The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles and the Rise of America's Secret Government

by David Talbot

In July 1954, Eisenhower asked a trusted military friend, retired Air Force general James H. Doolittle, a World War II hero, to look into the agency and give him a confidential report. After Doolittle finished his investigation in October, the president blocked out an afternoon to hear his briefing. The general told Eisenhower that the CIA was badly managed and that Dulles was overly zealous. Furthermore, the relationship between the Dulleses was “unfortunate”—an alliance based on blood that allowed the brothers to establish their own, largely unaccountable power center within the administration. Eisenhower responded defensively, insisting that he found the Dulles brother act to be “beneficial.” As for Allen, he might have his peculiarities, conceded the president, but the CIA was “one of the most peculiar types of operations any government can have, and it probably takes a strange kind of genius to run it.”