U.S. Department of State
96/11/04 Statement: Death of Eleanor Lansing Dulles
Office of the Spokesman



Press Statement by Nicholas Burns/Spokesman
November 4, 1996



                   Death of Eleanor Lansing Dulles



Eleanor Lansing Dulles served with distinction in the Department of 
State for two decades.  She helped establish the basis for modern U.S.-
German relations, earning a reputation as an expert on German affairs.  
During World War II she made an important contribution to the planning 
for postwar Germany.  In the immediate postwar years, she served in the 
Office of the U.S. Political Adviser in Austria during the difficult 
years in the postwar reconstruction of that divided country.  During the 
1950s, she served in the State Department's Office of German Affairs 
where her most important accomplishment was the organization of the 
"Berlin Desk" at a time when the foundations were being established for 
the new Federal Republic of Germany and a revived West Berlin surrounded 
by Soviet occupied East Germany.  In honor of her contributions to the 
re-establishment of a democratic Germany, Eleanor Dulles received many 
awards, including the award of the German-American Federation in 1985 
and the Benjamin Franklin Award of the Free University of Berlin this 
year, which, regrettably, illness prevented her from receiving 
personally.

Prior to her Department of State experience, Eleanor Dulles, who had 
been an assistant professor for a time at Bryn Mawr, served with the 
Social Securities Board where she was part of the team that organized 
President Roosevelt's new Social Security System.  

Eleanor Dulles was the sister of John Foster and Allen Dulles, but her 
accomplishments in the Department of State and elsewhere were the result 
of her own outstanding abilities and effort.  Like other women in 
government service in mid-century, she had to confront persistent sex 
discrimination, prejudice against the hiring and advancement of women, 
and obstacles to obtaining important assignments.  Eleanor Dulles 
overcame the limitations of her times and achieved a lifetime career of 
distinguished public service.