Birth of John Foster Dulles 

U.S. #1172 was issued a year and a half after Dulles’ death.

John Foster Dulles was born on February 25, 1888 in Washington, D.C.

The oldest of five children, Dulles attended school in Watertown, New York before entering Princeton University. There he served on the debate team before graduating in 1908. Dulles went on to attend George Washington University Law School.

After graduating and passing the bar exam, Dulles worked in a New York City law firm where he focused on international law. Then in 1915, his uncle Robert Lansing, then Secretary of State, asked him to visit Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama to see if they would aid the U.S. in the war against Germany. Dulles helped work out a deal between the nations that served all parties.

U.S. #1172 FDC – This cancellation includes the phrase “Peace with Justice,” taken from the title of one of Dulles’ writings.

Also during World War I, Dulles attempted to join the Army, but was denied because of his poor eyesight. However, he was granted a commission as a Major on the War Industries Board. When the war was over, President Woodrow Wilson made Dulles legal counsel to the U.S. delegation at the Versailles Peace Conference. While there, Dulles was a vocal opponent of harsh reparations against Germany. After the conference, he served on the War Reparations committee and the League of Free Nations Association, which supported America’s membership in the League of Nations.

U.S. #928 was issued for the 1945 U.N. Peace Conference.

Dulles went on to help create the Dawes Plan, which dealt with the payment of war reparations. However, Germany stopped making some of its payments in 1931 and by 1935, Dulles had to sever all business ties with the nation that had been taken over by the Nazis.

In the 1940s, Dulles supported Thomas E. Dewey’s bids for the presidency and served as his chief foreign policy advisor. After World War II, he attended the San Francisco Conference and helped to write the preamble to the United Nations Charter. Dulles then served as a delegate to the U.N. General Assembly in 1946, 1947, and 1950.

U.S. #2022 – Dulles Airport opened in November 1962.

In January 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower made Dulles Secretary of State. In that position, he spent much of his time building up NATO and was an important figure during the early Cold War era, fighting communism worldwide. Dulles supported the French war against the Viet Minh in Indochina and played a crucial role in the CIA’s overthrow of Iran’s Mossadegh government in 1953.

The following year, Dulles helped found the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), to prevent the expansion of communism in Southeast Asia. Dulles also helped found the National Council of Churches, the Foreign Policy Association and the Council of Foreign Relations. And he served on the boards of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Rockefeller Foundation. For his accomplishments, Dulles was made Time’s Man of the Year for 1954.

U.S. #2022 FDC – Silk Cachet pictures Dulles and the airport named in his honor.

Dulles discovered he had colon cancer in the mid 1950s, but remained Secretary of State until April 1959. He died a little over a month later on May 24. He was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Washington’s Dulles International Airport was named in his honor.

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2 Comments

  1. His paternal grandfather John Welsh Dulles was a Presbyterian Missionary in INDIA. John Foster Dulles` s son AVERY DULLES (1918-2008) converted to Roman Catholicism, entered Jesuit order, became THE FIRST AMERICAN THEOLOGIAN TO BE APPOINTED A CARDINAL ! In 1950, John Foster Dulles published WAR OR PEACE , a critical analysis of Presiden Harry Truman`s foreign policy of CONTAINMENT OF COMMUNISM, and Dulles advocated POLICY OF LIBERATION . He described Soviet communism as GODLESS TERRORISM and became aggresssive anti communist. Though accused by communists as a WAR MONGER, Dulles was chairman of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and also Trustee of Rockfellar Foundation. The US Postage stamp first day cover cancellation carries a phrase PEACE WITH JUSTICE. This phrase is taken from John Foster Dulles`s writings. In 1950, Carol Burnett shot to fame by singing I MADE A FOOL OF MYSELF OVER JOHN FOSTER DULLES. However, John Foster Dulles responded with good humor saying I never discuss matters of heart in public . Anti-American protesters have wrongly attributed a quote to Dulles THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DOES NOT HAVE FRIENDS, IT HAS INTERESTS . Actually, these words were spoken by French President General de Gaulle . Thank you MYSTIC for your article on this great American .

  2. How times have changed. John Foster Dulles always had an open Bible on his desk, while Secretary of State, and referred to it daily.

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