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Allen W. Dulles

American foreign policy was a uniquely fraternal affair during Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency in the 1950s: John Foster Dulles served as Secretary of State while his brother Allen led the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

When and how it got the green light to conduct “subversive operations abroad”

The job ran in the family; both his uncle and grandfather were Secretaries of State. Home life in a parsonage taught him piety, and the law precision. The rigid views of a world divided between good and evil he worked out, apparently, himself. Private letters and new taped recollections help explain the shaping of the man who set our Cold War foreign policy

About a dozen years ago Carol Burnett’s nightclub repertoire included a number, “I Made a Fool of Myself over John Foster Dulles.” In 1971, in an era of massive discontent with American foreign policy, Miss Burnett would be unwise to restore it to her program

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