John Foster Dulles (February 25, 1888 – May 24, 1959) was an American politician, lawyer, and diplomat who served as United States secretary of state under president Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 until his resignation in 1959. A member of the Republican Party, he was briefly a U.S. senator from New York in 1949. Dulles was a significant figure in the early Cold War era, who advocated an aggressive stance against communism throughout the world.