John Foster Dulles: Defender of Global Security or Hawkish Interventionist?

to most people john foster dulles is just an airport in Virginia but many of our viewers are not most people and surely are familiar with John Foster Dulles the influential character of the Cold War that an airport happens to be named after John Foster Dulles or JFD for short was US Secretary of State under President Eisenhower and as the head representative of US diplomacy he may actually seem like a terrible choice he was confrontational and black social skills Winston Churchill said that JFD was the only bull he ever met who carried his own china shop his brother Allen Dulles was the first director of the CIA and both had connections to a secret society the controversial skullenbones and both were behind interference or direct military intervention in the affairs of Iran Guatemala and Vietnam but who actually was this man and why does he loom so large in the story of the Cold War it's easy to see how jf Dee's image and legacy is that of a hawk more at ease with nuclear launch codes than with diplomatic protocol but today we're going to assess jf Dee's policies and determine if he was indeed a hawk through and through or a more astute indolence politician I'm your host David and today we are going to take a look at the life of one John Foster Dulles this is the Cold War john foster dulles was born in Washington DC on February 25th 1888 his father was a Presbyterian minister from a family with an enviable political pedigree his grandfather was former Secretary of State John Watson Foster and his uncle Robert Lansing would serve under Woodrow Wilson also at the helm of the State Department according to author Stephen Kinzer during his formative years JFD was exposed to three major influences that shaped his character and outlook first a belief in American exceptionalism the idea that the u.s. had a right to expand their influence via foreign intervention learned from both his grandfather and his uncle second a moral standpoint influenced by his father's missionary Calvinism which took him to view the world stage in absolute terms of black and white good versus evil and later epitomized by capitalism versus socialism finally the importance for the u.s. government and private corporations to align their goals for a mutually beneficial expansion beyond the nation's border the last influence came from JFK's employment with Sullivan and Cromwell a legal consultancy firm whose specialty was to lobby the US Congress and cabinet on behalf of large corporate groups but more on them later as a young man Dulles was at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference a member of the reparations Commission and economic council during this assignment Dulles was against issuing harsh sanctions against Germany warning of the dangers of holding berlin responsible for war reparations later on in his life during the Second World War Bellus served on the war trade board as a lawyer and after the war he entered private law practice by 1949 he had been elected to the Senate of the state of New York and this capacity Heath the chance to work behind the scenes as an advisor to the Department of State from May 1950 til the end of 1952 JFD is big break onto the international stage happened on the 21st of January 1953 when newly elected president Dwight David Eisenhower appointed him as his Secretary of State he had developed a strong friendship with Ike giving him direct and unprecedented access to the president he also enjoyed the close cooperation of the CIA at the time headed by none other than his brother Allen Dulles jf Dee's term as SEC state was marked by a consensus in US policy that world peace could and would be maintained only through the containment of communism this consensus allowed Dulles and Eisenhower to sign security agreements with friendly nations while at the same time reducing both the number of troops in the US military as well as the production of weapons while conventional ones anyway this approach became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine during his tenure JFD faced and sometimes directly drove some of the major international crises of the 1950's the coup d'etat in Guatemala and in Iran the escalation of the conflict in Indochina the hungarian revolution and of course the suez crisis after the resolution of this last challenge JFD was diagnosed with advanced stage colon cancer despite his quickly declining health Dulles stated his post for a further three years until he resigned in April 1959 John Foster Dulles died only a few weeks later on the 24th of May now we could fit that bio onto the back of a box of cereal what a great way to halt global communism but of course there is so much more to JFD than just that belief synopsis so let's get into that remember that law firm I just mentioned Sullivan and Cromwell well in the first half of the 20th century jf Dee's early employers represented 170 million dollars worth of American corporate activities in Cuba in February 1917 when a liberal military insurgency had opposed the government of Cuban conservative president men'll call these rebels took control of Oriente province directly threatening American own sugar plantations and it was feared that if they seized power in Havana they could have jeopardized even more American investment on the island US landowners called Sullivan and Cromwell for help and they handed the case to JFD the young lobbyists paid a visit to uncle Robert better known as Secretary of State Lansing pleading for a muscular intervention in support of Manukau Lansing complied dispatching a contingent of Marines to watch over the sugarcane plantations and provide support to the minica government this has become known as the sugar intervention of 1917 now let's skip forward to the years when jft was the Secretary of State our longtime subscribers already know about US and British backed coup against Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh in August of 1953 this was jf Dee's first major display of interventionism in the internal matters of a foreign power both him and President Eisenhower agreed that Mossad VEX plans to nationalize Iranian oil were a threat to US influence in the region and a possible first step for communist penetration author Stephen Kinzer argues that this was in fact a missed opportunity for Dulles to increase US influence in Iran Mossadegh ideology was essentially anti-colonialist and the US government could have easily positioned itself as a natural ally for enemies of colonialism but well that's not how it played out Dulles was also central to another coup when he orchestrated the overthrow of the legitimate Guatemalan government of Prime Minister Jacobo Arbenz our bands had been elected to office in March 1951 on the back of a program centered on land reform which would benefit small local landowners to the disadvantage of the American owned United Fruit Company such policy led both Washington and private interests to fear that Guatemala was about to steer the wheel sharply to the left and in late 1953 President Eisenhower ordered head the CIA to Dulles look that's the other one to prepare for operation success a us-backed military insurrection against her Benz led by colonel Castillo armed us in the meanwhile Dulles jf this time made diplomatic preparations to lend legitimacy to the operation through his efforts in March of 1954 he got the Organization of American States to approve a new resolution one that recognized the threat of international communism in the Americas as grounds for intervention now all the Dulles brothers needed was a causes Ally and they got it when in April of 1954 our bends made a deal with Czechoslovakia to purchase Soviet made armaments clearly communism was infiltrating operation success was go now we've already covered the Guatemalan coup in another video so I'll only add a couple of fun facts this intervention was not a covert black ops intervention carried out in secret by the CIA this operation was fully sanctioned by the US Congress on the 29th of June 1954 following a resolution driven by some guy called Lyndon Johnson interesting facts 2 & 3 Sullivan & Cromwell was the law firm that had helped United Fruit to draw up their contracts with previous Guatemalan president Biko in 1936 and Allen Dulles the CIA one had been a board member for yep that's right United Fruit this shows the tight personal and business connections between the Dulles brothers and Guatemala this was captured by Seminole Mexican mural artist Diego Rivera his work of art gloriosa victoria of november 1954 depicts the Dulles brothers front and center very obscene holding a nuclear bomb with the face of Eisenhower while they handle bundles of dollar bills to the rebel colonel Castillo our mas subtle Guatemala and Iran are not usually thought of as being front-line countries in the 1950s Cold War but JFD didn't believe in neutral participants when it came to the world conflict of East versus West to him the non line leaders were just Soviet allies in disguise America had a duty to intervene in these countries to actively contain the spread of communism and Soviet interference abroad jf DS key doctrine to contain the projection of Soviet power had been unveiled on the 12th of January 1954 during a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations this was known as massive retaliation sounds got Norwegian black metal band but in the context of the Cold War this doctrine involved the deterrent of massive retaliatory power to protect the US and its allies from Soviet aggression this power that was implied of course was of the nuclear variety now massive retaliation was never actually implemented otherwise I'd be speaking to you from vault 69 but on at least one occasion jf d got very close to putting it in practice that was during the siege of Dien Bien Phu you'll recall from our earlier video that this was the last major battle of the second Indochina war fought in 1954 between the French garrison and the Viet Minh besiegers the US Joint Chiefs of Staff had planned for operation vulture a large-scale aerial attack in support of the French JFD strongly supported this plan however believing that the plan 298 bombers and 450 jet fighters were not enough he floated the possibility of dropping atomic bombs on general Japs troops however the Chiefs of Staff and President Eisenhower opposed the idea of using even tactical nukes and eventually vetoed the whole operation okay so clearly a hawk right well we need to also consider examples which show jft as a more balanced and nuanced politician as well as a skilled diplomat despite Winston Churchill's cutting remarks during his tenure as advisor to the Department of State JFD strongly endorsed the Schumann plan the first step to the creation of the European Coal and Steel community the first incarnation of the European Union love it or this community was a guarantee for peace in Western Europe and JFD clearly saw that mr. Dulles was also put in charge of leading negotiations for the peace treaty with Japan signed in San Francisco on the 8th of September 1951 he was recognized as skillfully completing a stalling process ending military occupation of Japan and restoring peaceful cooperation between Tokyo and the Western powers now when it comes to his time in office as Secretary of State let's focus on 1956 the year of the two crises Suez and Hungary you already know from our recent videos that the suez crisis was triggered when Egyptian President Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the anglo-french Suez Canal Company on the 26th of July 1956 in September secretary Dulles and attempted a peaceful resolution of the mountain crisis wanting to prevent any possible Soviet involvement he proposed the creation of the Suez Canal users Association comprising 18 naval powers the Association would have given Britain France and Egypt an equal stake in the canal but his idea failed to win the full support of the contending powers in October the British government repeatedly hinted that it might resort to force in dealing with Nasser to which JFD refused to provide any support from the US military or otherwise when the British and French eventually did attack port sited Ellis's main concern was to dissociate the u.s. from their action on a broader scale he wanted to dissociate the u.s. from European colonialism this was a radical change of policy compared to JFK's precedents in similar scenarios think about the overthrow of Messiah back for example not only that jetty was also wary of Nikita Khrushchev's threat of entering the conflict a threat which would not discount the use of tactical nukes if not strategic ones jf DS final response was to pressure Britain and France into accepting a UN sanctions ceasefire on of November moreover Eisenhower's administration backed a UN resolution which publicly condemned the invasion now while handling the trouble in Egypt Dulles also had to contend with the events of the Hungarian Uprising for thirteen days from October 23rd to November 4th 1956 crowds of Hungarian demonstrators and forced the resignation of the Communist Party as well as the retreat from Budapest of Soviet occupation forces on November 1st the new democratic government under umbria Nagy announced Hungary's withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and the adoption of a position of neutrality nudg appealed to the UN and the Western powers for protection but Soviet armored columns rolled back into Hungary crushing the democratic experiment on November 4th an estimated 2,500 Hungarians died and 200,000 more fled as refugees during the revolution both Eisenhower and Dulles delivered speeches on their Voice of America Radio expressing the sympathy for the rebels but nothing beyond that this lack of action was harshly criticized at the time and even since but a Department of Defense report Declassified in 2017 paints a more complex picture since the start of the uprising Eisenhower and Dulles did intend to bring the Hungarian crisis to the attention of the UN Security Council but hesitated to do so they feared this could be seen as an electoral move to gain votes from Eastern European immigrants eventually JFD made up his mind and instructed the US ambassador to the UN Henry Cabot Lodge jr. to discuss Hungary at the Security Council on the 28th of October the issue was raised but the Soviet delegates stalled processes and the only decision was to convene a gain in five days time meanwhile Eisenhower met with both the Dulles brothers to discuss a possible intervention outside of a UN mandate Ike and John eventually decided instead unwilling to chance a military escalation in Eastern Europe jf DS plan for the next Security Council meeting was to introduce a resolution calling for Soviet withdrawal from Hungary supervised by UN observers JFD sought backing from the UK representative of the council Pierson Dixon who offered another idea to use the session on the 1st of November to simply condemn the Soviets and postpone final deliberations for two more days while this was going on however events were escalating in Hungary nudge declared independence from Moscow while Khrushchev steel his resolve to intervene this was the week in which the French and the British had occupied the Suez Canal and the Soviet leader wanted at all costs to avoid the perception of weakness Ellis's approach to the Hungarian crisis was to avoid direct intervention but prevent a military escalation and while he sought to involve the Security Council procedural delays allowed events to overtake him and an American decision that was made for them in action which maintained the status quo but risked nothing for the United States now the final word is with you was JFD generally an aggressive interventionist driven by three forces of American exceptionalism manichaean worldview and corporate interest or was he the Stute statesman who did what was best for his country and adapted his approach based on risk and opportunities we hope you've enjoyed today's topic and to make sure you don't miss future episodes please make sure you subscribe to our Channel and I press the bell button we can be reached by email at the Cold War channel at gmail.com we're also active on Facebook and Instagram at the Cold War TV if you enjoy our work consider supporting us via patreon.com slash the Cold War this is the cold war channel and don't forget trouble with the Cold War is that it doesn't take too long before it becomes heated

Channel: The Cold War

Views: 60,798

Keywords: Tito, Stalin, Cold War, josip broz tito, soviet union, stalin documentary, kings and generals, operation unthinkable, the cold war, yugoslavia, albania, soviet, sovietization, world war II, Hodza, Eastern Bloc, world war, Potsdam, 1945, USSR, US, America, Europe, Asia, Japan, Germany, capitalism, poland, west, east, us, ussr, un, reconstruction, pows, hungary, china, vietnam, vietnam war, marshal plan, stalin, france, nato, de gaulle, united states, denazification, uk, malenkov, khrushchev, dulles, eisenhower

Id: 8w-R7aTG4Lc

Length: 19min 17sec (1157 seconds)

Published: Sat May 09 2020