Sumner Welles

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Sumner Welles (October 14, 1892 – 1961) was Under Secretary of State in US 1937-1943 during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. He was featured in the TIME Cover of August 11, 1941

Sumner is a relative of the actor Orson Welles.

Sumner Welles in Cuba

During the Cuban crisis in 1920, Wilson appointed Welles as ambassador to Cuba. Welles arrived in Havana with a specific charge: mediate ‘in any form most suitable’ an end to the Cuban crisis. Welles’ role in these kinds of mediations was crucial. 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. The government believed that the proposed mediation represented a clever form of continued support and a guarantee that Machado would serve a full length of his term.

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 mediations provided the means through which opposition groups could obtain their objectives and join the political process in an orderly, instructional fashion. Just as important as easing Machado out was the necessity of easing new political elements in. 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. This served as a recruitment process, a method by which the US determined which groups were ‘responsible’ and which were not.

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. Fulgencio Batista, an army sergeant in the Cuban Army Telegraph service was still not a player. In September 1933 Batista emerged on the public scene a leader of an enlisted man rebellion, and began to seize control. In January 1934, Batista transferred army support from Grau to Union Nacionalista leader Carlos Mendieta. Within five days, the United States recognized the new government. During this process putative agent William Wieland (aka (Guillermo) Arturo Montenegro and sometimes spelled William Weiland or Wilheim Wieland) is said to have been active in Cuba for the first time. 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

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. More than 50 countries later followed US in this position.

Hard Copy Sources

Sources include a book written by his son:

Welles Benjamin, 1997 Sumner Welles: Fdr's Global Strategist : A Biography (Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute Series on Diplomatic and Economic History) Hardcover. St. Martin's Press 1997-11-01. ISBN 0312174403 / 0-312-17440-3 EAN: 9780312174408

Sources on Welles (and Wieland) in Cuba and aftermath

Fuentes, Norberto 2004 La Autobiografia De Fidel Castro Editorial Planeta, Mexico D.F ISBN 8423336042, ISBN 9707490012

Gonzalez, Servando 2002 The Secret Fidel Castro: Deconstructing the Symbol. Spooks Books, U.S. ISBN 0971139105 ISBN 0971139113

Kapcia A. 2002. The Siege of the Hotel Nacional, Cuba, 1933: A Reassessment. Journal of Latin American Studies, 34, 283-309.

Lazo, Mario 1968 Dagger in the heart: American policy failures in Cuba. Twin Circle. New York

Phillips, R Hart 1935 Cuban side show. Cuban Press, Havana 2nd edition. ASIN: B000860P60

Phillips, R Hart. 1959 Cuba, Island of Paradox. McDowell Obolensky, New York, NY ASIN: B0007E0OAU

Hugh Thomas Cuba or the Pursuit of Freedom (Paperback) Da Capo Press; Updated edition (April, 1998) ISBN 0306808277)

Books Sumner Welles wrote include:

Welles, Sumner 1944 The time for decision Harper & brothers ASIN B0006AQB0M

Welles, Sumner 1972 Naboth's Vineyard: The Dominican Republic, 1844-1924 Arno Press ISBN 0405045964