CITATION TO ACCOMPANY THE AWARD OF THE MEDAL FOR MERIT TO ALLEN W. DULLES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500100011-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 21, 2000
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: July 18, 1946
• Content Type: SUMMARY

Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500100011-3
CITATION TO ACCOMPANY THE AWARD OF
THE .TREDAL FOR MERIT
ALLEN W. DULLES, for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the
performance of outstanding services as chief of the foremost under-
cover operations conducted by the Office of Strategic Services on
behalf of the United States Government from November 1942 to October
1945. Mr. Dulles, within a year, effectively built up an intelli-
gence network employing hundreds of informants and operatives,
reaching into Germany, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary,
Spain, Portugal, and North Africa, and completely covering France,
Italy, and Austria. He assisted in the formation of various Maquis
groups in France and supported the Italian partisan groups both finan-
cially and by pin-pointing airdrops for supplies. The exceptional
worth of his reports on bombing targets and troop movements both by
land and sea was recognized by diplomatic, military, and naval agencies
of the United States Government. particularly notable achievements by
Mr. Dulles were first reports, as earl? as May 1943, of the existence
of a German experimental laboratory at Peenemunde for the testing of
a rocket bomb, his report on the flooding of the Belgian and Dutch
coastal areas long before similar information came in from other
sources, his report on rocket bomb installations in the Pas de Calais,
and his reports on damage inflicted by the Allied Air Forces as a
result of raids on Berlin and other German , Italian, and Balkan cities,
which were forwarded within two or three days of the operations. Mr.
Dulles by his superior diplozacy and efficiency built up for the United
States enormous prestige among leading figures of occupied nations
taking refuge in Switzerland. He carried out his assignments in
extremely hazardous conditions, and despite the constant observation
of enemy agents was able to fulfill his duties in a manner reflecting
the utmost credit on himself and his country. After the German collapse,
Mr. Dulles headed the office of Strategic Services Mission in Germany,
which supplied highly important and essential intelligence to American
Military Government, occupation, and diplomatic offices in the difficult
post-hostilities period. His courage, rare initiative, exceptional
ability, and wisdom provided an inspiration for those who worked with
him and materially furthered the war effort of the United Nations.
/S/ HARRY S. TRUMAN
THE WHITE HOUSE
July 18, 1946
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500100011-3
 1 3 1:858
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500100011-3
(bsy The Assoc ated pease,
Allan Welsh Thi11eai's scholarly a ;e?rrarwe, dose:-cropped mustacho and sir of asual
well-being make. hiz resemble the headmaster of a boys? prep school more than the cloak-and-
dagger expert, he Is. Ilia di,srs .r, locks aru an asset in the ticklish business of etapionage.
His experiences in that rival those of a apyy_thr,
ller.
The citation, acco anyi ; the Legion fo.? %derit award told of assign eute he had
carried out tinder "ext
of eneiiW agents."
hazardous cords. ions" and "despite the cunstsnt obseriatione
Prom neutral 3 riteerlfanvi, seat of international intrigue, he directed a
network that operated both in Cerny and Italy in World War IT. i was kept info -ss d of
various schez ss to get rid of Adolf Hitler through coups dletat and a ea.ssir tion raci he
ad to subvert some Nazi generals in northern Italy and 11.ring aboat. surrender of their
His agents were in touch Frith the dissident Germnn generals and arranged contact for
ith Allied officers with the result t1 Nazis casp4tulated in that tho ter dais before
elf collapsed.
One of his spy contacts wa a man on they insides of the German Foreign Office who was
anti-Nazi and wanted to see _3itler overthrown. That minor official ..d access to ow* of
secret German documents and the infnrrssation he supplied proved of isaealcu able
to the Allies.
on that Dulles' s department pieced together about Gerss ; S V-,bong a .perim,nts
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500100011-3
 Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500100011-3
:n the Allied being of a rosearch center and the setting back of the marvel
Nazi plane for trapping a huge troop convoy from New York went scary because Dc.Ues
received advance information and the ships yore rerouted.
Dulles was assigned to Switserland in 1942 for the euphe stica r-wed
Strategic Services (0SS), a secret intelligesce organisation that conducted i ort&:nt
research at home and daring exploits abroad. Sabotage and espionage behind enesy lines
were part of its functions.
thousands of members included scholars like Dulles; they
individual combat, in how to break an opponent's
also, men
outcry, in where to plunge a knLfe for the cpaickeast fatal, effect.
After the wear Dulles becant Deputy Dir.Ctor of the central Intelligence Agents r, the
t organisation created in 199k7 under the National Security Act. go served in
n.
that capacity during the final 17 mouths of the Harry S. TrwM adndmistrat
Director when President Dwight ,.?. Eiaanhover took office in 1953.
The Agency operates in unparalleled secrecy for a Governaraent agency in peaceti>se. Even
a believed to vm*er
for it is omitted from the budgetary documents. There is no
r of its eapl.oyees scattered throughout the arid, thoug
the thouvaands.
The C.I.A., charged with keeping up with developments behind the Iron Cur
' a security. The eyes and ears of the nation, it has beau gibed as
Lion from various sources and fits then into a pattern designed to safe-
# s first line of defense. On its rsporte the National. Security Council bases
much of its high.-level policy.
formed by Eisenhower to mastozxd.nd a cold war d fezase against eosraauadA
brother,
John Toater Dulles, Secretary of State. As the latter charts
he keeps an alert ear tw d to Allen's lookout agency.
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500100011-3
 Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500100011-3
Together the two brothers bear a raeapon ii b lity unique and unsurpassed in tto annals
of the Federal U
Their
ity have been closely parallel--& wide interest and pas -ticipat
ign affairs, practice of the saw kirol of corporate ? in the saw New York firm.
The Dulles,
. graaandfatha r, John W. Foster, was Secretary of State under President
Benjamin Harrison. An uncle, FYobert Lansing, was Secretary of State under Pro itie nt
Woodrow Wilson.
The sons of a Presbyterian minister, tai Rev. Allen May Dul e, they grew up in
parsonages in upper New York state c ties. A relative expressed the opinion Lhat
their father exerted the greatest influence on them. Their hole was always filled with
books. Missionaries and foreign students were frequent visitors.
Their interest in religion read with theist. Both became active Protestant laymen.
Allen published a work on foreign relations when he was 8 years old. It was an assay
on the Boer War than in progress and be fortghtly concluded
I hope t
the war, for the Boers are in the right and the British in the wrong."
spelling British with a small 'gib' because he thought they should be taken
grandfather roster had the work printed in filet form.
Dulles was born in Watertown, N. Y., April 7, 1893. He received his ftebalor
sum Princeton, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa for scholarship a aatta .nments,,
lisp in a church mission achoci in Allahabad, Indi*, for a year before
ton for his ?aster's.
Upon receiving that in 1916 he entered the diplomatic service with the idea of making
it a career and was assigned to Vienna. That was during the early part of` World Tar 1.
d States entered the confiiet he was transferred to Bern*, Switzeriaa .d. tie
th the 'United States delegation to the Paris Peace Conference and later was as
to the embassy in Berlin.
nt to Turkey and in 1922 returned to Washington as chief of the
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500100011-3
 Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500100011-3
Division of Near Eastern .ffaira in the State Deportmnt. In Wash"..
rn 'nivrersity and received his degree in 1926.
d . from the 'State uepartar nt that year and Joined the
of ,Sullivan and Crowell, in which his brother Baas a paartmer.
subsea uen
to served at legal
an dol.ega?t: orz to the ? o Power Naval Conference at, Oonsva and at the
d with the lain, becoming a partner in Sullivan sod Cromwell,, until qaJ,
rarrac rt Conference thetie.
r. Donovan rec-ruitead him for his 083 oa aaaa1sation early in 1 1d Wier IT.
ate a book, "Oermany s Underground." In it he said feast so',;O
had to overthrow !itler im 1938 and were meatir to arrange a
aih word of Novi lle Ch erlai.nr s visit to l unich stopped them.
?uobrer,, ba
were various other plots both for coupe and for assesair?aatior of the
one reason or another, and finally ware elilha d by the foram
of July 20, 19Uk, which resulted in the executions of a large c'-
4 that Allied refusal to recede from the "uncorK44 tton l surreraCer" stand
handicapped the Plotters t
d assuraaaace that if the Geraaan people overthrew ` tier
there would be some eon defenas* against the Soviet c xrunnia of Europe.
A that the Allied failure to give any enoouragvmsnt aide the covspirate s' task
difficult because it united all Cerraaa8 to rrsiet to the and.
Columbia U
d in 1920 to miss Clover Todd, whose father was then a professor at
They have three children, two daughters and a son, The sons,
lieutenant in the Marine Corps, was severely wounded in fightir during
Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500100011-3