WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.640 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are 00:00:02.640 --> 00:00:05.700 cracking open a file that, if I didn't know better, 00:00:05.820 --> 00:00:09.599 I would swear was a rejected manuscript for a 00:00:09.599 --> 00:00:12.539 spy thriller. Right. It feels too perfect, too 00:00:12.539 --> 00:00:15.900 constructed, but I assure you, every single bit 00:00:15.900 --> 00:00:17.600 of this is pulled straight from the historical 00:00:17.600 --> 00:00:20.440 record. We are looking at a man who was, quite 00:00:20.440 --> 00:00:23.559 literally, a paradox in a pinstripe suit. It 00:00:23.559 --> 00:00:26.000 really is one of the ultimate paradoxes of the 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:28.600 20th century. We are looking at a man who projected 00:00:28.600 --> 00:00:32.299 this incredibly curated image of the consummate 00:00:32.299 --> 00:00:35.179 gentleman. You have the pipe smoke swirling around 00:00:35.179 --> 00:00:37.579 him, the Princeton education, the tweed jackets, 00:00:37.880 --> 00:00:40.939 the very calm lawyerly demeanor. He had a pedigree 00:00:40.939 --> 00:00:43.420 that just screams establishment. Exactly. You 00:00:43.420 --> 00:00:44.979 look at his photo and you think, OK, this guy 00:00:44.979 --> 00:00:47.000 probably spends his weekends debating tax law 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:50.020 or playing bridge. But this same gentleman, this 00:00:50.020 --> 00:00:52.679 tweed wearing lawyer, was the architect of some. 00:00:52.780 --> 00:00:56.719 of the most chaotic, controversial, and shadowy 00:00:56.719 --> 00:00:58.579 operations in American history. And we're not 00:00:58.579 --> 00:01:02.579 exaggerating here. No. We are talking about overthrowing 00:01:02.579 --> 00:01:05.620 governments, secret mind control programs, failed 00:01:05.620 --> 00:01:08.739 invasions, and spy networks that span the entire 00:01:08.739 --> 00:01:11.859 globe. We are talking about Alan Welsh Dole. 00:01:11.980 --> 00:01:14.260 The first civilian director of Central Intelligence, 00:01:14.560 --> 00:01:17.579 or DCI, the longest serving head of the CIA. 00:01:18.359 --> 00:01:21.620 And you could argue the man who defined what 00:01:21.620 --> 00:01:23.439 American intelligence looks like in the modern 00:01:23.439 --> 00:01:26.500 era. We have a massive stack of source material 00:01:26.500 --> 00:01:28.439 to get through today. We've got biographical 00:01:28.439 --> 00:01:31.500 records, these incredibly dense official histories 00:01:31.500 --> 00:01:34.219 of the OSS and the CIA and government reports 00:01:34.219 --> 00:01:36.700 regarding his tenure. A lot to unpack. A ton. 00:01:36.879 --> 00:01:39.239 Our mission today is pretty clear. We want to 00:01:39.239 --> 00:01:42.060 understand how this one man shaped the machinery 00:01:42.060 --> 00:01:44.180 of secrets. We want to trace that transition 00:01:44.180 --> 00:01:48.620 from the cowboy spy games of World War II to 00:01:48.620 --> 00:01:51.400 the cold, hard, covert actions of the Cold War. 00:01:51.540 --> 00:01:53.040 And to do that, we have to look at the specific 00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:55.439 operations that defined his legacy. We're going 00:01:55.439 --> 00:01:57.379 to touch on the coups in Iran and Guatemala, 00:01:57.680 --> 00:02:00.159 the disaster at the Bay of Pigs, and his incredibly 00:02:00.159 --> 00:02:02.959 complex and frankly surprising role in the aftermath 00:02:02.959 --> 00:02:05.840 of the JFK assassination. It is a wild ride. 00:02:06.019 --> 00:02:08.520 So let's unpack this. Where do we even start 00:02:08.520 --> 00:02:11.159 with a guy like Alan Dulles? I feel like you 00:02:11.159 --> 00:02:13.180 have to look at where he came from to understand 00:02:13.180 --> 00:02:16.280 where he ended up. You absolutely do. You don't 00:02:16.280 --> 00:02:18.219 just wake up one day and decide to run the CIA. 00:02:18.539 --> 00:02:20.780 You really can't understand Alan Dulles without 00:02:20.780 --> 00:02:23.819 understanding the Dulles dynasty. he wasn't just 00:02:23.819 --> 00:02:26.960 born into a regular family he was born into the 00:02:26.960 --> 00:02:30.460 machinery of statecraft born in watertown new 00:02:30.460 --> 00:02:34.080 york in 1893 but if you look at the family tree 00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:37.129 it reads like a who's who Of the State Department. 00:02:37.430 --> 00:02:38.750 It really does. I was looking at the lineage 00:02:38.750 --> 00:02:41.569 in the notes here. His grandfather was John W. 00:02:41.669 --> 00:02:44.030 Foster. Right, who was Secretary of State under 00:02:44.030 --> 00:02:46.629 Benjamin Harrison. A huge figure. And then his 00:02:46.629 --> 00:02:49.229 uncle by marriage was Robert Lansing. Secretary 00:02:49.229 --> 00:02:51.509 of State under Woodrow Wilson. And then, of course, 00:02:51.550 --> 00:02:53.990 the most famous connection, his own brother, 00:02:54.189 --> 00:02:56.770 John Foster Dulles. Who was five years older 00:02:56.770 --> 00:02:59.770 than Allen and eventually became Dwight D. Eisenhower's 00:02:59.770 --> 00:03:03.030 Secretary of State. So just pause and think about 00:03:03.030 --> 00:03:04.770 that dynamic for a second. I mean, the pressure. 00:03:05.180 --> 00:03:09.620 You have a grandfather, an uncle, and a brother 00:03:09.620 --> 00:03:12.180 who all held the highest diplomatic office in 00:03:12.180 --> 00:03:14.939 the land. The conversations around the dinner 00:03:14.939 --> 00:03:17.840 table must have been intense. Right. You can't 00:03:17.840 --> 00:03:19.860 just come home with a B -minus in math. It must 00:03:19.860 --> 00:03:21.819 have been. So what are your thoughts on German 00:03:21.819 --> 00:03:24.939 naval expansion? It creates a specific worldview. 00:03:25.319 --> 00:03:28.319 It's not just patriotism. It's a sense of ownership. 00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:31.500 You grow up believing that your family is the 00:03:31.500 --> 00:03:33.780 government. You aren't just a citizen. You are 00:03:33.780 --> 00:03:36.099 a steward of the state. That's a great way to 00:03:36.099 --> 00:03:38.060 put it. Steward of the state. But there's another 00:03:38.060 --> 00:03:40.500 layer to his upbringing that the sources highlight, 00:03:40.659 --> 00:03:43.780 which is the religious aspect. His father, Alan 00:03:43.780 --> 00:03:46.840 Macy Dulles, was a Presbyterian minister. The 00:03:46.840 --> 00:03:49.340 sources describe his parenting style as mixing 00:03:49.340 --> 00:03:53.000 theological liberalism with stern orthopraxy. 00:03:53.120 --> 00:03:55.819 Stern orthopraxy. I had to double check that 00:03:55.819 --> 00:03:57.500 term when I was reading through this. It essentially 00:03:57.500 --> 00:04:00.099 means correct conduct or strict adherence to 00:04:00.099 --> 00:04:02.439 religious practice, right? Exactly. It means 00:04:02.439 --> 00:04:04.620 that while the ideas discussed might be liberal 00:04:04.620 --> 00:04:07.199 or open -minded, the behavior must be rigid. 00:04:07.439 --> 00:04:10.599 He grew up in a parsonage, church daily, strict 00:04:10.599 --> 00:04:13.560 moral codes. So it's okay to debate the nature 00:04:13.560 --> 00:04:15.930 of God. But you better be home for dinner at 00:04:15.930 --> 00:04:18.670 6 sharp. Precisely. And here is a fascinating 00:04:18.670 --> 00:04:22.550 detail. His parents didn't trust public education. 00:04:22.689 --> 00:04:25.949 They thought it was beneath them or perhaps corrupting. 00:04:26.720 --> 00:04:30.139 So Alan was homeschooled by various private tutors. 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:32.839 That is a huge detail. It is. It created this 00:04:32.839 --> 00:04:36.560 very insulated, very intense intellectual environment 00:04:36.560 --> 00:04:39.959 where you are told you are special, chosen, and 00:04:39.959 --> 00:04:42.560 destined for leadership. You don't have the rough 00:04:42.560 --> 00:04:44.819 and tumble of the playground to humble you. No, 00:04:44.839 --> 00:04:47.480 you're in a bubble, a very powerful, very well 00:04:47.480 --> 00:04:49.399 -connected bubble. You are the center of the 00:04:49.399 --> 00:04:51.860 universe. So he eventually goes to Princeton, 00:04:52.019 --> 00:04:55.019 graduates, teaches in India for a bit. which 00:04:55.019 --> 00:04:56.839 is a whole other story we don't have time for, 00:04:56.959 --> 00:04:59.759 and then enters the diplomatic service in 1916. 00:05:00.139 --> 00:05:02.699 And this brings us to one of my absolute favorite 00:05:02.699 --> 00:05:05.699 anecdotes from the source material. It captures 00:05:05.699 --> 00:05:08.259 the essence of Alan Dulles so perfectly. Ah, 00:05:08.360 --> 00:05:10.319 yes. It's what I call the misconnection of the 00:05:10.319 --> 00:05:12.379 century. This is a legendary story in intelligence 00:05:12.379 --> 00:05:14.819 circles. It's almost too good to be true, but 00:05:14.819 --> 00:05:16.959 Dulles himself confirmed it. He told it on himself. 00:05:17.259 --> 00:05:21.040 So set the scene for us. It's April 8, 1917. 00:05:22.300 --> 00:05:24.519 Dulles is stationed in Bern, Switzerland, at 00:05:24.519 --> 00:05:27.060 the U .S. Embassy. He's a young diplomat, barely 00:05:27.060 --> 00:05:29.709 in his mid -20s. And you have to remember, Switzerland 00:05:29.709 --> 00:05:32.870 in 1917 is the epicenter of European intrigue. 00:05:32.870 --> 00:05:35.089 It's a neutral zone in the middle of World War 00:05:35.089 --> 00:05:38.290 I. So it's a hotbed of revolutionaries, spies, 00:05:38.670 --> 00:05:42.610 exiles, artists. Everyone who's anyone or wants 00:05:42.610 --> 00:05:44.769 to be is there because it's the only place they 00:05:44.769 --> 00:05:47.230 can be. Right. So he's the officer on duty and 00:05:47.230 --> 00:05:49.870 he gets this phone call. It's a Russian exile 00:05:49.870 --> 00:05:52.930 who is desperate to meet with someone from the 00:05:52.930 --> 00:05:55.689 American embassy. The man on the phone says it 00:05:55.689 --> 00:05:58.589 is urgent. He needs to talk to someone now. A 00:05:58.589 --> 00:06:01.110 very insistent Russian gentleman. And dullest. 00:06:01.250 --> 00:06:03.310 Well, dullest basically blows him off. He had 00:06:03.310 --> 00:06:05.589 other plans. The sources imply he likely had 00:06:05.589 --> 00:06:07.430 a tennis date with a young woman or wanted to 00:06:07.430 --> 00:06:09.610 socialize at the club. A very Alan Dulles thing 00:06:09.610 --> 00:06:12.370 to do. Very. He was a young bachelor in a European 00:06:12.370 --> 00:06:14.689 capital. He didn't want to be bothered by some 00:06:14.689 --> 00:06:17.389 ranting radical on the phone on a Sunday. He 00:06:17.389 --> 00:06:19.209 basically told the guy, look, the office is closed. 00:06:19.410 --> 00:06:21.829 Call back tomorrow. So he hangs up, goes to his 00:06:21.829 --> 00:06:25.220 tennis match. But the very next day, that Russian 00:06:25.220 --> 00:06:28.379 exile gets on a sealed German train to travel 00:06:28.379 --> 00:06:30.620 to St. Petersburg to start a revolution. That 00:06:30.620 --> 00:06:34.180 man on the phone was Vladimir Lenin. Just let 00:06:34.180 --> 00:06:37.040 that sink in. It's unbelievable. The day before 00:06:37.040 --> 00:06:39.100 Lenin leaves to ignite the Russian revolution, 00:06:39.379 --> 00:06:41.939 an event that would define the next 70 years 00:06:41.939 --> 00:06:45.379 of geopolitics and create the very enemy. Dulles 00:06:45.379 --> 00:06:48.689 would spend his life fighting alone. Allen Dulles 00:06:48.689 --> 00:06:50.870 had a chance to sit down with him and he took 00:06:50.870 --> 00:06:53.269 a pass to play tennis. The irony is just staggering. 00:06:53.529 --> 00:06:55.790 Dulles himself told this story later in life, 00:06:55.889 --> 00:06:58.689 almost as a warning about the perils of underestimating 00:06:58.689 --> 00:07:01.069 people. It shows a bit of that aristocratic blind 00:07:01.069 --> 00:07:02.870 spot we talked about, doesn't it? The idea that 00:07:02.870 --> 00:07:04.990 important things happen to people like us, not 00:07:04.990 --> 00:07:07.889 to ranting exiles on the phone. It was a lesson 00:07:07.889 --> 00:07:09.870 he claimed he learned. But as we'll see, that 00:07:09.870 --> 00:07:12.610 arrogance didn't exactly disappear. Well, his 00:07:12.610 --> 00:07:14.610 early career wasn't all missed phone calls. He 00:07:14.610 --> 00:07:17.879 actually did some serious work. In 1921, he's 00:07:17.879 --> 00:07:20.540 in Istanbul, and he gets involved in exposing 00:07:20.540 --> 00:07:23.360 the protocols of the elders of Zion. This is 00:07:23.360 --> 00:07:25.560 a significant moment that shows his capacity 00:07:25.560 --> 00:07:29.339 for real analysis. The Protocols was this virulently 00:07:29.339 --> 00:07:31.800 anti -Semitic text purporting to be a Jewish 00:07:31.800 --> 00:07:34.959 plan for global domination. It was fueling hatred 00:07:34.959 --> 00:07:37.920 across Europe and even in the U .S. Henry Ford 00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:39.980 was printing it, wasn't he? He was. It was a 00:07:39.980 --> 00:07:43.420 huge deal. And Dulles, as a young diplomat, dug 00:07:43.420 --> 00:07:46.459 into it and helped expose it as a complete forgery, 00:07:46.519 --> 00:07:49.220 a Russian fabrication. He even tried to get the 00:07:49.220 --> 00:07:51.620 State Department to publicly denounce it. So 00:07:51.620 --> 00:07:53.660 on one hand, you have this moral clarity. He 00:07:53.660 --> 00:07:55.779 sees a dangerous lie and he wants to expose it. 00:07:55.939 --> 00:07:58.579 But then we get into the 1930s and things get 00:07:58.579 --> 00:08:00.959 a little murkier. A lot murkier. He leaves the 00:08:00.959 --> 00:08:03.060 diplomatic service and joins the law firm Sullivan 00:08:03.060 --> 00:08:04.939 and Cromwell, where his brother is a partner. 00:08:05.310 --> 00:08:07.930 And he starts meeting with some very questionable 00:08:07.930 --> 00:08:10.129 characters. This is where the gentleman lawyer 00:08:10.129 --> 00:08:13.769 meets the realities of 1930s geopolitics. Sullivan 00:08:13.769 --> 00:08:17.189 and Cromwell was and is a powerhouse. They represented 00:08:17.189 --> 00:08:19.970 massive corporate interests, huge German companies. 00:08:20.430 --> 00:08:23.170 Dulles served as a legal advisor to delegations 00:08:23.170 --> 00:08:25.250 at the League of Nations. He's moving in very 00:08:25.250 --> 00:08:28.009 high circles. The highest. He's rubbing shoulders 00:08:28.009 --> 00:08:30.310 with Mussolini, with Soviet Foreign Minister 00:08:30.310 --> 00:08:34.460 Litvinov. And inevitably, he crosses paths with 00:08:34.460 --> 00:08:37.179 the Nazi leadership. The sources say he met Hitler 00:08:37.179 --> 00:08:41.019 in 1933. It's astonishing to think about. He 00:08:41.019 --> 00:08:43.600 was in the room with him. He was. He met Hitler 00:08:43.600 --> 00:08:46.120 in Berlin on State Department duty right as the 00:08:46.120 --> 00:08:49.059 Nazis were consolidating power. And what's chilling 00:08:49.059 --> 00:08:51.899 is his reaction at the time. He wrote a letter 00:08:51.899 --> 00:08:54.759 to his brother, Foster, reassuring him that conditions 00:08:54.759 --> 00:08:57.779 under Hitler's regime were not quite as bad as 00:08:57.779 --> 00:09:00.500 alarmists were saying. Yikes. Not quite as bad. 00:09:00.679 --> 00:09:02.899 That is a heavy statement in hindsight. It gets 00:09:02.899 --> 00:09:05.279 worse. He also met Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi 00:09:05.279 --> 00:09:08.039 propaganda minister. And Dulles reported being 00:09:08.039 --> 00:09:10.639 impressed by Goebbels' sincerity and frankness. 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:13.460 Sincerity and frankness. From the master of lies. 00:09:13.639 --> 00:09:16.679 That's a massive misread. How does a guy who 00:09:16.679 --> 00:09:19.080 exposed the protocols of Zion fall for Goebbels? 00:09:19.299 --> 00:09:21.460 I think it's that club mentality again. Goebbels 00:09:21.460 --> 00:09:23.759 was educated. He spoke well. He wore a suit. 00:09:24.059 --> 00:09:26.419 Dulles likely projected his own class expectations 00:09:26.419 --> 00:09:28.600 onto him. He thought, well, he's a civilized 00:09:28.600 --> 00:09:30.950 man. surely he can be reasoned with. It's a very 00:09:30.950 --> 00:09:33.269 dangerous assumption. It's a reminder that even 00:09:33.269 --> 00:09:36.110 highly educated, sophisticated observers could 00:09:36.110 --> 00:09:38.389 be charmed or deceived by the facade of that 00:09:38.389 --> 00:09:40.950 regime early on. However, to give Dulles credit 00:09:40.950 --> 00:09:43.250 where it's due, he didn't stay in that mindset. 00:09:43.490 --> 00:09:46.830 Right. The pivot happens around 1935. Something 00:09:46.830 --> 00:09:49.929 changes for him. Yes. He returns from a business 00:09:49.929 --> 00:09:52.590 trip to Germany. And by this point, the reality 00:09:52.590 --> 00:09:55.450 of the Nazi treatment of Jews has become undeniable 00:09:55.450 --> 00:09:59.129 to him. The brutality is out in the open. He 00:09:59.129 --> 00:10:00.870 comes back to Sullivan and Cromwell. Remember, 00:10:01.129 --> 00:10:03.750 this is a firm making a lot of money off German 00:10:03.750 --> 00:10:06.090 business ties, and he leads a movement inside 00:10:06.090 --> 00:10:08.769 the firm to close their Berlin office. His brother, 00:10:08.909 --> 00:10:11.009 John Foster, wasn't happy about that. Not at 00:10:11.009 --> 00:10:13.169 all. His brother objected. Foster was very much 00:10:13.169 --> 00:10:15.389 business is business. He thought they could ride 00:10:15.389 --> 00:10:17.210 it out, that it was a temporary political situation. 00:10:17.529 --> 00:10:20.049 But Allen pushed it through. He forced the issue. 00:10:20.679 --> 00:10:22.799 The firm ceased business in Nazi Germany. So 00:10:22.799 --> 00:10:24.659 he put his morals ahead of the bottom line. He 00:10:24.659 --> 00:10:27.600 did. He even helped some German Jews like the 00:10:27.600 --> 00:10:30.399 banker Paul Kemper escape to the United States. 00:10:30.600 --> 00:10:34.159 So he went from impressed by Goebbels to actively 00:10:34.159 --> 00:10:36.500 closing down business ties and helping refugees 00:10:36.500 --> 00:10:39.120 within a couple of years. It shows that he was 00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:41.159 capable of changing his mind when the evidence 00:10:41.159 --> 00:10:44.009 changed. He wasn't an ideologue in the sense 00:10:44.009 --> 00:10:46.330 that he ignored reality. No, he was a pragmatist, 00:10:46.330 --> 00:10:49.090 a ruthless one, but a pragmatist. And that pragmatism 00:10:49.090 --> 00:10:52.389 brings us to the main event, World War II. This 00:10:52.389 --> 00:10:55.149 is where Alan Dulles really becomes Alan Dulles. 00:10:55.289 --> 00:10:57.549 The transformation from lawyer to spymaster. 00:10:57.830 --> 00:11:01.870 In 1941, William J. Donovan, Wild Bill Donovan, 00:11:02.049 --> 00:11:05.289 is tasked by FDR to set up the Office of Strategic 00:11:05.289 --> 00:11:08.750 Services, the OSS. This is the precursor to the 00:11:08.750 --> 00:11:11.610 CIA. America's first real intelligence agency. 00:11:11.909 --> 00:11:14.509 And Donovan needs people who are smart, connected, 00:11:14.750 --> 00:11:17.309 and willing to operate in the gray areas. He 00:11:17.309 --> 00:11:20.190 recruits Dulles in October 1941. And where do 00:11:20.190 --> 00:11:22.200 they send him? Back to the scene of the crime. 00:11:22.279 --> 00:11:25.080 Back to Spyland. November 1942. He slips into 00:11:25.080 --> 00:11:27.259 Bern just before the borders close completely 00:11:27.259 --> 00:11:30.580 as the Nazis occupy Vichy, France. He rents an 00:11:30.580 --> 00:11:33.460 apartment at Haringas 23. And for the rest of 00:11:33.460 --> 00:11:35.879 the war, this apartment is the nerve center of 00:11:35.879 --> 00:11:37.840 American intelligence in the heart of Europe. 00:11:38.100 --> 00:11:40.779 I love the visual of this. He's living in this 00:11:40.779 --> 00:11:43.399 apartment, completely surrounded by Axis territory, 00:11:43.519 --> 00:11:45.360 running a spy ring. It's straight out of a noir 00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:47.779 film. And he's not exactly hiding. He's hosting 00:11:47.779 --> 00:11:49.980 dinner parties. He's using his social status 00:11:49.980 --> 00:11:52.639 as cover. He was building what he called a spider 00:11:52.639 --> 00:11:55.860 web of contacts. He was meeting with German emigres, 00:11:56.019 --> 00:11:59.059 resistance figures, disaffected anti -Nazi officers. 00:11:59.519 --> 00:12:01.799 He had a German assistant, right? Gerovon something? 00:12:02.059 --> 00:12:04.440 Gerovon Schulze -Gabernetz. He was instrumental. 00:12:04.940 --> 00:12:07.240 But his biggest coup, the source that really 00:12:07.240 --> 00:12:09.899 made his reputation, was a man named Fritz Kolbe. 00:12:10.080 --> 00:12:13.399 The source is, quote, Dulles calling Kolbe the 00:12:13.399 --> 00:12:16.970 best spy of the war. That's high praise. Who 00:12:16.970 --> 00:12:19.950 was he? Colby was a mid -level German diplomat 00:12:19.950 --> 00:12:22.889 who absolutely hated the Nazis. He was a patriot, 00:12:23.009 --> 00:12:25.210 but he saw Hitler as the destruction of Germany. 00:12:25.429 --> 00:12:27.929 He traveled between Berlin and Bern carrying 00:12:27.929 --> 00:12:30.909 diplomatic pouches. Oh, he had access. The best 00:12:30.909 --> 00:12:33.330 access. He would literally strap secret documents 00:12:33.330 --> 00:12:35.870 to his legs under his trousers, walk into Dully's 00:12:35.870 --> 00:12:39.129 apartment, and unload active German cables. He 00:12:39.129 --> 00:12:41.350 supplied Dull with plans for the Messerschmitt 00:12:41.350 --> 00:12:45.090 Me 262 jet fighter. The jet fighter? That's game 00:12:45.090 --> 00:12:47.730 -changing intel. Absolutely. If the Germans had 00:12:47.730 --> 00:12:49.990 gotten that jet into the air sooner, in larger 00:12:49.990 --> 00:12:52.409 numbers, it would have devastated Allied bombers. 00:12:53.309 --> 00:12:55.549 Dulles getting those plans helped the Allies 00:12:55.549 --> 00:12:58.470 bomb the production facilities. Colby also gave 00:12:58.470 --> 00:13:00.850 up the identities of numerous German spies abroad. 00:13:01.070 --> 00:13:04.250 He was a goldmine. And it wasn't just him. Dulles 00:13:04.250 --> 00:13:06.590 also had connections to the Austrian resistance, 00:13:06.990 --> 00:13:10.220 specifically... The Meyer Group. Yes, another 00:13:10.220 --> 00:13:13.419 critical network. This group provided intelligence 00:13:13.419 --> 00:13:16.539 on V1 and V2 rockets, the secret weapons program. 00:13:16.840 --> 00:13:19.700 They reported on tank and aircraft factories. 00:13:19.840 --> 00:13:23.220 This info directly fed into allied bombing campaigns 00:13:23.220 --> 00:13:25.820 like Operation Crossbow and Operation Hydra, 00:13:25.879 --> 00:13:27.659 which were designed to take out those facilities. 00:13:28.039 --> 00:13:30.720 So he is having a tangible impact on the battlefield. 00:13:31.039 --> 00:13:33.639 The intel he's gathering is saving lives and 00:13:33.639 --> 00:13:35.820 shortening the war. The sources also mentioned 00:13:35.820 --> 00:13:37.419 that this group reported to Dulles about the 00:13:37.419 --> 00:13:40.159 mass murder in Auschwitz. Yes, as early as that, 00:13:40.259 --> 00:13:41.980 credible reports were coming in through these 00:13:41.980 --> 00:13:43.899 networks. It shows just how deep his reach was. 00:13:44.039 --> 00:13:46.039 He knew what was happening in the camps long 00:13:46.039 --> 00:13:49.100 before it was public knowledge. But being Alan 00:13:49.100 --> 00:13:51.919 Dulles, his style of spycraft wasn't appreciated 00:13:51.919 --> 00:13:54.740 by everyone. He had a pretty rocky relationship 00:13:54.740 --> 00:13:57.059 with the British intelligence service, MI6. Oh, 00:13:57.100 --> 00:13:58.820 the British did not like him. No, they did not. 00:13:58.879 --> 00:14:02.230 They found him. Amateurs. Reckless. Suspicion 00:14:02.230 --> 00:14:04.490 is putting it mildly. They thought he was a cowboy. 00:14:05.590 --> 00:14:08.809 The assistant chief of MI6, a man named Claude 00:14:08.809 --> 00:14:12.990 Danzy, famously called Dulles a fool. Ouch! A 00:14:12.990 --> 00:14:16.149 fool? Why? What was the issue? Danzy said Dulles 00:14:16.149 --> 00:14:18.950 swallows false information easily. They felt 00:14:18.950 --> 00:14:21.590 he was too eager to make a splash, too trusting 00:14:21.590 --> 00:14:23.789 of any shady character who walked through his 00:14:23.789 --> 00:14:26.649 door with a supposed secret. They saw him as 00:14:26.649 --> 00:14:29.120 undisciplined. And there was a specific case 00:14:29.120 --> 00:14:31.080 that really highlighted this, right? The Decevious 00:14:31.080 --> 00:14:33.240 case. Right. Hans Berndt Concevious. This is 00:14:33.240 --> 00:14:35.419 a crazy story about risk tolerance. Decevious 00:14:35.419 --> 00:14:38.080 was a German military intelligence officer, an 00:14:38.080 --> 00:14:40.759 Abwehr officer who claimed to be anti -Nazi. 00:14:40.899 --> 00:14:43.600 He was one of Adal's key sources. But MI6 didn't 00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:46.480 trust him. Not for a second. They were convinced 00:14:46.480 --> 00:14:49.179 he was a double agent, feeding Dulles a mix of 00:14:49.179 --> 00:14:51.860 real and false information to mislead the allies. 00:14:52.299 --> 00:14:55.059 At one point, Eusebius told Dulles that the Germans 00:14:55.059 --> 00:14:57.659 had broken Dulles' codes, that they could read 00:14:57.659 --> 00:15:00.200 his encrypted messages to Washington. OK, so 00:15:00.200 --> 00:15:03.539 logically, you stop using the codes, right? That's 00:15:03.539 --> 00:15:06.120 spying 101. If your channel is compromised, you 00:15:06.120 --> 00:15:08.639 shut it down. A normal intelligence officer stops 00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:12.720 Dulles. He kept using the codes. He sent a report 00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:14.620 to Washington about the meeting with DeSevius 00:15:14.620 --> 00:15:17.759 using the very ciphers he had just been told 00:15:17.759 --> 00:15:20.200 were compromised. That's insane. MI6 was furious. 00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:22.419 They thought he was endangering not just his 00:15:22.419 --> 00:15:25.620 sources, but theirs too. It was unbelievably 00:15:25.620 --> 00:15:28.639 reckless. Why would he do that? Was it just arrogance? 00:15:28.899 --> 00:15:31.139 Did he think he knew better than everyone? I 00:15:31.139 --> 00:15:32.620 think it was a mix of arrogance and a calculated 00:15:32.620 --> 00:15:35.100 gamble. He might have thought De Savias was lying 00:15:35.100 --> 00:15:37.500 about the codes to test him, or he might have 00:15:37.500 --> 00:15:39.460 thought the intel he was sending was so important 00:15:39.460 --> 00:15:41.679 that it was worth the risk. It shows that Dulles 00:15:41.679 --> 00:15:44.519 had a very, very high tolerance for risk, a trait 00:15:44.519 --> 00:15:46.519 that would define his later years at the CIA. 00:15:46.840 --> 00:15:48.659 He believed his intuition was better than the 00:15:48.659 --> 00:15:51.440 rules. Always. And that risk -taking behavior 00:15:51.440 --> 00:15:54.000 culminated at the end of the war with something 00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:56.750 called Operation Sunrise. This is a controversial 00:15:56.750 --> 00:16:00.169 one. Very. So it's early 1945. The war is winding 00:16:00.169 --> 00:16:03.210 down. Dulles enters into secret negotiations 00:16:03.210 --> 00:16:06.370 for the surrender of all German forces in northern 00:16:06.370 --> 00:16:08.690 Italy. The goal being to end the fighting there 00:16:08.690 --> 00:16:12.409 quickly, save lives. Sounds noble on the surface. 00:16:12.549 --> 00:16:15.870 On the surface, yes. But to do it, he negotiated 00:16:15.870 --> 00:16:20.009 directly with SS General Karl Wolf. An SS general, 00:16:20.129 --> 00:16:22.629 not a regular Wehrmacht army officer, but the 00:16:22.629 --> 00:16:26.580 SS. The worst of the worst. A man directly implicated 00:16:26.580 --> 00:16:29.500 in the Holocaust. Exactly. And historians have 00:16:29.500 --> 00:16:31.639 criticized this heavily. They argue that Dulles 00:16:31.639 --> 00:16:33.879 offered Wolf protection from prosecution at the 00:16:33.879 --> 00:16:35.899 Nuremberg trials in exchange for the surrender. 00:16:36.360 --> 00:16:39.039 Basically, he cut a deal with a major war criminal 00:16:39.039 --> 00:16:41.600 to get a strategic win. And on top of that, these 00:16:41.600 --> 00:16:44.000 secret talks created a huge diplomatic rift with 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:47.080 the Soviet Union, right? A massive one. The Soviets 00:16:47.080 --> 00:16:49.419 were our allies at this point, still fighting 00:16:49.419 --> 00:16:51.980 and dying on the Eastern Front. Stalin found 00:16:51.980 --> 00:16:54.120 out about these secret meetings and became absolutely 00:16:54.120 --> 00:16:57.240 paranoid. He felt the Americans and British were 00:16:57.240 --> 00:16:59.360 cutting side deals with the Nazis behind their 00:16:59.360 --> 00:17:01.679 backs, maybe even planning to team up against 00:17:01.679 --> 00:17:04.799 him. You can see his point. You can. This mistrust 00:17:04.799 --> 00:17:07.440 over Operation Sunrise arguably helped set the 00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:10.880 stage for the Cold War. Dulles was already pivoting. 00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:13.539 He saw the Nazis as the old enemy and the Soviets 00:17:13.539 --> 00:17:16.359 as the new one. So he ends the war by alienating 00:17:16.359 --> 00:17:18.619 our biggest ally, and protecting a Nazi general. 00:17:19.200 --> 00:17:22.019 But before we get to the Cold War, there is another 00:17:22.019 --> 00:17:24.500 shadow hanging over this period. The sources 00:17:24.500 --> 00:17:27.400 mention Nazi gold. This is where his background 00:17:27.400 --> 00:17:29.319 at Sullivan and Cromwell comes back to haunt 00:17:29.319 --> 00:17:31.779 him. As the Third Reich was collapsing, there 00:17:31.779 --> 00:17:33.619 were serious allegations that Dulles and his 00:17:33.619 --> 00:17:36.000 old law firm helped German industrialists move 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:38.660 Nazi funds out of Germany to safe havens in Switzerland 00:17:38.660 --> 00:17:41.940 and Argentina. The idea being to preserve their 00:17:41.940 --> 00:17:44.819 wealth for a potential post -war comeback. A 00:17:44.819 --> 00:17:47.339 Fourth Reich. Essentially. The source material 00:17:47.339 --> 00:17:49.900 mentions a connection to Heinrich Himmler's plan 00:17:49.900 --> 00:17:52.880 and a business associate of Dulles named Kurt 00:17:52.880 --> 00:17:56.380 Baron von Schroeder, who was a Nazi banker. The 00:17:56.380 --> 00:17:58.579 allegation is that Dulles and Schroeder created 00:17:58.579 --> 00:18:01.119 shell companies to move this wealth to protect 00:18:01.119 --> 00:18:04.259 the assets of the very industrialists who had 00:18:04.259 --> 00:18:06.420 bankrolled Hitler. Did anyone try to stop this? 00:18:06.539 --> 00:18:09.160 Yeah. Or look into it? FBI Director J. Edgar 00:18:09.160 --> 00:18:12.380 Hoover tried. He was deeply suspicious of Dulles 00:18:12.380 --> 00:18:14.640 and his connections. He wanted to investigate. 00:18:14.900 --> 00:18:17.579 But the political pressure was immense and no 00:18:17.579 --> 00:18:19.920 formal investigation ever really took off. It's 00:18:19.920 --> 00:18:22.900 a very dark, unresolved chapter. It really suggests 00:18:22.900 --> 00:18:25.440 that for Dulles, the enemy changed very quickly 00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:27.640 from the Nazis to the communists. And he was 00:18:27.640 --> 00:18:30.420 willing to use former Nazis and their money to 00:18:30.420 --> 00:18:32.900 fight that new battle. It was the ultimate pragmatism 00:18:32.900 --> 00:18:34.779 or cynicism, depending on your point of view. 00:18:34.900 --> 00:18:38.380 So the war ends. The OSS is dissolved. But Alan 00:18:38.380 --> 00:18:41.390 Dulles isn't done. The Cold War is heating up, 00:18:41.410 --> 00:18:43.349 and the U .S. needs a new kind of intelligence 00:18:43.349 --> 00:18:45.809 agency. And Dulles is right there to shape it. 00:18:46.299 --> 00:18:49.559 In 1949, he co -authors the Dulles -Jackson Career 00:18:49.559 --> 00:18:52.480 Report. It was a scathing critique of the early 00:18:52.480 --> 00:18:56.180 CIA, which had been established in 1947. He basically 00:18:56.180 --> 00:18:58.440 argued that the agency was too bureaucratic, 00:18:58.619 --> 00:19:00.920 too timid, and needed to be more aggressive, 00:19:01.140 --> 00:19:03.740 more capable of covert action. So he writes the 00:19:03.740 --> 00:19:06.559 playbook for a more muscular CIA, and then he 00:19:06.559 --> 00:19:10.000 gets hired to run the place. Precisely. In 1951, 00:19:10.140 --> 00:19:12.480 President Truman appoints him deputy director 00:19:12.480 --> 00:19:15.240 for plans. That's the covert ops arm of the CIA. 00:19:15.910 --> 00:19:18.730 Then in 1953, the new president, Eisenhower, 00:19:18.809 --> 00:19:21.230 appoints him as the director of central intelligence. 00:19:21.609 --> 00:19:23.950 He is the first civilian to hold the job. And 00:19:23.950 --> 00:19:25.609 this is the beginning of the golden age of the 00:19:25.609 --> 00:19:27.880 CIA, if you want to call it that. Or maybe the 00:19:27.880 --> 00:19:30.319 Unleashed Age. It was the era of the new -look 00:19:30.319 --> 00:19:32.819 national security policy. Eisenhower was a general, 00:19:32.940 --> 00:19:35.140 but he wanted to avoid expensive, conventional 00:19:35.140 --> 00:19:37.619 wars like Korea. He didn't want thousands of 00:19:37.619 --> 00:19:39.940 troops on the ground dying in foreign mud. He 00:19:39.940 --> 00:19:41.680 wanted a different way. He wanted to use covert 00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:43.880 action and technology to contain the Soviets. 00:19:43.960 --> 00:19:46.680 It was cheaper, and it was quieter. Dulles was 00:19:46.680 --> 00:19:49.539 the perfect man to execute that vision. Speaking 00:19:49.539 --> 00:19:51.500 of technology, we have to talk about the U -2 00:19:51.500 --> 00:19:55.200 spy plane. This was Dulles' baby in a way. It 00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:57.579 absolutely was. The Air Force had rejected the 00:19:57.579 --> 00:20:00.519 design. It was this strange looking thing. Lockheed 00:20:00.519 --> 00:20:03.960 called it the CL -282. It looked like a glider 00:20:03.960 --> 00:20:06.440 married to a jet engine. The pilots called it 00:20:06.440 --> 00:20:08.579 the Angel. The Air Force didn't want it. Why 00:20:08.579 --> 00:20:10.660 not? It wasn't a bomber and it wasn't a fighter. 00:20:10.740 --> 00:20:12.359 It had no weapons. They didn't know what to do 00:20:12.359 --> 00:20:15.380 with it. But Edwin Land, the genius inventor 00:20:15.380 --> 00:20:18.670 behind the Polaroid camera, saw its... potential 00:20:18.670 --> 00:20:21.269 for high altitude photography and showed it to 00:20:21.269 --> 00:20:23.210 Dulles. And Dulles immediately got it. He wasn't 00:20:23.210 --> 00:20:25.670 a tech guy, but he understood the value of seeing 00:20:25.670 --> 00:20:28.170 over the fence. He saw a way to see behind the 00:20:28.170 --> 00:20:30.640 Iron Curtain without risking a bomber crew. He 00:20:30.640 --> 00:20:32.720 championed the program, funded it through the 00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:36.039 CIA's black budget. The U -2 started flying in 00:20:36.039 --> 00:20:39.000 1957, giving the U .S. unprecedented overhead 00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:41.839 photos of Soviet missile sites, airfields, everything. 00:20:42.119 --> 00:20:44.900 It was a massive intelligence win. For a while. 00:20:45.019 --> 00:20:47.799 For a while, until Francis Gary Powers got shot 00:20:47.799 --> 00:20:50.420 down in 1960. Which happened on Dole's watch. 00:20:50.619 --> 00:20:53.599 A huge international incident. A major embarrassment 00:20:53.599 --> 00:20:55.539 because the U .S. initially lied and said it 00:20:55.539 --> 00:20:57.500 was a weather plane, and then Khrushchev produced 00:20:57.500 --> 00:20:59.960 the pilot and the wreckage, but it sh - shows 00:20:59.960 --> 00:21:03.559 Dulles' willingness to embrace new methods. He 00:21:03.559 --> 00:21:05.460 wasn't stuck in the past. He was looking for 00:21:05.460 --> 00:21:07.740 the next edge. He was also fighting battles on 00:21:07.740 --> 00:21:10.720 the home front. We think of the CIA as all -powerful, 00:21:10.799 --> 00:21:13.559 but in the 50s they had a formidable enemy in 00:21:13.559 --> 00:21:16.259 Washington, Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy 00:21:16.259 --> 00:21:18.680 was on his communist witch hunt and eventually 00:21:18.680 --> 00:21:22.500 his gaze fell upon the CIA. He wanted to investigate 00:21:22.500 --> 00:21:25.500 the agency for communist subversion. And Alan 00:21:25.500 --> 00:21:27.559 Dulles was not having that. He viewed the CIA 00:21:27.559 --> 00:21:30.519 as his personal fiefdom. Not at all. Dulles knew 00:21:30.519 --> 00:21:33.079 that if McCarthy started subpoenaing CIA officers, 00:21:33.279 --> 00:21:35.619 forcing them to testify in public, the whole 00:21:35.619 --> 00:21:38.019 structure of secrecy would collapse. You can't 00:21:38.019 --> 00:21:40.420 have spies testifying on C -SPAN. So what did 00:21:40.420 --> 00:21:42.839 he do? So he went on the offensive. And this 00:21:42.839 --> 00:21:44.789 is... This is really incredible. The sources 00:21:44.789 --> 00:21:47.329 reveal that Dulles ordered the CIA to break into 00:21:47.329 --> 00:21:49.349 McCarthy's Senate office. Wait, hold on. I want 00:21:49.349 --> 00:21:51.109 to make sure the listener caught that. The director 00:21:51.109 --> 00:21:53.750 of the CIA ordered a break in at a U .S. senator's 00:21:53.750 --> 00:21:56.990 office. They did. Domestic espionage. They planted 00:21:56.990 --> 00:21:59.990 disinformation to discredit him. They fed his 00:21:59.990 --> 00:22:02.769 staff fake intelligence about communists in the 00:22:02.769 --> 00:22:05.369 agency so that when he went public with it, he 00:22:05.369 --> 00:22:07.589 would look like a fool. It was a domestic covert 00:22:07.589 --> 00:22:10.049 operation to protect the agency from a domestic 00:22:10.049 --> 00:22:13.349 political threat. That is that's shocking. It 00:22:13.349 --> 00:22:16.230 really shows how Dulles viewed the agency as 00:22:16.230 --> 00:22:18.950 something above the normal rules of democracy, 00:22:19.150 --> 00:22:21.130 something that had to be protected at all costs. 00:22:21.329 --> 00:22:23.509 He saw it as the Praetorian Guard of the Republic, 00:22:23.690 --> 00:22:25.890 and that philosophy extended to his operations 00:22:25.890 --> 00:22:29.109 abroad. This brings us to the era of coups. This 00:22:29.109 --> 00:22:31.190 is where the gentleman spy becomes the regime 00:22:31.190 --> 00:22:33.410 changer. Let's start with the big one. Iran, 00:22:33.670 --> 00:22:37.589 1953. Operation Ajax. This is the template for 00:22:37.589 --> 00:22:39.809 everything that follows, isn't it? It is. So 00:22:39.809 --> 00:22:42.049 Iran had a democratically elected prime minister, 00:22:42.210 --> 00:22:44.150 Mohamed Mossadegh. He was a popular nationalist. 00:22:44.509 --> 00:22:46.690 He made the decision to nationalize the Anglo 00:22:46.690 --> 00:22:49.230 -Iranian oil company, which is now BP. Which 00:22:49.230 --> 00:22:51.890 the British were not happy about. They were furious. 00:22:51.950 --> 00:22:53.890 They lost their most valuable overseas assets. 00:22:53.970 --> 00:22:57.130 So they came to the Americans, to the Dulles 00:22:57.130 --> 00:23:00.109 brothers, Allen at CIA, Foster at state, saying 00:23:00.109 --> 00:23:02.630 Mossadegh was unstable, a threat that he was 00:23:02.630 --> 00:23:05.250 leaning toward the Soviets. Was he actually a 00:23:05.250 --> 00:23:09.460 communist? Or leaning that way? Most historians 00:23:09.460 --> 00:23:12.259 say no. He was a secular nationalist. But in 00:23:12.259 --> 00:23:14.220 the binary black and white world of the Cold 00:23:14.220 --> 00:23:16.279 War, if you weren't with us, you were against 00:23:16.279 --> 00:23:19.460 us. So the CIA decides he has to go. And the 00:23:19.460 --> 00:23:21.180 man on the ground running this is Kermit Roosevelt, 00:23:21.400 --> 00:23:23.619 right? Teddy Roosevelt's grandson. That's right. 00:23:23.680 --> 00:23:25.779 And the coup they designed wasn't a military 00:23:25.779 --> 00:23:29.000 invasion. It was psychological warfare. Explain 00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:30.980 that. What did they actually do? They used a 00:23:30.980 --> 00:23:33.279 tiny budget, less than a million dollars. They 00:23:33.279 --> 00:23:36.180 bribed newspapers to print fake stories and cartoons 00:23:36.180 --> 00:23:39.839 depicting Mossadegh as a Jewish stooge or a communist 00:23:39.839 --> 00:23:42.839 agent. They hired mobs to riot in the streets 00:23:42.839 --> 00:23:45.400 of Tehran, some posing as communists to create 00:23:45.400 --> 00:23:48.619 fear, others as pro -Shah royalists to create 00:23:48.619 --> 00:23:51.039 chaos. So they created the illusion of a popular 00:23:51.039 --> 00:23:54.579 uprising. They manufactured a crisis. They created 00:23:54.579 --> 00:23:56.660 chaos in the streets to make it look like the 00:23:56.660 --> 00:23:58.740 country was falling apart. So the military had 00:23:58.740 --> 00:24:01.640 to step in to restore order. It was political 00:24:01.640 --> 00:24:04.279 theater designed to change reality. And there 00:24:04.279 --> 00:24:06.839 is this incredible coincidence mentioned in the 00:24:06.839 --> 00:24:10.059 source material regarding this code. Yes. So 00:24:10.059 --> 00:24:13.200 in August 1953, the coup initially hits a snag. 00:24:13.259 --> 00:24:15.380 It looks like it's failing. The Shah of Iran 00:24:15.380 --> 00:24:18.339 gets scared and flees the country. He flies to 00:24:18.339 --> 00:24:21.319 Rome. And who happens to be checking into the 00:24:21.319 --> 00:24:23.779 Hotel Excelsior in Rome at that exact moment? 00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:26.779 Alan Dulles. Alan Dulles himself. He was officially 00:24:26.779 --> 00:24:30.180 on vacation. He bumps into the fleeing despondent 00:24:30.180 --> 00:24:33.579 Shah in the lobby. It's described as pure happenstance. 00:24:33.700 --> 00:24:36.480 Am I? I mean, conspiracy theorists and even serious 00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:39.220 historians have raised eyebrows at this. The 00:24:39.220 --> 00:24:41.319 idea that the head of the CIA just happened to 00:24:41.319 --> 00:24:43.160 be at the same hotel as the leader of the country 00:24:43.160 --> 00:24:46.259 he was currently overthrowing? It stretches credulity. 00:24:46.420 --> 00:24:48.500 He was there to stiffen the Shah's spine, wasn't 00:24:48.500 --> 00:24:51.079 he? That's the theory. To tell him to hang on, 00:24:51.220 --> 00:24:54.140 that the plan was still in motion. And sure enough, 00:24:54.220 --> 00:24:56.819 a few days later, Roosevelt's operation succeeds. 00:24:57.420 --> 00:25:00.799 The Shah flies back, Mossadegh is arrested, and 00:25:00.799 --> 00:25:03.019 American and British oil interests are secured. 00:25:03.299 --> 00:25:05.539 And Dulles is hailed as a hero in Washington. 00:25:05.720 --> 00:25:08.720 He did it cheap. fast, and without a major war. 00:25:08.900 --> 00:25:11.759 It was seen as a masterpiece of covert action. 00:25:11.940 --> 00:25:14.660 So having tasted success in Iran, Dulles looks 00:25:14.660 --> 00:25:18.470 at Guatemala the very next year, 1954. Operation 00:25:18.470 --> 00:25:20.970 PB Success. Same script, different location. 00:25:21.289 --> 00:25:24.009 The target was President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. 00:25:24.250 --> 00:25:26.430 He was another democratically elected nationalist. 00:25:26.750 --> 00:25:29.250 He was undertaking land reforms, taking unused 00:25:29.250 --> 00:25:31.710 agricultural land and giving it to landless peasants. 00:25:31.869 --> 00:25:34.190 The problem was a lot of that unused land belonged 00:25:34.190 --> 00:25:36.809 to the United Fruit Company. The largest landowner 00:25:36.809 --> 00:25:39.150 in Guatemala. Now we need to clarify the connection 00:25:39.150 --> 00:25:41.549 here. Dulles had a history with United Fruit, 00:25:41.589 --> 00:25:45.059 right? A deep one. It's a tangled web. Some critics 00:25:45.059 --> 00:25:47.119 have claimed Dulles was on the board of directors 00:25:47.119 --> 00:25:49.779 of United Fruit. Careful historical examination 00:25:49.779 --> 00:25:52.180 suggests he wasn't technically on the board himself, 00:25:52.500 --> 00:25:56.119 but his law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, had represented 00:25:56.119 --> 00:25:59.839 United Fruit for decades. His brother, Secretary 00:25:59.839 --> 00:26:02.599 of State John Foster Dulles, had also been their 00:26:02.599 --> 00:26:04.619 lawyer. So even if he wasn't sitting in the board 00:26:04.619 --> 00:26:08.089 meetings, the conflict of interest is just. It's 00:26:08.089 --> 00:26:12.150 palpable. He's using the CIA to protect the interests 00:26:12.150 --> 00:26:14.730 of his old law firm's biggest client. Absolutely. 00:26:15.210 --> 00:26:17.410 The Dulles brothers essentially labeled Arbenz 00:26:17.410 --> 00:26:19.710 a communist threat because his policies were 00:26:19.710 --> 00:26:21.769 hurting their friends' profits. And the methods 00:26:21.769 --> 00:26:24.170 were even more psychological this time. How so? 00:26:24.410 --> 00:26:27.069 The CIA set up a clandestine radio station called 00:26:27.069 --> 00:26:30.029 the Voice of Liberation that broadcast fake news 00:26:30.029 --> 00:26:32.609 into Guatemala about a massive rebel army approaching 00:26:32.609 --> 00:26:35.150 the capital. They jammed the government's communications. 00:26:35.630 --> 00:26:38.450 They hired a few pilots to fly over the capital 00:26:38.450 --> 00:26:40.589 and drop Coke bottles to make whistling sounds 00:26:40.589 --> 00:26:42.950 like falling bombs. Coke bottles. And blocks 00:26:42.950 --> 00:26:45.460 of dry ice to make loud bangs when they exploded, 00:26:45.619 --> 00:26:47.799 they terrified Arbenz into resigning without 00:26:47.799 --> 00:26:50.240 a single U .S. soldier firing a shot. It was 00:26:50.240 --> 00:26:52.400 a pyrotechnic coup, all smoke and mirror. It 00:26:52.400 --> 00:26:54.640 was. And again, it was hailed as another huge 00:26:54.640 --> 00:26:57.039 victory in Washington. It kept communism out 00:26:57.039 --> 00:26:59.539 of the Western Hemisphere. But looking back, 00:26:59.819 --> 00:27:02.259 these operations destabilized these regions for 00:27:02.259 --> 00:27:05.740 decades. The Shah's brutal regime in Iran eventually 00:27:05.740 --> 00:27:09.180 led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Guatemala 00:27:09.180 --> 00:27:11.819 descended into a brutal civil war that lasted 00:27:11.819 --> 00:27:15.599 36 years and killed hundreds of thousands of 00:27:15.599 --> 00:27:18.119 people. So the cheap victory had a very, very 00:27:18.119 --> 00:27:20.660 expensive long -term cost. The catastrophic one. 00:27:20.839 --> 00:27:23.720 But in the 50s, inside the Beltway, Doles was 00:27:23.720 --> 00:27:26.240 seen as a magician. He could make problems disappear. 00:27:26.480 --> 00:27:28.559 Until he couldn't. We have to talk about the 00:27:28.559 --> 00:27:32.140 Congo in 1960. Tres Lumumba. A very different 00:27:32.140 --> 00:27:35.380 situation. This was post -colonial Africa. Lumumba 00:27:35.380 --> 00:27:37.420 was the first democratically elected prime minister 00:27:37.420 --> 00:27:40.140 of the Congo. He was charismatic, a pan -African 00:27:40.140 --> 00:27:42.740 nationalist. And Dulles viewed him as a grave 00:27:42.740 --> 00:27:46.339 danger. Why? Was he communist? He was non -aligned. 00:27:46.440 --> 00:27:48.539 But he made overtures to the Soviet Union for 00:27:48.539 --> 00:27:50.740 aid after Belgium and the U .S. rebuffed him. 00:27:50.839 --> 00:27:53.519 For Dulles, that was a red line. He worried Lumumba 00:27:53.519 --> 00:27:55.380 would invite the Soviets into the part of Africa 00:27:55.380 --> 00:27:57.700 to help with post -colonial development. And 00:27:57.700 --> 00:27:59.579 the sources are very specific here. This wasn't 00:27:59.579 --> 00:28:02.150 just about regime change anymore. No. This was 00:28:02.150 --> 00:28:05.009 an escalation. The sources explicitly state that 00:28:05.009 --> 00:28:07.529 Dulles authorized a plan to assassinate Lumumba. 00:28:07.670 --> 00:28:10.730 He cabled the CIA station chief in Leopoldville, 00:28:10.829 --> 00:28:13.990 saying Lumumba's removal was an urgent and prime 00:28:13.990 --> 00:28:18.069 objective. He allocated $100 ,000 to the operation. 00:28:18.470 --> 00:28:20.559 And they sent a scientist, didn't they? With 00:28:20.559 --> 00:28:23.160 a very specific weapon. Yes. The head of the 00:28:23.160 --> 00:28:25.599 CIA's technical division, Sidney Gottlieb, the 00:28:25.599 --> 00:28:28.039 same man who ran EmCulture, was sent to the Congo 00:28:28.039 --> 00:28:31.039 with a tube of poisoned toothpaste. Poisoned 00:28:31.039 --> 00:28:34.160 toothpaste. That was the plan. To infect Lumumba 00:28:34.160 --> 00:28:37.579 with a lethal biological agent. Now, that specific 00:28:37.579 --> 00:28:40.960 CIA plan didn't materialize. Lumumba was eventually 00:28:40.960 --> 00:28:43.019 captured and killed by his political rivals, 00:28:43.180 --> 00:28:46.319 with Belgian and likely CIA complicity. But the 00:28:46.319 --> 00:28:48.559 intent from Dolezal is clear. He was willing 00:28:48.559 --> 00:28:50.920 to order the cold -blooded murder of a foreign 00:28:50.920 --> 00:28:53.859 head of state. It's a chilling escalation. But 00:28:53.859 --> 00:28:55.539 the real turning point, the moment the magic 00:28:55.539 --> 00:28:57.559 ran out and the whole enterprise came crashing 00:28:57.559 --> 00:29:01.119 down, was Cuba. The Bay of Pigs, April 1961. 00:29:01.559 --> 00:29:03.839 This was the disaster that broke Dole's career. 00:29:04.180 --> 00:29:07.420 So set the scene for us. Fidel Castro has taken 00:29:07.420 --> 00:29:10.839 over Cuba in 1959. The U .S. wants him gone. 00:29:11.420 --> 00:29:14.559 The CIA plan, which actually started under Eisenhower, 00:29:14.720 --> 00:29:18.200 was to recruit and train a brigade of anti -Castro 00:29:18.200 --> 00:29:21.099 Cuban exiles. They would land at a place called 00:29:21.099 --> 00:29:23.839 the Bay of Pigs, spock a popular uprising among 00:29:23.839 --> 00:29:26.579 the Cuban people, and overthrow Castro. You're 00:29:26.579 --> 00:29:28.539 supposed to be another Guatemala. A cheap, easy 00:29:28.539 --> 00:29:30.920 win. Exactly. They thought the people would rise 00:29:30.920 --> 00:29:33.240 up, just like the CIA radio stations told them 00:29:33.240 --> 00:29:36.180 to. They were supremely confident. But it was 00:29:36.180 --> 00:29:38.700 a catastrophe from start to finish. What went 00:29:38.700 --> 00:29:41.380 wrong? Everything. First, the elements. of surprise 00:29:41.380 --> 00:29:44.440 was lost. Castro knew they were coming. Second, 00:29:44.619 --> 00:29:46.799 the popular uprising never happened. The Cuban 00:29:46.799 --> 00:29:49.259 people didn't join the invaders. They rallied 00:29:49.259 --> 00:29:52.019 around Castro. Third, Dulles had assured the 00:29:52.019 --> 00:29:54.220 new president, John F. Kennedy, that if the invasion 00:29:54.220 --> 00:29:56.660 failed, the exiles could melt into the mountains 00:29:56.660 --> 00:29:59.460 and become gorillas. But he hadn't looked at 00:29:59.460 --> 00:30:01.940 a map. The landing site at the Bay of Pigs was 00:30:01.940 --> 00:30:04.299 surrounded by impassable swamps. There were no 00:30:04.299 --> 00:30:07.140 mountains for miles. That is a staggering oversight. 00:30:07.460 --> 00:30:09.460 That's not even spycraft. That's just basic geography. 00:30:10.089 --> 00:30:12.569 It is. It was a failure of intelligence at the 00:30:12.569 --> 00:30:14.950 most fundamental level. And when the invasion 00:30:14.950 --> 00:30:17.609 started to fail, Kennedy got cold feet about 00:30:17.609 --> 00:30:20.470 sending in the U .S. military to save them. Kennedy 00:30:20.470 --> 00:30:23.630 refused to provide overt U .S. air support because 00:30:23.630 --> 00:30:26.130 he didn't want to start World War III over Cuba. 00:30:26.329 --> 00:30:28.369 So the exiles were left on the beach. Pinned 00:30:28.369 --> 00:30:32.170 down, captured, or killed. The CIA's credibility 00:30:32.170 --> 00:30:35.609 was shattered. It was a public humiliating failure 00:30:35.609 --> 00:30:37.990 on the world stage. Dulles called it the worst 00:30:37.990 --> 00:30:40.430 day of my life. President Kennedy was furious, 00:30:40.569 --> 00:30:43.410 absolutely livid. He reportedly said he wanted 00:30:43.410 --> 00:30:46.490 to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and 00:30:46.490 --> 00:30:48.730 scatter it into the winds. That is a famous quote. 00:30:49.079 --> 00:30:51.779 And he started by firing the leadership. In late 00:30:51.779 --> 00:30:54.940 1961, Dulles and his two top deputies, Richard 00:30:54.940 --> 00:30:57.460 Bissell and Charles Cabell, were all forced to 00:30:57.460 --> 00:31:00.579 resign. But Kennedy, being a very savvy politician, 00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:02.720 did it with a bit of theater. He didn't just 00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:05.799 fire him in a memo. No. On November 28, 1961, 00:31:06.240 --> 00:31:08.779 Kennedy went to CIA headquarters in Langley to 00:31:08.779 --> 00:31:10.759 dedicate the new building. It was a big ceremony. 00:31:11.039 --> 00:31:13.380 And in front of the press and the entire staff, 00:31:13.700 --> 00:31:16.359 he publicly presented Alan Dulles with the National 00:31:16.359 --> 00:31:18.799 Security Medal. It was a face -saving measure, 00:31:18.920 --> 00:31:21.059 a very public, thank you for your service, now 00:31:21.059 --> 00:31:23.500 please go away. But the relationship was broken. 00:31:24.119 --> 00:31:26.799 Dulles wasn't gracious about it in private. Completely 00:31:26.799 --> 00:31:29.400 broken. Dulles was bitter. He felt betrayed. 00:31:29.859 --> 00:31:32.359 He later told a journalist, that little Kennedy, 00:31:32.579 --> 00:31:35.119 he thought he was a god. He couldn't handle the 00:31:35.119 --> 00:31:37.059 fact that this young president had ended his 00:31:37.059 --> 00:31:40.079 career. He blamed Kennedy for losing his nerve 00:31:40.079 --> 00:31:42.099 at the Bay of Pigs and not committing the full 00:31:42.099 --> 00:31:44.740 force of the U .S. military. So Dulles is out. 00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:47.920 He's retired. He writes a book, The Craft of 00:31:47.920 --> 00:31:49.519 Intelligence. He's supposed to be fading into 00:31:49.519 --> 00:31:53.400 history. But then, November 22, 1963 happens. 00:31:54.039 --> 00:31:57.380 JFK is assassinated in Dallas. And we enter the 00:31:57.380 --> 00:32:00.000 final and perhaps most twisted chapter of Alan 00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:02.900 Dulles' public life. The new president, Lyndon 00:32:02.900 --> 00:32:05.480 Johnson, creates the Warren Commission to investigate 00:32:05.480 --> 00:32:07.859 the assassination. And who does he appoint as 00:32:07.859 --> 00:32:10.180 one of its seven members? Alan Dulles. The man 00:32:10.180 --> 00:32:13.759 JFK fired. The man who privately despised JFK. 00:32:14.079 --> 00:32:16.200 It is the ultimate conflict of interest. It's 00:32:16.200 --> 00:32:17.859 an appointment that critics have pointed to for 00:32:17.859 --> 00:32:21.420 60 years. Why would you put the man who was fired 00:32:21.420 --> 00:32:23.579 by the victim in charge of investigating the 00:32:23.579 --> 00:32:25.980 murder? It makes no sense on the surface. So 00:32:25.980 --> 00:32:29.220 what was the logic or the strategy? Why did LBJ 00:32:29.220 --> 00:32:32.099 do it? The prevailing theory, supported by historians 00:32:32.099 --> 00:32:35.740 like Stephen Kinzer, is that LBJ put Dulles there 00:32:35.740 --> 00:32:38.539 to coach the commission, to be the inside man. 00:32:38.990 --> 00:32:41.309 Coach them on what? On how to handle the intelligence 00:32:41.309 --> 00:32:44.410 world, on how to interview CIA witnesses, on 00:32:44.410 --> 00:32:46.369 what questions to ask, and more importantly, 00:32:46.529 --> 00:32:49.519 what questions not to ask. You mean where not 00:32:49.519 --> 00:32:51.480 to look. Exactly. You have to remember at this 00:32:51.480 --> 00:32:54.140 time, the CIA's attempts to kill Castro, the 00:32:54.140 --> 00:32:56.700 mafia plots, the exploding cigars, the poison 00:32:56.700 --> 00:32:59.380 wetsuits were some of the deepest, darkest secrets 00:32:59.380 --> 00:33:01.940 in the U .S. government. JFK knew about some 00:33:01.940 --> 00:33:04.000 of it. His brother, RFK, was deeply involved. 00:33:04.180 --> 00:33:06.180 And Alan Dulles, of course, knew everything about 00:33:06.180 --> 00:33:08.140 it. So if the commission started digging too 00:33:08.140 --> 00:33:10.819 deep into Lee Harvey Oswald's potential connections 00:33:10.819 --> 00:33:13.859 to Cuba or to intelligence agencies, they might 00:33:13.859 --> 00:33:16.880 stumble on the CIA's own assassination plots 00:33:16.880 --> 00:33:19.500 against Castro. Precisely. And that would have 00:33:19.500 --> 00:33:21.720 been a geopolitical nightmare. If the American 00:33:21.720 --> 00:33:24.000 public found out that their government was secretly 00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:26.799 trying to murder foreign leaders, it could have 00:33:26.799 --> 00:33:29.339 triggered a war with the Soviet Union or Cuba. 00:33:29.759 --> 00:33:32.440 So the theory is that Dulles wasn't there to 00:33:32.440 --> 00:33:35.579 find the truth about who killed JFK. He was there 00:33:35.579 --> 00:33:38.539 to protect the agency's secrets. And here is 00:33:38.539 --> 00:33:40.480 a really surprising detail from the sources. 00:33:41.319 --> 00:33:43.380 Robert F. Kennedy, the president's brother and 00:33:43.380 --> 00:33:46.779 attorney general, also urged LBJ to put Dulles 00:33:46.779 --> 00:33:49.289 on the commission. Which seems insane, right? 00:33:49.349 --> 00:33:51.950 Why would Bobby Kennedy want his brother's enemy 00:33:51.950 --> 00:33:54.630 on the investigation? But it goes back to the 00:33:54.630 --> 00:33:57.329 same thing. Bobby was deeply involved in the 00:33:57.329 --> 00:33:59.410 anti -Castro plots, maybe even more than his 00:33:59.410 --> 00:34:01.670 brother. He needed someone on that commission 00:34:01.670 --> 00:34:04.089 who knew where the bodies were buried, literally, 00:34:04.289 --> 00:34:06.750 and would make sure they stayed buried. He needed 00:34:06.750 --> 00:34:08.650 a professional secret keeper. And there was no 00:34:08.650 --> 00:34:11.170 one better at that than Alan Dulles. So Dulles 00:34:11.170 --> 00:34:13.650 served his purpose one last time. He shaped the 00:34:13.650 --> 00:34:16.010 narrative. The sources say he was the most active 00:34:16.010 --> 00:34:18.760 member of the commission. He was. He attended 00:34:18.760 --> 00:34:20.860 the most hearings. He guided the questioning. 00:34:21.079 --> 00:34:24.219 He skillfully steered the investigation away 00:34:24.219 --> 00:34:26.880 from the CIA. And in the end, the commission 00:34:26.880 --> 00:34:29.679 concluded that Oswald acted alone and that there 00:34:29.679 --> 00:34:33.639 was no conspiracy foreign or domestic. The CIA's 00:34:33.639 --> 00:34:35.840 dirty laundry remained hidden for another decade 00:34:35.840 --> 00:34:38.699 until the church committee hearings. It's fascinating 00:34:38.699 --> 00:34:41.179 and chilling to think about. The Gentleman's 00:34:41.179 --> 00:34:44.340 Sky Ended his career by burying the secrets of 00:34:44.340 --> 00:34:46.960 the president who fired him, possibly to protect 00:34:46.960 --> 00:34:49.699 the presidency itself from scandal. And he lived 00:34:49.699 --> 00:34:52.280 out the rest of his years as this elder statesman 00:34:52.280 --> 00:34:55.260 of espionage. He wrote another book, gave speeches. 00:34:55.340 --> 00:34:58.860 He died in 1969 of influenza and pneumonia. He's 00:34:58.860 --> 00:35:00.920 buried in Baltimore. When you look back at his 00:35:00.920 --> 00:35:03.440 entire life, what stands out? He's such a man 00:35:03.440 --> 00:35:05.699 of contradictions. He really is. He was a man 00:35:05.699 --> 00:35:08.820 who exposed forged anti -Semitic texts and saved 00:35:08.820 --> 00:35:11.320 Jewish refugees, but also negotiated with us. 00:35:11.340 --> 00:35:13.400 as generals and toppled democratically elected 00:35:13.400 --> 00:35:15.239 governments. And he was the gentleman spy in 00:35:15.239 --> 00:35:17.380 his public life, but his private life was complicated. 00:35:17.739 --> 00:35:20.820 Yeah, very. His own sister, Eleanor, is quoted 00:35:20.820 --> 00:35:23.840 as saying he had at least 100 extramarital affairs, 00:35:24.019 --> 00:35:27.159 even during his time as DCI. He was a man of 00:35:27.159 --> 00:35:30.199 immense appetite for power, for secrets, for 00:35:30.199 --> 00:35:33.099 life. He compartmentalized everything. He could 00:35:33.099 --> 00:35:35.579 be the pious Presbyterian on Sunday and the ruthless 00:35:35.579 --> 00:35:38.420 spymaster on Monday. And he was an interventionist 00:35:38.420 --> 00:35:40.980 to his core. He believed that America could not 00:35:40.980 --> 00:35:43.139 sit on the sidelines. He wrote a book on it early 00:35:43.139 --> 00:35:45.500 in his career. Literally, it was called Can We 00:35:45.500 --> 00:35:48.389 Be Neutral? His answer was always a resounding 00:35:48.389 --> 00:35:50.690 no. He believed the U .S. had to be in the arena 00:35:50.690 --> 00:35:53.489 fighting, even if that meant getting its hands 00:35:53.489 --> 00:35:56.449 very, very dirty. He truly believed he was the 00:35:56.449 --> 00:35:58.590 good guy fighting the forces of darkness, first 00:35:58.590 --> 00:36:02.070 Nazism, then communism. The ends always justified 00:36:02.070 --> 00:36:04.289 the means. It leaves us with a final provocative 00:36:04.289 --> 00:36:06.389 thought, doesn't it? When we look at the official 00:36:06.389 --> 00:36:08.590 history of the Kennedy assassination or the Cold 00:36:08.590 --> 00:36:11.590 War in general, how much of it is the unvarnished 00:36:11.590 --> 00:36:13.650 truth and how much of it is the version that 00:36:13.650 --> 00:36:16.090 Alan Dulles wanted us to see? That is the essential 00:36:16.090 --> 00:36:18.230 question. Did his presence on the Warren Commission 00:36:18.230 --> 00:36:20.329 fundamentally shape the historical narrative 00:36:20.329 --> 00:36:22.349 of the most traumatic event in modern American 00:36:22.349 --> 00:36:25.329 history, all to protect the agency's secrets 00:36:25.329 --> 00:36:28.349 rather than reveal the full truth? It's a question 00:36:28.349 --> 00:36:31.150 that still haunts the corridors of Langley. We 00:36:31.150 --> 00:36:33.090 may be living in the world Allen Dulles built, 00:36:33.269 --> 00:36:35.489 whether we realize it or not. It certainly feels 00:36:35.489 --> 00:36:39.130 that way. Allen Dulles, the man who missed a 00:36:39.130 --> 00:36:41.969 call from Lenin, but never missed a chance to 00:36:41.969 --> 00:36:44.909 change the world, for better or for worse. A 00:36:44.909 --> 00:36:47.909 true and truly complicated architect of the American 00:36:47.909 --> 00:36:50.610 century. Thank you for listening to this deep 00:36:50.610 --> 00:36:52.909 dive. We encourage you to look closer at the 00:36:52.909 --> 00:36:56.349 intersection of intelligence and democracy. It's 00:36:56.349 --> 00:36:58.869 a blurry line. And Alan Dulles spent his whole 00:36:58.869 --> 00:37:01.230 life walking right on top of it. Indeed. It's 00:37:01.230 --> 00:37:02.969 a line we're still trying to find today. See 00:37:02.969 --> 00:37:03.889 you on the next deep dive.