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Sumner Welles (1892-1961) was Under Secretary of State in US 1937-1943 during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration.
During the Cuban crisis in 1920, Washington 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 1934, Welles, along with the Cuban upper class, maneuvered to oust then-President Gerardo Machado from office with the support of Fulgencio Batista, an army sergeant. 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.
Following the principles of Stimson Doctrine, on July 23, 1940, he made a declaration on the US non-recognition policy of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of three Baltic States - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. More than 50 countries later followed US in this position.
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