ABSTRACT
With a grandfather and an uncle who had also been secretaries of state, the life of John Foster Dulles was marked by participation in key international developments from an early age. In 1919 he was at Versailles involved in economic and reparations negotiations. During the 1920s Dulles was part of the significant international expansion of American business and banking. In the 1930s he became involved with the ecumenical movement, Christian churches seeking unity, as it strove to halt the tides of war. During the Second World War, Dulles chaired the Federal Council of Churches' Commission on a Just and Durable Peace (CCJDP) intended to study the question of world order and to change the American public mind towards taking an active role in reforming international relations. Following the war, he consolidated his reputation as a ‘Christian statesman’ and strengthened his position in the Republican Party, especially as a ‘bipartisan’ internationalist acting as a foreign policy advisor to the Truman administration.
