I should have footnoted my reply to you about how Dulles got to be DCI.
I was pretty much correct about how it happened. Except not only was Smith ill, he did not want the job anymore.
My source was Leonard Mosley's book, Dulles, pages 272, 296-97. Although this is an old book, 1978, it is still one of the better biographies on the Dulles brothers that I know about.
Thanks Greg... I gave that book to my GF when she asked what I thought really happened....
Wish I could remember EVERYTHING I read....
Fletcher will never get the recognition he deserves for his widening of the cracks....
Yet I am still bothered by what appears to be a CFR/MICC move with Dulles. Generals can be counted upon... first civilian DCI apoointed by a 5-star? and no backstory other than succession and merit... gee, am I that paranoid or does that too simple?
I think, Why wouldn't a General, after 3 others, insure that this amazing weapon, the OPC, is handed to more military?
Unless once the CIA real strength becames OPC and Smith distances it FROM Military... the CFR needs their guy inside as DCI ... so voila Brother pushes the right button and we get A.Dulles.
You are forgetting an important step in Eisenhower's career. Between the military and his presidency he was president of Columbia University in NYC for about five years. That is key:
Eisenhower's stint as president of Columbia University was punctuated by his activity within the Council on Foreign Relations, a study group he led as president concerning the political and military implications of the Marshall Plan, and The American Assembly, Eisenhower's "vision of a great cultural center where business, professional and governmental leaders could meet from time to time to discuss and reach conclusions concerning problems of a social and political nature". Biographer Blanche Weisen Cook suggests that this period served as "the political education of General Eisenhower", as he had to prioritize wide-ranging educational, administrative, and financial demands for the university. Through his involvement in the Council on Foreign Relations, he also gained exposure to economic analysis, which would become the bedrock of his understanding in economic policy. "Whatever General Eisenhower knows about economics he has learned at the study group meetings," one Aid to Europe member claimed.
The contacts gained through university and American Assembly fund-raising activities would later become important supporters in Eisenhower's bid for the Republican party nomination and the presidency. Meanwhile, Columbia University's liberal faculty members became disenchanted with the university president's ties to oilmen and businessmen, including Leonard McCollum, president of Continental Oil; Frank Abrams, chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey; Bob Kleberg, president of King Ranch; H. J. Porter, a Texas oil producer; Bob Woodruff, president of Coca-Cola; and Clarence Francis, General Foods chairman. As Columbia's president, Eisenhower gave voice and form to his opinions about the supremacy and difficulties of American democracy. His tenure marked his transformation from military to civilian leadership. The biographer Travis Beal Jacobs also suggests that the alienation of the Columbia faculty contributed to sharp intellectual criticism of him for many years.
You are forgetting an important step in Eisenhower's career. Between the military and his presidency he was president of Columbia University in NYC for about five years. That is key:
Eisenhower's stint as president of Columbia University was punctuated by his activity within the Council on Foreign Relations, a study group he led as president concerning the political and military implications of the Marshall Plan, and The American Assembly, Eisenhower's "vision of a great cultural center where business, professional and governmental leaders could meet from time to time to discuss and reach conclusions concerning problems of a social and political nature". Biographer Blanche Weisen Cook suggests that this period served as "the political education of General Eisenhower", as he had to prioritize wide-ranging educational, administrative, and financial demands for the university. Through his involvement in the Council on Foreign Relations, he also gained exposure to economic analysis, which would become the bedrock of his understanding in economic policy. "Whatever General Eisenhower knows about economics he has learned at the study group meetings," one Aid to Europe member claimed.
The contacts gained through university and American Assembly fund-raising activities would later become important supporters in Eisenhower's bid for the Republican party nomination and the presidency. Meanwhile, Columbia University's liberal faculty members became disenchanted with the university president's ties to oilmen and businessmen, including Leonard McCollum, president of Continental Oil; Frank Abrams, chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey; Bob Kleberg, president of King Ranch; H. J. Porter, a Texas oil producer; Bob Woodruff, president of Coca-Cola; and Clarence Francis, General Foods chairman. As Columbia's president, Eisenhower gave voice and form to his opinions about the supremacy and difficulties of American democracy. His tenure marked his transformation from military to civilian leadership. The biographer Travis Beal Jacobs also suggests that the alienation of the Columbia faculty contributed to sharp intellectual criticism of him for many years.
Thanks.... I was not aware of this, did I miss this in your book? ....very illuminating
Wouldn't this give even greater merit the the CFR being behind Dulles' appointment? His brother was CFR, yes?
Finally Jim... As I read about the domino theory... I recall the time I spent researching the origins of the Cold war... why did it happen that way... and repeatedly my trail led to the work of George Kennan... Without the works of Kennan, does Acheson come to the conclusions he does...
in fact I was awlays under the impression it was GK who initiated these US feelings... it's just that Kennan is not even mentioned, nor indexed....
Is this such general knowledge as to not be needed in a discussion of containment and the domino theory post WWII?
I'm simply making an observation about something I had studied and felt is important in understanding the history of the Cold War... without Kennan's interpretation of the situation who knows....
I'm on chapter 3 btw... the book is wonderful... I'll need to read it once for FEEL and again for DETAIL... excellent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_theory
Following the Iran crisis of 1946, Harry Truman declared what became known as the Truman Doctrine in 1947, promising to contribute financial aid to Greece and Turkey following World War II, in the hope that this would impede the advancement of Communism into Western Europe. Later that year, diplomat George Kennan wrote an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that became known as the "X Article", which first articulated the policy of containment, arguing that the further spread of Communism to countries outside a "buffer zone" around the USSR, even if it happened via democratic elections, was unacceptable and a threat to U.S. national security. Kennan was also involved, along with others in the Truman administration, in creating the Marshall Plan, which also began in 1947, to give aid to the countries of Western Europe (along with Greece and Turkey), in large part with the hope of keeping them from falling under Soviet domination
The Sources of Soviet Conduct George Kennan 1948
Part I
The political personality of Soviet power as we know it today is the product of ideology and circumstances: ideology inherited by the present Soviet leaders from the movement in which they had their political origin, and circumstances of the power which they now have exercised for nearly three decades in Russia. There can be few tasks of psychological analysis more difficult than to try to trace the interaction of these two forces and the relative role of each in the determination of official Soviet conduct yet the attempt must be made if that conduct is to be understood and effectively countered.
The rest may be outlined in Lenin's own words: "Unevenness of economic and political development is the inflexible law of capitalism. It follows from this that the victory of Socialism may come originally in a few capitalist countries or even in a single capitalist country. The victorious proletariat of that country, having expropriated the capitalists and having organized Socialist production at home, would rise against the remaining capitalist world, drawing to itself in the process the oppressed classes of other countries." It must be noted that there was no assumption that capitalism would perish without proletarian revolution. A final push was needed from a revolutionary proletariat movement in order to tip over the tottering structure. But it was regarded as inevitable that sooner of later that push be given.
In these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet
Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies
..... Part III
In the light of the above, it will be clearlyseen that the Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the westernworld is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant applicationof counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and politicalpoints, corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet policy, but whichcannot be charmed or talked out of existence. The Russians look forward to aduel of infinite duration, and they see that already they have scored greatsuccesses. It must be borne in mind that there was a time when the CommunistParty represented far more of a minority in the sphere of Russian national lifethan Soviet power today represents in the world community.
Thanks for your praise of the book. Many people have said they want to read it twice. Wow.
In comparison, I barely got through Waldron once. And i wanted to vomit.
Yes, both the Dulles brothers were high up in the CFR. If I recall, Allen was actually on the board for decades. I think you can make a good argument that Ike was co opted at Columbia.
As per Kennan, a very interesting figure. .I once did a research paper on him in graduate school.
In examining his work overall, I was never able to come to a firm conclusion as to:
1. If he really started tehe Cold War himself on our side
2. Or if his words were deliberately manipulated by others for purposes he did not really mean.
Its not an easy argument on either side. The guy spent a large part of his career saying the COld War had gotten out of control and that Germany should be reunited--in the fifties!
But I was never able to decide it this was something he felt after the fact, or whether he was a really a near tragic figure like Oppenheimer.
As I begin Destiny Betrayed Second Edition I appreciate the context of the man, the president, his radical derailment of business as usual, his Douglassic martyrdom.
This Bay of Pigs operation was presented to the 35th president as a Trojan Horse, sold as a cure for Castro, proving a tar-and-feather job by blowback pros.
The missile crisis is rather flat yet foreboding in The Kennedy Tapes; casts JFK and Robert in a bad light in One Minute to Midnight, and opens more dimensions in Listening In. The major takeaway is it was a second time the hawks were thwarted--while they were again shown to be terribly stupid at strategic assessment: in the Bay of Pigs case they said it was a cakewalk (it was rolled up as fast as it arrived); in the case of the missiles, they would have ended history (yet the brass berated Kennedy in the insulting manner of Ted Dealey).
The plans of Hunt and his Op 40 arrow at a future use of frustrated crusader steroids.
The cases of Rose Cheramie and Sylvia Odio and David Ferrie show the sea was chummed in the run-up to the big event.
No product of a lone deranged aberrant, this was a gathering storm of the unspeakable.
Watching Garrison sail into this is to witness one of the few latter day heros of the Republic.
A history of valor not taught by the victorious cowards.
It is this entire context of the countercolonial Kennedy battling the predatory hawks which must arise from a sea of bromides.
This is a valuable work showing us a Dulles who in Evica is in Switzerland as Lenin is sent, is in Germany downplaying Hitler's threat and getting U.S. loans for the Reich, who is in country after country changing regimes with CIA and diplomatic and economic pressure.
Under an umbrella of anti-Communism Kennedy is made a heretic to be beset by swarms of vultures and hyenas.
Alinsky has nothing on Kubark when it comes to picking the target, freezing it, personalizing it, polarizing it.
After the Bay of Pigs--the next day--my fourteen-year-old neighbor across the street called Kennedy "a damned traitor"--is it any wonder Elmer Moore (who badgered Perry over the throat wound) would call the murdered president "a traitor"--that was the point of the Bay of Pigs.
A point underlined in red by the McCarthyite interpretation of the back channel negotiations with Castro and the secret correspondence with Khrushchev--our friend from Army intelligence intoning, "JFK was very dangerous, very dangerous."
I dismiss Dulles' insistence he thought Kennedy would cave and call in the Essex assets.
But then, Angleton deemed him one of the world's great liars, and, as Jim points out, carried his ashes.
Given the past work of Probe, The Assassinations and the 1st Ed of Destiny Betrayed, I look forward to the added material since 1992. The book titles I have. These are fine works Jim (and Lisa).
I'm getting back to the book now.
Best Regards Mr. DiEugenio.
Jim
