208 J.-A. PEMBERTON
‘plastic’ and ‘flexible’ system is established there will be outbursts of
violence.^428
Kinzer observes that although Dulles had a close affinity with France
which had bestowed on him the Legion of Honour for his efforts at the
Paris Peace Conference, he was more profoundly drawn to Germany
‘based on its centuries of achievement and the rigor of its social
order.’^429 Dulles also had considerable professional involvement with the
latter country. In 1924, he had assisted in the development of the Dawes
Plan and in that year and in the years that followed, he helped obtain
for Germany substantial loans from American banks, acting in this regard
under the auspices of the law firm in which he was a partner, namely,
Sullivan & Cromwell. Sullivan & Cromwell, it should be noted, had a
well-appointed office in Berlin.^430 During the Weimar period, Dulles
developed a friendship with Schacht, a friendship that continued after the
latter was appointed minister of economics under the National Socialists.
Kinzer observes that both men ‘believed that a resurgent Germany
would stand against Bolshevism’ and that ‘[m]obilizing American capital
to finance its rise was their common interest.’^431
Dulles’s involvement in the project of obtaining American capital for
Germany came to an end in 1935 when, at the insistence of all the other
partners in the firm, among them his brother Allen W. Dulles, Sullivan
& Cromwell’s office in Berlin along with another one in Frankfurt were
closed and the firm ceased representing German clients.^432 Kinzer points
out that despite these developments, Dulles continued to visit Germany
down to 1939, publicly voicing his regret towards the end of that year
that Great Britain had declared war on the country. He maintained that
there was ‘neither in the underlying causes of the war, nor in its long-
range objectives, any reason for the United States becoming a partici-
pant.’^433 Against the background of the outbreak of the Second World
(^429) Kinzer, The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War,
48–9.
(^430) Ibid., 49, 53.
(^431) Ibid., 50–1.
(^432) Ibid., 53.
(^433) John Foster Dulles, 1939, quoted ibid., 54.
(^428) Francisco Coppola, ‘Aperçu sur l’idée de sécurité collective,’ Coopération
Intellectuelle, nos. 40–41 (1934): 256–60, 259–60. See also Francisco Coppola, ‘The Idea
of Collective Security,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 144–47.