National Affairs: The New Consultant

There was no doubt that John Foster Dulles’ illness hung heavily on the President’s mind in everything he did. “It is like losing a brother,” he had said; and from Dwight Eisenhower, brought up one of seven brothers in Abilene, Kans., the remark had deep meaning. Nor was there any doubt that the President meant to keep Dulles on his staff, at least in name, as long as Dulles was able.

One day last week the President drove to Walter Reed Army Hospital to attend the swearing-in of Foster Dulles as a new $20,000-a-year special consultant to the President with full Cabinet rank. Because Dulles tires easily, the small group at the ceremony—Ike, Dulles, Nixon, Herter, Janet Dulles and a few others—sat down while the President read to Dulles this citation: “Your willingness to continue to contribute your abundant talents and unique experience to the service of the U.S. and the free world is but one more example of your magnificent spirit and devotion to the nation’s welfare.”

After the President left to go back to the White House, Dulles chatted briefly with Herter and the others. Then Dulles volunteered a bit of advice to Herter that showed the personal qualities that the President found so invaluable.

“Where foreign policy is concerned, as you know, Chris,” said Dulles, “I have always felt that there could not and should not be any interlopers between the President and the Secretary of State.” It struck one who was there that Dulles was recalling how his uncle, Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State Robert Lansing, had been short-circuited by Wilson’s reliance upon his close adviser, Colonel Edward M. House. Then Special Consultant Dulles assured Secretary of State Herter that he, Dulles, would never get in the way. Said he: “I have never wanted to be an interloper, and I don’t intend to become one now.”