The Devil's Chessboard:Allen Dulles, the Cia, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
Interview with David Talbot
October 25, 2016Sign Up to listen to full interview.
About David Talbot
David Talbot is the author of the New York Times bestseller Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Yearsand the acclaimed national bestseller Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love. He is the founder and former editor in chief of Salon, and was a senior editor at Mother Jones and the features editor at the San Francisco Examiner. He has written for The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Time, The Guardian, and other major publications. Talbot lives in San Francisco, California.
Interview Summary
Allen Welch Dulles, the distinguished Wall Street lawyer and son of a prominent family, rose to the helm of the Central Intelligence Agency at a very young age.
With the help of John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State and Allen Dulles’ brother, the longest-serving chief of the CIA molded the secretive organization in a way that often led to secret wars, overthrowing of foreign governments and occasional spying on its own people, all with the support of the U.S. Congress and mostly behind the backs of three presidents.
David Talbot, nonfiction book author and founder of the San Francisco-based web magazine Salon, combs through various government archives and draws from numerous first-hand interviews and sources to build a vivid portrayal of Dulles and the CIA under his leadership.
Key Topics
- Who was Allen Dulles and what was his path to the helm of the CIA?
- What did Allen Dulles believe in and how did he achieve his aims?
- How did Dulles mold the CIA?
- How did Dulles aim at running a secret government and direct ever-growing resources on spying on the U.S. population?
- What was Dulles’ relationship with three U.S. presidents - Eisenhower, Truman and Kennedy?
- What was Dulles’ era like and what high crimes did he commit?
- How did Dulles manipulate the presidents he served?
- What kind of government did Allen Dulles believe in and how did he extend the U.S. influence around the globe?
- After 1961, when he was forced out by President John F. Kennedy, what did Dulles do until he died in 1969?
- Were there any possible linkages between Allen Dulles and the planners of the JFK assassination?
