Day: February 25, 2024

It’s a fair description of  #AllenDulles to say that for an entire generation he was the face and public persona of the  #CIA. A capable writer, one who didn’t mind the bombastic drone of the Sunday talk-show circuit, Dulles spoke for an entire culture. He could be said to be the rival of  #JEdgarHoover of the  #FBI, in terms of popular culture. Odd, then, that  #JFK understood this quite well about Hoover— “You don’t fire God,” as he famously remarked when others suggested Hoover’s removal from office— but he didn’t understand that where Dulles was concerned.

(Obviously Hoover had a tremendous capacity for blackmail; that helped him cultivate support for decades. But the same could be said for Dulles, and that fact didn’t help him, professionally, at the end of his career.)

When Allen Dulles’funeral took place in 1969, the CIA director at the time,  #RichardHelms, escorted the widow; but it was the Agency’s counterintelligence chief,  #JamesAngleton, who carried the ashes.)

— @timfattig Feb 25, 2024