THE ADMINISTRATION: The Other Brother

In guiding U.S. foreign policy, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles will make use of information supplied to him by his younger brother, Allen Welsh Dulles, 59, whom President Dwight Eisenhower last week tabbed as the new head of the Central Intelligence Agency—its first civilian boss.*

As longtime partners in the Manhattan law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, the brothers Dulles are used to working together. "They are closer than any two brothers I have ever known," says an old friend. Both are foreign-affairs specialists, both love travel and sailing. But Allen is no carbon copy of his older (by five years) brother. Says a longtime friend and associate of the Dulleses: "That mustache Allen wears is sort of symbolic of the difference in their personalities. Allen is gayer, more outgoing, less reserved, more of a raconteur."

Both brothers were precocious children. Allen's interest in foreign relations showed up at the age of eight, when he wrote an essay on the Boer War. "I hope the Boers will win the war," he concluded, "for the Boers are in the right and the British in the wrong." Grandfather John W. Foster (Secretary of State under President Benjamin Harrison) proudly had the work published, and to this day the 31-page pamphlet resides in some of the best U.S. libraries.

Allen's first job ($500 a year) was as an English teacher in a church mission school at Allahabad, India. After a year of that, he spent a decade in State Department service at home & abroad. Then he followed his brother into Sullivan & Cromwell. During World War II, he was the OSS chief in Switzerland, where he pieced together priceless bits of intelligence collected from Allied spies, neutral travelers and anti-Hitler Germans. The information he obtained about the Nazi V-weapon program led to the bombing of the research center and set the program back at least six critical months. After the war, he wrote a now-it-can-be-told book about Germany's Underground. He went to work for CIA in 1950, became deputy director in August 1951. When President Eisenhower appointed General "Beedle" Smith Under Secretary of State, Allen Dulles was the obvious choice to succeed him as the agency's boss.