“Sparkling” –Washington Monthly
“Fast-paced and often gripping” –Boston Globe
“A secret history, enriched and calmly retold; a shocking account of the misuse of American corporate, political and media power; a shaming reflection on the moral manners of post imperial Europe; and an essential allegory for our own times.” —John le Carré
My new book is 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, I place their extraordinary lives against the background of American culture and history. I use 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.
Order it from your local bookseller, or from Amazon at:
“The Dulles brothers, one a self-righteous prude, the other a charming libertine, shared a common vision: a world run from Washington by people like themselves. With ruthless determination, they pursued, acquired, and wielded power, heedless of the consequences for others. They left behind a legacy of mischief. Theirs is a whale of a story and Stephen Kinzer tells it with verve, insight, and just the right amount of indignation.”
—Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War
“Kinzer tells the fascinating story of the Dulles brothers, central figures in U.S. foreign policy and intelligence activities for over four decades. He describes U.S. efforts to change governments during this period in Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam, Cuba, and other countries in exciting detail.”
—John Deutch, former director, Central Intelligence Agency
“As someone who reported from the Communist prison yard of Eastern Europe, I knew that the Cold War really was a struggle between Good and Evil. But Stephen Kinzer, in this compressed, richly-detailed polemic, demonstrates how at least in the 1950s it might have been waged with more subtlety than it was.”
—Robert D. Kaplan, author of The Revenge of Geography
“A disturbing, provocative, important book. Stephen Kinzer vividly brings the Dulles brothers, once paragons of American Cold War supremacy, to life and makes a strong case against the dangers of American exceptionalism.”
—Evan Thomas, author of Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle to Save the World
The Koch Brothers have taken these brothers place. Funding a war on their own people.
Congratulations on getting your book reviewed by some of the “mainstream” media operations. Too bad these gutter scum have banned any mention of John Loftus’ book “America’s Nazi Secret”, which also has a few things to say about the Dulles clan. Careful, when speaking in public you might run into somebody who has actually read this shattering expose’.
I think it was in Newsweek that I read a single sentence that confirmed what I long suspected: THE CIA BANK-ROLLED THE ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISTS*!!!!!!! Why do you suppose they did THAT? Remember that, while Jack ‘the Dripper’ Pollock was dribbling, Ben Shawn, and, yes, Diego Rivera were painting FIGURATIVE work that can and DO attack this FASCIST, PLUTOCRATIC KLEPTOCRACY. Check out the Susan Sarandon (and her ex’s, Tim Robbin’s) film ‘Rock the Cradle,’ the last scene of which depicted a group of fat cats smoking stogies and drinking brandy as they plotted to get behind abstract art. They had good reason to fear us. To see why, check out my ‘We the Sheeple’ (and a smaller but similar piece in BC Space’s ‘Capital Crime$’ show in a Hufpo article by Liz Goldner) by going to http://www.cafepress.com/wethesheeple1 from your computer’s URL bar. And, while you’re at it, check out jorgesicre.com and check out ‘The Tower’ (Count Ardeno Clereci collection, Rome) and, for that matter, google me, Jorge Sicre. ‘We the Sheeple’ is a lot funnier than David’s ‘La Mort de Marat’ and look how many heads that tableau separated from torsos in France. HELP IT GO VIRAL and remember our slogan, “Screw the Deuche-Bags, Buy a Tote-Bag!
*Of course, it’s easy to extrapolate to Color Field Painting, pop, Minimalism (that darling of corporate amerika whose credo is “I have nothing to say and I’m saying it”) Neo-Geo, conceptualism, Bad-Art (I’m not making this up) and all the other ‘isms’ that are mainstream in the potemkin village of amerikan art but nowhere else. Let’s chat.
I think it was in Newsweek that I read a single sentence that confirmed what I long suspected: THE CIA BANK-ROLLED THE ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISTS*!!!!!!! Why do you suppose they did THAT? Remember that, while Jack ‘the Dripper’ Pollock was dribbling, Ben Shawn, and, yes, Diego Rivera were painting FIGURATIVE work that can and DO attack this FASCIST, PLUTOCRATIC KLEPTOCRACY. Check out the Susan Sarandon (and her ex’s, Tim Robbin’s) film ‘Rock the Cradle,’ the last scene of which depicted a group of fat cats smoking stogies and drinking brandy as they plotted to get behind abstract art. They had good reason to fear us. To see why, check out my ‘We the Sheeple’ (and a smaller but similar piece in BC Space’s ‘Capital Crime$’ show in a Hufpo article by Liz Goldner) by going to http://www.cafepress.com/wethesheeple1 from your computer’s URL bar. And, while you’re at it, check out jorgesicre.com and check out ‘The Tower’ (Count Ardeno Clereci collection, Rome) and, for that matter, google me, Jorge Sicre. ‘We the Sheeple’ is a lot funnier than David’s ‘La Mort de Marat’ and look how many heads that tableau separated from torsos in France. HELP IT GO VIRAL and remember our slogan, “Screw the Douche-Bags, Buy a Tote-Bag!
*Of course, it’s easy to extrapolate to Color Field Painting, pop, Minimalism (that darling of corporate amerika whose credo is “I have nothing to say and I’m saying it”) Neo-Geo, conceptualism, Bad-Art (I’m not making this up) and all the other ‘isms’ that are mainstream in the potemkin village of amerikan art but nowhere else. Let’s chat.
The influential Dulles brothers merged U.S. foreign policy interests solely with corporate interests since they had represented them so assiduously and profitably for so long. To singly and singularly have such a focus both stunts and distorts what is in the national interest doing tremendous harm to the nation, national security and ethics.
Also it shows that elected leaders were in thrall of such influential men who represented the corporate elite of their time. Elected leaders in our democracy often just follow the money and powerful economic interests, not what is in the best interest of the nation. They are not always synonymous. One wonders what cultural upbringing allows such a narrow vision of the world to infest the mind.
A former crewman on an 8th Air Force B-17G sat next to me in a Cleveland bar. “In briefings they would tell us NOT to bomb certain targets because they belonged to American corporations.”
HI:
Heard your interview on C2C and glad to get to the bottom of the Dulles brothers. We have all always been curious about them.
I am from Dallas and was there at the time of 1122. You didn’t say anything about Dulles being the mayor of Dallas at that time?????
I have it in my head that he was the mayor of Dallas.
Is that right.
I live in San Antonio now and am the Archives Director for the HAPPY Foundation, our GayBLT history archives here.
210 732-3238.
Hope to read the book.
hellow mr kinzer I enjoyed your talk on the cspan show last night and noticed that you said that the dulles brothers were the cause of the vitnam war,and that is one scenario,but I was told by an old army intel officer that the bell helicopter company was going out of business and the only way to recover was to start a war to sell copters and arms,?was he telling me the truth.
Stephen Kinzer,
I heard you on your interview with John B. Wells on Coast to Coast radio program. I am a Stream Link member, and I download programs off of “Coast’s” website. I drive an 18 wheeler from the Northwest to Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta. I load up the programs onto a flash drive and play the drive with the truck’s radio.
I have to tell you, that for the past ten days, I’ve played your two forty minute segments over and over. I really think the info you related about “The Brothers” and how they influenced history, since the early fifties, is something that I never heard before. My mother taught history and she and my father were both, US Navy WW II veterans. I have never heard this part of our county’s history. Thank you for spending the time with John B. Wells!!!!! I HAVE to read your new book!
A book of clarification for me. I have read about these two snakes many times but you have
brought to light in a very linear way their determined, one sided thinking. It is embarrassing and
shameful to read about the things that they along with Eisenhower did. It really does seem that we would not have commited such crimes in Vietnam if it had not been for Foster Dulles’ intransigence about the Geneva Accord after the French were defeated.
Gary Van Velsor
Mark Schulman Interesting! If this is true Alan Dulles was playing both sides from the middle and would, along with Sullivan and Cromwell’s clients, come out ahead no matter who won. What’s a little treason between patriots. Have you informed Stephen Kinzer of your theory? I would love to hear his opinion.
3 hours ago · Like
John Bevilaqua And when Dulles led The Plot to Kill Hitler with my Great Uncle, Klaus Schenck von Stauffenberg, it was not out of a patriotic pro-American fervor to say the least. Rather it was done to prevent the Allies from bombing Germany back into the Stone Age and destroying all of the German industrial cartels which were some of the biggest clients of Sullivan and Cromwell. Brig. Gen. William F. Draper did the same thing. His role was to break up these cartels and to emasculate Germany and he did quite the opposite in fact. See Splendid Blond Beast. Sullivan and Cromwell handled the merger of Andrew Preston’s Boston Fruit (Wickliffe Draper’s cousin) with United Fruit around 1900. And Sullivan was the FIRST Grand Master of SMOM in the USA in fact. Later people like Colby, Angleton, Donovan and maybe even Casey became Knights of various SMOM chapters. You don’t want to get in the way of the agenda of these Soldiers of Christ if you were either a Commie or a Muslim infidel. The CIA was merely the domestic intelligence arm of the SMOM. Hard to accept but it is true.
Would you have any supporting documentation about this theory of mine?
Who is SMOM? I am an author of various texts for DOD and acronyms without definition are a huge no-no!
Dear Mr. Kinzer,
I’m researcher Phd in Iran contemporary history of Iran and I’m studying about oil nationalization and Musaddeq. your new book “The Brothers” is considereable for me but how can I download it? because this book isn’t in Iran.
Peace,
Sheida Saberi
Dear Sheida Saberi,
If there is any way I could help, I will. I am on Facebook at Ian Divertie or my email, which I seldom look at these days is idiv23@outlook.com. I have a BA in History (magna) and a JD. I am currently researching a book on the Cold War, particularly the period you are interested in. I am 59 and retired involuntarily due to a heart attack. Ana kalemee Arabii shwaer, Ham-dula-Allah, —but no Iranian/Persian/Pashtun, 🙂
Salaam,
Ian Divertie
PS I recently updated the Overseas Consultant Inc. entry using Mr. Kinzer’s book on Wikipedia and of course attributed the information to him. I am intensely curious as to which 11 engineering firms made up OCI.
Half way through and I cannot put it down. This is an amazing story of two powerful men whose actions and concepts on foreign policy have direct ramifications on our lives right now in the 21st century. Every student of American mid-century history should read this! Thanks for writing such a great book Mr. Kinzer.
I just finished the book and found it to be an invaluable contribution to both intelligence studies and America’s foreign policy. The social psychology analysis toward the end is both accurate and aptly applied to the Dulles brothers. This book should be in every American’s library. The only thing of which I found myself wanting a little more is the crass corporate muscle employed on behalf of corporate clients and the entire elite class who need not even meet and conspire in order to know where their values and interests lie. This is a strand that ran from the Dulles brothers through Dick Cheney. Perhaps it is another book, but Kinzer has the ability to write it.
Just finished your most remarkable study of the Dulles brothers, in which your span takes in their effect on the Cold War and the full realm of world events and politics. A WWII vet, It was most meaningful to me, a cartographer joining CIA in 1956 in the DD for Intelligence and Research not involved in the dirty tricks elaborated in those times. You didn’t stop until, in the last chapter, you brought me into your class on the depth of world events and these brothers and where the U.S. stands today. Your study is most meaningful to one, now 88, who lived through this entire period. Thank you.
[…] “among the best in popular foreign policy storytelling” was invited to introduce his new book, The Brothers, by Women Against War, UAlbany’s History, Political Science, Judaic Studies Departments, […]
Nice interview with Michael Brooks from Majority report today. I agree that these titans of what Sam Seder calls the ‘deep state’ are largely overlooked today. I was most interested in the conversation about the unforeseen consequences of their actions. Having read area 51 several years ago, I see the Dulles brothers through a similar lens. It was all part of an attitude that the rules did not apply, including any compunction to get the approval of the president. I will definitely read you book, and I have bookmarked your site!
Best regards,
Doug Unfug
A terrific book thus far. One small correction – Joseph Dulles did not flee “anti-Protestant” but anti-Presbyterian repression. The Anglo-Irish establishment were cracking down on the nonconformists, having seen the potential for unrest in Scotland, and foreseeing what was around the corner in 1798. As the text is written, it suggests that Catholic Ireland was engaged in suppressing Protestantism, and that is far from the case.
well researched book. the conclusion that the dulles brothers are us and we are them is an example of flawed thinking. the labor movement, civil-rights movement and anti-war movements had to battle the greedy small-minded wasps that pervert america.
Hope this doesn’t sound too smug; If you’re 75(like I am), pretty well traveled, pretty well educated, and stubbornly refuse to ignore the seemingly endless insanity that has become like quick-sand and refuses to release us from its grip; then maybe speaking up is OK
I obviously go back a ways. Dwight Eisenhower was a heroic, sanitizing figure (like on the detergent bottle) so most of what was going on back then seemed pretty OK. Being far less worldly, I never doubted we could be involved in anything “bad”. How views can change as we get older and hopefully wiser.(Not a guarantee for everyone unfortunately)
Soon this relatively tranquil presidency began heating up. There was the Cold War, Mao’s driving Chan to Formosa (Taiwan), Indochina, and again, thanks to Forster and Allen Dulles, a little closer to home “The Banana Republics” in Central America, which now belonged to United-Boston Fruit. These two brothers sure were busy!
Henry Kissinger got jump started back then in Germany When you total up all the tricky moves he and his protege,Paul Bremmer got to make you can see it’s endless.
Fast forward to Bush-Cheney and the Vulcan-NeoCons. Their thinking got us the Islamic State and endless war in the Middle East, buried us in debt, and failed to take out bin Laden. But don’t think they weren’t busy in the Reagan years. We weren’t going to allow those evil Soviets to take over Afghanistan so we had to equip and train the Mujahideen to drive them out. Look where that got us! Of course the ever diligent Richard Clarke must have been paranoid about al Qaeda so why feel unduly threatened and on increased alert? Look what that got us!
I’ve gotten my second wind so to speak and would like to add to my previous reply.
There is another family that figures quite prominently in American politics, the Bushes. With his 2004 book,”American Dynasty”, Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush; Kevin has pretty much guaranteed not being on the list of invitations at any Bush functions, despite being a well respected conservative political and economic commentator for more than 30 years.
While on the subject of books, David Stockman, another well known Conservative has written what I believe will be the definitive chronicle of the past 30-40 years of “the corruption of Capitalism in America” (his words). The title is “The Great Deformation” and very few “high rollers” have been left out. Talk about not being on any one’s invitation list! But then when you see what so many of these pathetically greedy,stupid bastards have done why bother!
So few commentators see the crazy quilt of international events and their most often ill founded origins. Stephen Kinzer is an absolute marvel. So greatfull to have you.
Thanks
My quibble with your well-researched and entertaining book it that it is lacking in context.
It was truly a time of our bad guys versus their bad guys…. bad guys all around. As it turned out, ‘ours’ won, whatever that may mean, and we became the empire left standing…
Now there are no blameless empires, but we have handled our time in the saddle in relatively benign fashion with, of course, major exceptions. Still, had the Soviets won where would we be ?
The ultimate answers to such questions are still ahead of us. WE still have work to do, and managing the world is an enterprise fraught with difficult choices. Perfection remains an elusive and flawed metric.