| The Brothers - John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War (2013) |
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| Description |
| A joint biography of John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, who led the United States into an unseen war that decisively shaped today's world During the 1950s, when the Cold War was at its peak, two immensely powerful brothers led the United States into a series of foreign adventures whose effects are still shaking the world. John Foster Dulles was secretary of state while his brother, Allen Dulles, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this book, Stephen Kinzer places their extraordinary lives against the background of American culture and history. He uses the framework of biography to ask: Why does the United States behave as it does in the world? The Brothers explores hidden forces that shape the national psyche, from religious piety to Western movies—many of which are about a noble gunman who cleans up a lawless town by killing bad guys. This is how the Dulles brothers saw themselves, and how many Americans still see their country's role in the world. Propelled by a quintessentially American set of fears and delusions, the Dulles brothers launched violent campaigns against foreign leaders they saw as threats to the United States. These campaigns helped push countries from Guatemala to the Congo into long spirals of violence, led the United States into the Vietnam War, and laid the foundation for decades of hostility between the United States and countries from Cuba to Iran. The story of the Dulles brothers is the story of America. It illuminates and helps explain the modern history of the United States and the world. A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013 |
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| Notes/Review |
| Up to now, the bulk of my reading of Cold War history has been biographies of men with whom I fundamentally agreed; men who spoke truth to power, even if they weren't listened to. When I read Ambrose's biography of Eisenhower I got a glimpse of the Dulles brothers. Reading about Eisenhower, I came to the conclusion that he was not a good president. Reading this book, that opinion is confirmed and I want to assign some of the blame to the Dulles brothers, even if that's not the conclusion that Kinzer reaches. This book is the whole-life biography of the two brothers. We get their heritage, their youth, their complete careers, and their ends. The book is broken into three parts. The third part is a short summary, and the first part is their upbringing and early careers. The bulk of the book is the second part, called "Six Monsters". The six are Mohammad Mossadegh (Iran), Jacobo Arbenz (Guatemala), Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam), Sukarno (Indonesia), Patrice Lumumba (Congo), and Fidel Castro (Cuba). Here we learn what these "monsters" did to attract the attention of the brothers, the details of the various operations and the success or failure thereof, and a bit of the long-term effects of their actions. The Dulles brothers had some interesting ideas on what "freedom" meant, on the weakness of diplomacy, and on the unerring and unlimited power of the USA. A place was free if it was capitalist and Christian; if private property is protected and one can pray to Christ, one is free, even if one lives life under a brutal dictator. In their view, a nation couldn't be neutral: if they didn't move into the American sphere, they were Communist. There was no such thing as "neutrality". The big thing, though, was the Dulles brothers' monomania about Communism. (I wanted to say "monophobia", but that means fear of being alone, not fear of a single thing.) They stoked this fear, multiplied it, and used it to support their actions that ultimately benefited the clients of their law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell. That big capital can drive a nation's foreign policies to fight against self-determination and liberty isn't a bug of capitalism, it's a feature. |