Allen Dulles Dead at Age 75

Allen Dulles Dead at Age 75 r- 3i - CO. By Don Oberdorfer

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Allen W. Dulles, the most creative, powerful and eminent American intelligence of; ficer of modern times, died of complications of pneumonia late Wednesday night at Georgetown University Hospital. He was M. The grandson of one Secretary of State, the nephew of another and the brother of still another—the late John Foster Dulles—he was the Nation's foremost intelligence operative during World War II, working from Switzerland. As director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1953 to 1961, Dulles presided over some of the most brilliant successes and some of the worst embarrassments of American espionage. Dulles did not establish the CIA, but he professionalized it and transformed it into one of the boldest and most important instruments of national power. Under his direction, the CIA conceived, constructed and flew the 11-2 spy plane and the spy-In-the-sky satellite, using them to photograph Russia's growing nuclear arsenal; tunneled under the Berlin Wall; toppled a Communist from power in Guatemala with guns for his enemies, and overthrew a leftist premier in Iran through a coup; began subsidies to American labor, education and cultural organizations operating overseas, and mounted the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs invasion in an attempt to topple Cuba's Fidel Castro. A prominent plaque in the lobby of the CIA's vast conSee DULLES, AS, Col. 1

United ?reel' Leiterastional . Allen Dulles, the Nation's foremost spymaster, is shown with his brother, John Foster Dulles, and with Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

DULLES, From Al crete building at Langley. Va., bears a sculpted likeness of Dulles and the inscription: "His Monument Is Around Us." A powerfully built, vigorous man with great energy and endurance, he had been in declining health since suffering a mild stroke more than a year ago. He entered Georgetown Hospital on Dec. 24, suffering from a bad case of flu which grew into pulmonary edema—water on the lungs. He died at 11:10 p.m. Wednesday from complications, according to a hospital spokesman. In a statement issued at the White House yesterday, President Nixon praised Dulles as "a man who brought civility, intelligence and great dedication to everything he did." Mr. Nixon added that.'in the nature of his task, his achievements were known to only a few. But—because of him—the world is a safer place today." At Walter Reed Army Hospital, former President Eisenhower extolled Dulles as "a devoted public servant whose outstanding ability will be Allen Dulles and his wife, Clover, at Swedish Embassy party in December, 1967. greatly missed by the Nation." Dulles headed the CIA during near the end of virtually the entire Eisenhow- ly hated the Soviet Union and was a system to be dealt with. Switzerland, er Administration and always was the advocate of unscru- He never had his brother's World War I when an "insignificant little man" called to maintained—without rebuttal pulous ideological and propa- ,moralistic loathing." see someone in authority in the from the White House—that ganda activity by the United Clergyman's Son U.S. Mission. "I was scheduled CIA operations were carried States Government. ' With their three sisters, the to play tennis, so I had no time out only after high-level. ap- Assailed in 1951 Dulles brothers grew up in a for him," Dulles recalled later. proval. Strong as it was, the Tass series of Presbyterian parson "Somewhat later I learned that Helms Tribute statement did not reach the ages occupied by their father, the man was Lenin. If I had Director Richard Helms of bombastic level set by in 1951 the Rev. Allen M. Dulles. seen him, who knows what the CIA, who worked for Dulles by Ilya Ehrenburg, a leading Often the brothers went sail- results might have been." for many years, praised his Soviet propagandist. "Even if ing together. "Foster wants to Object Lesson "unique" contribution to the the spy, Allen Dulles, should reduce things to clear com- He often cited the story later establishment of the modern arrive in Heaven through, pass directions," said a sailing to CIA associates as an object American intelligence service. somebody's absent-mindedness, companion of the time. "Allen lesson in his theory that no "He was inspired by what to Ehrenburg wrote in Pravda, feels out the currents and one is too insignificant for ofhim were the lasting Ameri- 'the would begin to blow up moves on a more complicated ficial attention. Dulles resigned from the can traditions of freedom, jus- the clouds, mine the stars and course." Young Allen was extremely Foreign Service in 1926 to tice and tolerance," Helms slaughter the angels." said. "He clearly saw his ca- Though Allen Dulles often prococious; writing a pamphlet enter law practice In New reer in intelligence as service spoke and wrote of the dan- at age 8 on the Boer War after York. where he had a distinto these principles. it was his gers to the United States posed hearing it discussed by his guished career at Sullivan Sr deepest conviction that the by Soviet ambition and aggres- grandfather, John W. Foster, Cromwell, also his brother's American Government and siveness, he was far less of Secretary of State under Pres- firm. During World War II, people should know the truth, an ideological anti-communuist ident Benjamin Harrison, and Gen. William J. Donovan, the and that the truth should than his elder brother, John his uncle, Robert Lansing, who chief of the Office of Strategic Foster Dulles. In the half- was to be Secretary of Slate Services, recruited Dulles as make and keep them free." In the Soviet Union, where cloaked world of modern es- under President Woodrow Wil- his intelligence chief in Switzattacks were launehed on Dul- pionage, the younger Dulles son. erland. les beginning in February, worked against the Russians After receiving B.A. and 1948. and continuing with with great energy and enter- M.A. degrees from Princeton, Hundreds of Agents great intensity during his CIA prise, as he bad against the Dulles served as a junior dip- According to the citation for years, the official news agen- Germans during World War II. lomat and intelligence officer his Medal for Merit, signed by cy, Tess, declared yesterday Nevertheless, said one of his in Europe. One of his favorite President Truman in 1946, that the was not only spy former close associates yester- incidents of his early diplo- Dulles "within a year effecnumber one, but he also fierce- day, "To Allen, Communism mate service occurred in Bern, tively built up an intelligence •

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THE WASHINGTON POST

Friday, Jan. 31. 1969

ulles Dies at 75 A strong supporter and camnetwork employing hundreds of Informants and operatives paign aide of Gov. Thomas E. reaching into Germany, Yugo- Dewey in 1948, Dulles would slavia, Czechoslovakia, Bulbeen CIA Director in a garia, Hungary, Spain, .Portu- have Dewey Administration. When gal and North Africa, and he was finally appointed to oompletly covering France, the job in February, 1953, by Italy and Austria." Dulles ob- President Eisenhower, he tained and personally man- brought a unique combination aged an agent within the German foreign Office who had of assets. The full impact of the Cold access to every document. War had broken in WashingThrough him and other mem- ton, with a massive increase bers of his extensive apparain the official consciousness of tus, Dulles obtained the first Soviet military and political information on the German ambitions and operations. Dulrocket program and many les had been the most eminent other secrets. and experienced intelligence Directing clandestine nego- field officer during the war. tiations with some of Hitier's and now he became Director generals, Dulles arranged the of CIA as the brother of the surrender of the German new Secretary of State. Army of Northern Italy near- Perhaps as important, his a week before V-E Day. love of "the craft of intelliThis "secret surrender,' later gence" (the title of another of the subject of one of his sev- his books), his uncommon eral books; was one of his boldness and his magnetic ability to attract bold and able proudest achievements. After he was recruited as men all contributed to a surge Dulles testifying at Senate hearing in 1955. Deputy Director of the CIA M of power and importance at 1950 by its director, Gen. CIA. Despite the uproar following vember, 1961, with public Walter Bedell Smith, and in When Dulles learned In 1954 I praise from Kennedy and the his eight years as CIA Direc- that German scientists were the crash of Francis Gary in May, 9)60, presidential observation to tor, Dulles constantly harked working on highly secret Powers in a U.2 consider the CIA employes that "your sucback to his wartime Swiss ex- strategic missiles under Soviet many authorities the most impor- cesses are unheralded — your perience, which was probably direction deep inside Russia, overflights as the great adventure of his he insisted that the United tant American intelligence failures trumpeted." Mrs. Clover Todd Dulles, the life. Because he had been an States had to learn the details triumph of the postwar era. On the other hand, the Bay former CIA Director's wife, intelligence officer in the whatever the cost or risk. 1961 April, of invasion Pigs of survives'him, as do two daughfield, and a superbly success-1 His staff came up with Idea ful one, he possessed a zest of a high-flying spy plane. —another product of the ters, Mrs. Joan Buresch of Zucongenerally CIA—is Dulles rich and Mrs. Clover Dulles for the romance of cloak-and- Dulles convinced the Eisendagger work which is rarely hower Administration and sidered the greatest U.S. in- Jebsen of New York City, and found at the top of intelli-Congress that the CIA should telligence blunder. Dulles con- a son, Allen. M. Dulles, who build and fly it, on grounds vinced the newly inaugurated was severely wounded in the genre bureaucracies. Within the CIA, he was that the Defense. Department President, John F. Kennedy, Korean war. that if an invasion was to be Also surviving are three sisoften referred to as "the was much too slow, Great White Case Officer" be-i From the go-ahead to build successful, it was impossible ters, including Eleanor Lanscause he loved to dabble in a prototype II-2 in December, to wait. The disastrous result ing Dulles of Washington. Futhe details of undercover , 1954, it was only nine months shattered Kennedy's confi. neral services will be held at work. In intelligence, a case to the first test flight and dence in Dulles and, for a 11 a.m. Saturday at Georgeofficer is the man who man- about a year after that to the time, in the CIA. Dulles re- town Presbyterian Church, tired as CIA Director in No- 3115 P st. nw. .first flights over Russia. ages the spies.

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Allen W. Dulles

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We have come some distance in our thinking part because they were encouraged by the example about espionage and intelligence gathering from of Allen W. Dulles to make it a career. His own career is set forth elsewhere in today's the day when it used to be thought (by others as It is enough to note that he was a highly the with editions. well as Henry Stimson who is credited intelligence agent, In World War II, people's successful other read didn't phrase) that gentlemen the boss, and this gave him a became he do before to more had probably Dulles Allen And mail. with this leap forward than any man. He was a head start with the working stiffs. It was somegentleman, every inch, and he did believe in read- times said that he never got over being a working the point of trying to run everying other people's mail, sometimes literally and stiff himself, really a measure of his strength. was this but thing, techniques al sometimes by such unconvention curiosity and endless insatiable from came which that thankful be can we and aircraft, U-2 as he did, and that there is no longer any serious energy and limitless excitement about his work. argument about the need for this country to main- Just to begin with he looked like a spy-master, a tain a permanent, centralized peacetime secret British spy-master, with the pipe, and the explosive intelligence agency. There will continue to be laugh, and the professor's sharp eyes. He came to debate about how big it should be, and just what Washington for three months to give the CIA a it should do, and who should oversee it, and at careful study for President Truman and he wound least some of this controversy can be credited to up staying for 11 years and putting into practice Mr. Dulles, too. He was passionate about his trade reforms he had merely intended to recommend. C44 —and less so about his anonymity—and bold in There is no way to measure his accomplishment; the risks he took. And of course he made his share of mistakes, which in his line of work can be very intelligence successes come in the form of being serious. But he never flinched from trying the prepared and there is nothing very dramatic about hard and thankless things that were often handed that; it is when we are caught short that CIA on to him because more conventional approaches comes to public notice, But surely the U-2 flights, hadn't worked. And although he left in the after- despite their bad ending, were an intelligence math of the Bay of Pigs, which was the bad triumph, and one which was crucial, many think, chapter, he left behind him an extraordinary to President Kennedy's success in the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. And surely there were other monument. triumphs, as well as failures, along the way, some Visitors to the CIA headquarters in McLean, Va. losses as well as gains that you cannot see and are told, in a Latin inscription on a plaque com- would be hard put to evaluate if you could. Pera gentleman memorating Allen Dulles, to look around the build- haps it is enough to say that he was uning for his monument, which is ironic, because what who did as much as any man to help his country reading of world today's in necessity the derstand he left behind is nothing so tangible—some would say ostentatious—as that. It is the esprit, and the other people's mail, that he did it with integrity his country sense of dedication, and the self-respect, and the and great skill, and that on balance a difprofessionalism of the men and women who have was measurably safer and more secure in he was brought a high standard of competence to Ameri- ficult and dangerous time for the fact that can intelligence-gathering and analysis in large doing it.

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