Background
William Richards Castle was born on June 19, 1878 in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was the son of William Richards Castle, a prominent entrepreneur, and Ida Beatrice Lowrey.
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William Richards Castle was born on June 19, 1878 in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was the son of William Richards Castle, a prominent entrepreneur, and Ida Beatrice Lowrey.
He attended Harvard, receiving an A. B. degree in 1900.
From 1906 to 1913, Castle was assistant dean of Harvard College; in 1913 he was promoted to dean. During these years he began a writing career, publishing two melodramatic novels (The Green Vase, 1912; The Pillar of Sand, 1914), a descriptive volume (Hawaii, Past and Present, 1913), and a nonfiction work pleading for military preparedness (Wake Up, America, 1916). In 1915, Castle left the deanship to become editor of the Harvard Graduates' Magazine. Two years later, he was appointed director of the Bureau of Communications of the National American Red Cross. Castle's State Department career began in 1919, when he became a special assistant attached to the Division of West European Affairs. In 1921 Castle became chief of that division, serving in that post until February 1927, when he was promoted to assistant secretary of state, overseeing West European, East European, and Near Eastern affairs. By this time, Castle had begun to develop his beliefs in realism and noninterventionism in foreign policy. He had scant use for the World Court and saw little practical value in conciliation and arbitration treaties. He thought the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) was futile as anything but a public relations device and was concerned that Kellogg took the pact seriously. In December 1929, Castle was named ambassador to Japan, an appointment designed solely to give the United States an ambassador there during the 1930 London Naval Conference. While in Tokyo, Castle developed a sympathetic position toward Japan. He saw that country's position in the Far East as comparable to that of the United States in the western hemisphere. President Herbert Hoover named Castle undersecretary of state in April 1931, an appointment, as it turned out, that substantially exacerbated the tension between the president and his secretary of state, Henry L. Stimson. As Hoover's more pacific views gradually diverged from Stimson's more activist ones, Stimson came to resent Castle, who personally and philosophically was closer to Hoover. The climax of this strained relationship came in May 1932, when, while Stimson was in Europe, Castle gave a speech, authorized by Hoover, stating that United States policy toward Japan during the Manchurian crisis would go no further than a declaration of nonrecognition. It would not involve economic sanctions, such as boycotts. This speech, taken as official United States policy, undercut any efforts Stimson might have had in mind to employ a more assertive policy toward Japan. The secretary was furious, all the more so when Castle referred to the doctrine of nonrecognition as the Hoover Doctrine rather than the Stimson Doctrine, as it is commonly known. The Manchurian crisis was the major diplomatic event during Castle's years as undersecretary of state. In this crisis, Castle's generally pro-Japanese views stood as a counterpoint to those of Stanley K. Hornbeck, chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs, who was the State Department's leading advocate of economic sanctions against Japan. Castle's objections to sanctions were based on the damage they might do to the depression-ridden world economy as well as on his belief, firm by this time, that Japan could be a "useful friend in the Orient" and the keystone to the maintenance of Far Eastern stability, if dealt with properly. In the end, Castle gave his support to the idea of nonrecognition and its linkage to the Nine-Power Treaty (1922) and the Kellogg-Briand Pact, quite possibly because of his belief that such statements had little practical value and would not deter Japan in her effort, as he saw it, to bring stability to the Far East. As late as October 1940, Castle's sympathy toward Japan still ran deep. In an article in the Atlantic Monthly he urged that the United States accept a Japanese Monroe Doctrine, prohibiting any nation from acquiring or transferring territory in the Far East. This, he asserted, would cement United States-Japanese friendship and help Japan cope with the threat of German military adventurism. This attitude toward Japan stemmed as much from Castle's general belief in isolationism as from his pro-Japanese sympathies. Although Castle had left the State Department in 1933 after Franklin D. Roosevelt became president, Castle nonetheless remained in the public eye as a frequent speaker and author of magazine articles on current events.
He died in Washington, D. C. Castle's mark in American diplomacy came not from innovative policymaking but rather from his reputation as a thorough student of foreign affairs and his ability to make the most of his personal relationships within the State Department and White House bureaucracies. Although Stimson lost confidence in him, this was more than offset by the widely recognized influence he had with Kellogg and, later, Hoover.
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He opposed the New Deal on constitutional and monetary grounds, deplored the renunciation of intervention in Latin America, and urged the administration to stay out of the developing problems in Europe by refusing all aid to Great Britain. Castle also opposed the recognition of Soviet Russia until he satisfied himself that formal diplomatic recognition did not necessarily imply endorsement of the government being recognized. Castle served as president of the Garfield Memorial Hospital in Washington, D. C. , from 1945 to 1952.
On June 3, 1902, he married Margaret Farlow. They had one daughter.