 Instead, Dulles received an Army commission as Major on the War Industries Board.Dulles later returned to Sullivan & Cromwell and became a partner with an international practice.In 1915, Dulles's uncle, Robert Lansing, the then-Secretary of State, recruited him to travel to Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, ostensibly on Sullivan & Cromwell company business, but in reality to sound out Latin American heads of state on aiding the US war effort against Germany .