(Benjamin) Sumner Welles - Sumner Welles in Cuba, Stimson Doctrine, Hard Copy Sources

Diplomat, born in New York City, New York , USA. Independently wealthy, he joined the Foreign Service in 1915. Specializing in Latin America, he supervised American withdrawal from the Dominican Republic (1922–5). In the state department (1933–43), he championed the Good Neighbor Policy, re-negotiating the Panama Canal treaty (1934–6). Resigning after an alleged homosexual incident, he later wrote about foreign affairs.

Sumner Welles (October 14, 1892 – September 24, 1961) was Under Secretary of State in US 1937-1943 during the Franklin D.

Sumner Welles in Cuba

During the Cuban crisis in 1920, President Woodrow Wilson sent Welles to Cuba. Welles arrived in Havana with a specific charge: mediate ‘in any form most suitable’ an end to the Cuban crisis. Welles started mediating and promising both sides of the Cuban opponents what they wanted to hear.

Welles promised Machado help of new commercial treaty to relieve economic distress if Machado reached a political settlement with the opposition.

Welles promised the opponents of the Machado’s government a change of government, and participation in the subsequent administration, if they joined the mediation and supported an orderly transfer of power. The opposition believed that the mediation was an ingenious method by which the United States planned to remove Machado.

The mediation provided the United States the means with which to pursue several policy objectives at once. The mediation conferred on sectors of outlawed opposition a measure of political legitimacy, providing them with a vested interest in a settlement sanctioned and supported by the United States.

As U.S. special envoy to Cuba in 1933, Sumner Welles, with support from General Herrera, Colonels Castillo, Delgado etc (See Hugh Thomas ISBN 0-306-80827-7 and Enrique Ros sources), maneuvered to oust then-President Gerardo Machado from office. Wieland will go on to become a senior State Deparment official, not only involved in the Bogotazo, promoting the US arms embargo on Fulgencio Batista, and instrumental in inhibiting full US action during planning and the execution of the Bay of Pigs Invasion

Preceded by: Harry F. Guggenheim

United States Ambassador to Cuba 1933

Succeeded by: Jefferson Caffery

Stimson Doctrine

Following the principles of Stimson Doctrine, on July 23, 1940, Sumner Welles made a declaration on the US non-recognition policy of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of the three Baltic States as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Hard Copy Sources

Sources include a book written by his son:

Welles, Benjamin (1997-11-01). Sumner Welles: Fdr's Global Strategist : A Biography (Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute Series on Diplomatic and Economic History), Hardcover, St. Martin's Press.

Sources on Welles (and Wieland) in Cuba and aftermath

Fuentes, Norberto (2004).

Books Sumner Welles wrote include:

Welles, Sumner (1944). Welles, Sumner (1972).