Sumner Welles - Last Years

Last Years

Welles made his first public appearance following his resignation in October 1943. Speaking to the Foreign Policy Association, he sketched his views of the post-war world, including American participation in a world organization with military capability. He also proposed the creation of regional organizations. He also called on the President to express his opinions and help shape public opinion, praising the President at length-"rightly regarded throughout the world as the paladin of the forces of liberal democracy"-without once mentioning Secretary of State Hull. Continuing his career-long focus on Latin America, he said that "if we are to achieve our own security every nation of the Western Hemisphere must also obtain the same ample measure of assurance as ourselves in the world of the future." He also foresaw the end to colonialism as a guiding principle of the new world order:

Can the peaceful, the stable, and the free world for which we hope be created if it is envisioned from the outset as half slave and half free?-if hundreds of millions of human beings are told that they are destined to remain indefinitely under alien subjection? New and powerful nationalistic forces are breaking into life throughout the earth, and in particular in the vast regions of Africa, of the Near East, and of the Far East. Must not these forces, unless they are to be permitted to start new and devastating inundations, be canalized through the channels of liberty into the great stream of constructive and cooperative human endeavor?

In 1944, Welles lent his name to a fund-raising campaign by the United Jewish Appeal to bring Jewish refugees from the Balkans to Palestine.

That same year he authored Time for Decision. His proposals for the war's end included modifications in Germany's borders to transfer East Prussia to Poland and to extend Germany's eastern border to include German-speaking populations further east. Then he suggested dividing Germany into 3 states, all of which would be included in a new European customs union. A politically divided German would be integrated into an economically cohesive Europe. He also "favoured the transfer of populations to bring ethnic distributions into conformity with international boundaries." With the public engaged in the debate over America's post-war role, The Time for Decision sold half a million copies.

Welles became a prominent commentator and author on foreign affairs. In 1945, he joined the American Broadcasting Company to guide the organization of the "Sumner Welles Peace Forum," a series of 4 radio broadcasts providing expert commentary on the San Francisco Conference, which wrote the founding document of the United Nations. He undertook a project to edit a series of volumes on foreign relations for Harvard University Press.

In 1948, Welles authored We Need Not Fail, a short book that first presented a history and evaluated the competing claims to Palestine. He argued that American policy should insist on the fulfillment of the 1947 promise of the United Nations General Assembly to establish two independent states within an economic union, policed by a United Nations force. He criticized American officials whose obsession with Russia required submission to Arab and oil interests. Enforcing the decision of the U.N. was his overarching concern, because it was an opportunity to establish the organization's role on the international stage that no other interest could trump.

Later that year, the American Jewish Congress presented Welles with a citation that praised his "courageous championing of the cause of Israel among the nations of the world."

Welles was a member of the American branch of the Institute of Pacific Relations, an organization that fostered the study of the Far East and the Pacific. Senator Joseph McCarthy repeatedly charged that it was a Communist front.

He remained always in the public eye. For example, his departure on the Île de France for Europe was noted even as he declined to comment on charges made by Senator Joseph McCarthy about Communists in the State Department.

He sold his estate outside Washington in 1952, and Oxon Hill Manor then became the home of a "huge collection of Americana."

In 1956, Confidential, a scandal magazine, published a report of the 1940 Pullman incident and linked it to his resignation from the State Department, along with additional instances of inappropriate sexual behavior or drunkenness. Welles' explained the 1940 incident to his family as nothing more than drunken conversation with the train staff.

He died on September 24, 1961 at age 68 in Bernardsville, New Jersey. He is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C..

Winston Churchill, who made the phase "No comment" famous, cited Welles as his source for the cryptic response.

Welles' papers are held by the National Archives at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York.