Allen Dulles

Allen Welsh Dulles (/ˈdʌləs/; April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was an American diplomat and lawyer who became the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence and its longest-serving director to date. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency during the early Cold War, he oversaw the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, Operation Ajax (overthrow of Iran's elected government), the Lockheed U-2 program and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Dulles was one of the members of the Warren Commission. Between his stints of government service, Dulles was a corporate lawyer and partner at Sullivan & Cromwell. His older brother, John Foster Dulles, was the Secretary of State during the Eisenhower Administration.

Early life and family

Dulles was born on April 7, 1893, in Watertown, New York, one of five children of Presbyterian minister Allen Macy Dulles, and his wife, Edith F. (Foster). He was five years younger than his brother John Foster Dulles, Dwight D. Eisenhower's Secretary of State and chairman and senior partner of Sullivan & Cromwell, and two years older than his sister, diplomat Eleanor Lansing Dulles. His maternal grandfather was John W. Foster, who was Secretary of State under Benjamin Harrison, while his uncle by marriage, Robert Lansing served as Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson. Dulles was uncle to Avery Dulles, a Jesuit priest, theologian, and cardinal of the Catholic Church, who taught at Fordham University from 1988 to 2008.