A comparative Analysis of John Foster Dulles and Henry A. Kissinger and the Impact Their Personalities Had on the Formulation of American Foreign Policy

party, making him feel righteous and better than the rest. Kissinger 
also had (and has) a timely sense of humor that helped in breaking 
the ice in many tense situations during negotiations. These elements 
of his style would remain during his tenure in the Nixon and Ford 
Administrations. 

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CHAPTER IV 
Dulles: Presidential Advisor and Secretary of State (1953-59) 
John Foster Dulles was sworn in as Secretary of State under 
President Eisenhower on January 21, 1953. Dulles and Eisenhower had a 
special working relationship. But it took a while to cultivate this 
relationship. At first Eisenhower was impatient with Dulles' slow, 
meticulously detailed oratory. But he respected Dulles' grasp of 
historic and current facts of foreign policy, especially in relation 
to the Soviet Union. Dulles studied Marxist-Leninist ideology intense­
ly and would quote from Josef Stalin's Problems of Leninism, which he 
kept at his bedside and on his desk along with the Bible and the Fed­
eralist Papers. He would present several alternative courses of 
action for the President to decide from, offering various consequences 
and advantages of each alternative. He presented the facts as he knew 
them, offered his suggestions and then asked for the President's deci-
sion. 
Dulles respected Eisenhower's military experience and his position 
as President. "While Dulles was always the prime mover, he meticulous­
ly respected Eisenhower's authority in making the final decision." 
(Goold-Adams, 1962, p. 61) Dulles had easy, free access to the Presi­
dent at any time of the day. The two would converse two or three times 
a day on the phone. The only other Cabinet member who was closer to 
Eisenhower than Dulles was Secretary of the Treasury, George Humphrey, 
long-time friend of Eisenhower. 
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As Secretary of State, Dulles sought to form public opinion in 
favor of his policies, not to be guided by that opinion. He made him­
self far more accessible than his predecessor, Dean Acheson, to the 
American press. He was at all times more communicative to the 
public. He opened to the public "an unusually wide window on the 
64 
purposes and motives of the Department of State". 
(Drummond & Coblentz, 
1960, pp. 67-69) But he also had a tendency to oversimplify compli­
cated foreign policy issues and his grand boasts misled the public he 
was hoping to enlighten and alienated those with a more sophisticated 
knowledge of foreign affairs. 
Although he was respectful of Eisenhower and was open to the press, 
Dulles did not get off to a good start with the State Department per­
sonnel. When he took office, morale was virtually nonexistent due to 
Senator Joseph McCarthy's attacks on the Department. In February 1950, 
McCarthy said Connnunists inside the State Department were responsible 
for American setbacks in the world. When Dulles arrived, he outraged 
and frightened the Department staff by telling them he would demand 
their "positive loyalty", a phrase "that suggested a new test of al­
legiance was to be imposed as a condition of continued employment". 
(Divine, 1979, p. 58) He reinforced their fears when he appointed 
Scott McLeod, a close friend of McCarthy, as head of the State Depart­
ment security program with access to personnel files. State Department 
personnel believed Dulles was appeasing McCarthy. 
Dulles soon stood up to McCarthy and reassured his staff that he 
was not a McCarthy supporter. Eisenhower appointed Charles Bohlen as 
Ambassador to Moscow, replacing George Kennan. Bohlen had been a 

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member of the first diplomatic mission to the Soviet Union following 
recognition in 1933, headed up the Russian desk at the State Depart­
ment in World War II, served as Roosevelt's interpreter at Yalta, and 
was counselor to Secretaries Marshall and Acheson. The Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee unanimously confirmed his appointment. McCarthy 
objected to the appointment after McLeod refused to clear Bohlen 
because the FBI file on him contained damning evidence concerning his 
loyalty. (Divine, 1979, p. 59; Guhin, 1972, p. 201) 
Senators Robert Taft (Republican-Ohio) and John Sparkman (Demo­
crat-Alabama) reviewed Bohlen's file at the FBI and found nothing sug­
gesting he was disloyal to his country. Dulles continued to support 
Bohlen. He had a stake in assuring that the State Department would 
run its own affairs. Bohlen's rejection by the Senate would mean 
that McCarthy would have a veto over Dulles' decisions. With Dulles' 
and Eisenhower's support, Taft was able to secure Senate confirmation 
for Bohlen by a margin of 74 to 13. 
Liberation 
One of the simplistic phrases used by Dulles to describe complex 
foreign policy issues was uttered by him in the 1952 Presidential cam­
paign. Dulles criticized the Truman-Acheson containment policy, which 
focused on stopping Communism from spreading any further. Dulles felt 
that containment was too static because the policy wrote off the 
Eastern Europeans who were imprisoned in the Soviet sphere. Dulles 
sought a more positive, dynamic policy of liberation. The Europeans 
were worried about this policy because they feared their region would 
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become a battleground of U.S.-Soviet rivalries. 
Liberation was typically Dullesian. It was anti-status quo; it 
was anti-Communist. When he was given opportunity to implement his 
policy, that policy proved to be merely a desire for peaceful change 
and not a plan for action. In 1956, when Poland and Hungary rebelled 
against Soviet domination, Dulles could only offer his moral support 
and not armed assistance. He had never promised military action to 
achieve liberation. He laid out an advance strategy of this policy in 
War or Peace: East Europeans "have no arms, and violent revolt would 
be futile." Worse than that, "it would precip
.
itate a massacre .•. We 
have no desire to weaken the Soviet Union at the cost of the lives of 
those who are our primary concern." (Dulles, 1950, p. 24 7) Dulles 
proposed instead of armed revolt to exert intense political, economic, 
and moral pressure on the Soviet empire from without, and to activate 
the same type pressures from within. He saw Yugoslavian President 
Josep Broz Tito's break with Stalin in 1948 as the beginning of liber­
ation. 
Agonizing reappraisal 
66 
Dulles and Eisenhower were primarily concerned with European unity 
in th�ir handling of foreign policy. Dulles feared Communism spread­
ing through West Europe. He envisioned the creation of a United States 
of Europe that would insulate the continent from Communist subversion. 
Moreover, a European Defense Community (EDC) was to be the nucleus for 
the unification of the European states. EDC emphasized an integrated 
European army comprised of French, German, Italian, Dutch, Belgian, and 

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Luxembourg troops. Such a force was perceived deterring any Soviet 
aggression against West Europe. EDC had been proposed by France in 
1951, but Paris later proved to be the main obstacle to the creation 
of the European army. The French National Assembly was divided on the 
issue. Many Frenchmen "began to have second thoughts about the pro­
posed rearmament of Germany", a country which had thrice invaded and 
twice conquered France in 70 years. 
(Grantham, 1976, p. 92) Dulles 
sought to push the French Assembly into a decision--either for or 
against. Their delay left the security of West Germany and all of 
Europe uncertain. 
Dulles consistently stated there was no alternative to EDC. It 
must be approved by the various parliaments in order to commence the 
unifying of West European interests and purposes. He denied the pos­
sibility of alternatives in hopes of gaining a decision on EDC. He 
knew there were alternatives to EDC--such as West German membership 
in NATO--but he felt EDC was the best of the practicable solutions. It 
would merge German and French troops along with others. "The German 
military units to be integrated were to be of less than divisional 
size. Thus there would be no separate German army and no German Gen­
eral Staff, a body with a militaristic tradition much feared by the 
French and British." (Knappen, 1956, p. 356) The European army was 
to be a joint contribution to the defense of Western Europe and was 
to be under the direction of the NATO Commander at SHAPE. 
West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was Dulles' closest friend 
among international statesmen. Adenauer wished to align his country 
with the West--the United States, France, and Great Britain. While 
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he worked hard for the reunification of his country, he did not want 
to be unified under Coilllllunism. Fearing for the security of the western