Edmund Aloysius Walsh S.J. (1885 - 1956) was a Jesuit professor of geopolitics and founder of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.
He would found the School of Foreign Service in 1919 – six years before the U.S. Foreign Service – and served as its first dean. Fr. Walsh founded the school as a result of his experiences at the Versailles Conference of 1919, where he believed U.S. diplomats to have been inadequately trained.
He interrogated the German geopolitician General Karl Haushofer after World War II to determine whether or not he should stand trial at Nuremburg for war crimes, eventually finding that Gen. Haushofer ought not stand trial. He wrote a book discussing the interrogation and related thoughts:
- Walsh, S.J., Edmund A. Total Power: A Footnote to History. Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York: 1949.
Strongly anti-Communist, it is alleged that Walsh was the man who first suggested to Senator McCarthy that he use this issue in order to gain political prominence. [1] Walsh would promote vigorously anti-Communist thought throughout his career.