The Devil’S Chessboard

Allen Dulles was one of the most powerful and influential figures in twentieth-century America, and David Talbot sets out to show the side of him that official accounts left out. His research draws on interviews with the children of prominent CIA officials, the letters and journals of Dulles's wife and his mistress, newly found US government documents, and American and European intelligence sources. Talbot portrays Dulles's decades as head of the CIA as a dark chapter in American politics. Dulles, who once called himself 'the secretary of state of unfriendly countries', is shown placing himself above elected authority and manipulating presidents to serve his own interests and those of the wealthy elite among his friends and clients. According to Talbot, this involved dealings with Nazi-controlled cartels, German war criminals and Mafiosi, as well as plots to assassinate foreign leaders and topple nationalist governments that did not suit his aims. Talbot goes further, arguing that Dulles turned the same methods on his own country and that the trail leads to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, his political enemy. The book presents what it describes as new evidence in the killings of both President Kennedy and his brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The result is a provocative exposé of American power and of the rise of the national security state, framed as a struggle over the nation's soul.