies—many of which are about a noble gunman who cleans up a lawless town by killing bad guys. This is how the Dulles brothers saw themselves, and how many Americans still see their country's role in the world.

    Propelled by a quintessentially American set of fears and delusions, the Dulles brothers launched violent campaigns against foreign leaders they saw as threats to the United States. These campaigns helped push countries from Guatemala to the Congo into long spirals of violence, led the United States into the Vietnam War, and laid the foundation for decades of hostility between the United States and countries from Cuba to Iran.
    The story of the Dulles brothers is the story of America. It illuminates and helps explain the modern history of the United States and the world.
    A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateOct 1, 2013
    ISBN9781429953528
    Unavailable
    The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War
    Author

    Stephen Kinzer

    Stephen Kinzer is the author of many books, including The True Flag, The Brothers, Overthrow, and All the Shah’s Men. An award-winning foreign correspondent, he served as the New York Times bureau chief in Nicaragua, Germany, and Turkey. He is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, and writes a world affairs column for the Boston Globe. He lives in Boston.

    Read more from Stephen Kinzer

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    Reviews for The Brothers

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      Biography of Alan and John Foster Dulles, head of the CIA/State Department during a big chunk of the post-WWII period. They were terrible human beings convinced of their Christian, pro-American big business righteousness—when not in government, they represented major businesses with interests overseas, including in places whose governments they later helped overthrow on the grounds that they weren’t pro-capitalist enough. Foster Dulles (1) thought that Gurkhas were Pakistani (they are not), (2) when informed that they were not, said, well, they’re Muslim (they are not), and (3) as a result of his beliefs, insisted that Pakistan be included in a regional compact in a region of which it was not part, which contributed to the dissolution of that compact, though I suppose that might be a good thing given how awful his aims generally were. So much of the world has reason to despise America, and the Dulles brothers oversaw a big chunk of that—more, possibly, than the Koch brothers. That said, it’s not clear that much would have differed without them; as the author emphasizes, they were products of their (white, Christian, male, wealthy) environment and the other people around them, especially the Republicans and especially Eisenhower, thought similarly.
    • 5/5
      That the USA played... plays... these kinds of nasty games, yeah I had some vague awareness. But to be walked through the sordid details is still shocking. What was most amazing about this book was to see how incompetent these brothers were. What's truly upsetting is to see these kinds of willfully ignorant attitudes returning to political power, along with the ruthlessness that they promote. Will the USA be the next country taken down by theocratic psyops?
    • 4/5
      If you've ever wondered why many nations hate the USA, this book supplies some of the answers. It describes how the Dulles brothers helped to shape our current world view...to serve corporate interests. The brothers didn't understand how rising post WWII nationalism fit into the world in which there was only "them" and us. Others who voiced disparate views were demoted or dismissed. The book is well written, you don't need a PhD in politics to understand--but, one needs an interest in geopolitical issues in order to wade through it. The summary, at the end, brings together the author's views of the brothers Dulles' impact. Good read that will aid in understanding today's world.
    • 5/5
      Traces the rise of the Dulles brothers and how nepotism reaped great benefits. The most interesting part of the book is when John Foster D. served as Sec. of State under Eisenhower while Allen simultaneously ran the CIA. Eisenhower allowed them to run roughshod over the entire foreign policy establishment with destructive consequences for America and for any nation or leader who did not fit into the Dulles' myopic vision of a bi-lateral ideological world. Staging coups and ousting leaders from Iran to Guatemala only whetted the appetite for slaying more foreign monsters and it would lead the U.S. into Vietnam and African adventurism. The brothers simply didn't have a grasp of how nationalism fit into the geo-political equation in the post-war world and quality analysts in various agencies who voiced such notions were demoted or dismissed. This left huge gaps in intelligence that were not remedied for decades, if ever.
    • 5/5
      This is a stunning work of contemporary history that portrays two of the more despicable American Cold Warriors. Never before, and never since, have two brothers held such positions of power simultaneously as well as sharing the same mindset: Onward Christian Warriors. For these two, there was no ambiguity: the world was divided into the free (nations and regions in which American corporate behemoths looted the Third World) and Communist (evil, anti-God, anti-corporate, and an implacable, monolithic, unchanging evil entity). Foster Dulles was so monomaniacal that he identified neutralism solely as a Moscow creation and was blithely blind to nationalism. He resused to acknowledge the existence of Communist China, and once, turned his back as Chou En Lai offered his hand, thus committing an unpardonable diplomatic insult and creating a lifelong enemy. He was Eurocentric as if 1950 was 1850. Prior to taking office (the third in his family to be Secretary of State) he was the wealthiest private attorney in the nation, working at a Wall Street firm and doing whatever it took--bribery, threats, military interventions--to preserve and expand his clients' international profits. Allen was like a little boy, immersed in the underworld of covert actions, playing coyboys and indians and possessing no analytical, critical, or administrative skills. Under his watch the CIA targeted individual heads of state for murder, removed those national leaders perceived to be anti-American, and supported any dictator, anywhere, who guaranteed preservation of the status quo (thus further enriching Foster Dulles' former clients). The two worked in tandem and wreaked havoc, always supported and protected by President Eisenhower, who loathed war but enjoyed small-scale violence that might be illegal and immoral but led to American "victories." A very scary pair from a very scary time (they both contributed significantly to the domestic fear so prevalent during the Cold War.) Very well-written.
    • 5/5
      Fascinating fresco of the early Cold War era as seen through the lives of the extraordinarily powerful Dulles brothers.

      The author is pushing the message that the Dulles brothers and Eisenhower made terrible foreign policy mistakes, that America is still paying for. This position embraced by the author left me perplexed. YES, in those years the United States overthrew many foreign governments through covert operations, in Iran, Guatemala, Congo, and other countries, YES, from the moral standpoint some of these operations were "dirty work", and YES, these covert activities were heavy-handed and often messy (some of them were even complete disasters), BUT I see Kinzer's overall narrative as not completely objective, in that he is too quick to dismiss the Russia of the '50s as "non interested at all in sponsoring regime changes or in influencing other countries governments". How can you say that for sure? And here they come, the evil Dulles brothers and their boss, Eisenhower, making huge irreparable damages only to defend the interest of the evil of ALL evils: the US corporations.

      In other words, Kinzer's view seems a little bit unbalanced, although always faithful to the facts that today we have access to.

      Kinzer believes that the communist threat was over-estimated (sometimes on purpose) especially by Foster Dulles, and his reaction to it exaggerated, and he is probably right on both counts. However, he fails to indicate any realistic alternative geo-strategic policy that would have actually led the US to prevail in the Cold War. Let-live diplomacy and isolationism? What exactly would have been a "different and better" policy, that would have brought more benefits to the US? The point is, we actually do not know what would have happened to the world's balance of power if America had pursued such a different policy in those years. We can only guess.

      Having said all this - I enjoyed the book immensely, as it is very well-written and it provides a great high-level description of a piece of history that is not very much talked about.
    • 3/5
      An interesting story about two brothers who had such influence on American policy and history. Unfortunately their narrow-minded view of the world caused many more problems than they solved. It's scary to think that such people can change the course of history.
    • 4/5
      The most fascinating story in Kinzer's biography of John Foster and Allen Dulles is that of their sister, Eleanor, an economist who worked for the State Department for decades until Dean Rusk asked her to resign in the wake of the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Kinzer's portrait of the brothers judges them harshly, John Foster for his inability to see nationalist movements in places like Iran and Vietnam only as Soviet proxies in an aggressive war against the West, and Allen for his obsession with covert operations to remove leaders and regimes in other countries.
    • 5/5
      More interesting than individual biographies of these men. Concentrates effectively on the interaction and joint activities of these two brothers in their positions of major influence on a global scale.
    • 4/5
      The American people and the world at large still feel the reverberations from the policies and adventures of the Dulles' brothers. They are in part to blame for our difficult relations with both Cuba and Iran. This history helps answer the question, "Why do they hate us?" The answer, our freedom, it's because we try to topple their governments.The Dulles brother grew up in a privileged, religious environment. They were taught to see the world in stark black and white. Both were well-educated at Groton and the Ivy League schools. Both worked on and off in the government, but spent a significant amount of time at the immensely powerful law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell. They had nearly identical world views but nearly opposite personalities. (John) Foster was dour, awkward, and conventional. Allen was outgoing, talkative, and had loose morals. There's no need for a blow-by-blow of their lives in this review. The core of the book revolves around Foster Dulles as the secretary of State under Eisenhower and Allen as the Director of the CIA. The center of the book is divided into six parts, each one dealing with a specific foreign intervention: Mossadegh of Iran, Arbenz of Guatemala, Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam, Lumumba of the Congo, Sukarno of Indonesia and Castro of Cuba. The Dulles view as that you were either behind the US 110% or a communist, with no room for neutrals. Neutrals were to be targeted for regime change. The author lays out explicitly all the dirty tricks we tried on other world leaders, from poison to pornography. This dark side of American foreign policy can help Americans better understand our relationships with other countries.My difficulty with this book is the final chapter. The author throws in some pop-psychology such as; people take in information that confirms their beliefs and reject contradictory information, we can be confident of our beliefs even when we're wrong, etc. The Dulles brothers are definite examples of these psychological aspects. Then the author says the faults of the Dulles brothers are the faults of American society, that we are the Dulles brothers. I felt like a juror in a murder trial during the closing statements, " It's not my clients fault, society is to blame!"In most of America's foreign adventures, the American people have been tricked with half-truths and outright lies. Further more, these men received the best educations and were granted great responsibility. They should be held to a higher standard than "Oh well, everyone has their prejudices." I agree with the author that the public should be more engaged in foreign policy and have a better understanding of our history with other nations. However, I think he goes to far in excusing their decisions because they supposedly had the same beliefs as many Americans.
    • 5/5
      My thanks to the people at LT early reviewers and to Henry Holt for my copy of this book. Simply put, it's amazing. If you've ever just sat for a moment and wondered about why so much of the world hates us here in the US, this book will provide a few of the answers. It examines, among other things, how the brothers Dulles, Allen and John Foster (Foster), through their incredible political power and family/corporate/foreign connections, helped to shape our current world, paving the way for American policy abroad to best serve corporate interests. The overt and covert means they employed to protect American interests throughout the globe set into motion events that continue to have repercussions today and will probably continue on well into the future. As the author notes, "Fundamental assumptions that guide American foreign policy have not changed substantially" since the Dulles brothers were in power, and this book is a great place to learn exactly what encompassed American foreign policy during their time and why their "approach to the world" had deleterious effects on our nation. He also examines the concept of "exceptionalism" as a guiding force in setting policy, a belief that is still held by many today, that somehow the US is more moral than other countries, so that as a nation, we have the right to "behave in ways that others should not." That belief encompasses another idea in which we should be able to take out governments "we" don't like and help shape the course of history. Aside from examining exactly what the Dulles brothers did over the course of their respective and then combined careers, and how their policy led to such immense episodes of global upheaval, the author also delves into who these two brothers were, how they got their start in the combined areas of finance, multinationals, politics, foreign relations, and the murky world of US intelligence. Trust me, these are not people you will like; there is nothing redeeming about either of them -- they had zero empathy, no compassion and could care less about how many people were killed in the course of their operations. The book is extremely well written, and is not at all difficult to read; you need no expertise in history, politics or foreign relations to understand it. It's important if you are at all curious about why our government does what it does or how we seem to involve ourselves in sticky quagmires all over the world and what the government is not telling us. It's also a must read, because as the author notes, even though the brothers' actions were products of their time, their story is also the "story of America," and tells us a lot about ourselves as Americans. Frankly, I have to say that not much really catches me by surprise any more: the political front, the spins on global events, the media as the monkey to the big power players, the disregard for the common people and the Constitution, and this book just goes to show that while the players have changed, really, the same sort of stuff was going on during the heyday of the brothers' power and influence. But back then It was just kept more tightly under wraps and better concealed from the public. The Brothers is simply a stellar work -- and I recommend it highly.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The Brothers is about of State John Foster Dulles and CIA Director Allen Dulles. The focus on their public service and the Cold War they helped create. The book begins with their childhood and brings thr reader through covert operations against various world leaders during the height of the Cold War in the 1950s. Because this is a dual-biography, the differences between the two brothers both personally and professionally are easy to see, which I enjoyed. It gives the reader the opportunity to compare the two and see how they influenced the world.This book is one that can be picked up by anyone who is interested in the cold war. It does not require someone with extensive knowledge of the Cold War or of teh Dulles brothers. It is clearly organized and laid out in an easy-to-follow manner. I really enjoyed this book and the author's writing style. It's clear to see why other reviewers have also given this book 4-5 stars. Definitely a good book to add to your reading list if you are interested in learning more about the Cold War and the Dulles brothers.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      The Brothers is a very powerful book about two very powerful men. Stephen Kinzer has effectively tapped upon his decades’ long experience as a foreign correspondent, New York Times bureau chief, author, and academic to produce a masterful, new biography. His subjects are John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower’s first Secretary of State, and his brother Allen Dulles, the longest-serving director of the C.I.A., both of whom were viewed as true American giants during the early years of the Cold War. Fifty-plus years after the passage of the Dulleses from the halls of power, the United States is still reaping the ‘fruit,’ the rotten fruit, of their labors. The anti-nationalist, anti-neutralist, pro-evangelical Christian foreign policy of the early Cold War period, largely conceptualized and orchestrated by the Dulles brothers, especially with regard to many emerging Third World Asian, African, and Latin American nations, has come back to haunt this nation time and time again in ways big and small.With the 1945 allied victory in World War II and the falling of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe very soon thereafter, the Cold War came into play. The United States for the first time in its history found itself as one of the two major players in a brand-new politically bi-polar world, one in which nations with supposed ‘democratic’ ideals were pitted against those with totalitarian ones. This political dynamic, in which the United States and the Soviet Union were super powers, was to remain in effect for almost half a century.Many well-known and not-so-well-known political names can be attached to the Cold War during its early years when both the United States and the Soviet Union were desperately struggling to find their respective footings in a dangerous and adversarial new world. These names include Stalin, Khrushchev, Truman, Marshall, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Mossadegh (Iran), Arbenz (Guatemala), Lumumba (Congo), Sukarno (Indonesia), Castro (Cuba), Ho Chi Minh (Viet Nam)… and without question John Foster and Allen Dulles.Although outwardly very different—John Foster was reserved, dour, off-putting, and bookish, while Allen was always the popular and promiscuous ‘life of the party’—the Dulles brothers were remarkably similar. They were both products of a refined, privileged, and religious environment, one which imbued each of them with political access, an Ivy League education, a healthy dose of Calvinist philosophy, strong beliefs in capitalism and American exceptionalism, anti-Communist fervor, and, very importantly in terms of their foreign policy philosophies and goals, a very black and white/good and evil take on the world. For the entirety of their professional lives—both during the long period prior to their Cold War appointments to State and the C.I.A. when they both transitioned between lucrative positions on Wall Street and service to the higher echelons of the American government… and afterwards during the Cold War when they occupied two of the highest seats of power in the free world—John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles remained true to their beliefs in the superiority of American democracy, politically, economically, and morally. In so doing they almost single-handedly crafted a ‘means justifies the ends’ foreign policy, one by which the United States government was unable to see beyond a ‘we vs. them’ dynamic. This foreign policy, among other things, allowed for an untold number of immoral and/or illegal covert acts to be committed in the name of democracy… and it alienated countless millions in the newly emerging, post-colonial regions of the globe. Had a more accepting policy relative to nationalism, neutralism, and non-Christian belief been in place, the United States may have avoided a number of the very expensive conflicts in which they were engaged during the second half of the twentieth century and beyond.Stephen Kinzer is to be praised for an engaging, informative, and thought-provoking biography that chronicles, in particular, a very heady and dangerous period in American history, namely the early Cold War. John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles were, without doubt, among its most major players. Kinzer presents them as one of the lenses through which the early Cold War—and beyond— must be analyzed and assessed.
    • 4/5
      I have read Stephen Kinzer before and looked forward to The Brothers. I was not disappointed. In a nutshell, Kinzer tells the story of the Dulles brothers from their childhood in upstate New York to their deaths. The focus of the book is the brothers’ quest to destroy communism (or what they conceive as communism) in third world countries Kinzer does not hold back in arguing that the Dulles’ real interests in overthrowing the governments of Iran and Guatemala were their efforts to nationalize oil and diminish the power of United Fruit respectively. The brothers had connections with both the oil company interests in Iran and the United Fruit in Guatemala that stemmed from their former careers as lawyers. Kinker also discusses extensively the bothers efforts to overthrow governments in the Congo, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cuba. In all cases, Kinzer writes, the Dulles brothers had little concern for the realities of the countries for which these rulers ruled. To them the only concerns were whether the leaders promote capitalism and, most importantly, did they pledge fealty to the United States in the Cold War struggle. If they challenged the big corporations that remained from the colonial period, or they chose to remain neutral in the Cold War conflict, they were considered communist and had to be removed.Overall The Brothers is a great book. The only aspect that I did not like about the book is that once John (referred to as Foster in the book) and Allen, became the Secretary of State and head of the CIA respectively John virtually disappears from the story. He is often mentioned but only as a player in the plans of the CIA (Allen) to overthrow the governments mentioned above.
    • 5/5
      I looked forward to reading this book and I wasn’t disappointed. This is a very good book about two people who has center stage in the Cold War drama. John Foster and Allen Dulles both started their careers at the prestigious law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, serving international clients. In the 1930s they were indirectly responsible in Germany’s rearmament by arranging bank loans for the likes of I. G. Farben and Krupp. Foster was later disappointed when the firm withdrew from Germany as the Nazis came to power.Early in the Eisenhower administration the brothers were appointed to head to of the most powerful segments of the government. Foster became Secretary of State and Allen became the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. For most of the 1950s they had major roles in shaping American foreign policy in ways that still impact the United States today. Foster and Allen worked so closely the CIA essentially became the action arm of the State Department. Together the engineered regime change in several countriesThey were so sure that their cause was just that they ignored contrary advice by their own people on the ground. It was much easier to replace a station chief or ambassador with a more compliant one than to consider the possibility their plans were flawed.Although ‘The Brothers’ looks at the lives of the Dulles’ through the lens of hindsight, it provides a balanced look at the impact these two people had on America and the world. Foster and Allen didn’t have the same clarity of foresight. However, two individuals of such caliber, working so close together should had, at least, an inkling of what they were setting in motion in places like Iran, Cuba, and Congo.In short, this is a very good book. Read it.
    • 5/5
      The Brothers combines biography with a history lesson on the years between the World Wars and beyond – it was the Cold War years I found most fascinating. The Brothers was a riveting and enlightening page-turner– and gave me a whole new perspective on why America is the country the world loves to hate. The author makes it clear how and why America’s foreign policy and intelligence service both ran amok while the Foster and Allen Dulles were in charge of the Department of State and Central Intelligence Agency respectively. The Brothers is, in my opinion, written for the non-expert (which I confess to be); the author’s writing style, clear-cut method of organization and ability to provide perspective made it a joy to read. (At times, I wanted to throw the book at the wall, but I refrained from doing so only because it’s not the author’s fault that his subjects were such doofuses.) The many reference works cited provide me a long list of books and articles for future reading, including a few of the author’s own. I’m guessing THAT reading will add to my cynicism about government as much as The Brothers did. In The Brothers, John Foster and Allen Dulles come across as narrow-minded, self-absorbed, arrogant twits who had not one whit of compassion for innocent people all over the world who were damaged by their inept decisions and actions, starting with the 58,000 American war dead in Vietnam. Their worldview made it impossible for them to change their minds or accept that someone who disagrees with them may be right and they wrong (perish the thought!).In the last chapter, the author attempts to put their behavior in some context– saying that they were very much products of their times – and that they simply believed what most people believed. It seemed a half-baked defense for what appears to be indefensible ignorance and smugness on the part of his subjects. But I agree with Mr. Kinzer that we need to remember them to avoid some of their mistakes. I have my doubts about that ever happening. Review based on Early Reviewers book provided by the publisher.