Benjamin Sumner Welles was born in New York City, the son of Benjamin Welles and Frances Swan. The name Sumner reflected a distant relationship to the family of Charles Sumner, the abolitionist senator from Massachusetts. Both parental families were prominent and well-to-do. His mother's sudden death in 1911 had been a grievous blow, but from her estate he received an income large enough to allow him to live in style.
Welles attended Groton (1904 - 1910) and Harvard College (1910 - 1913), where he majored in architecture and fine arts. When he received the B. A. in 1914, after a year abroad, he had no career plans in mind.
On the advice of a family friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, then assistant secretary of the navy, Welles took the Foreign Service examination in June 1915 and was promptly assigned as third secretary in the embassy at Tokyo. It soon became apparent that he was unusually qualified for a career in diplomacy. Welles's principal assignment during his two years in Japan was the inspection of camps in which German and Austrian prisoners of war were being held. His diplomacy and reports won him speedy promotions. In November 1917, Welles became second secretary in Buenos Aires. While most United States diplomats regarded an assignment in Latin America as a waste of time, he viewed Latin America as a neglected area that merited attention and specialization. He soon mastered Spanish and absorbed Latin American history and literature. His work in the embassy, mostly involving commercial problems arising from World War I, earned him another promotion. In June 1920, Welles was named assistant chief of the Division of Latin American Affairs of the State Department, and in September he became acting chief. It was soon apparent that he aimed to improve the image of the United States in Latin America by lightening the heavy hand of Uncle Sam, especially in the Caribbean. He knew that this could not be accomplished merely by well-meaning restraint; it would require persuasive leadership to develop governments sufficiently stable to permit withdrawal of U. S. Marines from Haiti and the Dominican Republic and to avoid renewed military intervention in turbulent Cuba. The problems Welles faced seemed intractable, and in March 1922, discouraged by the limitations of the career service, he resigned, intending to take up international finance. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes had been impressed by Welles's work, and in July he induced the young man to return with an unusual appointment as commissioner (with the rank of minister) to devise plans for the withdrawal of American troops and the military government from the Dominican Republic. Welles's mission was accomplished in July 1924 with the inauguration of an independent Dominican government. Welles was retained by Hughes and by his successor, Frank B. Kellogg, to assist the Dominicans in solving post-independence problems; but President Calvin Coolidge dismissed Welles early in July 1925. No reason was given, but there may have been a connection with Welles's divorce. Welles spent the next two years writing Naboth's Vineyard: The Dominican Republic 1844-1924 (1928), the final chapter of which contained a ringing appeal for a more considerate and cooperative policy toward Latin America. The study had a profound effect on Franklin D. Roosevelt, who henceforth regarded Welles as his principal adviser on Latin American affairs. In early April 1933, President Roosevelt named Welles an assistant secretary of state. In his inaugural address the president had promised that his foreign policy would be that of the "good neighbor, " and he was persuaded by Welles to use his Pan-American Day speech (April 12) to spell out this new policy with specific reference to Latin America. The Good Neighbor policy thus came to be associated with the Americas and with Welles as its leading proponent. Mounting disorders in Cuba put the policy to an immediate test, for a collapse might make another United States intervention unavoidable. On April 21 it was announced that Welles would go to Havana as ambassador, but it was correctly surmised that he would act as a special presidential envoy to mediate a truce between President Gerardo Machado and his opponents. After protracted maneuvering, Machado was supplanted by a broadly representative caretaker government with Dr. Carlos Manuel de Cespedes y Quesada as interim president. Welles was a hero in Havana and Washington until September 5, when Cespedes was overthrown by a coalition of noncommissioned officers and radical students. In view of United States rights under the Platt Amendment and to encourage constitutional stability, Welles recommended the landing of U. S. Marines to maintain the Cespedes government; but Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull rejected his advice. Fulgencio Batista emerged as Cuba's strong man, and Welles, dejected, returned to his position as assistant secretary for hemisphere policy. As a result of this experience, Welles negotiated the treaty of May 29, 1934, with Cuba, which abrogated the Platt Amendment. In 1934, Welles also undertook the negotiation of a treaty with Panama that was designed to rectify some of the inequities of the 1903 Canal Treaty. The new treaty was completed in March 1936, but its beneficial effect in Panama was offset by the reluctance of the U. S. Senate, which took three years to approve it. In connection with his efforts in 1936 to end the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia, Welles persuaded Roosevelt to call for a special inter-American peace conference at Buenos Aires. Welles assisted Hull at the conference and played a major role in rallying support for a declaration that established the principle of collective consultation should the peace of the Americas be disturbed. Roosevelt appointed Welles undersecretary of state in 1937, with the grudging assent of Hull, who resented the close relationship between Welles and the president. Hull's relations with Welles deteriorated in succeeding years, as Hull was often ill and Welles, as acting secretary, was increasingly called on by Roosevelt for action or advice. Following the outbreak of war in Europe, Welles represented the United States at a special inter-American meeting in Panama, at which a neutrality zone was declared around the continent south of Canada. In February and March 1940, Roosevelt sent him on a much-publicized mission to Rome, Berlin, Paris, and London to investigate the possibility of arranging peace before the expected German spring offensive. Since peace was only a remote hope, the more immediate aim of the trip was to lure Mussolini away from Hitler and to demonstrate that the president had not failed to make an effort in behalf of peace. Welles attended the dramatic meeting of Roosevelt and Winston Churchill off the coast of Newfoundland in August 1941 and assisted in drafting the Atlantic Charter. After the United States became a belligerent, Welles flew to Rio de Janeiro for another special consultative meeting of American foreign ministers (January 1942). All countries except Argentina and Chile favored an immediate break with Japan, Germany, and Italy; but in order to maintain the principle of unanimity, Welles accepted a compromise wording that recommended, but did not declare, a break. Hull was furious, and without waiting to see the results of this decision, he sharply accused Welles of a "sell out. " Roosevelt, however, approved the undersecretary's position, and the Hull-Welles breach widened. Ever since the outbreak of war, Welles had directed the State Department's planning for the peace settlement. After the Rio Conference (1942) Welles intensified these efforts and initiated a speaking campaign to persuade the American people to support a postwar international organization of the United Nations. In 1943 reports reached Hull of a homosexual incident involving Welles. Although Welles had been intoxicated at the time, Hull made these reports the immediate reason for insisting that the president obtain Welles's resignation, which became effective September 30, 1943. In retirement Welles wrote and broadcast commentaries on foreign affairs and produced four books combining memoirs and policy analysis. He died at Bernardsville, N. J.
He was tall, handsome, elegant, and exceptionally dignified for his age. More important, he was quick-minded and diligent, and had a working knowledge of history and languages.
On April 14, 1915, he married Esther Slater, whose family owned the Slater Mills in Webster, Massachussets They had two sons. He married on June 27, 1925, to Mathilde Townsend, recently divorced from Senator Peter Gerry of Rhode Island. His wife died in August 1949, and on January 8, 1952, he married Harriette Post, a childhood friend.
