Edward Stettinius, Jr.

Infobox US Cabinet official
name=Edward Reilly Stettinius, Jr.


order=48th
title=United States Secretary of State
term_start=December 1, 1944
term_end=June 27, 1945
predecessor=Cordell Hull
successor=James F. Byrnes
president=Franklin D. Roosevelt Harry Truman
ambassador_from2=United States
country2= the United Nations
term_start2 =1945
term_end2 = 1946
president2= Harry Truman
predecessor2 ="None"
successor2 =Herschel Johnson "(Acting)"
birth_date=October 22, 1900
birth_place=Chicago, Illinois
death_date=death date and age|1949|10|31|1900|10|22
death_place=Greenwich, Connecticut
party=Democratic
religion= Episcopalian
spouse= Virginia Gordon Wallace
profession=Businessman

Edward Reilly Stettinius, Jr. (October 22, 1900 – October 31, 1949) was United States Secretary of State under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, serving from 1944 to 1945.

Stettinius was born in Chicago, the younger of two sons and third of four children of Edward Reilly and Judith (Carrington) Stettinius. His mother was a Virginian of colonial English ancestry. His father, of German descent, was a native of St. Louis; active in many business enterprises, he became president of the Diamond Match Company (1909-1915), a partner in the banking house of J. P. Morgan and Company, and a War Department official during World War I. Stettinius went to the Pomfret School until 1920, after which he attended the University of Virginia until 1924, leaving without a degree. On May 15, 1926, he married Virginia Gordon Wallace, daughter of a prominent family of Richmond, Virginia. They had three children: Edward Reilly, and the twins Wallace and Joseph. That year he became assistant to John Lee Pratt, the vice-president of General Motors, and in 1931 he succeeded Pratt in that position. At General Motors he worked to develop unemployment relief programs and through this he came into contact with Franklin D. Roosevelt, for whom he worked briefly in the National Recovery Administration. In 1934 Stettinius went to US Steel to become a senior administrator, but after Roosevelt was elected President of the United States Stettinius was asked to join the administration as director in the Office of Production Management. Two years later he became head of the Lend-lease aid to the allies, a position he held until he became undersecretary of state in 1943. In November 1944 Stettinius succeeded Secretary of State Cordell Hull due to Hull's poor health.

Stettinius, as chairman of the US delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organization, was instrumental in the formation of the United Nations and was present at its official founding on June 26, 1945. As Secretary, Stettinius made the decision to return a Russian codebook, found in Finland, to the Soviet Union. This hampered US efforts to decode Russian cables, many of which, when later released, provided information about the widespread penetration of Soviet agents into senior US Government positions. The reasons for this act are not clear. Soon afterward, Stettinius resigned as Secretary of State to become the first United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Stettinius resigned from this position in June 1946, after which he became critical of what he saw as Truman's refusal to use the UN as a tool to resolve tensions with the Soviet Union.

In 1946 he ordered release of a Nazi mass murderer, Adreas Muller. See Justice at Dachau [http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0767908791&pageID=S0AR&checkSum=ewVVo9mYmX2Wl8UWVEVOrvm90H2nCVKeuG%20SCYRaqiw= page 352-53] for details.

Prematurely white-haired, with dark eyebrows, blue eyes, tanned face, and a quick smile, Stettinius was striking in appearance and inspired goodwill. For three years after his return to private life he served as rector of the University of Virginia. A longtime friend of William Tubman, the president of Liberia, he helped form (1947) and headed as board chairman the Liberia Company, a partnership between the Liberian government and American financiers to provide funds for the development of that African nation. He lived during his retirement at his estate on the Rapidan River, Virginia. He died of a coronary thrombosis at the home of a sister in Greenwich, Connecticut, at the age of 49, and was buried in the family plot in Locust Valley Cemetery, Locust Valley, New York.

References

*"Edward Reilly Stettinius". "Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 4: 1946-1950". American Council of Learned Societies, 1974.

External links

* cite news
author=
title=The Optimist
date=1949-11-07
work=Time Magazine
url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,801055,00.html
accessdate=2008-08-14
* [http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19441211,00.html "Time" cover]
* [http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/stettinius-edward.htm Edward Stettinius]
* [http://www.justiceatdachau.com/ Justice at Dachau]