65 Facts About Sumner Welles

Benjamin Sumner Welles was an American government official and diplomat in the Foreign Service.

Sumner Welles was a major foreign policy adviser to President Franklin D Roosevelt and served as Under Secretary of State from 1936 to 1943, during Roosevelt's presidency.

Sumner Welles entered the Foreign Service at the advice of Franklin Roosevelt, who was a family friend.

Sumner Welles was excited by Woodrow Wilson's ideas about how American principles could reorder the international system based on liberal democracy, free-trade capitalism, international law, a league of nations, and an end to colonialism.

Sumner Welles specialized in Latin American diplomatic affairs and served several posts in Washington and in the field.

Sumner Welles left public service for some years, and wrote a book on the history of the Dominican Republic.

Sumner Welles was later promoted to Under Secretary of State, in which role he continued to be active in Latin American issues, but expanded into European affairs as World War II began in Europe in 1939.

Sumner Welles used American power and his senior position to intrude into the domestic affairs of other countries, especially choosing leaders who supported American policies.

Sumner Welles was a target of the House Un-American Activities Committee during the post-war "red scare", though he was never formally sanctioned.

Sumner Welles died in New Jersey in 1961, survived by his third wife and several children.

Benjamin Sumner Welles was born in New York City, the son of Benjamin Sumner Welles Jr.

Sumner Welles preferred to be called Sumner after his famous relative Charles Sumner, a leading Senator from Massachusetts during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Sumner Welles's family was wealthy and was connected to the era's most prominent families.

Sumner Welles was a grandnephew of Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, known as "the Mrs Astor".

At the age of 10, Sumner Welles was entered in Miss Kearny's Day School for Boys in New York City.

In March 1905 at the age of 12 Welles served as a page at Franklin D Roosevelt's wedding to Eleanor.

Sumner Welles attended Harvard College where he studied "economics, Iberian literature and culture", and graduated after three years in 1914.

Sumner Welles served in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1919 and became fluent in Spanish.

In March 1922, Sumner Welles briefly resigned from the State Department.

Sumner Welles was unsympathetic to the view held by American diplomacy that military might was meant to protect the overseas interests of American business.

Sumner Welles remained in that post for three years and his work was accomplished after his departure in a 1924 treaty.

In 1924, President Coolidge sent Sumner Welles to act as mediator between disputing parties in Honduras.

Sumner Welles then retired to his estate at Oxon Hill, Maryland.

Sumner Welles served as an unofficial adviser to Dominican President Horacio Vasquez.

Sumner Welles was a major contributor to the campaign as well.

Sumner Welles's mission was to negotiate a settlement so that the US could avoid intervening as US law, namely the Platt Amendment of 1901, required.

Sumner Welles's instructions were to mediate "in any form most suitable" an end to the Cuban situation.

Sumner Welles promised Machado a new commercial treaty to relieve economic distress if Machado reached a political settlement with his opponents, Colonel Dr Cosme de la Torriente, from the Nationalist Union; Joaquin Martinez Saenz, for ABC; Nicasio Silveira, for the Revolutionary Radical Cellular Organization; and Dr Manuel Dorta-Duque, representing the delegation of the University of Havana.

Sumner Welles promised the opponents of Machado's government a change of government and participation in the subsequent administration, if they joined the mediation process and supported an orderly transfer of power.

Machado soon lost faith in Sumner Welles and denounced American interference as a colonialist adventure.

Unable to influence Machado, Sumner Welles met with Rafael Guas Inclan, president of the Chamber of Representatives, at the home of newspaper publisher Alfredo Hornedo, and requested that he initiate impeachment proceedings against the president.

When Guas harshly rebuffed him, Sumner Welles then negotiated an end to his presidency, with support from General Alberto Herrera, Colonels Julio Sanguily, Rafael del Castillo and Erasmo Delgado after threatening US intervention under the Platt Amendment and the restructuring of the Cuban army high command.

Sumner Welles headed the American delegation to the 21-nation Pan American conference that met in Panama in September 1939.

Sumner Welles said the conference had been planned in earlier hemispheric meetings in Buenos Aires and Lima and he emphasized the need for consultation on economic issues to "cushion the shock of the dislocation of inter-American commerce arising from the war" in Europe.

In February and March 1940 Sumner Welles visited Vatican City, Italy, Germany, and France; and England to receive and discuss German peacemaking proposals.

On July 23,1940, following the principles of the Stimson Doctrine, Sumner Welles issued a statement that became known as the Sumner Welles Declaration.

Sumner Welles condemned those actions and refused to recognize the legitimacy of Soviet rule in those countries.

The declaration was a source of contention during the subsequent alliance between the Americans, the British, and the Soviets, but Sumner Welles persistently defended the declaration.

Sumner Welles appeared on the cover of Time on August 11,1941, and in that issue Time assessed Welles' role within Hull's Department of State:.

Roosevelt was always close to Sumner Welles and made him the central figure in the State Department, much to the chagrin of secretary Cordell Hull, who could not be removed because he had a powerful political base.

In September 1940, Welles accompanied Roosevelt to the funeral of former Speaker of the House William B Bankhead in Huntsville, Alabama.

The US still awaits a clarification of its foreign policy and the forced resignation of Sumner Welles made an already murky issue even more obscure.

Sumner Welles accepted Welles' resignation with regret and explained that Welles was prompted to leave government service because of "his wife's poor health".

The US still awaits a clarification of its foreign policy and the forced resignation of Sumner Welles made an already murky issue even more obscure.

Sumner Welles made his first public appearance following his resignation in October 1943.

Sumner Welles called on the President to express his opinions and help shape public opinion, praising him at length as "rightly regarded throughout the world as the paladin of the forces of liberal democracy" without once mentioning Hull.

In 1944, Sumner Welles lent his name to a fundraising campaign by the United Jewish Appeal to bring Jewish refugees from the Balkans to Palestine.

Sumner Welles became a prominent commentator and author on foreign affairs.

Sumner Welles undertook a project to edit a series of volumes on foreign relations for Harvard University Press.

In 1948, Sumner Welles authored We Need Not Fail, a short book that first presented a history and evaluated the competing claims to Palestine.

Sumner Welles argued that American policy should insist on the fulfillment of the 1947 promise of the United Nations General Assembly to establish two independent states within an economic union and policed by a United Nations force.

Sumner Welles criticized American officials whose obsession with the Soviets required submission to Arab and oil interests.

On December 7,1948, Sumner Welles appeared before HCUA as part of its investigation into allegations between Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss.

Sumner Welles was a member of the American branch of the IPR.

Sumner Welles had explained the 1940 incident to his family as nothing more than drunken conversation with the train staff.

Sumner Welles came from a similarly prominent family that owned a textile empire based in Massachusetts.

Sumner Welles was descended from industrialist Samuel Slater and granddaughter of the Boston painter William Morris Hunt.

On June 27,1925, Sumner Welles married Mathilde Scott Townsend, "a noted international beauty" whose portrait had been painted by John Singer Sargent, in upstate New York.

Until World War II, the Sumner Welles' lived on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, DC, in the landmark Townsend Mansion, which later became the home of the Cosmos Club.

Sumner Welles spent the bulk of his time a few miles outside of Washington in the Maryland countryside at a 49-room "country cottage" known as Oxon Hill Manor designed for him by Jules Henri de Sibour and built on a 245-acre property in 1929.

Sumner Welles entertained foreign dignitaries and diplomats there and hosted informal meetings of senior officials.

On January 8,1952, Welles married Harriette Appleton Post, a childhood friend who had previously married and divorced twice, and had resumed the use of her maiden name, in New York City at the bride's home on Fifth Avenue.

Sumner Welles died on September 24,1961, at age 68 in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

Sumner Welles is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, DC.

Sumner Welles made four major contributions to the Roosevelt era.