John Foster Dulles - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

Dulles developed colon cancer for which he was first operated in November 1956 when it had caused a bowel perforation. He did well for the next two years but experienced abdominal pain at the end of 1958 and was hospitalized with a diagnosis of diverticulitis. In January 1959, he returned to work, but with more pain and declining health underwent abdominal surgery in February at Walter Reed Hospital when recurrence of the cancer became evident. After recuperation in Florida he returned to Washington. Dulles received radiation therapy but with further declining health and evidence of bone metastasis he resigned from office on April 15, 1959. He died at Walter Reed Hospital on May 24, 1959, at the age of 71.

Dulles is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom and the Sylvanus Thayer Award in 1959. A central Berlin road was (re-)named "John-Foster-Dulles-Allee" in 1959 in the presence of Christian Herter, Dulles' successor as Secretary of State.

The Washington Dulles International Airport (located in Dulles, Virginia) and John Foster Dulles High, Middle and Elementary School in Sugar Land, Texas were all named in honor of Dulles. John Foster Dulles Elementary School in Cincinnati, Ohio is named in honor of him. Watertown, New York named the Dulles State Office Building in his honor.

In 1955, Dulles was named Man of the Year in Time Magazine.

Carol Burnett first rose to prominence in the 1950s singing a novelty song, "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles"; more recently, Gil Scott Heron commented "John Foster Dulles ain't nothing but the name of an airport now" in the song "B-Movie." In the book Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, Switters and Case both spit whenever they refer to John Foster Dulles. As Secretary of State in the 2012 comic novel Nick & Jake, by Tad Richards and Jonathan Richards, Dulles demands the resignation of Undersecretary Nicholas Carraway (from The Great Gatsby), who has been accused of subversive activity by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Rollback emerged as the Republican party's direct counterpart to the Democrats' containment model. Behind the new strategy stood the idea of taking the offensive to push Communism back rather than just defensively containing it. The crucial initiator of the policy of rollback was John Foster Dulles. Dulles' rollback policy was later implemented by the Reagan Administration during the 1980s and it is sometimes credited with the collapse of the Soviet Empire, the Communist Bloc in eastern Europe as well as the Soviet Union itself.

Dulles is said to have made the candid quote, "The United States of America does not have friends; it has interests." With time it has become infamous in some sectors due to the country's future (and previous) foreign policies. Yet, no such quote exists in the historical record—although these words were actually spoken by Charles De Gaulle. The myth appears to have grown out of an incident in 1958 when Dulles traveled to Mexico and anti-American protesters held up signs reading "The U.S. has no friends, only interests."