FOREIGN RELATIONS: The Peacemaker

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A tall, sunburned man in a straw hat climbed out of a small plane at the Syracuse airport last week, and with a trim, grey-haired woman hurrying along beside him, made for the airport waiting room. No one recognized Mr. & Mrs. John Foster Dulles as they crossed the crowded lobby, sat down at the lunch counter and ordered ice-cream sodas.

The Republican adviser to the State Department fixed his vanilla soda with his habitually solemn stare. A year ago, in a spell of concentrated writing, he had delivered himself of this exhortation: "It is time to think in terms of taking the offensive in the world struggle for freedom, and of rolling back the engulfing tide of despotism . . . In 1942 . . . we were not thinking about how to save our necks, but how to save freedom. We need more of that spirit today . . . In the vast areas of Asia and the Pacific, we have no adequate policy, largely because China, always until now our friendly partner, has been taken over by the allies of Soviet Communism. That calls for new thinking . . . Our particular opportunity . . . is Japan."

Ointment, Not Lash. Now, in the space of one year, he himself had translated the Dulles words into the Dulles deed: the Japanese Treaty (TIME, Jan. 22 et seq.). It was not yet an accomplished fact; the treaty still teetered in the balance of events. On Sept. 4, some 50 nations (he hoped) would meet in San Francisco to sign it; the U.S. Senate and the other governments would have to confirm it. "The treaty," Dulles has anxiously observed, "is in jeopardy every day of its life."

Nevertheless, as it stood, it was one of the most remarkable propositions in the history of wars; no victorious nation had ever presented to a beaten enemy such magnanimous terms after so savage a fight. Instead of a lash, it poured out ointment. It forgave Pearl Harbor. The idea was as revolutionary as Christianity itself. A "particular opportunity" had been grasped and, as a result (Dulles hoped), an astute offensive had been launched in Asia.

He had brought it off almost singlehanded. In the past year, he had flown more than 125,000 miles, carrying his documents and his arguments to six capitals, pleading, arguing, bargaining when it was necessary. There was not another country in the world that wanted this kind of peace. But they came along because the U.S. was in a position to write it. It was an imposed morality.

The Dulleses, fresh from a brief holiday on an island in Lake Ontario, finished their sodas and boarded another plane. Buried in his newspaper and his preoccupations, Dulles flew on to Washington.

Once during World War II, an outraged associate of Dulles' described the behavior of the Japanese as "unforgivable." "Christ teaches us," replied Dulles, "that nothing is unforgivable." The unaffected remark laid bare one part of his character. It is a complex character behind its grey, pedagogic exterior. The exterior, like the simple housing around a complicated turbine (said an awed friend), covers "the greatest piece of mental machinery I have ever known." God and the turbine produced the Japanese Treaty. A preacher and a diplomat produced John Foster Dulles.