Editing John Foster Dulles (section)

==Interwar and World War II activities==
===Versailles Peace Conference===
In 1918, President [[Woodrow Wilson]] appointed Dulles as legal counsel to the United States delegation to the [[Versailles Peace Conference]], where he served under his uncle, Secretary of State Robert Lansing. Dulles made an early impression as a junior diplomat. While some recollections indicate he clearly and forcefully argued against imposing crushing reparations on Germany, other recollections indicate he ensured Germany's reparation payments would extend for decades as perceived leverage militating against future German-born hostilities. Afterwards, he served as a member of the War Reparations Committee at Wilson's request. He was also an early member, along with [[Eleanor Roosevelt]], of the [[League of Free Nations Association]], founded in 1918, and after 1923 known as the Foreign Policy Association, which supported American membership in the [[League of Nations]].<ref>Pruessen, pp 29–57.</ref>

===Dawes Plan===
As a partner in Sullivan & Cromwell, Dulles expanded upon his late grandfather Foster's expertise, specializing in international finance. He played a major role in designing the [[Dawes Plan]], which reduced German reparations payments and temporarily resolved the reparations issue by having American firms lend money to German states and private companies. Under that compromise, the money was invested and the profits sent as reparations to Britain and France, which used the funds to repay their own war loans from the U.S. In the 1920s Dulles was involved in setting up a billion dollars' worth of these loans.<ref>Pruessen, pp 87–108.</ref>

[[File:John Foster Dulles by Sapajou 1938.png|thumb|left|Caricature of Dulles on a 1938 visit to Shanghai]]
After the [[Wall Street Crash of 1929]], Dulles's previous practice brokering and documenting international loans ended. After 1931 Germany stopped making some of its scheduled payments. In 1934 Germany unilaterally stopped payments on private debts of the sort that Dulles was handling. After the [[Nazi Party]] came to power, Dulles expressed sympathies for [[Adolf Hitler]], requiring his legal staff in Berlin to sign "Heil Hitler" on all of Sullivan & Cromwell's outgoing mail; fearful of the optics, Sullivan & Cromwell's junior partners forced Dulles to cut all business ties with Germany in 1935. Nonetheless, Dulles and his wife continued to visit Germany until 1939.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Talbot |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MeE_BgAAQBAJ |title=The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government |date=2015-10-13 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=978-0-06-227621-6 |language=en}}</ref> He was prominent in the religious peace movement and an isolationist, but the junior partners were led by his brother Allen, so he reluctantly acceded to their wishes.<ref>Peter Grose, ''Gentleman Spy, The Life of Allen Dulles'' (1994), pp. 91–93, 119–22</ref><ref>Ronald W. Pruessen, ''John Foster Dulles: The Road to Power'' (1982), pp. 115, 123</ref>

===Fosdick controversy===
Dulles, a deeply religious man, attended numerous international conferences of churchmen during the 1920s and 1930s. In 1924, he was the defense counsel in the church trial of [[Reverend]] [[Harry Emerson Fosdick]], who had been charged with heresy by opponents in his denomination. The event sparked the continuing [[Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy]] in the international Christian Churches over the literal interpretation of Scripture against the newly developed "Historical-Critical" method including recent scientific and archeological discoveries. The case was settled when Fosdick, a liberal Baptist, resigned his pulpit in the Presbyterian Church congregation, which he had never joined.<ref>Harold H.  Vences, "The Controversy Surrounding the Ministry of Harry Emerson Fosdick in the First Presbyterian Church of New York City, 1922–1925." (1972) Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects. 741. [https://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/etd/741 online].</ref>

===Six Pillars of Peace===
During the Second World War, Dulles engaged in Post-War Planning under the auspices of the [[Federal Council of Churches]] Commission on a Just and Durable Peace. Appointed in December 1940 at the behest of the theologian Henry P. Van Dusen, Dulles developed a vision of post-war order underpinned by a federal world government, taking inspiration from the ecumenical ideology of liberal [[Mainline Protestantism]] and the United States' experiences with federalism. In essence, Dulles sought to persuade allied war leaders to work toward reviving a more robust League of Nations. The core elements of this vision were spelled out in March 1943 with the publication of the book ''Six Pillars of Peace''. Dulles was largely unsuccessful in persuading [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]] to embrace such a radical platform, as the United States would issue the more moderate [[Moscow Declaration]], but his work helped to build widespread consensus about the need for a United Nations.<ref>Andrew Preston, ''Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith'' (2012), pp. 384–409</ref>