In
a different time, a time when we escape the cultural waste excreted
by decadent capitalism, a time without Fast and Furious 23 and
the abominable cable television mini-series Spartacus, some
creative and capable filmmaker might make a fascinating bio-pic out
of the lives of the Dulles brothers, Allen and John Foster. Until
then, we must make do with a new biography of the important duo (The
Brothers, Times Books, 2013) written by Stephen Kinzer, and
another, hopefully soon-to-be-available book on the subject by David
Talbot.
Kinzer's
book gives a fascinating, but unsatisfying look at the lives of two
public figures who wielded an unprecedented concentration of global
power. For the better part of a decade-- from 1953 to 1959-- the two
brothers together shaped nearly the entire US policy toward the rest
of the world. As director of the Central Intelligence Agency, brother
Allen decided the US clandestine activities toward friends and foes
alike. At the same time, he shaped the extent and few limits of the
newly founded agency.
Brother
John Foster did the same for the US's overt role in the world. As
President D. D. Eisenhower's Secretary of State from 1953 until
Dulles's death in 1959, he served the same goals and interests as his
brother.
The
unusual circumstance of such complete and convergent power sharing
was neither coincidental nor the result of a ruthless power grab. In
fact, it was consensual.
But
who gave the necessary consent? Certainly not the electorate, since
neither brother held elected office. Nor was it the tacit consent of
the public given Allen Dulles's secretive role and publicly unknown
activities. The consent question can only be answered by positing the
existence in the US of a mechanism capable of deciding questions of
ultimate leadership, a mechanism that could entrust US foreign policy
to these two long-groomed brothers. While we cannot be sure of who
exactly operates this mechanism and how it specifically functions, we
can be sure that it exists with the same certainty that we can affirm
the unseen existence of gravity.
It
should be equally obvious that the work of the Dulles brothers
through their eight years of common leadership coincided broadly with
the “interests” of the US as defined by the privately-held,
corporately organized heights of the US economy. While their policies
only occasionally directly benefited individual capitalists (usually
former legal clients), their actions were decidedly intent on
benefiting the capitalist class as a whole.
It
is through this mechanism that the interests of the capitalist class
are protected and promoted. It is, in the end, the way in which a
ruling class rules. In the end, it constitutes the best Marxist
evidence for the existence of a ruling class.
Ruling
class-deniers are compelled to explain how the Dulles brothers came
to enjoy such exceptional power precisely at a time when US elites
felt most threatened by the specter of Communism. They must offer an
alternative account that brings two imposing figures associated with
power, wealth, and anti-Communism to the pinnacle of power outside of
the bourgeois democratic process.
Kinzer,
a reliable foot soldier in the New York Times corporate
empire, does not hide the uniqueness and oddity of the ascent of the
brothers. But he would certainly have nothing to do with the
forbidden idea of a ruling class in the US.
Nonetheless,
his account offers revealing hints about how the Dulles brothers were
vetted and selected, how one qualifies to be trusted agents for
ruling class interests.
As
early as 1921, the Dulles brothers participated in the creation of an
important part of the mechanism of capitalist class rule: The Council
on Foreign Relations and its subsequent public discussion journal,
Foreign Affairs. To this day, the Council and its publication
remain essential elements in crafting and debating foreign policy
options congruent with the interests of capital.
Armed
with Ivy League, foreign policy and clandestine service credentials,
the Dulles brothers easily passed through the filters of ruling class
trust. For John Foster, this brought him to the law firm of Sullivan
and Cromwell, perhaps the leading legal agent for the international
interests of US capital at the time. While rising to the top of the
firm, the elder Foster ensured that US corporations, especially
financial firms, were advanced and protected overseas. Kinzer recounts how the law firm could always call on the US military to back up its
deal making. Moreover, he doesn't hide the close, welcoming
relationship of Sullivan and Cromwell with fascist regimes. Even in
the inter-war period, Foster was obsessed with forging unity with any
enemies of Communism. Like the Council on Foreign Affairs, Sullivan
and Cromwell was another component of the ruling class mechanism.
Allen worked for the firm as well.
With
much of the history of the ruthless, violent, and undemocratic
trajectory of US foreign policy in the 1950s now widely acknowledged,
Kinzer cannot mask the devious and bloody role of the brothers in
orchestrating it. Instead, he does a shrewd job of softening it by
focusing on only six covert plots against foreign “monsters”
perceived as standing in the way of US interests. The six-- Iran's
Mossadegh, Guatemala's Arbenz, Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh, Indonesia's
Sukharno, Congo's Lumumba, and Cuba's Fidel-- are specifically
targeted by the Dulles brothers for having the audacity to defy the
US. All six cases are well-documented independently, with the
Sukharno case the least well-known (Kinzer fails to fully indict the
CIA in its collaboration in assassinating a million Indonesian
Communists and their allies).
This
spin on CIA extra-legal killings, coups, and assassination attempts
feeds a simple-minded psychological explanation of the Dulles
disposition to rearrange the world to suit US capital. Drawing on a
bizarre interpretation of the celebrated movie, High Noon,
Kinzer paints the Dulles brothers as counterparts to the cowboy hero
“...reluctant to fight, but moved to do so because otherwise good
people will suffer.” What makes this particular allusion so twisted
is that the screenwriter, Carl Foreman, intended the film to be a
less-than-veiled attack on the cowardice of those lacking the spine
to confront anti-Communist blacklisting and McCarthyism. What was
meant as an attack on the Cold War mentality is converted by Kinzer
into an excuse for that Cold War mentality. Oddly, many right wingers
see High Noon as Kinzer does. But the old loud-mouthed
red-baiter, John Wayne, knew better-- he refused the lead because he
smelled an anti-blacklist allegory.
Kinzer
postures his account as a study of an aberration, a time when
well-meaning people did some now embarrassing things because
they exaggerated the Soviet threat. But none of these postures
are proven by Kinzer; they are merely stated as fact. There seems no
good reason to view two Cold Warriors as well-meaning when they
brought the world to the brink of nuclear war and caused the deaths
of literally millions. There is no compelling reason to conclude that
there really was a Soviet threat to the security of the US, unless
one assumes the Soviet desire for world socialism was somehow more
intrinsically aggressive than the US desire for a capitalist world.
But posturing the Dulles's foreign policy as an aberration is
preposterous. The aggressiveness of the CIA and the US military after
the reign of the brothers only intensified. Kinzer surely can't be
blind to the US interventions in Vietnam, Angola, Panama, Grenada,
Chile, and right up to the more recent aggressions against
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia, and Syria. The Dulles brothers
provided a blue print and not an aberration.
So
why does a distinguished writer for The New York Times writing
for Times Books choose to write a critical, but sympathetic
biography of these two ruthless Cold Warriors?
One
finds the answer in the final chapter. Kinzer quotes Senator William
Fulbright, an often lonely critic of the Fosters and US foreign
policy, as saying that John Foster “misleads public opinion,
confuses it, [and] feeds it pap.” But if Dulles fed the public
“pap,” he did it through the intermediary of the US news media,
including The New York Times. It is transparently obvious that
the media of the Dulles era not only failed to challenge the Dulles
world view but actively promoted and disseminated it. In that regard,
Kinzer's employer is complicit in fanning the flames of Cold War
fervor and sanctioning the violence and lawlessness that emerged from
it.
To
escape this unpleasant judgment on the Cold War media, Kinzer finds a
convenient, handy scapegoat: the US public. Amidst splashes of
psycho-babble, Kinzer explains:
Part
of the answer lies in their personal backgrounds, part in the realm
of psychology. The most important explanation, however, may be: they
did it because they are us. If they were shortsighted, open to
violence, and blind to the subtle realities of the world, it was
because these qualities help define American foreign policy and the
United States itself.
The
Dulles brothers personified ideals and traits that many Americans
shared during the 1950s, and still share... they embodied the
national ethos. What they wanted, Americans wanted.
In
all of this, the Dulles brothers were one with their fellow
Americans. Their attitudes were rooted in the American character.
They were pure products of the United States.
Now
this is a shabby, dishonest piece of writing. Their “fellow
Americans”-- millions of ordinary people-- were not like the
Dulles brothers. They were not privileged Ivy League graduates born
in the midst of the elite of the elites. Nor is it fair to the
millions of US citizens who never had the opportunity to walk the
path or through the doors open to the brothers to say that these
citizens were “shortsighted,” “open to violence,” or “blind
to subtle realities.” Certainly millions of their fellow citizens
unwisely trusted these pillars of high society to not succumb
to these character flaws. They were betrayed, just as they were
betrayed by a compliant, cowardly media.
In
his tortured finale, Kinzer persists in excusing the brothers and
their Cold War enablers, the media. To his credit, he recognizes some
of the great harm incurred on their watch; to his shame, he places
the blame at the doorstep of the US public: “The blame, however,
does not end with them. To gaze at their portraits and think, 'They
did it,' would be reassuring. It would also be unfair. Americans who
seek to understand the roots of their country's trouble in the world
should look not at Foster and Allen's portraits but in a mirror.”
Kinzer
would like us to believe that we collectively bear the blame for
despicable deeds that were done behind our backs and without our
consent, deeds that a compliant media, including his patron, The
New York Times, were only too eager to ignore, distort, and
approve.
Following
Kinzer's logic, the public is responsible for the hyper-spying of the
NSA so recently revealed by Snowden. The fact that it was kept from
public scrutiny by the government and the media matters not. If we
are indignant over authorities collecting our phone calls and other
electronic communications, we should look “in a mirror” and
accept the blame.
Of
course this is ridiculous.
Kinzer
serves a cold dish of obfuscation and blame-deflection with his book,
The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and their Secret
World War. Readers should be wary of this calculated apology for
imperialism and its high commanders. There is little new in Kinzer's
account apart from some anecdotal hi-jinks. And much of the ugly side
of US foreign policy is omitted. There is no indictment of an
enthusiastically collaborative Cold War media either, only an
embarrassing silence about their role.
Stephen
Kinzer's patrons will be happy.
Zoltan
Zigedy
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