There was a glibness and superficiality to Dulles very much in contrast to Wisner’s passionate and emotional nature. And whereas Wisner had a circle of close friends to whom he was fiercely loyal, the professorial Dulles was far more aloof, a man with “a million warm acquaintances,” as a colleague would put it, but no real friends. Put in the starkest terms, those who knew Wisner felt his actions were dictated by a sense of honor and fairness, even if they didn’t always trust his judgment. By contrast, as biographer Peter Grose would memorably put it, Allen Dulles “learned to deal comfortably
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