John D. WILSEY. God’s Cold Warrior: The Life and Faith of John Foster Dulles. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2021. pp. xv + 253. $21.99. pb. ISBN: 978-0-8028-7572-3. Reviewed by Moni MCINTYRE, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.

A brilliant analysis of the life, times, and singular achievements of John Foster Dulles (1888-1959), God’s Cold Warrior reveals many complexities in one of the most significant American figures of the early and mid-twentieth century.  Keenly aware that not all critics share his views, John D. Wilsey nevertheless forges a clear and compelling view of Dulles in the context of major historical events during his lifetime. Unapologetically, Wilsey focuses on Dulles’s religious commitments as they informed his personal and professional life. Curiously, Dulles was widely known and highly regarded during his lifetime.  Since then, however, he has faded into relative obscurity and some disrepute.  Dulles’s accomplishments and character may neither accurately nor charitably be viewed using twenty-first century cultural awareness and criteria.  Wilsey demonstrates this fact again and again.

Focusing on Dulles as a lawyer, churchman, and diplomat, the author emphasizes three themes that permeate the life of this world figure: moral law, freedom, and the American way of life.  Wilsey traces these values to Dulles’ early life.  Steeped in Protestant progressive assumptions and practices as a child, Dulles was the grandson of John Watson Foster, a Civil War officer and later secretary of state for President Benjamin Harrison.  Dulles’s uncle served as secretary of state in the Cabinet of President Woodrow Wilson. Grandfather Foster hated war and passed along his faith and traditions to his son, Allen Macy Dulles, who became a liberal Presbyterian minister in Watertown, New York.  He married Edith Foster, a woman of principle and means. Having attended Princeton and George Washington universities as well as the Sorbonne, John Foster Dulles dedicated himself to Christian principles and always appreciated the privileged life he led in private life as well as on the world stage. 

Married to Janet Pomeroy, and the father of three sons, Dulles became a managing partner in the law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, worked for the State Department, the War Trade Board, and served on the Reparations Commission at Versailles.  Always a dedicated churchman, he would speak about the necessity of tithing even as he climbed the ladders of the wider Presbyterian Church and ecumenical circles.  As a young man of 19, Dulles began his diplomatic career in 1907.  Grandfather Foster, representing China, allowed his grandson to accompany him to the second international peace conference at The Hague.  At 30, Dulles was named by President Wilson as legal counsel to the U.S. delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference, at the end of World War I.  He also served as a member of the war reparations commission.  In World War II, Dulles helped prepare the United Nations charter at Dumbarton Oaks and, in 1945, served as a senior adviser at the San Francisco United Nations conference.  President Harry Truman and his secretary of state, Dean Acheson, assigned Dulles the task of negotiating and concluding a peace treaty with Japan.  In 1949, he was appointed U.S. senator from New York to fill a vacancy, but he was defeated in the 1950 election.

Not surprisingly, Dulles’s lifelong goal was to become secretary of state.  In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower named Dulles to this Cabinet position.  In this capacity, he accomplished many things, including checkmating the Communist Cold War strategy. 

Wilsey’s presentation of the brilliant and prescient John Foster Dulles is accessible, informative, and carefully researched. The author fairly treats the allegations of Dulles being “an American imperialist, nuclear warmonger, and paper tiger” (p. 173).  One is finally left with deep appreciation for a dedicated civil servant who lived the best he could in a time before ours.