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This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
Nia: Hey, Aughie.
Aughie: Good morning, Nia. How are you?
Nia: I'm good. How are you?
Aughie: I'm fine. I'm already on my second mug of coffee for the morning, so life is-
Nia: All is well?
Aughie: All is well.
Nia: All is well in the day?
Aughie: Yes. Today, listeners, we are continuing our story behind the name series. This one was recommended by Nia, who asked the question one morning pre-recording, how did Dulles Airport get its name?
Nia: I was trying to figure out which Dulles, because aren't there a bunch of Dulleses?
Aughie: There's a bunch. We'll discuss this-
Nia: Like swing a cat, hit a Dulles in New York a thing.
Aughie: For our non-American listeners, Dulles Airport is located in Northern Virginia. It's one of the primary airports in the Washington, DC Northern Virginia area.
Nia: There's Ronald Reagan and there's Dulles.
Aughie: Dulles, and then you have BWI, Baltimore Washington International. Those are the three airports that basically service the United States.
Nia: The American Capital.
Aughie: The Capital.
Nia: It's, by the way, D-U-L-L-E-S, Dulles.
Aughie: Dulles. That's right. I went ahead and did some research, and actually, it is named for one of the most prominent American diplomats in the mid 20th century, John Foster Dulles. Now, as our longtime listeners know, Nia and I love a good name. In particular, we have identified that probably until the 1950s and '60s, it was not unusual for well known politicians and government officials to be known by their first name, middle initial, and last name, or their first, middle, and last name. It's particularly the case with, shall we say, government and societal elites. John Foster Dulles and his family, definitely fall into that category. He was the Secretary of State for President Eisenhower from 1953-1959. He was a prominent member of the Republican Party. He was briefly a US senator in New York. Yes, listeners. New York at various times have elected Republicans.
Nia: Remember, he was born in 1888.
Aughie: He was born in 1888.
Nia: I mean, that's a long time to spent his lifetime, there is what? Seventy-seven years. It's a long time. There's bound to be a Republican or two in New York during that time.
Aughie: John, he was one of the most prominent American politicians, government officials during the early years of the Cold War.
Nia: Of the what? I'm sorry.
Aughie: Cold War.
Nia: The cold War. He's out there fighting off. That's not Khrushchev. Is that Khrushchev or is that before Khrushchev?
Aughie: Well, the Cold War starts with Stalin, and then segues to a bunch of others. Settle on Khrushchev. Then after Khrushchev, you have Leno Brezhnev, and then we eventually get to Gorbachev in the 1980s. That's when the Berlin Wall comes down, the Cold War ends, and the Soviet Union embarks upon a democracy.
Nia: For about 10 minutes under Yeltsin, and then you get Putin, and we're back to a dictatorship.
Aughie: But we digress.
Nia: Yes.
Aughie: Dulles was born in Washington, DC. He and his brother were home-schooled, and then he did his undergraduate work at Princeton. He attended the George Washington University Law School, which is one of the most prominent law schools in the Mid Atlantic, if daresay, probably the United States, typically top 20, top 25 law school. He then joined a very prominent Wall Street law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell.
Nia: That sounds like. like a Charlie Brown.
Aughie: Yes. Now, if you think that he was an ratio Elger, up from the bootstraps type of figure, no.
Nia: I am sure there was an up from the bootstrap Dulles, but it certainly wasn't John Foster.
Aughie: Foster. That's right. His grandfather and his uncle, so his grandfather, John W Foster and his uncle, Robert Lansing, both served as the US Secretary of State. His brother, Allen Dulles served as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1953-1961. I kid you not. You had the Dulles Brothers. One was running the secretary or the State Department, and the other one was running the CIA.
Nia: Well, no wonder they were anti-Cold War. They were in it to win the Cold War.
Aughie: That's right. Now, after his short-term in Sullivan & Cromwell, during World War I, he served on the nation's War Trade Board, and he was one of the country's legal counsels at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.
Nia: He was a diplomat?
Aughie: He was a diplomat. He actually supported the American membership in the League of Nations, which the United States Senate rejected as part of the Paris Treaty. He designed the Dawes Plan, which the purpose was to stabilize Europe by reducing German war reparations.
Nia: Because everybody wanted to Germany to pay. They were peeved and they wanted them to pay. But the problem with that is that Germany had been decimated by the war. Again, we see that again after World War II, as well.
Aughie: Yes.
Nia: Germany gets all up into it, and then everybody gets pissed and then they want Germany to pay, and Germany has no way to pay.
Aughie: He was one of the few American politicians at that time who understood that if the reparations imposed on Germany were too severe, that it would create resentment and animosity among the German people, and he was not wrong.
Nia: It would bring a rise of a strong, powerful leader who would turn into a dictator who would run Germany and then probably start a war. Gee, I don't know why he thought that would happen.
Aughie: But at the time, he was a minority voice. Because the United States and the other allied nations after World War I, were like, we encountered all these losses and all this damage and all this hardship because of Germany.
Nia: Were mad.
Aughie: We're going to exact retribution. He was one of the few voices that was like, there's retribution.
Nia: Retribution.
Aughie: Then we are setting the conditions for them to want to do this again. Now, after his service, the next milestone in his, shall we say, political and government career, he served as chief foreign policy advisor to Thomas Dewey. Dewey was the Republican Party nominee for president in both 1944 and 1948. Nia is a big fan. She's not a big fan of Thomas Dewey. But she always likes to note that Dewey was the Republican Party nominee against Harry S Truman, and many newspapers incorrectly concluded that Dewey beat Truman in the 48 presidential election, and then we woke up the next morning and we find out-.
Nia: That's not true.
Aughie: That was not true. Truman actually won.
Nia: Why? Because polling is a delicate art.
Aughie: Oh, yes.
Nia: If you get it wrong, you will come up with all things that are going to happen that don't actually happen.
Aughie: By the way, Dulles was also a contributing member to the United Nations Charter, and he represented the United States at the UN General Assembly. This was a guy who basically gave his life to public service. He started in the aftermath of during World War I, and he continued on.
Nia: Until he passed. right?
Aughie: After New York Senator Robert. Go ahead.
Nia: Sorry. What tells you that Dewey is Interesting, or excuse me, what tells you that Dulles is interesting is that Dulles works across the, like he works with more than one person from his party.
Aughie: Sure. New York Senator Robert Wagner resigned. Dewey, who was the Republican governor, picked Dulles. His tenure only lasted four months because he lost in the special election.
Nia: He wasn't much of a campaigner?
Aughie: Oh, no. He was a behind the scenes government bureau.
Nia: Diplomatic guy, but not a glad handy, shaky guy.
Aughie: No. What's fascinating and this is to your point, Nia, is that though he was quite obviously associated with Thomas Dewey, he becomes an advisor to General Eisenhower after Eisenhower stepped away from the military. When Eisenhower decided to run for president, Eisenhower almost immediately relied upon him because Truman, or not Truman, Eisenhower was just like, I don't care he was once associated with Dewey, who was one of Eisenhower's primary rivals in 1952. He was just like, he's got the government service that I want. When Eisenhower won the 52 presidential election, in 1953, Eisenhower picked Dulles to be the Secretary of State. Now, we've talked about Dulles being diplomatic. Dulles was one of the most fervent Cold War hawks in the Eisenhower administration.
Nia: Only good commie is a dead Commie.
Aughie: Commie, Dulles favored a strategy of massive retaliation to any Soviet aggression in the world. Dulles was one of the most fervent supporters of NATO. He was the architect of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, which was an anti-Communist defensive alliance between the United States and various nations in Southeast Asia. He also signed off on plans made by his brother in the CIA that instigated the regime change coup de'etat in Iran in 1953 in Guatemala in 1954.
Nia: Both of those were leaning communist, right?
Aughie: That's right. Yes.
Nia: Isn't that why both of those regimes leaned?
Aughie: Was one of the first officials in the Eisenhower administration to suggest that the United States should support South Vietnam in the Civil War that was taking place in Vietnam .
Nia: Just remember, North Vietnam was being supported by China.
Aughie: Yes.
Nia: Which was Communist and so you have this whole tension there.
Aughie: There was a power vacuum because Vietnam historically was a colony of France. Once France determined that maintaining that colony was not in their best interest, the United States and other Western democracies were like, but North Vietnam is leaning Communist.
Nia: My friends were like, Not our problem. Bye. It eventually became other people's problem and then not their problem because they ended up leaving, too. What is it that they say in Princess Bride only slightly worse is being involved in a land war in Asia?
Aughie: Yes.
Nia: Things you don't want to do?
Aughie: Nice love your reference, by the way. But I don't think we've ever quoted the Princess Bride in this podcast.
Nia: I think we have because I think we've used inconceivable before.
Aughie: I mean, it's a movie that should be quoted on the regular.
Nia: Listeners, if you have not seen it, you should.
Aughie: You should.
Nia: Just say it.
Aughie: I believe it was directed by the-.
Nia: The late Reiner.
Aughie: Recently departed Rob Reiner. But anyways, back to John Foster Dulles. Dulles resigned as Secretary of State in 1959 and then died shortly thereafter. Within a couple of years, the United States Congress went ahead and passed a resolution naming the airport in Northern Virginia Dulles Airport. That's how we get the name.
Nia: He's an interesting fella, Dulles. The Dulles Brothers are interesting.
Aughie: Yes.
Nia: Because spycraft and diplomacy and Cold War diplomacy were really delicate things. You couldn't just blunder in. I'm not suggesting anything about anybody who is currently in our diplomatic corps, except to say that the people who are currently in our diplomatic corps would have gotten their butts handed to them by the Russians in the Cold War, because Cold diplomacy and spycraft and all that stuff was a much more subtle game than what's being played now.
Aughie: I like the use of the word subtle. It was nuanced. It was behind the scenes. They took pride in not having their recommendations, their white papers, their advice, their counsel, their operations. They took pride in all of that staying secret, which then led to the criticism as we move into the mid late 1960s of well, who are these figures in the shadows?
Nia: Shadowy figures. Yes. Who are these shadowy people?
Aughie: But that was a mark of pride for the Dulles Brothers and their ilk.
Nia: I took what? Ten years for it to come out during the Cuba ten days in October, the missile crisis, that people were behind the scenes talking on the phone, trying. Dude, do not do this. You will push us into a place where then we will have to do something and no one wants to do any of this. We'll pull our missiles out of Poland if you'll pull your missiles out of Cuba. There's all these exchanges happening behind the scenes, which didn't come out for quite a while. Because that was a thing that you didn't talk about that you talked about, that you did with other people. You went off and you talked quietly in the shadows and nobody.
Aughie: Again, in a democracy, government transparency is supposed to be valued. How can you make informed decisions as the public if so much stuff is being done in secret? On the other hand, if the government is announcing what it's doing, then the nation's enemies know how to respond.
Nia: How do you find the sweet spot between-
Aughie: Transparency and secrecy so that government can go ahead and provide an essential public good like national security.
Nia: It isn't going off murdering people in the name of America, which is not something most Americans would get behind. How do you find the sweet spot? How do you navigate that?
Aughie: What you find out afterwards about the United States fostering unrest in other nations. Well, we as Americans wouldn't be all that happy and we weren't all that happy when we found out that Russia for years, if not decades, has attempted to foment domestic unrest in the United States. We're not happy when other nations do it, but yet that's what we were doing throughout the Cold War.
Nia: It's one of those things where I mean, in the current times in which we're living in the current time in which we are recording this, there have been discussions about invading various countries from the United States. Part of me want to if I could talk to anybody in the Trump administration who would listen to me and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't open that door because then other people will walk through it. If we start making it okay for us to do that, to say Greenland or Venezuela, then we have no leg to stand on in Ukraine. You got to be careful about where you draw those lines. What I think is interesting is that he's so committed to ongoing peace. Let's not make Germany a place where it will foment war. You said that he was part of the Federal Council of Churches Commission on a just and durable peace.
Aughie: Yes.
Nia: That's an important thing. Yet, he's like, until it comes to Communists, and then it's not peaceful. He has a line in the sand, and he draws. He's not playing.
Aughie: It's pretty fascinating. We could have our colleagues Saladino or Newman or Twigg come on and talk about this. But the argument for the way the United States conducted the Cold War is, well, it avoided World War III.
Nia: Far.
Aughie: No, in terms of fighting the Cold War, the Cold War, end of World War II until the late 1980s. But it always begs the question, are we willing to go ahead and accept the means chosen to achieve that end. This takes us back to Machiavelli. Does the end justify the means and are we willing to accept those means? Because on one hand, like you, I admire John Foster Dulles' emphasis on trying to maintain peace internationally. On the other hand, some of the techniques as I was doing my research, I was like, so you had no problem going ahead and upsetting what was going on in other nation states. Well, that seems to be uncool, because if it applied to us, we wouldn't be happy with it. Advising Eisenhower, we can't give up Vietnam. That was all part of the dominos theory. If one domino, one country falls-
J. Aughenbaugh: In South Asia, then they will all fall.
Aughie: Yeah, that's the precursor to what we end up seeing with Kennedy and Johnson escalating our involvement in Vietnam. I think many of us today are just like, man, that was just a bad set of decisions. You want to talk about dominos falling. Once we made that commitment, now we have sunk costs.
Nia: Now we've lost American lives there. It's a whole thing.
Aughie: Many adults look back on their lives and say, why did I follow up that sunk cost with other bad decisions simply because I had already spent that money or already made that decision? At some point, you just got to go ahead and cut your loss and say, we need to get out of here. That was bad. We shouldn't have done that. Again, hindsight's 2020.
Nia: Exactly. It's hard to know where that's going to go. If America had won in Vietnam and had a clear victory in Vietnam, that would have been a message to communism much earlier than Reagan. You wouldn't have Reagan and Gorbachev tear down, this Wall, Mr. Gorbachev. You would not have had that because there would not have been the wall. There would have been the wall, but it would not have extended into the '80s. Probably would have ended in the mid '60s. But alas, that is not how that worked. Interesting. He's an interesting fellow. Thank you so much for talking to me about him.
Aughie: It's always nice to know who our airports were named for.
Nia: I want to make a plug for. If you've never been to the John Wayne Airport out in California, it's very nice. Just saying. Sometimes airports are named for cool people who didn't do anything particularly dramatic or whatever.
Aughie: I'm the geek that when I come across a government building and it's got a name, I want to know who's the namesake.
Nia: I annoy the crap out of my friend Neil when we are driving and we come across the highway and it's like the John Ogenbau Memorial Highway. Who the heck is John Ogabau? He has to pull out his phone and he has to look it up and tell me who the person is, because I have a need to know and I need to know immediately. I don't know why, but it's one of those things.
Aughie: Because particularly for American listeners, if you don't know this, so many of the nation's interstates or sections of interstates are named. They're sometimes named for, fall in law enforcement, but they're oftentimes named for members of Congress who were the ones that got pork barrel spending for that highway to be built.
Nia: . Then it turns out that it's not anybody who's very exciting at all, and you're like, man, because you're hoping for somebody interesting.
Aughie: But it gives a political scientist like me an opportunity to go ahead and educate my fellow travelers on this is a good example of pork barrel spending. They're like, oh, could you stop being a professor? No, I can't. You should be fascinated by this because this road is in the middle of nowhere, but we spent millions of dollars building it. My fellow travelers are just like, can he just shut up? Is it not time for us to pull off the road and get gas and coffee. Anyways, listeners.
Nia: I'm just saying.
Aughie: I hope you enjoyed our discussion.
Nia: We should probably do that at some point. We should probably do a series on things named for people and who the heck they were.
Aughie: Yes, famous roadways and the people behind the names.
Nia: Exactly.
Aughie: Anyways, thanks, Nia.
Nia: Thank you, Aughie.