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John Foster Dulles, 68, the indefatigable Secretary of State, is charging into the second term in a typical role: fighting off doubters and hecklers, educating Congress and the nation as he tries to move U.S. foreign policy ahead in the cold-war battle against Communism. Over four years, Dulles' instincts in this big battle have been unerring. He resisted arguments from both friends and enemies that the U.S. should coexist happily with Stalin's Russia. He backed to the hilt the stout cold warriors of Europe, e.g., Germany's Konrad Adenauer. He threw international Communism into a flap by releasing the text of Khrushchev's historic oration to the 20th Party Congress denouncing Stalin and his works—a text never published by Moscow. Through the successful extension of U.S. power through pacts, e.g., the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, he curbed the rising in fluence of Red China, strengthened even the newest and weakest of anti-Communist nations, such as South Viet Nam, and brought a new stability to Asia.
Sometimes, in pressing U.S. allies to join in solutions, he pressed too hard. In 1953 he threatened an "agonizing reappraisal" of U.S. policy for Western Europe if Europe failed to adopt the over-simplified European Defense Community. (Later he retreated gratefully to Anthony Eden's compromise Western European Union.) In abruptly canceling the Aswan Dam negotiations he provided Nasser with a public relations excuse for seizing the Suez Canal (which he had long intended to do anyway). Then Dulles, in a correct estimate that Britain and France were on the verge of war over Suez, jumped all too confusingly from one Suez Canal settlement proposal to another in his unsuccessful attempt to stave off the war. Today Ike has come to realize that in many areas he is his own best diplomatic agent. He regards the success of the Nehru visit as proof of this, and intends to make the most of the Eisenhower Approach during the long procession of foreign digni taries and heads of state to Washington this year. But Ike still regards Foster Dulles as his most valued foreign-policy adviser and confidant.
Marion Bayard Folsom, 63, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, was brought from his post as Under Secretary of the Treasury in 1955 to succeed retiring Oveta Gulp Hobby. He set to work with less fanfare, more success, preaching a doctrine that is the Eisenhower answer to the Fair Deal: the G.O.P. is not opposed to spending money for worthwhile welfare projects. Though softspoken and retiring, Folsom, when treasurer of Eastman Kodak and chairman of the Committee for Economic Development, learned to be suave enough to counter pressure groups, courageous enough to fight against more con servative colleagues for programs that he thinks are necessary, e.g., direct federal aid for school construction.