A conspiracy theory suggesting that Dulles and the CIA were somehow involved in Kennedy's assassination and its potential cover up in the Warren Commission have been subject to popular debate among historians and political commentators.

They had three children: daughters Clover and Joan,[10] and son Allen Macy Dulles II (1930–2020), who was wounded and permanently disabled in the Korean War and spent the rest of his life in and out of medical care.

[12] Initially assigned to Vienna, he was transferred to Bern, Switzerland, along with the rest of the embassy personnel shortly before the U.S. entered the First World War.

After recovering from the Spanish flu he was assigned to the American delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, along with his elder brother Foster.

After the meeting, Dulles wrote to his brother Foster and reassured him that conditions under Hitler's regime "are not quite as bad" as an alarmist friend had indicated.

After meeting with German Information Minister Joseph Goebbels, Dulles stated he was impressed with him and cited his "sincerity and frankness" during their interaction.

[19] In 1935, Dulles returned from a business trip to Germany concerned by the Nazi treatment of German Jews and, despite his brother's objections, led a movement within the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell to close their Berlin office.

They concluded that diplomatic, military, and economic isolation, in a traditional sense, were no longer possible in an increasingly interdependent international system.

[23][page needed] Dulles helped some German Jews, such as the banker Paul Kemper, escape to the United States from Nazi Germany.

Through the Maier Group and Kurt Grimm, Dulles also received information about the economic situation in the Nazi sphere of influence.

[31] Dulles was involved in Operation Sunrise, secret negotiations in March 1945 to arrange a local surrender of German forces in northern Italy.

His actions in Operation Sunrise have been criticized by historians for offering German SS General Karl Wolff protection from prosecution at the Nuremberg trial, and creating a diplomatic rift between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. After the war in Europe, Dulles served for six months as the OSS Berlin station chief and later as station chief in Bern.

Partly as a result of the report, Truman named a new Director of Central Intelligence, Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith.

[citation needed] Smith recruited Dulles into the CIA to oversee the agency's covert operations as Deputy Director for Plans, a position he held from January 4, 1951.

[34] After the election of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, Bedell Smith shifted to the Department of State and Dulles became the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence.

At Dulles's request, President Eisenhower demanded that Senator Joseph McCarthy discontinue issuing subpoenas against the CIA.

Lockheed Aircraft Corporation's Skunk Works submitted a design number called the CL-282, which married sailplane-like wings to the body of a supersonic interceptor.

Its introduction into operational service in 1957 greatly enhanced the CIA's ability to monitor Soviet activity through overhead photo surveillance.

[3] Dulles is considered one of the essential creators of the modern United States intelligence system and was an indispensable guide to clandestine operations during the Cold War.

[41] By coincidence, on August 18, 1953, Dulles was taking a vacation in Rome while the Shah fled there after a setback in the coup, and the two met while checking in to the Hotel Excelsior.

[42] President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman of Guatemala was removed in 1954 in a CIA-led coup carried out under the code name Operation PBSuccess.

[47] Several failed assassination plots utilizing CIA-recruited operatives and anti-Castro Cubans directly against Castro undermined the CIA's credibility.

[citation needed] He died on January 29, 1969, of influenza, complicated by pneumonia, at the age of 75, in Georgetown, D.C.[2][3] He was buried in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.