Pullman porter affair

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Pullman porter affair
Lavender scare
ParticipantsSumner Welles
Outcomeforced resignation

The Pullman porter affair was a

Franklin Delano Roosevelt from Huntsville, Alabama to Washington, D.C., when he solicited sex from two male African-American Pullman porters. The resulting scandal resulted in Welles' resignation from the Department of State.[1]

Background

Welles was a closeted bisexual.[2] In September 1940, Welles accompanied Roosevelt to the funeral of former Speaker of the House William B. Bankhead in Huntsville, Alabama.

Incident

While returning to Washington by train, Welles - who was drunk and under the influence of barbiturates - solicited sex from two male African-American

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover would not release the file on Welles, Brewster threatened to initiate a senatorial investigation into the incident. (In 1995, Deke DeLoach told C-SPAN's Brian Lamb on Booknotes that file cabinets behind J. Edgar Hoover's secretary Helen Gandy contained two-and-a-half drawers of files, including information about "an undersecretary of state who had committed a homosexual act."[4]
)

Resignation

President Roosevelt was embittered by the attack on his friend, believing they were ruining a good man, but he was obliged to accept Welles's resignation in 1943. Roosevelt particularly blamed Bullitt. His son Elliott Roosevelt wrote that President Roosevelt believed that Bullitt had bribed the porters to entrap Welles.[5]

In August 1943, reports that Welles had resigned as Under-Secretary of State circulated for over a week. The press reported it as fact on August 24, despite an official announcement. Writing in The New York Times, Arthur Krock said that opinion in Washington saw Welles's departure as an attempt to end factionalism in the State Department: "The long-existing struggle disorganized the department, bred Hull and Welles factions among its officials, confused those having business with the department and finally produced pressure on the President to eliminate the causes." Despite the "personal fondness" of the President and his wife for Welles, he continued, the President sided with Hull because supporting a subordinate would promote revolts in other government agencies, Hull was politically connected and popular with Congress, and the Senate, he was told, would not support Welles for Secretary of State or any other office. Krock added a cryptic explanation: "Other incidents arising made the disagreements between the two men even more personal. It was those which aroused the Senate to oppose Mr. Welles that was reported to the President."[6]

The U.S. still awaits a clarification of its foreign policy, and the forced resignation of Sumner Welles made an already murky issue even more obscure.

TIME, September 6, 1943

While Welles vacationed in

Good Neighbor Policy in South America, an opponent of those who would do business with Fascists based on expediency, a known and respected advocate of U.S. cooperation in international affairs. The U.S. still awaits a clarification of its foreign policy and the forced resignation of Sumner Welles made an already murky issue even more obscure."[8]

Confidential expose

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 had explained the 1940 incident to his family as nothing more than a drunken conversation with the train staff.[11] His son Benjamin Welles wrote of the incident in his father's biography as drunken advances to several porters at about 4 a.m. that was rejected and then reported to government and railway officials.[12]

References

  1. ^ Wallance, Gregory J. "Sex and the Secret Service". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 8, 2023.
  2. ^ "Spheres of Influence". The New York Times.
  3. ^ Benjamin Welles, Global Strategist, 273–4. The story has been recounted in many histories. For additional insight and context, see Larry Tye, Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class (New York: Henry Holt & Company,2004), 50–2
  4. ^ "Hoover's FBI". C-SPAN. July 10, 1995. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
  5. ^ Benjamin Welles, Sumner Welles: FDR's Global Strategist: A Biography (NY: St. Martin's Press, 1997)
  6. ^ The New York Times: Arthur Krock, "Welles Has Quit, Washington Hears", August 25, 1943, accessed November 9, 2010
  7. ^ TIME: "Cabinet: Help Wanted (Male)", September 27, 1943, accessed November 9, 2010,
  8. ^ a b c d TIME: "One More Scalp", September 6, 1943, accessed November 9, 2010
  9. ^ a b The New York Times:Lewis Wood, "Capital Convinced Welles Resigned", August 26, 1943, accessed November 9, 2010
  10. ^ The New York Times: "Stettinius Named for Welles Post", September 26, 1943, accessed November 9, 2010
  11. ISBN 0312174403
    .
  12. ^ Bohlen, Celestine (January 4, 2002). "Benjamin Welles, Biographer And Journalist, Is Dead at 85". The New York Times. Retrieved March 24, 2017.
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