SOME LOVE FOR JOHN FOSTER DULLES

We were sure someone was playing an April Fool’s Day joke when we heard earlier in the week it was suggested Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C., be renamed for former President Donald Trump.

Sadly, it was no joke. A bill toward that end has been introduced in Congress, and one of the six co-sponsors is 3rd District U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann.

Now we knew the congressman had supported Trump in the past, endorsed the former president early in the Republican nomination process for 2024 and even asked his staff to tell the former president he was running in his aborted quest for House speaker last fall.

But we couldn’t imagine him suggesting the serial adulterer, Bible salesman and multiply indicted former one-term leader would be an ideal candidate for whom to rename the northern Virginia airport.

But rather than pile on reasons not to rename it for the onetime New York businessman and reality show host, we offer today some love and the deeper-than-Trump Republican bona fides for former Eisenhower Secretary of State (1953-1959) John Foster Dulles.

› Although Washington Dulles International Airport is named after John Foster Dulles, the Dulles name could represent several additional members of his family, including brother Allen, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency; sister, Eleanor Lansing Dulles, who spent 20 years with the State Department and was noted for her work there in the successful reconstruction of Europe’s post-World War II economy; and grandfather, John W. Foster, and uncle, Robert Lansing, both of whom also served as secretaries of state.

› Dulles was born in Washington, D.C., the city for which the airport named after him serves. Trump lived there for four years and only recently referred to it as a “filthy and crime ridden embarrassment to our nation.”

› Well ahead of his time, Dulles was homeschooled, as his parents — like many conservative parents today — did not trust public education.

› A deeply religious man, Dulles attended numerous conferences of churchmen during the 1920s and 1930s and is said by scholars to have been influenced in his career by major trends in the country’s diverse religious history. Trump, on the other hand, pays lip service to religion and has taken to pitching Bibles with his imprimatur. Though the Trump Bible “has nothing to do with any political campaign,” according to the website on which they’re sold, he will get royalties from the sales, a person familiar with the business arrangement told The New York Times.

› Dulles served as a policy advisor to New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, the 1944 and 1948 Republican presidential nominee (he of the famous headline “Dewey Defeats Truman”), who appointed him in 1949 to fill the vacancy of the recently resigned U.S. Sen. Robert Wagner. He served four months in the Senate before being defeated in a special election.

› A passionate Cold Warrior, Dulles, during his time as secretary of state for President Dwight Eisenhower, favored a strategy of massive retaliation in response to Soviet aggression and endeavored to build and strengthen alliances, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. Trump, meanwhile, has had a mixed history with Russia, frequently praising President Vladimir Putin but employing, as president, strict sanctions on the country.

› Dulles is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, which is largely reserved for military veterans. He tried to join the Army after the U.S. entered World War I but was rejected because of poor eyesight. However, he received an Army commission as a major on the War Industrials Board. Trump received five deferments during the Vietnam War, four for education and one a medical waiver due to bone spurs he later acknowledged to advisors, according to Military Times, had been fabricated. However, as a former president, he also would be eligible for burial in Arlington National Cemetery.

› Dulles is perhaps the only secretary of state about whom a novelty song was written. Penned by five-time Emmywinning composer and musician Ken Welch, it was sung by comedian Carol Burnett during 1957 when she was attempting to make a name for herself in New York cabarets and nightclubs. “Oh, I never have been one to swoon over men,” the first stanza says, “but I swooned, and the drums started poundin’, and then I made a fool of myself over John Foster Dulles.”

We’d like to have heard Fleischmann’s explanation for supporting the renaming, but when reached by this newspaper he referred the matter to his spokesperson, Justin Doil, who then declined comment.

The bill is not likely to gain traction as it must pass both the Republican House and Democratic Senate, but it’s clear that the name of the Washington-area airport deserves to continue to honor a true son of the city, not a temporary resident, and a man devoted to the country and not to himself.