Download or read book Sumner Welles FDR s Global Strategist written by Benjamin Welles and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2022-07-11 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “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 establishment of the United Nations and a belief that difficult problems with the Soviet Union could be worked out. He wrote and spoke with educated precision and was able to do more work in a day than most people could do in a week... as a candid, sympathetic portrait of a great and tragic figure in a bygone era of aristocratic privilege, the biography succeeds admirably.” — The New York Times “An absorbing study of an enigmatic character who for nearly a decade after 1933, as Franklin Roosevelt’s trusted adviser, wielded great influence over American foreign policy... While the author treats convincingly the diplomatic episodes in which his father played a significant role, it is as a study in character that the book makes its most important contribution.” — Foreign Affairs “Affectionate yet scrupulously candid, this biography by his son... is an act of homage.” — Publishers Weekly “This is one of the saddest stories of a good soldier that I have ever read. Until 1943, Sumner Welles, an often arrogant patrician who had attended Groton School and Harvard College a decade after Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was one of the most distinguished members of the interwar foreign service, rising to become undersecretary of state in Roosevelt’s administration. He had elaborated the Good Neighbor Policy in the 1930s... he wrote the Atlantic Charter, which Roosevelt and Winston Churchill endorsed in 1941... he drafted the United Nations charter and supported the creation of Israel as a national homeland for Jews... Unfortunately, scandal destroyed Welles’ career... a compassionate but ruthlessly honest biography... Neither harsh nor apologetic, Benjamin Welles shows a deep understanding of his father’s character.” — The Los Angeles Times “Benjamin Welles has provided a very complete portrait, a significant contribution to scholarship in its own right... “ — The National Interest “A fascinating look at a little-remembered contributor to 20th-century history... [Benjamin Welles] is also to be commended for seeing his father’s weaknesses and not pulling punches when discussing them.” — Kirkus “A detailed and sympathetic portrait that does not disguise the flaws of its subject... Benjamin Welles’s book should stand as the definitive biography for a long time.” — Latin American Research Review “This is a graceful ‘life and times’ summary as well as a look at the sometimes troubled personal life of an important figure — a personal life that did affect Welles’s public life. A son’s perspective is unique.” — The International History Review “Benjamin Welles has written the best biography and account of Sumner Welles and his diplomatic career... the scope of research is extensive and impressive... the author has conscientiously laid out his father’s painful personal issues — alcoholism, adultery, and homosexuality — which adversely affected Welles’s career... Welles, the author, has written the best account about his father’s diplomatic career.” — The Americas “The diplomat’s son has done a remarkable job of seeking to present a balanced picture of his father’s service. The book is an important one.” — Presidential Studies Quarterly

Download or read book Sumner Welles written by Benjamin Welles and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 1997-11-15 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Sumner Welles written by Benjamin Welles and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1915, Sumner Welles began to work for the US State Department. 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 information about Europe and Japan, his main achievement was the development of US relations with Latin America.

Download or read book Rendezvous with Destiny written by Michael Fullilove and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-07-03 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable untold story of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the five extraordinary men he used to pull America into World War II In the dark days between Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939 and Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt sent five remarkable men on dramatic and dangerous missions to Europe. The missions were highly unorthodox and they confounded and infuriated diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic. Their importance is little understood to this day. In fact, they were crucial to the course of the Second World War. The envoys were magnificent, unforgettable characters. First off the mark was Sumner Welles, the chilly, patrician under secretary of state, later ruined by his sexual misdemeanors, who was dispatched by FDR on a tour of European capitals in the spring of 1940. In summer of that year, after the fall of France, William “Wild Bill” Donovan—war hero and future spymaster—visited a lonely United Kingdom at the president’s behest to determine whether she could hold out against the Nazis. Donovan’s report helped convince FDR that Britain was worth backing. After he won an unprecedented third term in November 1940, Roosevelt threw a lifeline to the United Kingdom in the form of Lend-Lease and dispatched three men to help secure it. Harry Hopkins, the frail social worker and presidential confidant, was sent to explain Lend-Lease to Winston Churchill. Averell Harriman, a handsome, ambitious railroad heir, served as FDR’s man in London, expediting Lend-Lease aid and romancing Churchill’s daughter-in-law. Roosevelt even put to work his rumpled, charismatic opponent in the 1940 presidential election, Wendell Willkie, whose visit lifted British morale and won wary Americans over to the cause. Finally, in the aftermath of Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, Hopkins returned to London to confer with Churchill and traveled to Moscow to meet with Joseph Stalin. This final mission gave Roosevelt the confidence to bet on the Soviet Union. The envoys’ missions took them into the middle of the war and exposed them to the leading figures of the age. Taken together, they plot the arc of America’s trans¬formation from a divided and hesitant middle power into the global leader. At the center of everything, of course, was FDR himself, who moved his envoys around the globe with skill and élan. We often think of Harry S. Truman, George Marshall, Dean Acheson, and George F. Kennan as the authors of America’s global primacy in the second half of the twentieth century. But all their achievements were enabled by the earlier work of Roosevelt and his representatives, who took the United States into the war and, by defeating domestic isolationists and foreign enemies, into the world. In these two years, America turned. FDR and his envoys were responsible for the turn. Drawing on vast archival research, Rendezvous with Destiny is narrative history at its most delightful, stirring, and important.

Download or read book No Ordinary Time written by Doris Kearns Goodwin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the distinct leadership roles of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt during the war years and discusses the dynamics of their marriage.

Download or read book The Washington War written by Jim Lacey and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2019 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[T]he inside story of how FDR and the towering personalities around him waged war in the corridors of Washington D.C. to secure ultimate victory on the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. Faced with the unprecedented challenges posed by a global war against entrenched and implacable totalitarian forces, Franklin Delano Roosevelt surrounded himself with a colorful group of strong-minded counselors, including Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, power broker James Byrnes, Chief of Naval Operations Ernest King, the ubiquitous Harry Hopkins, and many others. Given these forceful personalities and their equal dedication to the war effort, vicious clashes and Machiavellian maneuvering were inevitable. The outcome at many critical junctures turned on a dime. With unprecedented scope and intimacy ... military historian James Lacey delivers fresh insights into FDR's innermost circles--and the fascinating behind-the-scenes machinations and power plays that won the greatest war in history."--

Download or read book FDR and the Creation of the U N written by Townsend Hoopes and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comprehensive account, two prize-winning historians explain how the idea of the United Nations was conceived, debated, and revised, first within the U.S. government and then by negotiation with its major allies in World War II. 28 illustrations.

Download or read book Franklin D Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy 1932 1945 written by Robert Dallek and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1995-08-17 with total page 686 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the domestic pressure which influenced Roosevelt's foreign policy and American foreign relations.

Download or read book Churchill Roosevelt Company written by Lewis E. Lehrman and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-01-30 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II the “special relationship” between the United States and Great Britain cemented the alliance that won the war. But the ultimate victory of that partnership has obscured many of the conflicts behind Franklin Roosevelt’s grins and Winston Churchill’s victory signs, the clashes of principles and especially personalities between and within the two nations. Synthesizing an impressive variety of sources from memoirs and letters to histories and biographies, Lewis Lehrman explains how the Anglo-American alliance worked--and occasionally did not work--by presenting portraits and case studies of the men who worked the back channels and back rooms, the secretaries and under secretaries, ambassadors and ministers, responsible for carrying out Roosevelt’s and Churchill’s agendas while also pursuing their own and thwarting others’. This was the domain of Joseph Kennedy, American ambassador to England often at odds with his boss; spymasters William Donovan and William Stephenson; Secretary of State Cordell Hull, whom FDR frequently bypassed in favor of Under Secretary Sumner Welles; British ambassadors Lord Lothian and Lord Halifax; and, above them all, Roosevelt and Churchill, who had the difficult task, not always well performed, of managing their subordinates and who frequently chose to conduct foreign policy directly between themselves. Scrupulous in its research and fair in its judgments, Lehrman’s book reveals the personal diplomacy at the core of the Anglo-American alliance.

Download or read book Good Neighbor Diplomacy written by Irwin F. Gellman and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book FDR and the Spanish Civil War written by Dominic Tierney and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2007-07-02 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What was the relationship between President Franklin D. Roosevelt, architect of America’s rise to global power, and the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War, which inspired passion and sacrifice, and shaped the road to world war? While many historians have portrayed the Spanish Civil War as one of Roosevelt’s most isolationist episodes, Dominic Tierney argues that it marked the president’s first attempt to challenge fascist aggression in Europe. Drawing on newly discovered archival documents, Tierney describes the evolution of Roosevelt’s thinking about the Spanish Civil War in relation to America’s broader geopolitical interests, as well as the fierce controversy in the United States over Spanish policy. Between 1936 and 1939, Roosevelt’s perceptions of the Spanish Civil War were transformed. Initially indifferent toward which side won, FDR became an increasingly committed supporter of the leftist government. He believed that German and Italian intervention in Spain was part of a broader program of fascist aggression, and he worried that the Spanish Civil War would inspire fascist revolutions in Latin America. In response, Roosevelt tried to send food to Spain as well as illegal covert aid to the Spanish government, and to mediate a compromise solution to the civil war. However unsuccessful these initiatives proved in the end, they represented an important stage in Roosevelt’s emerging strategy to aid democracy in Europe.

Download or read book A Companion to U S Foreign Relations written by Christopher R. W. Dietrich and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-03-04 with total page 1518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers the entire range of the history of U.S. foreign relations from the colonial period to the beginning of the 21st century. A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations is an authoritative guide to past and present scholarship on the history of American diplomacy and foreign relations from its seventeenth century origins to the modern day. This two-volume reference work presents a collection of historiographical essays by prominent scholars. The essays explore three centuries of America’s global interactions and the ways U.S. foreign policies have been analyzed and interpreted over time. Scholars offer fresh perspectives on the history of U.S. foreign relations; analyze the causes, influences, and consequences of major foreign policy decisions; and address contemporary debates surrounding the practice of American power. The Companion covers a wide variety of methodologies, integrating political, military, economic, social and cultural history to explore the ideas and events that shaped U.S. diplomacy and foreign relations and continue to influence national identity. The essays discuss topics such as the links between U.S. foreign relations and the study of ideology, race, gender, and religion; Native American history, expansion, and imperialism; industrialization and modernization; domestic and international politics; and the United States’ role in decolonization, globalization, and the Cold War. A comprehensive approach to understanding the history, influences, and drivers of U.S. foreign relation, this indispensable resource: Examines significant foreign policy events and their subsequent interpretations Places key figures and policies in their historical, national, and international contexts Provides background on recent and current debates in U.S. foreign policy Explores the historiography and primary sources for each topic Covers the development of diverse themes and methodologies in histories of U.S. foreign policy Offering scholars, teachers, and students unmatched chronological breadth and analytical depth, A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations: Colonial Era to the Present is an important contribution to scholarship on the history of America’s interactions with the world.

Download or read book Franklin Roosevelt s Foreign Policy and the Welles Mission written by J. Rofe and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-06-11 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new and original analysis of the mission undertaken by FDR's Secretary of State during the Phoney War, Rofe's work explains the motivations and goals of Roosevelt through an analysis of the president's foreign policy and of the nature of the Anglo-American relationship of the time.

Download or read book The Dominican Republic and the United States written by G. Pope Atkins and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of the political, economic, and sociocultural relationship between the Dominican Republic and the United States follows its evolution from the middle of the nineteenth century to the mid-1990s. It deals with the interplay of these dimensions from each country's perspective and in both private and public interactions. From the U.S. viewpoint, important issues include interpretation of the rise and fall of the Dominican Republic's strategic importance, the legacy of military intervention and occupation, the problem of Dominican dictatorship and instability, and vacillating U.S. efforts to "democratize" the country. From the Dominican perspective, the essential themes involve foreign policies adopted from a position of relative weakness, ambivalent love-hate views toward the United States, emphasis on economic interests and the movement of Dominicans between the two countries, international political isolation, the adversarial relationship with neighboring Haiti, and the legacy of dictatorship and the uneven evolution of a Dominican-style democratic system. The Dominican Republic and the United States is the eleventh book in The United States and the Americas series, volumes suitable for classroom use.

Download or read book Watching Darkness Fall written by David McKean and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping and groundbreaking account of how all but one of FDR's ambassadors in Europe misjudged Hitler and his intentions As German tanks rolled toward Paris in late May 1940, the U.S. Ambassador to France, William Bullitt, was determined to stay put, holed up in the Chateau St. Firmin in Chantilly, his country residence. Bullitt told the president that he would neither evacuate the embassy nor his chateau, an eighteenth Renaissance manse with a wine cellar of over 18,000 bottles, even though “we have only two revolvers in this entire mission with only forty bullets.” As German forces closed in on the French capital, Bullitt wrote the president, “In case I should get blown up before I see you again, I want you to know that it has been marvelous to work for you.” As the fighting raged in France, across the English Channel, Ambassador to Great Britain Joseph P. Kennedy wrote to his wife Rose, “The situation is more than critical. It means a terrible finish for the allies.” David McKean's Watching Darkness Fall will recount the rise of the Third Reich in Germany and the road to war from the perspective of four American diplomats in Europe who witnessed it firsthand: Joseph Kennedy, William Dodd, Breckinridge Long, and William Bullitt, who all served in key Western European capitals—London, Berlin, Rome, Paris, and Moscow—in the years prior to World War II. In many ways they were America’s first line of defense and they often communicated with the president directly, as Roosevelt's eyes and ears on the ground. Unfortunately, most of them underestimated the power and resolve of Adolf Hitler and Germany’s Third Reich. Watching Darkness Fall is a gripping new history of the years leading up to and the beginning of WWII in Europe told through the lives of five well-educated and mostly wealthy men all vying for the attention of the man in the Oval Office.

Download or read book The ascent of globalisation written by Harry Blutstein and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ascent of globalisation tells the sweeping historical drama of the development of globalisation, from the Second World War to the present day. The story is told through the richly detailed accounts of eighteen remarkable men and women, describing how these architects reshaped the modern world, for better or worse. Profiling their lives, ideas and struggles reveals fresh insights into the nature of globalisation. The book also examines their legacies, shedding new light on many of the problems the world faces today: the global financial crisis, the political and economic malaise afflicting Europe, the numerous failures of the United Nations, the unchecked power of corporations and the inability of governments to cooperate on critical issues such as climate change.

Download or read book A Quiet American written by Andy Marino and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2000-11-13 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andy Marino's A Quiet American is an effort to examine the life of a genuine American hero whose political and cultural influence remain largely unacknowledged. The story of Varian Fry, called the "real Rick" of Casablanca, is perhaps one of the most unknown, yet extraordinary sagas of World War II. This penetrating biography follows Varian Fry through his adult life--from his beginnings in the 1930s as a Harvard graduate and political journalist to his arrival in Marseille in 1940 where he managed to spirit away thousands of Europe's cultural elite by falsifying passports, creating new identities, and always resorting to subterfuge. The list of those saved includes: Hannah Arendt, Andre Breton, Franz Werful and his wife Alma Mahler, Heinrich Mann, Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Andre Masson, and Max Ernst among others.