Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
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Published 2020-06-19
Allen Welch Dulles, the distinguished Wall Street lawyer and son of a prominent family, rose to the helm of the Central Intelligence Agency at a very young age.
With the help of John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State and Allen Dulles’ brother, the longest-serving chief of the CIA molded the secretive organization in a way that often led to secret wars, overthrowing of foreign governments and occasional spying on its own people, all with the support of the U.S. Congress and mostly behind the backs of three presidents.
David Talbot, nonfiction book author and founder of the San Francisco-based web magazine Salon, combs through various government archives and draws from numerous first-hand interviews and sources to build a vivid portrayal of Dulles and the CIA under his leadership.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY: David Talbot is the author of the New York Times bestseller Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years and the acclaimed national bestseller Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love. He is the founder and former editor in chief of Salon, and was a senior editor at Mother Jones and the features editor at the San Francisco Examiner. He has written for The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Time, The Guardian, and other major publications. Talbot lives in San Francisco, California.
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All Comments (21)
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Both Dulles brothers were Freemasons and if you don't think that really matters, your kidding yourselves.
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Never announce you are going to destroy evil. Just set about doing it
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Allen Dulles' legacy continues today. Too bad JFK didn't tear the CIA into a thousand pieces as he desired, but was whacked before he could complete the task.
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Taking the Dulles Brothers on without moving quicker cost both JFK & Robert their lives. The fact that JFK publicly announced to end the CIA alone triggered both assassinations.
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The Devil's Chessboard is a phenomenal book that opened my eyes to the true recent history of the United States. I was appalled and saddened at the same time. No longer am I that innocent citizen accepting U.S. history at face value. I mourn for my father and uncles, all veterans of WWII. I mourn for the veterans of the Viet Nam Conflict. I mourn for the veterans of the Korean Conflict, the veterans of Desert Storm and The Gulf War. I mourn for the lost of the United States of America that our Founding Fathers envisioned and sacrificed so much so that the U.S. remained independent of foreign powers. When shown a copy of the Warren Commission, a gentleman who was a foreign head of state scroll down to the list of members of the Warren Commission> When he saw Allen Dulles' name, the gentleman pushed back the copy of the report and stated that the report is a "white wash." Allen Dulles was a very evil man. But there were others as well.
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Those Dulles brothers were two treacherous individuals caused a lot of suffering of many citizens of the world.
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We have been a CIA run war based economy since November 23,1963.
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"The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes." - Benjamin Disraeli
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In my humble opinion Alan Dulles was one of the most evil men ever on the planet
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Agree this is a significant book that was a milestone in waking up honest thinkers about what is really going on. It should appeal to conservatives as well as traditional liberals.
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Sociopathic history of the modern USA.
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We can't forget the deep interest the Dulles brothers and their cohorts had in the occult. Very much similar to the interest the German elites had in the occult in the ge1930's and '40's. Former high ranking Gestapo operatives under Operation Paper Clip were brought into the US to help build the Agency.
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Every coup etc they do to other countries always ends up making things way worse. We still feel repercussions of things they did years ago.
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David Talbot is a great author. If you wanna know more about Allen Dulles, Constitutional Law Attorney Daniel Sheehan is well versed on Dulles. Talbot's main focus on the Dulles brothers is from the beginning of CI, during the Eisenhower Administration, those two go way back. With that said, it leaves me a tad puzzled that more folks here in the states don't know what Allen was involved in. Going all the way back to 1919, Allen Dulles played a large part in the drafting the Treaty of Versailles, he was very instrumental in setting up the reparation payments of over 130 Billion Gold Marks which Germany agreed to pay to all the businesses that were damaged, ruined or put out of business as a result of WW1. Allen Dulles was also the one that okayed Adolf Hitler to become the Chancellor of Germany in the 1930's.
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One of the most important books of recent history.
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An excellent interview and spoke truth. The Dulles brothers are two of the most wicked people to walk our earth.
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My Father was Navy Intel he went into the OSS was stationed in china in 1943 secretly. Then went into the newly formed CIA He eventually left and went into private practice. The stories he told were mind blowing and the things he showed me.
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The US is a Constitutional Republic. We really need to stop referring to it/us as a Democracy. I understand the general reference, but there is a very important difference between a Democracy and our Constitutional Republic. Great interview. Thank you for sharing it.
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This is one of the most important books I have ever read. It is highly annotated & documented.
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Interesting how and why Dulles was a member of the Warren Commission!
