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“Sumner Welles (1892-1961) ranks among the half-dozen most influential American career diplomats of this century. And among high officials brought down by sexual scandal, he has no rivals. This long-awaited biography by his son Benjamin blends an adequate narrative of diplomatic achievement with a candid and painful description of the subject’s alcohol-fueled bisexual excess in an era when unconventional sexual behavior was often a matter of criminal prosecution... As a diplomat and shaper of foreign policy, Welles, like Roosevelt, showed an appreciation of the importance of power, a liberal commitment to the Good Neighbor policy toward Latin America, cautious support for the establishme...
Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.
In 1915, Sumner Welles, the son of an aristocratic family, began to work for the US State Department. Welles quickly showed an aptitude for the delicate job of international negotiation. His early successes in Japan later brought him to the attention of FDR who brought him into his administration as Under-Secretary of State. While Welles provided FDR with invaluable information about Europe and Japan, his main achievement was the development of US relations with Latin America. His bright career, however, was not to last. In 1940, FDR and his cabinet traveled to the funeral of William Bankhead, Speaker of the House. Welles traveled with them and, on the return journey, he propositioned a black Pullman car porter, allowing an aspect of his life that was heretofore hidden, to emerge. The scandal was made public and Welles resigned in 1943, thereby ending his career. This life of Sumner Welles is candidly written, for the first time, by his son, Benjamin Welles. Anyone interested in the accomplishments of this great man, the history of his time and the presidency of FDR, will want to read this beautifully written book.
The dramatic secret meeting between Churchill and FDR that forged their alliance against global fascism is brought to life in this WWII history. On August 14, 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a joint declaration of goals for the world after the Second World War. The Atlantic Charter was a powerful statement against tyranny and an important display of the “Special Relationship” between the UK and the US. Roosevelt and Churchill: The Atlantic Charter tells the story behind this momentous document and the secret meeting that led to its creation. Churchill and Roosevelt barely knew each other when they met off the coast of Newfoundland aboard ...
Paths to Power includes essays on US foreign relations from the founding of the nation though the outbreak of World War II. Essays by leading historians review the literature on American diplomacy in the early Republic and in the age of Manifest Destiny, on American imperialism in the late nineteenth century and in the age of Roosevelt and Taft, on war and peace in the Wilsonian era, on foreign policy in the Republican ascendancy of the 1920s, and on the origins of World War II in Europe and the Pacific. The result is a comprehensive assessment of the current literature, helpful suggestions for further research, and a useful primer for students and scholars of American foreign relations.