Word: dulleses
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To Allen Welsh Dulles, who died at 75 of pneumonia in a Washington hospital last week, the gathering and interpretation of intelligence was vital to American survival in a threatening world. He modestly described his risky, arcane calling as a "craft" but pursued it with an unrelenting enthusiasm and expertise...
His courtly yet convivial manner evoked the style of an old-fashioned prep-school headmaster, but Dulles was above all the man who professionalized the intelligence service of the U.S. Before him, American espionage had been at best the work of skillful amateurs whom their countrymen sometimes disdained as unsporting...
He was absorbed by the personal element of intelligence gathering. He often told his juniors of the time that "an insignificant little man" sought out someone in authority at the U.S. consulate in Bern, where Dulles was a minor official toward the end of World War I.
Deputy Under Secretary of State Robert Murphy offered Davies a chance to resign, though nine security hearings produced no evidence that he was disloyal. Davies replied: "I guess you'll have to fire me." In November 1954, John Foster Dulles did just that, charging Davies with "lack of judgment...
In retrospect, Davies shows no bitterness. He recalls with astonishment that after firing him Dulles telephoned to offer the use of his name as a reference. "What could I say?" asks Davies. "It was so bizarre." As Davies sees it, both he and Dulles were victims of the times. "Getting...