Allen Dulles, the CIA director under presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, the younger brother of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and the architect of a secretive national security apparatus that functioned as essentially an autonomous branch of government. Talbot offers a portrait of a black-and-white Cold War-era world full of spy games and nuclear brinkmanship, in which everyone is either a good guy or a bad guy. Dulles—who deceived American elected leaders and overthrew foreign ones, who backed ex-Nazis and thwarted left-leaning democrats—falls firmly in the latter camp.
But what I was really trying to do was a biography on the American power elite from World War II up to the 60s. That was the key period when the national security state was constructed in this country, and where it begins to overshadow American democracy. It’s almost like Game of Thrones to me, where you have the dynastic struggles between these power groups within the American system for control of the country and the world…
Absolutely. The surveillance state that Snowden and others have exposed is very much a legacy of the Dulles past. I think Dulles would have been delighted by how technology and other developments have allowed the American security state to go much further than he went. He had to build a team of cutthroats and assassins on the ground to go around eliminating the people he wanted to eliminate, who he felt were in the way of American interests. He called them communists. We call them terrorists today. And of course the most controversial part of my book, I’m sure, will be the end, where I say there was blowback from that. Because that killing machine in some way was brought back home.
– From the Mother Jones article: You Think the NSA Is Bad? Meet Former CIA Director Allen Dulles
Many of you will be intimately familiar with the name Allen Dulles. Younger readers, of my generation or below, will be far less so. It is precisely because the youth of this nation remain so ignorant of the nefarious characters in America’s past, that David Talbot’s recently published book, The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government, is so incredibly important.
Mr. Talbot has been recently conducting invaluable interviews about the book with various media organizations. One of the best I’ve seen is with Mother Jones. Here’s some of what he had to say about America’s longest serving CIA director:
But what I was really trying to do was a biography on the American power elite from World War II up to the 60s. That was the key period when the national security state was constructed in this country, and where it begins to overshadow American democracy. It’s almost like Game of Thrones to me, where you have the dynastic struggles between these power groups within the American system for control of the country and the world.
I focused on those elements that I thought were important to understanding him. I thought other books covered that ground fairly well before me. But what they left out was the interesting nuances and shadow aspects of Dulles’s biography. I think that you can make a case, although I didn’t explicitly say this in the book, for Allen Dulles being a psychopath.
They’ve done studies of people in power, and they all have to be, to some extent, on the spectrum. You have to be unfeeling to a certain extent to send people to their death in war and take the kind of actions that men and women in power routinely have to take. But with Dulles, I think he went to the next step. His own wife and mistress called him “the Shark.” His favorite word was whether you were “useful” to him or not. And this went for people he was sleeping with or people he was manipulating in espionage or so on. He was the kind of man that could cold-bloodedly, again and again, send people to their death, including people he was familiar with and supposedly fond of.
There’s a thread there between people like Dulles up through Dick Cheney and [Donald] Rumsfeld—who was sitting at Dulles’s knee at one point. I was fascinated to find that correspondence between a young Congressman Rumsfeld and Allen Dulles, who he was looking to for wisdom and guidance as a young politician.
Absolutely. The surveillance state that Snowden and others have exposed is very much a legacy of the Dulles past. I think Dulles would have been delighted by how technology and other developments have allowed the American security state to go much further than he went. He had to build a team of cutthroats and assassins on the ground to go around eliminating the people he wanted to eliminate, who he felt were in the way of American interests. He called them communists. We call them terrorists today. And of course the most controversial part of my book, I’m sure, will be the end, where I say there was blowback from that. Because that killing machine in some way was brought back home.
How about Dulles’ role in the assassination of JFK? Talbot pulls no punches here either…
To me it’s one of the greatest examples of media incompetence and negligence in American history. I even confronted Ben Bradlee about this, who was probably JFK’s closest friend in the Washington press corps and wrote a book all about JFK and their close friendship. “Why didn’t you, with your investigative resources, try to get [to] the bottom of it?” You should read what he says in Brothers, but basically it came down to, “Well, I thought it would ruin my career.”
I think I have studied this about as much as anyone in my generation at this point, and my final conclusion after 50 years was we have to go there, we have to look at the fact that there’s a wealth of circumstantial evidence that says not only was there, at the highest level, CIA involvement. Probably in the assassination cover-up. But beyond the CIA, because the CIA wouldn’t have acted on its own.
But the CIA are good guys now. Or so the propagandized American public believes…
Now check out David’s interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now:
For related articles, see:
“Non-Official Cover” – Respected German Journalist Blows Whistle on How the CIA Controls the Media
Wall Street on Parade Explores JP Morgan’s Disturbing Links to the CIA, NYPD and More…
Before You Buy That Rothko…How the CIA Covertly Nurtured Modern Art as a Cold War “Weapon”
KKR Employee and Former CIA Head, General David Petraeus, Suggests Supporting al-Qaeda Against ISIS
Leon Panetta, Head of Pentagon and C.I.A. Under Obama, Says Brace for 30 Year War with ISIS
Ray McGovern: “Obama is Afraid of the C.I.A.”
Released Documents Detail the C.I.A. Role While Embedded in the NYPD
Bankers for Hire – Former Bank of Baltimore CEO Admits He Worked for the CIA
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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Thanks for this nformation. It dovetails with my own conclusion, STALIN WON WWII & USED THE UN TO EXPAND THE BOARDERS OF THE OLD USSR.
I will post a link to “Staln’s science” below.
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/281017812
Ah, Dulles and his lackeys… whoever they were working for…
James Corbett did a pretty good piece on him recently that fleshes out some of the shadier details of the Dulles brothers — check it out at https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-307-meet-allen-dulles-fascist-spymaster/ .
Great article. You showcased the inception of everything that is wrong with America today.
Thanks again Mike. The validation, “There’s a thread there between people like Dulles up through Dick Cheney and [Donald] Rumsfeld—who was sitting at Dulles’s knee at one point. I was fascinated to find that correspondence between a young Congressman Rumsfeld and Allen Dulles, who he was looking to for wisdom and guidance as a young politician” from a quote like this, however small, means I am a sane person and my view of my own experiences has more than a ring of truth.
John (State) and Allen (OSS & CIA) were both Rockefeller cousins, as were Teddy, FDR and Eleanor (FDRs first cousin). “The Very Best Men” by Evan Thomas has good info on the origins of this treason operation, stocked with Skull & Bones and Ivy League traitors. Big Bush was set up with a CIA, ‘cost plus business’ front company, heavily involved in the Bay of Pigs, and insulted by Jack, see
“Did Geo H W Bush Coordinate a JFK Hit Team” at Veterans Today
John and Allen were Jesuit trained foot soldiers of the Black Pope. Given the bloody history of the Jesuits, including their involvement in the Lincoln Assination that resulted in the US suspending all diplomatic relations with the Vatican for over 115 years, did the Dulles brothers make the ridiculous policies or merely implement them for their puppet masters manipulating their strings in Georgetown and Fordham unversities?
The Dulles brothers were very good puppets.
The reason why the Dulles brothers could easily install Mao as the premeir of communist China is because the Jesuits infiltrated and have ruled the elite of China since the mid 17th century. Mao’s family had generations of ties with the Jesuits just like Castro, Stalin and Pol Pot the leadership of both North and South Vietnam before, during and after the war years.
The Catholic and Jesuit educated Diem (his father was the Jesuit puppet premeir of South Vietnam) of Georgetown Unversity wrote the Patriol Act Meanwhile the Jesuits of San Francisco Unversity wrote the Affordable Care Act that was implemented by their shill Nancy Pelosi who kissed the ring of the Pope days after she was named Speaker of the House and shortly after made the statement that Congress should pass Obamacare first and then take the time to read the 27,000 pages.
The grim Dulles brothers were just more clogs in the Jesuit New World Orde hammer that also fabricated the global warming farce at Jesuit Sophia University. And these undisputed facts and the crimes of the Dulles brothers are mere molecules on the garbage pile moutain of Jesuit manipulations and outragous acts against humanity.
The current revelations related to the Dulles brother’s involvement with the Kennedy incident on Elm Street is another cover for diversion away from what really happened . http://mygodimhit.com .
No argument here regarding the Jesuit connections. But who runs the Jesuits or did these evil reptiles just slither to the surface in the last 2,000 years? Hard to believe that the puppet masters behind the Roman and Holy Roman Empires handed off control to a bunch of newbies.
Beyond excellent observation but our thread will not be published on the Newsweek or Time blogs.
The need to control and destroy what cannot be controlled comes from absolute fear of anything or anyone that cannot be controlled, subjected o eliminated
Fear of life…fear or freedom…fear of humanity’s need to live a real human life.
A real human life is the posibility to live,love,work,create and die in the arms of another human being filled with the consciousness of what it meens to really be a human being ,existing in this incredible world with it wonder creatures
Fear motivates the death wish of anything that causes the feeling of destruction of the “Vampire Kingdom ” and the ” televission zombies” produced by
the mass media corporations ,created, manteined and used by the global wold vampires …the biggest Corporation ever created, and controlled by the ever hungry and permanently disatisfied real world leaders
They know, that no matter what they do …they wiil also die …..like any of their victims
DULLES THE JESUIT
Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., RIP
John L. Allen Jr. | Dec. 12, 2008
Cardinal Avery Dulles, a Jesuit, a scion of one of America’s most prominent political families, and widely considered a giant of 20th century Catholic theology in the United States, has died at the age of 90.
Dulles was in residence at Murray-Weigel Hall at the Jesuit-run Fordham University in New York at the time of his death.
Born in 1918, Dulles was the son of the future U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and the nephew of Allen Dulles, who served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, both during the Eisenhower administration. Two other more distant relatives also served as U.S. Secretaries of State.
The future Jesuit priest was raised Presbyterian, and declared himself agnostic at the start of his student days at Harvard in the late 1930s. At the university, however, he came into contact with Catholic thought, and converted to Catholicism in 1940. After a stint in the U.S. Navy, Dulles entered the Society of Jesus and was ordained to the priesthood in 1956.
Those were the years of ferment in the build-up to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), and as a budding theologian, Dulles reflected the intellectual excitement of that era. He taught at the Jesuit-run Woodstock College from 1960 to 1974, and then at the Catholic University of America from 1974 to 1988.
Over the years, Dulles published 23 books and some 750 articles. Perhaps his best-known book was 1974’s Models of the Church, in which Dulles outlined five different images of the church that have developed over the centuries, from “institution,” “mystical communion” and “sacrament” to “herald” and “servant.” Though Dulles regarded each as valid on its own terms, most readers in the immediate post-Vatican II period regarded the images of “herald” and “servant” as best reflecting the council’s vision, and tended to see Dulles as part of the broadly “progressive” theological outlook associated with Vatican II.
As the post-conciliar period gave way to the John Paul years, however, Dulles began to give voice — along with a broad swath of Catholic opinion — to doubts about whether some of the reforms and innovations associated with Vatican II had perhaps led to a weakened sense of Catholic identity.
In a 2006 interview with NCR, for example, Dulles expressed deep admiration for both Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, but added that if he had any criticism, it might be that both men were perhaps “not traditional enough” on some issues, such as the death penalty and the church’s teaching on a just war.
Whatever conclusions Dulles reached, they were always informed by deep learning and considerable generosity to opposing views. Perhaps in recognition of that, Dulles served at various points as president of both the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society. Over the years, he was also deeply involved in ecumenical relations, including the United States Lutheran/Roman Catholic dialogue.
In 2001, Pope John Paul II elevated Dulles to the College of Cardinals, the first American-born theologian who was not a bishop to receive the honor. In a typical gesture of humility, Dulles insisted at the time that the pope meant to honor “North American theology” rather than him personally.
During his April visit to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI met privately with Dulles, in what amounted to a farewell. During that 15-minute session, Benedict said he remembered fondly the work Dulles had done for the International Theological Commission, an advisory body to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, during the time then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger served as prefect.
Dulles had a wide circle of friends, among whom he was admired for his keen sense of humor, deep personal calm, and a prodigious work ethic.
Last April, Dulles delivered a farewell lecture as the Laurence J. McGinley professor of religion and society at Fordham. By that stage confined to a wheelchair and unable to speak for prolonged periods, Dulles prepared a speech that was read on his behalf.
In that address, Dulles wrote that his aim had always been “to incorporate the valid insights of all parties to the discussion, rather than perpetuate a one-sided view that is partial and incomplete.”
“I think of myself as a moderate trying to make peace between (opposing) schools of thought. While doing so, however, I insist on logical consistency. Unlike certain relativists of our time, I abhor mixtures of contradiction,” Dulles said.
He also confirmed his deep faith.
“The most important thing about my career, and many of yours, I feel sure, is the discovery of the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field — the Lord Jesus himself,” Dulles said.
Dulles held 28 honorary doctorates, along with virtually every major award bestowed upon theologians and distinguished intellectuals. His death brings the number of American cardinals down to 16, with 13 under the age of 80 and thus eligible to vote for the next pope.
HE WAS FIRED FROM THE CIA BY JOHN F KENNEDY FOR THE BAY OF PIGS FIASCO AGAINST KENNEDY’S ORDERS!!!! EVIL, EVIL MAN!