Sumner Welles was born into a wealthy New York family in 1892, the namesake
of his grand-uncle, Charles Sumner, the crusading abolitionist
senator from Massachusetts. As a young man from a rich and
socially important family, Welles followed FDR's
educational path by attending Groton and Harvard before
entering the foreign service in 1915.
Welles quickly distinguished himself as an eloquent foreign service officer and navigated
the State Department's political waters so skillfully that he was promoted to acting chief of its
Latin American Affairs Division after only a few years of field work. Welles' meteoric rise,
however, also insured that he would quickly run out of promotions to seek, and as a result he did
not remain at the State Department for very long. In March 1922, Welles resigned his position
with the State Department to pursue a lucrative career in banking.
As a private citizen, Welles continued to study Latin America
and to comment on international affairs, all the while maintaining
a friendship with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, whom he
had known since boyhood. After the election of 1932, FDR
invited Welles to advise him on Latin American affairs,
and in 1933 he became assistant secretary of state. Welles
quickly achieved notoriety within the administration as
the architect of the "Good Neighbor" policy, and when Cubans
revolted against their government FDR quickly nominated
Wells to the ambassadorship and dispatched him to Havana.
Despite his assignment to the American embassy in Cuba,
however, Welles continued to be a member of the White House
foreign policy inner circle and FDR's most trusted adviser
on Latin America. As a result he was promoted to undersecretary
of state in 1937, and helped to draft the Atlantic Charter
– an Anglo-American joint declaration of principles
– in 1941.
Despite a strong record at the State Department, Welles was unable to improve his
relationship with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who felt that Welles' closeness to the president
undermined his own ability to act as FDR's chief foreign policy adviser. Never completely
comfortable with Welles as his deputy, Hull threatened resignation in August 1943 if Welles was
not removed from the administration over allegations that he had engaged in homosexual
conduct. FDR reluctantly agreed, and Welles tendered his resignation shortly thereafter.
In retirement Welles continued to write and publish commentary, most of which related
to international affairs and to his vision for a multilateral global community. He died in 1961 at
the age of 68.
Sources:
American National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press,
1999, 9-11.
Graham, Otis L., Jr. and Meghan Robinson Wander. Franklin D. Roosevelt,
His Life and Times.
New York: Da Capo Press, 1985, 287-288.
Welles, Benjamin. Sumner Welles: FDR's Global Strategist. New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1997, 134, 155.