An American diplomat who drove the Cold War through alliance-building
At the 1954 Berlin Conference, he rejected an all-German government without free elections and upheld the Western electoral procedure.
John Foster Dulles was an American diplomat and lawyer who sought to organize the postwar order through alliances and military deterrence. As Dwight D. Eisenhower’s secretary of state, he pressed beyond containment toward rolling back communist influence and consolidated the Western bloc around NATO. At the 1954 Berlin Conference, he opposed Molotov’s collective-security proposal and call for an all-German government, insisting on reunification through free elections; later that year he secured West German entry into NATO, choosing institutionalized division in Europe over an unguaranteed settlement. The policy strengthened Western cohesion and American influence, but also carried responsibility for interventionism, including support for coups in Iran and Guatemala and reliance on nuclear threats.
Career Timeline
- 1908Graduated from Princeton University
- 1911International lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell
- 1919Legal counsel to the U.S. delegation at the Paris Peace Conference
- 1945–1950U.S. representative at UN conferences and General Assembly, and foreign-policy adviser
- 1950–1952Special adviser to President Truman on the Japanese peace settlement
- 1953–1959United States secretary of state
- 1954Participant at the Berlin Conference and leading negotiator for West Germany’s NATO accession
- 1959Resigned as secretary of state and died on May 24