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Biography Dulles was active in the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) in Berne, Switzerland during WWII. He worked on intelligence for German plans and activities. Dulles's career was helped immensely by Fritz Kolbe, a German diplomat, and spy for the Americans. Kolbe supplied secret German documents to the Americans, and Dulles was his handler. Allen Dulles was Dewey's chief adviser in the 1948 Presidential election. Allen Dulles and his older brother John Foster Dulles, along with James Forrestal, helped to form the Office of Policy Coordination. Allen Dulles became the first civilian director of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) in 1953. The CIA had been formed in 1947 as part of the National Security Act. Before then, directors had been from the military. The CIA's covert operations were an important part of the Eisenhower administration's new Cold War national security policy that was called the "New Look". At Dulles's request, President Eisenhower demanded that Senator Joseph McCarthy discontinue issuing subpoenas against the CIA. McCarthy had initiated a series of investigations into potential communist subversion of the Agency. Although none of the investigations revealed any wrongdoing, the hearings were still potentially damaging. During that time, Dulles was personally overseeing Operation Mockingbird, a program which influenced American media companies. Dulles went on to be successful with the CIA's first attempts to remove foreign leaders by covert means. Notably, Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran was deposed in 1953, via Operation Ajax, and President Arbenz of Guatemala was removed in 1954. During the Kennedy administration, Dulles faced increasing criticism. The failed Bay of Pigs Invasion and several failed assassination attempts against Fidel Castro undermined the CIA's credibility. Kennedy fired Dulles in 1961 over Operation Northwoods, a proposed covert CIA operation aimed at gaining popularity for a war against Cuba by framing Castro for staging real or simulated attacks against Americans. In 1963 Dulles published the book, The Craft of Intelligence. In November of 1963, President Lyndon Johnson appointed Dulles as one of seven commissioners of the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In 1969 Dulles died of influenza, complicated by pneumonia. He was 75 years old. His body is buried at Greenmount Cemetery, in Baltimore, Maryland.
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