The Brothers

John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War

By: Stephen Kinzer

Narrated by: David Cochran Heath

Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

A joint biography of John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, who led the United States into an unseen war that decisively shaped today's world

During the 1950s, when the Cold War was at its peak, two immensely powerful brothers led the United States into a series of foreign adventures whose effects are still shaking the world.

John Foster Dulles was secretary of state while his brother, Allen Dulles, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this book, Stephen Kinzer places their extraordinary lives against the backdrop ofAmerican culture and history. He uses the framework of biography to ask: Why does the United States behave as it does in the world?

The Brothers explores hidden forces that shape the national psyche, from religious piety to Western movies - many of which are about a noble gunman who cleans up a lawless town by killing bad guys. This is how the Dulles brothers saw themselves, and how many Americans still see their country's role in the world.

Propelled by a quintessentially American set of fears and delusions, the Dulles brothers launched violent campaigns against foreign leaders they saw as threats to the United States. These campaigns helped push countries from Guatemala to the Congo into long spirals of violence, led the United States into the Vietnam War, and laid the foundation for decades of hostility between the United States and countries such as Cuba and Iran.

The story of the Dulles brothers is the story of America. It illuminates and helps explain the modern history of the United States and the world.

©2013 Stephen Kinzer

Devastating history of US policy

Would you consider the audio edition of The Brothers to be better than the print version?

no idea

Any additional comments?

This book is far beyond a biography of the Dulles brothers. It is a description of US policies during the 50's that shaped the world we live in today. It is devastating and deeply depressing to realize how much lasting damage was done by the misunderstanding of the desires of people around the world for self-determination and by the ruthless determination of Eisenhower and the Dulles's to crush whatever they saw, very often wrongly, as threatening US interests. The book also provides example after example of how the media, particularly Time magazine, served as conduits for distortions of the truth or outright lies calculated to bamboozle the American people. The book provides clear background for events in countries as disparate as Guatemala, Indonesia, and the Congo, and it documents the ways in which the US sought to subvert or overthrow the governments of those countries.

In addition, the book describes the Dulles brothers as human beings and gives the reader a good sense of the family life they grew up in and the social context that they lived in. This context is valuable for helping to understand their unshakeable convictions about good vs evil and their roles in shaping foreign policy.

5.5 of 5

What sombre and humbling listening experience! Steven kinzer did excellent job to revisit and narrated the crucial period of history which was hide, twisted, misinterpreted and hollywoodized!

I for one did not know much that recounted in this book. Unfortunately I thought I knew!

The reader was great with wide range of voice control and expression and artistic balanced neutrality

Powerful history lesson

Outstanding research and writing make this both a captivating and important lesson in the history of American politics. Eye opening revelations of the people and rationale that shaped so many fundamental and historic US foreign policy actions.

Unacceptable Conclusions

We spend the entire book learning about these two incompetent, murderous, sociopathic thugs only to give them both a pat on the back at the end of the book and a recommendation that Fosters bust be put back on display so Americans feel bad about America? What a god awful ending. Also glossed over throughout the book is how much the brothers clear racism shaped their decisions. I suggest skipping the final 30 pages. It’s a very good book if you do that.

Horror Story

I had a vague understanding of the Dulles brothers as upright exemplars of a simpler time. In fact, they sent us careening down a path that led us into Iraq and probably into other such fiascos in the future.

A duel biography

I found this book most interesting. I knew some of the information contained in the book but this is the first time I had seen in presented in this manner. I was aware of the Dulles brothers but it did not register with me that they were both in power at the same time. The Dulles family has served the government through many generations. John W. Foster was Secretary of State (1892-93) for President Benjamin Harrison. Eleanor Foster married Robert Lansing who served as Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson. Under FDR Allan Dulles served a decade in the State Department then served in the OSS where he was sent to Switzerland. He was to commission Carl Gustav Jung to prepare psychological profiles of Hitler and other Nazi leaders. Kinzer portrays Allen as a facile, charming womanizer with a lifelong passion for the ethos of espionage. Kinzer paints Foster as a stridently moralistic cunning strategist in international commerce. The author writes “They made an ideal team: one brother was great fun and a gifted seducer, the other had uncanny ability in building fortunes.”

Foster served as a foreign policy adviser to Thomas Dewey, the Governor of New York. Forster became an avid critic of Stalin’s essays and speeches. In 1952 Dwight Eisenhower became President and appointed Foster as Secretary of State. Allen became director of the CIA. Never before had two siblings enjoyed such concentrated power to manage United States foreign policy until the Kennedy brother came to power.

Eisenhower adopted the Containment Doctrine developed by George F. Kennan. I read “The Kennan Diaries” in March of 2014. This book goes into depth about the containment strategy. The author covers in great detail, the six different nationalist and communist movements around the world that covert action was taken by the Dulles brothers. There are Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam, Indonesia, African Congo and Cuba. Kinzer blunt assessment of Foster’s intellect, quoted Winston Churchill’s disparaging verdict that the Secretary of State was “dull unimaginative, uncomprehending.”

Anyone wanting to know why the United States is hated across much of the world need look no farther that this book. “The Brothers” is a riveting chronicle of government sanctioned murder, casual elimination of “inconvenient” regimes, relentless prioritization of American corporate interest and cynical arrogances on the part of two men who were among the most powerful in the world.

The author blames the two brothers for most of the evil of the cold war on the other hand he gives little attention to their sister who was their opposite. Eleanor Lansing Dulles graduated from Harvard with a doctorate in economics. She worked for the State Department for over twenty years overseeing the reconstruction of the economy of post war Europe. She helped establish the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. When her brother, John Foster Dulles, became Secretary of State he tired to remove her from State but she successful fought him. She was hailed as “The Mother of Berlin” for helping to revitalize Berlin’s economy and culture during the 1950s. She retired in 1962 and became a professor of economics at Georgetown University.

If you are interested in history, cold war, covert operation this is the book for you. David Cochran Heath did a good job narrating the book.

Remarkly Educational, and Very Disconcerting

The more I listened and understood what Eisenhower and the Dulles Brothers had done throughout the world, the better I understood why we have so many enemies abroad. The decade or more that The Brothers (as well as their family) influenced US foreign policy still has negative consequences for the US today. Their foundational belief that what is good for American business is good for the world is I think, still alive and well today.
After reading this I find myself wanting to read more of Kinzer's books to get a deeper understanding of the underpinnings of foriegn anger at the US for its interventionist policies.

Required reading

Anyone alive during the second half of the twentieth century who read newspapers and watched tv news will want to read (or hear) this book. It will make history less crazy but much darker.

amazing and perfect foil for Talbot' s devil's che

really an excellent book a standout performance and one of the great introspective, thought provoking final chapters ever... a brilliant AND touching call for reflection, sadly not the average American's strong point but it can and should change. "if the answer isn't to look in yourself how is it that you expect to find it anywhere else? " Immortal Technique

An important history lesson with contemporary resonance.

Mr. Kinzer's exceptionally well researched study of America's primal cold-warriors is particularly interesting to us baby-boomers. The events recounted were the half-heard, partially understood conversations of our parents and the stuff of news shows on TV. The book lends such clarity to our own lives and attitudes, so shaped by what happened and, more than we knew, why they happened. Even more worthwhile than the excellent history lesson is the insightful meditation, fully explored in the final chapter, on the particularly American outlook and psychology which the Dulles brothers' careers so exemplify. Chock-full of anecdotes, insights and unafraid of making judgements both moral and pragmatic, this book is invaluable to us as we ponder the options currently facing our leaders. We live in a very hazardous world. Behind the decisions we make in dealing with it lie assumptions and motivations which ultimately cost Alan, John Foster, their country and the world unimaginable tragedy and suffering. By understanding why these archetypal Americans acted as they did, perhaps our outcomes and the lives of the world's citizens will be better.