Dulles, John Foster (1888-1959)

US lawyer and politician. Senior US adviser at the founding of the United Nations, he was largely responsible for drafting the Japanese peace treaty of 1951. As secretary of state 1952-59, he was an architect of US Cold War foreign policy and secured US intervention in South Vietnam after the expulsion of the French in 1954. He was highly critical of the UK during the Suez Crisis in 1956.

Dulles presided over the creation of the CENTO (Central Treaty Organization) alliance in the Middle East and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).

Born in Washington, DC, he was educated at Princeton, the University of Paris, and George Washington University. His speciality as a lawyer was international law. He initiated ‘brinkmanship’, forcing communists into agreement by threatening to go to the brink of a nuclear war. Even so, during his term as secretary of state, he gave limited moral support to the Hungarians in 1956 when they rose against the Soviets, and Cuba and North Vietnam fell to the communists during his tenure.