The Cold War, Dulles Brothers, & Military

An alarming erosion of Governmental ethics took place once the Cold War started in the early 1950s. Facing the expansionist policies of the Soviet Union and China posing the threats of nuclear confrontations and the complexities of the war, the nation initially remained submissive and silent regarding the policies Washington took for a while. Taking full advantage of that public acceptance and complacency and the vulnerability of the nation, a group of war-hawks and elites emerged extremely powerful to promote militarism, confrontation, and American hegemony in the world. They did not like the ‘containment policy’ that called for restraint and measured responses to contain the expansions of the communist bloc.

Setting the tone of militarism and reckless nuclear arms race during the formative period of the Cold War, these forces led the nation and the world towards a very costly, counterproductive, and dangerous path of proxy wars and confrontations. With their hegemonic policies in which long-term solutions were deliberately abandoned to pursue short-term fixes, so that more conflicts and turmoil would arise as a result requiring military engagements, they brought about a failed and dangerous agenda in the world. The agenda served the ‘power elite’ while the American people paid a high price.

Now we know that the ‘power elite’ knew then that the whole Vietnam War could have been avoided had the policy-makers followed the guidelines and wisdom left behind by leaders like Wilson and FDR. Many opportunities of peace were either deliberately or recklessly squandered to drag America into the Vietnam War for almost two decades in which America disgracefully lost, and with that lost its standing and leadership in the world.

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he tactics of fear-mongering and portraying the enemy a formidable force requiring limitless military spending are in full force now as these were then. The ploys of vilifying and dehumanizing the people on the other sides were used then as these are used now facing radicalism and terrorism. There was no willingness to address the root causes then, as there is none to find out the root causes of radicalism.

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n 1953 two brothers – Foster Dulles as the Secretary of States, and Allen Dulles as the CIA director – were appointed to take charge of the overt and covert operations of American foreign policies during the critical and formative period of the Cold War. They were perfect neoconservatives, the warriors of the corporate world, and allies of the “military-industrial complex” and protectors of puppet regimes they helped to set up abroad. Their almost a decade-long campaign against the popular, democratically elected leaders that were deliberately branded as ‘leftist’ and ‘troublemakers.’ This undemocratic, neocolonial agenda destroyed the trust and confidence American earned during FDR. Their sinister mission made this once a beacon of freedom a hypocrite and villain. [note]Stephen Kinzer, The Brothers, John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, Times Books: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2013, New York, p 325-328[/note] The cynicism and distrust had reached so high under the leadership of Ellen Dulles that any trouble anywhere in the world, rightly or wrongly, the all-powerful CIA was finger-pointed. The CIA became a household name in the world as an evil force. I grew up hearing this name ‘CIA’ on the lips of adults. If a politician was distrusted or disliked he was branded as a CIA-agent. The American people did not know that the Dulles brothers themselves became an institution themselves propagating a brutal policy of overthrow, in the name of America’s interest, in the world. They misinformed and misled every American administration they served. President Eisenhower lamented later that he trusted the Dulles brothers too much and they betrayed him and robbed him of his place in history as a peace-maker, instead, he was left with a “legacy of ashes.” [note]Talbot, David, The Devil’s Chessboard, Harper Collins, New York, 2015, p. 5, 367 (‘Eisenhower gave Dulles immense license to fight the administration’s shadow war against Communism, but at the end of his presidency, Ike concluded that Dulles had robbed him of his place in history as a peacemaker and left him nothing but “a legacy of ashes.” Dulles undermined or betrayed every president he served in high office.’)[/note]

This sparked distrust and anger against America around the world and drove countless people to the Communist camp ready to fight the ‘evil’ American agenda, and intensified the costly confrontations of the Cold War. More or less the same way, now, many young Muslims are driven to the radical camps. They are not given an opportunity to engage in a constructive process of change.

The Dulles brothers first overthrew the nascent democracy of Iran in 1953 and replaced that with a tyrant monarch the Shah who repressed Iran for the next 25 years [note]Stephen Kinzer, The Brothers, John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, Times Books: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2013, New York, p 120-123 Mosaddegh nationalized the oil industry, he was ousted by a CIA orchestrated coup in 1953, the Shah was placed in the peacock throne.[/note] with the help of Israel who trained and equipped SAVAK, an elite Iranian military force, to conduct the abduction, disappearances, tortures, and ruthless oppression. [note]C23 Sale, Richard T., SAVAK: A Feared and Pervasive Force, Washington Post, May 9, 1977,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/05/09/savak-a-feared-and-pervasive-force/ad609959-d47b-4b7f-8c8d-b388116df90c/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f976466dd475[/note]

Then in 1954, the Dulles brothers overthrew President Arbenz of Guatemala, a very popular democratically elected leader. The CIA also ousted and killed the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Congo after the colonial rule ended there. He was killed by the CIA in December 1960 without informing the newly elected President Kennedy, who was shocked to find out about the assassination of the African leader whom he supported and also he supported spreading freedom and democracy in Africa. Kennedy ousted Ellen Dulles from the CIA. Kennedy himself got assassinated soon after.

However, the legacy the Dulles brothers left behind was picked up and sharpened and veiled by the later generations of neocons. President Allende of Chile was murdered and his democratically elected regime was replaced by Augusto Pinochet, a ruthless military leader, in 1973. The killing spree since subsided, but the agenda of behind the scene and under the table bribe and threats both continue to bring under the control of now the Israeli agenda via America as the present day neocons are all die-hard pro-Israelis.

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he real sins of these leaders were not that they were extremely pro-Soviet or even communists, the real issues were that they were dedicated to the cause of their people and would not let foreign powers or elites rob their nations. Mossadegh of Iran was ousted by a CIA orchestrated coup because he nationalized the British Petroleum from robbing 90% of his nation’s oil reserves. President Arbenz of Guatemala did a land reform that was very beneficial for his farmers but went against the interest of the United Fruit Company, an American corporation in which Dulles had a stake, therefore he had to go. Lumumba of Congo was working hard to uplift the economic condition of his suffering people the way he knew how. He was a dedicated and dynamic leader and his election victory electrified the Congo, a nation that had been plundered by its Belgian colonial ruler for a long time. After independence and after his victory he refused to sell Congo’s vast uranium deposits to a foreign multinational in which the top officials of the US State Department had financial interests. He also had to go. He maintained the policy of ‘neutrality’ in the Cold War keeping distance both from the Soviet Union and from the United States. He was vilified by the CIA as “a Castro or worse” and “bought by the Communists.” His nation was portrayed as ‘too primitive for democracy,’ the usual ploy before overthrowing a leader and his democratic regime. He was too popular so he had to be killed and eliminated forever. Therefore, the real reason behind bribing militaries to overthrow these popular leaders, democratically elected, was that they were obstacles before the interests of the American elites. [note]Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard, p. 375-387[/note]