Sumner Welles

Welles, (Benjamin) Sumner (1892–1961),US under-secretary of state from 1937 until his resignation in September 1943. He was highly thought of by Roosevelt who liked to deal with him direct. He represented the US at the Panama conference in September 1939 and in early 1940 was dispatched by Roosevelt on a peace mission to Europe, possibly to attempt to woo Mussolini away from Hitler. He was present at the Placentia Bay conference in August 1941, assisting in drafting the Atlantic Charter which was issued there, and took part in the negotiations with Japan which preceded that country's attack on Pearl Harbor (see USA, 1). He then represented the USA at the Rio conference and worded the diluted statement which merely recommended all South American states to break with Germany (see also Latin America). This compromise infuriated Cordell Hull, the secretary of state, but Roosevelt approved it. His career was ended when an ambitious rival, William Bullitt, whom Roosevelt never forgave, presented the president with an affidavit about Welles's homosexuality.

Sumner Welles 1892-1961, American diplomat, b. New York City. Welles began his diplomatic career as secretary of the U.S. embassy at Tokyo (1915-17). Attached to the embassy at Buenos Aires (1917-19), he then served as assistant chief (1920-21) and chief (1921-22) of the division of Latin American affairs of the Dept. of State. As commissioner to the Dominican Republic in 1922, he helped prepare for the evacuation of American troops from that country; later he was sent to offer mediation in the Honduras revolution of 1924. He wrote a book on the Dominican Republic, Naboth's Vineyard (1928), and was an influential member of the Dawes financial mission to the Dominican Republic (1929).

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed him assistant secretary of state in 1933 and in the same year sent him as ambassador to Cuba. There he was unable to bring about successful mediation between the opposing groups in the revolution against Gerardo Machado in 1933, and in the midst of political turmoil he was recalled and resumed his duties as assistant secretary of state. He later (1937-42) was undersecretary of state and served as U.S. delegate to several Pan-American conferences. In 1940 he went on a confidential fact-finding mission to Europe, and he took part in the meeting at sea between Roosevelt and Winston Churchill that produced the Atlantic Charter (1941). He resigned from public service in 1943. Some of his speeches were collected in The World of the Four Freedoms (1943); his other writings include The Time of Decision (1944), The Intelligent American's Guide to Peace (1945), Where Are We Heading? (1946), and Seven Decisions That Shaped History (1950).

Bibliography: See biography by his son B. Welles (1997).