Allen Dulles: Television Interview on the Soviets’ Intentions

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HCO: It is my privilege to have as my guest today the Director of our Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Allen W. Dulles. It is Mr. Dulles’ job to coordinate our worldwide intelligence activities, so that those who are responsible, shall be aware at all times of any threat to our country’s security and safety.…

Allen, I suppose the most absorbing development in modern history is the current drive in Russia to destroy Stalin’s prestige. What is the meaning of that campaign?

AWD: They are trying to persuade the peoples of the Soviet bloc that they are doing away with tyranny. Now I don’t believe they are. I think the Kremlin is now dominated by a bunch of tyrants, but I think they feel it will be useful for the future, if they can persuade the people of the Soviet Union that they are doing away with tyranny.…

HCO: Is there any reason to think the Communists have changed their goals along with their leadership?

AWD: No, I don’t believe they have. They think the softer line may get them further than the hard, rigid line of Stalin.

HCO: What effect is this sudden switch from hot to cold, so far as Stalin is concerned, having on the minds of the Russian people?

AWD: Well, Harold, I think they’re pretty badly befuddled. Here for twenty-twenty-five years, they’ve built Stalin up to be their great hero. He brought their country from being a third or fourth rate country to being the second greatest country in the world.… He led them to victory in a World War, and they made him a great hero. All of the history books are full of the Stalin legend. All of a sudden now they tell the people this fellow was no good. Not only that, but he was a murderer, he was inept in his leadership and everything of that kind, even in his military leadership. Well I don’t believe you can do that to a people.

HCO: Granted that the people are befuddled, are the Kremlin leaders downgrading Stalin in order to upgrade themselves?

AWD: … I don’t think they’re really going to upgrade themselves, because you can’t turn around, after you’ve been a man’s friend and profited by all the honors that he’s given you, and that’s happened to the present leaders of the Kremlin—it was Stalin that made them—you can’t turn around and destroy your benefactor and really think it’s going to make you stand higher in the minds of the people. But I think that they feel that they’ve got to get rid of this very hard line. The people were beginning to be very uneasy.…

HCO: What is going to happen to Berlin and the situation with respect to unification of Germany?

AWD: Obviously the Communists would like to get us out of Berlin. They’re working to try to do that. But having failed in their great effort, at the time of the blockade, I don’t think they feel they can move in on us now.…

HCO: What did appear to be the purpose was that they were trying to foist on the world, the free world and the United States, the fact they had transferred jurisdiction to the East German Democratic Republic, that phony government that’s now in charge of East Germany.

AWD: Well, they’re trying to build up something that will be a counterpoise to West Germany. West Germany is the showcase of the free world. Here’s the free world working, and you contrast the marvelous economic, industrial and overall situation of West Germany and West Berlin with the East—That is the greatest contrast of the slave type of life and the free type of life. And they don’t like that.

HCO: Let’s turn to another part of the world. Are the Red Chinese preparing to attack Formosa?

AWD: That’s a tough one.… The Chinese Communists are building up their strength in that part of the world opposite Formosa. They’re building airfields, they’re bringing in more troops, and they are in a military position where they might try to attack some outposts. Whether they will do it or not—that’s another question.

HCO: Well, how about South Korea?

AWD: South Korea at the moment—the Chinese Communists are taking their troops out of North Korea to quite a large extent. And I would doubt whether, having failed in a particular area, as clearly as they have, they would start something new there right away. But still, they have the force; on the other side of the Yalu, the troops will be there. And if it was in the interests of their policy to do so, they could start something.

HCO: Allen, we hear an awful lot, and we read in the press arguments over whether Russia is ahead of us in the development of atomic energy and the development of the intercontinental ballistic missile. Are the Russians ahead of us in these developments?

AWD: Harold, in my job, I give intelligence and information on where the Russians stand: that is my job, and I’m not really in the job of making comparisons. I’m not an expert on the American position. But maybe departing from that sort of basic philosophy that I have in my work, I can say this, that overall, in the atomic field, I feel quite sure they aren’t ahead of us. They are putting a great deal of stress now on building up nuclear power in the electrical field. And they have a very dramatic program, announced recently in their sixth five-year plan. Overall, though, they’re certainly not ahead of us.…

HCO: Well, how about the intercontinental ballistic missile? Would you say they are ahead of us or behind us?

AWD: I don’t want to make a comparison there. It’s very difficult to do it. They have made quite a lot of progress in that field. But I have no evidence that they’re ahead of us.

HCO: Speaking of intelligence, many of us are aware that our military—the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, all have their intelligence; we have our FBI and Secret Service—are the intelligence services of our government, Allen, effectively coordinated as a team, or are we going off in all directions?

AWD: I think now we have a very good team, Harold. I’m very glad that these services are there, that they are effective, because the military people are the most adept at getting and analyzing military information and we work very closely together. We meet together every week and we coordinate our work and there is very good cooperation among the intelligence services. We don’t want another Pearl Harbor, you know.