The Political Is Personal: Roscoe Hillenkoetter, George Kennan, and the “Strange Case of John Paton Davies”

Abstract

The American Foreign Service officer John Paton Davies was fired by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles at the height of the McCarthy era. The traditional explanation is that Davies lost his job because he was one of the so-called China Hands. However, this article argues that a central factor in his firing was the deteriorating personal relationship between Roscoe Hillenkoetter and George Kennan over the command and control of America’s first covert operations. In this case, the political was personal.