Joseph E. Davies
Encyclopedia
Joseph Edward Davies was appointed by President Wilson to be Commissioner of Corporations in 1912, and First Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission in 1915. He was the second Ambassador
to represent the United States
in the Soviet Union
and U.S. Ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg. From 1939 to 1941 Davies was Special assistant to Secretary of State Hull, in charge of War Emergency Problems and Policies. From 1942 through 1946 he was Chairman of President Roosevelt's War Relief Control Board. Ambassador Davies was Special Advisor of President Harry Truman and Secretary of State James F. Byrnes
with rank of Ambassador at the Potsdam Conference
in 1945.
to Edward and Rachel (Paynter) Davies
. He attended the University of Wisconsin Law School
from 1898 to 1901, where he graduated with honors. Upon graduation, he returned to Watertown and began a private practice. He served as a delegate to the Wisconsin Democratic Convention in 1902. He moved to Madison
in 1907, and became chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin
.
Davies played an important role in ensuring that the western states and Wisconsin gave Woodrow Wilson
their vote at the 1912 Democratic National Convention
. Wilson made Davies head of his entire western campaign. As a reward for being critical in winning Wilson the election, Wilson named Davies head of the Bureau of Corporations. Davies was instrumental in the formation of the Bureau's successor organization, the Federal Trade Commission
, and served as its first chairman from 1915 to 1916. At President's Wilson's request when Senator Paul O. Husting
of Wisconsin suddenly died in 1917, Davies retired from the FTC in order to run for the open seat in a special election. He lost to Republican Irvine Lenroot
in a pivotal election which denied Democrats control of the U.S. Senate. President Wilson appointed Davies to serve as an economic advisor to the United States
during the Paris Peace Conference
following World War I
.
After the electoral loss, Davies went into private legal practice in Washington D.C.. In 1933 Rafael Trujillo engaged Davies to work for him when he tried to settle his country's debt.
Davies most famous law case was when he defended former Ford Motor Company stockholders against a $30,000,000 suit the US Treasury Department brought against them for back taxes. Davies proved his clients did not owe the government anything but that his clients were to receive a $3,600,000 refund. The case – which took three years to litigate (from 1924 to 1927) - brought him the largest fee in the history of the D.C. bar, $2,000,000.
Davies represented politicians, labor leaders and minority groups but his specialty was as an antitrust attorney. His corporate clients included Seagrams, National Dairy, Copley Publishing, Anglo-Swiss, Nestle, Fox Films and many others. In 1937 his law firm was: Davies, Richberg, Beebe, Busick and Richardson, in DC.
In 1901 Davies married Mary Emlen Knight, daughter of Civil War Colonel John Henry Knight, a leading conservative Democrat and business associate of William Freeman Vilas
and Jay Cooke
. They were divorced in 1935. His second wife was General Foods
heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post
, whom he married in 1935; the couple divorced in 1955.
and served from 1936-38. His appointment was made in part based on his skills as a Corporate lawyer (Chairman, FTC), and international lawyer, his long time friendship with FDR since the Woodrow Wilson days and for his political loyalty to Roosevelt.
Davies had been asked by FDR to evaluate the strength of the Soviet Army, its government and its industry and to find out if possible which side the Russians would be on in the "coming war."
While Davies' predecessor, William Christian Bullitt, Jr. had been an admirer of the Soviet Union who gradually came to loathe Stalin's brutality and repression, Davies remained unaffected by news of the disappearance of thousands of Russians and foreigners in the Soviet Union throughout his stay as U.S. Ambassador. His reports from the Soviet Union were pragmatic, optimistic, and usually devoid of criticism of Stalin and his policies. While he briefly noted the USSR's 'authoritarian' form of government, Davies praised the nation's boundless natural resources and the contentment of Soviet workers while 'building socialism'. He went on numerous sanitized tours of the country, carefully prearranged by Soviet officials. In one of his final memos from Moscow to Washington D.C., Davies assessed:
Davies attended some of the Stalinist purge trials
of the late 1930s, and despite widespread evidence to the contrary, was convinced of the guilt of the accused, although he was a lawyer himself. His opinions were at odds with most of the non-Stalinist press of the day, as well as those of his own staff, many of whom had been in the country far longer than Davies. The career diplomat Charles Bohlen, who served under Davies in Moscow, later wrote:
When a campaign began in the U.S. to intervene on behalf of Ruth Rubens, an American woman who had disappeared in Moscow and was being held in Butyrskaya Prison
, the U.S. embassy staff was so upset about Davies’s inaction on behalf of those being arrested and liquidated that they contemplated mass resignation.. Instead, they decided to initiate inquiries on Rubens's behalf. When Davies, who was out of the country, returned to Moscow, he apologized to the Soviet ambassador to the U.S. — and to FDR — for his staff’s attempts to help Rubens.
When Davies’ wife, Marjorie Merriweather Post
, was woken up at night by gun blasts from the basement of the building across the street (the guns belonged to Stalin's secret police, the NKVD
, who were in the process of murdering prisoners), her husband would explain that she had merely heard the sound of excavation drills for Stalin’s new Moscow metro subway system. Davies also ignored reports of American citizens being arrested by Stalin's secret police. Even after Americans living in the Soviet Union thronged the gates of the embassy in Moscow to plead for new passports to leave Russia (Stalin had taken their original U.S. passports for 'registration' purposes years before), Davies was unmoved. Though many were communists, others had moved to Soviet Russia as skilled auto workers to help produce cars at the recently-constructed GAZ
automobile factory built by the Ford Motor Company
. The American workers, suspected by Stalin of being 'poisoned' by Western influences, were dragged off with the others to Lubyanka Prison by the NKVD in the very same Ford Model A cars they had helped build, where they were tortured and either executed or exiled to Soviet gulag
s. Davies refused to lodge even a mild diplomatic protest, and later commented to the media: “The Soviet Union is doing wonderful things. The leaders of the government are an extremely capable, serious, hardworking, and powerful group of men and women.”
After Moscow, Davies was assigned to the post of Ambassador in Belgium
(1938-1939) and Minister to Luxembourg
concurrently before being called back to the United States following the declaration of war in 1939. Davies served as a special assistant to Secretary of State Cordell Hull
.
began selling art treasures and other valuables seized from the Romanov family and other Russian citizens after the Russian revolution in order to earn hard currency
It was later alleged that many works of art from the Tretyakov Gallery
and other collections were either donated or offered at nominal prices to Joseph E. Davies
and his wife, who were both art collectors. Davies is also alleged to have purchased art expropriated from Soviet citizens well after the Russian Revolution, including victims of Stalin's Terror
at discount prices from Soviet authorities.
. The book -- published by Simon and Schuster in 1941 which sold close to 700,000 copies world wide in many languages -- consists of letters, diary entries, and Davies’ State Department reports between 1936 and 1938, which Roosevelt agreed for Davies to use.
In 1943, the book was adapted as a Warner Brothers movie in starring Walter Huston
as Davies and Ann Harding
as his wife Marjorie Post Davies. As part of his book contract, Davies retained absolute control of the script, and his rejection of the original script caused Warner Brothers to hire a new screenwriter, Howard Koch
, to rewrite the script in order to gain Davies' approval. The movie, made during World War II, showed the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin
in an extremely positive light. Completed in late April 1943, the film was, in the words of Robert Buckner
, the film's producer, "an expedient lie for political purposes, glossily covering up important facts with full or partial knowledge of their false presentation...
The movie whitewashed the Moscow trials
, rationalized Moscow's participation in the Nazi-Soviet Pact and its unprovoked invasion of Finland
, and portrayed the Soviet Union as a non-totalitarian state that was moving towards the American democratic model, a Soviet Union committed to internationalism. As did the book, the final screenplay portrayed the defendants in the Moscow trials as undeniably guilty. It also showed the purges as an attempt by Stalin to rid his country of pro-German fifth columnists.
FDR wanted to discuss matters with Stalin--one on one--and felt that setting up such a meeting could be done more easily through a mutual and trusted friend--Davies. In the letter, FDR was asking for a visit between himself and Stalin where they could talk over matters without restraint. It would only include an interpreter and stenographer. Prime Minister Churchill and Foreign Minister Eden had often met with Stalin and Molotov. FDR and Secretary Hull had not. Stalin agreed to a meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska on July 15th or August 15th. He asked that Davies stress to FDR that Hitler was massing his armies for an all-out drive and that they needed more of everything through Lend-Lease.
Davies was surprised to find much the same hostility and what he regarded as prejudice in the Moscow Diplomatic Crops (toward the Russians) as when he was in Moscow between 1937-1938. He urged them that public criticism of America's ally (Russia) might be harmful to the war effort. Davies continued to ardently promote Stalin's interests and requests for assistance during the war, even going so far as to urge the forcible extradition of Soviet defector Victor Kravchenko to Stalin at the latter's request.
, the Davies took up residence at Tregaron
, where they entertained extensively.
In 1945 Davies was made Special Envoy of President Truman, with rank of Ambassador to confer with Prime Minister Churchill and Special Advisor of President Harry Truman and Secretary of State James F. Byrnes
, with rank of Ambassador at the Potsdam Conference
. His papers from this period deposited in the Library of Congress were long classified documents.
Davies was divorced by his wife Marjorie in 1955. She sold her yacht, the Sea Cloud, to Trujillo. Davies continued to live at his Washington, D.C. home "Tregaron" (named after the village in Wales where his father was born) until his death from cerebral hemorrhage on May 9, 1958.
Ambassador Davies' ashes are buried in the crypt at the National Cathedral, in Washington, DC. He gave both the 50-foot baptistery stained glass window to the Cathedral in honor of his mother, Rachel Davies (Rahel o Fôn)
as well as his collection of Russian icons and chalices for their newly formed museum - created by the Dean of the Cathedral, Frank Sayre (Woodrow Wilson's grandson). These rare articles were sold at auction by Sotheby's in 1976 after Davies' death to cover the Cathedral's debt.
Ambassador
An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....
to represent the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and U.S. Ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg. From 1939 to 1941 Davies was Special assistant to Secretary of State Hull, in charge of War Emergency Problems and Policies. From 1942 through 1946 he was Chairman of President Roosevelt's War Relief Control Board. Ambassador Davies was Special Advisor of President Harry Truman and Secretary of State James F. Byrnes
James F. Byrnes
James Francis Byrnes was an American statesman from the state of South Carolina. During his career, Byrnes served as a member of the House of Representatives , as a Senator , as Justice of the Supreme Court , as Secretary of State , and as the 104th Governor of South Carolina...
with rank of Ambassador at the Potsdam Conference
Potsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
in 1945.
Early life
Davies was born in Watertown, WisconsinWatertown, Wisconsin
Watertown is a city in Dodge and Jefferson counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Most of the city's population is in Jefferson County. Division Street, several blocks north of downtown, marks the county line. The population of Watertown was 21,598 at the 2000 census...
to Edward and Rachel (Paynter) Davies
Rachel Davies (Rahel o Fôn)
Rachel Davies was a Welsh-born lecturer and evangelist preacher who emigrated to the USA. She was the first woman minister ordained in the state of Wisconsin. Rahel o Fôn is the Welsh Bardic name for “Rachel of Anglesey”....
. He attended the University of Wisconsin Law School
University of Wisconsin Law School
The University of Wisconsin Law School is the professional school for the study of law at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Madison, Wisconsin. The law school was founded in 1868.-Facilities:...
from 1898 to 1901, where he graduated with honors. Upon graduation, he returned to Watertown and began a private practice. He served as a delegate to the Wisconsin Democratic Convention in 1902. He moved to Madison
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
in 1907, and became chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin
Democratic Party of Wisconsin
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin. As of 2009, it is headed by state party chairman Mike Tate, who is the youngest chairman of a state party...
.
Davies played an important role in ensuring that the western states and Wisconsin gave Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
their vote at the 1912 Democratic National Convention
1912 Democratic National Convention
The 1912 Democratic National Convention was held at the Fifth Regiment Armory in Baltimore from June 25 to July 2, 1912. It proved to be one of the more memorable United States presidential conventions of the twentieth century. The main candidates were House Speaker Champ Clark of Missouri and...
. Wilson made Davies head of his entire western campaign. As a reward for being critical in winning Wilson the election, Wilson named Davies head of the Bureau of Corporations. Davies was instrumental in the formation of the Bureau's successor organization, the Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...
, and served as its first chairman from 1915 to 1916. At President's Wilson's request when Senator Paul O. Husting
Paul O. Husting
Paul Oscar Husting was a member of the Democratic Party who represented Wisconsin in the United States Senate from 1915 to 1917.-Biography:...
of Wisconsin suddenly died in 1917, Davies retired from the FTC in order to run for the open seat in a special election. He lost to Republican Irvine Lenroot
Irvine Lenroot
Irvine Luther Lenroot was a member of the United States Republican Party who served in the House of Representatives from 1909 to 1918, and in the United States Senate from 1918 to 1927, for the state of Wisconsin. He was also Warren G...
in a pivotal election which denied Democrats control of the U.S. Senate. President Wilson appointed Davies to serve as an economic advisor to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during the Paris Peace Conference
Paris Peace Conference, 1919
The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities...
following World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
After the electoral loss, Davies went into private legal practice in Washington D.C.. In 1933 Rafael Trujillo engaged Davies to work for him when he tried to settle his country's debt.
Davies most famous law case was when he defended former Ford Motor Company stockholders against a $30,000,000 suit the US Treasury Department brought against them for back taxes. Davies proved his clients did not owe the government anything but that his clients were to receive a $3,600,000 refund. The case – which took three years to litigate (from 1924 to 1927) - brought him the largest fee in the history of the D.C. bar, $2,000,000.
Davies represented politicians, labor leaders and minority groups but his specialty was as an antitrust attorney. His corporate clients included Seagrams, National Dairy, Copley Publishing, Anglo-Swiss, Nestle, Fox Films and many others. In 1937 his law firm was: Davies, Richberg, Beebe, Busick and Richardson, in DC.
In 1901 Davies married Mary Emlen Knight, daughter of Civil War Colonel John Henry Knight, a leading conservative Democrat and business associate of William Freeman Vilas
William Freeman Vilas
William Freeman Vilas was a member of the Democratic Party who served in the United States Senate for the state of Wisconsin from 1891 to 1897. He was a prominent Bourbon Democrat....
and Jay Cooke
Jay Cooke
Jay Cooke was an American financier. Cooke and his firm Jay Cooke & Company were most notable for their role in financing the Union's war effort during the American Civil War...
. They were divorced in 1935. His second wife was General Foods
General Foods
General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the USA by Charles William Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The name General Foods was adopted in 1929, after several corporate acquisitions...
heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post
Marjorie Merriweather Post
-External links:******...
, whom he married in 1935; the couple divorced in 1955.
Ambassador to the Soviet Union
Davies was appointed Ambassador to the Soviet Union by Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
and served from 1936-38. His appointment was made in part based on his skills as a Corporate lawyer (Chairman, FTC), and international lawyer, his long time friendship with FDR since the Woodrow Wilson days and for his political loyalty to Roosevelt.
Davies had been asked by FDR to evaluate the strength of the Soviet Army, its government and its industry and to find out if possible which side the Russians would be on in the "coming war."
While Davies' predecessor, William Christian Bullitt, Jr. had been an admirer of the Soviet Union who gradually came to loathe Stalin's brutality and repression, Davies remained unaffected by news of the disappearance of thousands of Russians and foreigners in the Soviet Union throughout his stay as U.S. Ambassador. His reports from the Soviet Union were pragmatic, optimistic, and usually devoid of criticism of Stalin and his policies. While he briefly noted the USSR's 'authoritarian' form of government, Davies praised the nation's boundless natural resources and the contentment of Soviet workers while 'building socialism'. He went on numerous sanitized tours of the country, carefully prearranged by Soviet officials. In one of his final memos from Moscow to Washington D.C., Davies assessed:
- "Communism holds no serious threat to the United States. Friendly relations in the future may be of great general value."
Davies attended some of the Stalinist purge trials
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
of the late 1930s, and despite widespread evidence to the contrary, was convinced of the guilt of the accused, although he was a lawyer himself. His opinions were at odds with most of the non-Stalinist press of the day, as well as those of his own staff, many of whom had been in the country far longer than Davies. The career diplomat Charles Bohlen, who served under Davies in Moscow, later wrote:
- "Ambassador Davies was not noted for an acute understanding of the Soviet system, and he had an unfortunate tendency to take what was presented at the trial as the honest and gospel truth. I still blush when I think of some of the telegrams he sent to the State Department about the trial." (p.51)
- "I can only guess at the motivation for his reporting. He ardently desired to make a success of a pro-Soviet line and was probably reflecting the views of some of Roosevelt's advisors to enhance his political standing at home."(p.52)
When a campaign began in the U.S. to intervene on behalf of Ruth Rubens, an American woman who had disappeared in Moscow and was being held in Butyrskaya Prison
Butyrka prison
Butyrka prison was the central transit prison in pre-Revolutionary Russia, located in Moscow.The first references to Butyrka prison may be traced back to the 17th century. The present prison building was erected in 1879 near the Butyrsk gate on the site of a prison-fortress which had been built...
, the U.S. embassy staff was so upset about Davies’s inaction on behalf of those being arrested and liquidated that they contemplated mass resignation.. Instead, they decided to initiate inquiries on Rubens's behalf. When Davies, who was out of the country, returned to Moscow, he apologized to the Soviet ambassador to the U.S. — and to FDR — for his staff’s attempts to help Rubens.
When Davies’ wife, Marjorie Merriweather Post
Marjorie Merriweather Post
-External links:******...
, was woken up at night by gun blasts from the basement of the building across the street (the guns belonged to Stalin's secret police, the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
, who were in the process of murdering prisoners), her husband would explain that she had merely heard the sound of excavation drills for Stalin’s new Moscow metro subway system. Davies also ignored reports of American citizens being arrested by Stalin's secret police. Even after Americans living in the Soviet Union thronged the gates of the embassy in Moscow to plead for new passports to leave Russia (Stalin had taken their original U.S. passports for 'registration' purposes years before), Davies was unmoved. Though many were communists, others had moved to Soviet Russia as skilled auto workers to help produce cars at the recently-constructed GAZ
GAZ
GAZ or Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod , translated as Gorky Automobile Plant , started in 1932 as NAZ, a cooperation between Ford and the Soviet Union. It is one of the largest companies in the Russian automotive industry....
automobile factory built by the Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
. The American workers, suspected by Stalin of being 'poisoned' by Western influences, were dragged off with the others to Lubyanka Prison by the NKVD in the very same Ford Model A cars they had helped build, where they were tortured and either executed or exiled to Soviet gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
s. Davies refused to lodge even a mild diplomatic protest, and later commented to the media: “The Soviet Union is doing wonderful things. The leaders of the government are an extremely capable, serious, hardworking, and powerful group of men and women.”
After Moscow, Davies was assigned to the post of Ambassador in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
(1938-1939) and Minister to Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
concurrently before being called back to the United States following the declaration of war in 1939. Davies served as a special assistant to Secretary of State Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull was an American politician from the U.S. state of Tennessee. He is best known as the longest-serving Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during much of World War II...
.
Russian Art
During the 1930s, the Soviet government under Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
began selling art treasures and other valuables seized from the Romanov family and other Russian citizens after the Russian revolution in order to earn hard currency
It was later alleged that many works of art from the Tretyakov Gallery
Tretyakov Gallery
The State Tretyakov Gallery is an art gallery in Moscow, Russia, the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world.The gallery's history starts in 1856 when the Moscow merchant Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov acquired works by Russian artists of his day with the aim of creating a collection,...
and other collections were either donated or offered at nominal prices to Joseph E. Davies
Joseph E. Davies
Joseph Edward Davies was appointed by President Wilson to be Commissioner of Corporations in 1912, and First Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission in 1915. He was the second Ambassador to represent the United States in the Soviet Union and U.S. Ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg...
and his wife, who were both art collectors. Davies is also alleged to have purchased art expropriated from Soviet citizens well after the Russian Revolution, including victims of Stalin's Terror
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
at discount prices from Soviet authorities.
Mission to Moscow
Davies' work in the Soviet Union resulted in his popular book, Mission to MoscowMission to Moscow
Mission to Moscow is a book by the former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Joseph E. Davies published by Simon and Schuster in 1941. It was adapted into a film directed by Michael Curtiz in 1943....
. The book -- published by Simon and Schuster in 1941 which sold close to 700,000 copies world wide in many languages -- consists of letters, diary entries, and Davies’ State Department reports between 1936 and 1938, which Roosevelt agreed for Davies to use.
In 1943, the book was adapted as a Warner Brothers movie in starring Walter Huston
Walter Huston
Walter Thomas Huston was a Canadian-born American actor. He was the father of actor and director John Huston and the grandfather of actress Anjelica Huston and actor Danny Huston.-Life and career:...
as Davies and Ann Harding
Ann Harding
Ann Harding was an American theatre, motion picture, radio, and television actress.-Early years:Born Dorothy Walton Gatley at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, to George G. Gatley and Elizabeth "Bessie" Crabb. The daughter of a career army officer, she traveled often during her early life...
as his wife Marjorie Post Davies. As part of his book contract, Davies retained absolute control of the script, and his rejection of the original script caused Warner Brothers to hire a new screenwriter, Howard Koch
Howard Koch (screenwriter)
Howard E. Koch was an American playwright and screenwriter who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950s.-Early Years:...
, to rewrite the script in order to gain Davies' approval. The movie, made during World War II, showed the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
in an extremely positive light. Completed in late April 1943, the film was, in the words of Robert Buckner
Robert Buckner
Robert Buckner was a film screenwriter, producer and short story writer.He wrote the screenplays for films including Knute Rockne All American...
, the film's producer, "an expedient lie for political purposes, glossily covering up important facts with full or partial knowledge of their false presentation...
- I did not fully respect Mr. Davies' integrity, both before, during and after the film. I knew that FDR had brainwashed him..."
The movie whitewashed the Moscow trials
Moscow Trials
The Moscow Trials were a series of show trials conducted in the Soviet Union and orchestrated by Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge of the 1930s. The victims included most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks, as well as the leadership of the Soviet secret police...
, rationalized Moscow's participation in the Nazi-Soviet Pact and its unprovoked invasion of Finland
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
, and portrayed the Soviet Union as a non-totalitarian state that was moving towards the American democratic model, a Soviet Union committed to internationalism. As did the book, the final screenplay portrayed the defendants in the Moscow trials as undeniably guilty. It also showed the purges as an attempt by Stalin to rid his country of pro-German fifth columnists.
The Second Mission to Moscow
In May of 1943 Roosevelt sent Davies on a second Mission to Moscow. He was gone 27 days and traveled 25,779 carrying a secret letter from the President to Stalin. Because of the war raging in Europe, Davies could not fly over Europe and so flew from New York to Brazil, to Dakar; Luxor, Egypt; Baghdad, Iraq; Teheran, Iran; Kuibyshev, Russia; Stalingrad, Russia and on to Moscow. He returned to the States via Novosibirsk and Alaska.FDR wanted to discuss matters with Stalin--one on one--and felt that setting up such a meeting could be done more easily through a mutual and trusted friend--Davies. In the letter, FDR was asking for a visit between himself and Stalin where they could talk over matters without restraint. It would only include an interpreter and stenographer. Prime Minister Churchill and Foreign Minister Eden had often met with Stalin and Molotov. FDR and Secretary Hull had not. Stalin agreed to a meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska on July 15th or August 15th. He asked that Davies stress to FDR that Hitler was massing his armies for an all-out drive and that they needed more of everything through Lend-Lease.
Davies was surprised to find much the same hostility and what he regarded as prejudice in the Moscow Diplomatic Crops (toward the Russians) as when he was in Moscow between 1937-1938. He urged them that public criticism of America's ally (Russia) might be harmful to the war effort. Davies continued to ardently promote Stalin's interests and requests for assistance during the war, even going so far as to urge the forcible extradition of Soviet defector Victor Kravchenko to Stalin at the latter's request.
Postwar career
Following World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Davies took up residence at Tregaron
Tregaron (estate)
Tregaron is a estate in Washington, D. C..The property, originally part of a larger estate, "Twin Oaks", was bought by Gardiner Greene Hubbard, founder of the National Geographic Society, in the 1880s, and named "The Causeway". His daughter Mabel married Alexander Graham Bell, and inherited the...
, where they entertained extensively.
In 1945 Davies was made Special Envoy of President Truman, with rank of Ambassador to confer with Prime Minister Churchill and Special Advisor of President Harry Truman and Secretary of State James F. Byrnes
James F. Byrnes
James Francis Byrnes was an American statesman from the state of South Carolina. During his career, Byrnes served as a member of the House of Representatives , as a Senator , as Justice of the Supreme Court , as Secretary of State , and as the 104th Governor of South Carolina...
, with rank of Ambassador at the Potsdam Conference
Potsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
. His papers from this period deposited in the Library of Congress were long classified documents.
Davies was divorced by his wife Marjorie in 1955. She sold her yacht, the Sea Cloud, to Trujillo. Davies continued to live at his Washington, D.C. home "Tregaron" (named after the village in Wales where his father was born) until his death from cerebral hemorrhage on May 9, 1958.
Ambassador Davies' ashes are buried in the crypt at the National Cathedral, in Washington, DC. He gave both the 50-foot baptistery stained glass window to the Cathedral in honor of his mother, Rachel Davies (Rahel o Fôn)
Rachel Davies (Rahel o Fôn)
Rachel Davies was a Welsh-born lecturer and evangelist preacher who emigrated to the USA. She was the first woman minister ordained in the state of Wisconsin. Rahel o Fôn is the Welsh Bardic name for “Rachel of Anglesey”....
as well as his collection of Russian icons and chalices for their newly formed museum - created by the Dean of the Cathedral, Frank Sayre (Woodrow Wilson's grandson). These rare articles were sold at auction by Sotheby's in 1976 after Davies' death to cover the Cathedral's debt.
Honors
- United States - Medal for Merit, 1946
- USSR - Order of Lenin
- France Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, May 1950
- Belgium Grand Cordon de l'Ordre de Léopold, Feb 1940
- Awards from the governments of Luxembourg; Greece; Yugoslavia; the Dominican Republic; Peru; Panama; and Mexico.
Further reading
- Davies, Joseph Edward, Mission to Moscow, Simon and Schuster, 1941.
- Maclean, Elizabeth Kimball, Joseph E. Davies: Envoy To The Soviets, Praeger Publishers, February 1993, ISBN 0-275-93580-9
- Catalogue of the Joseph E. Davies Collection of Russian Paintings and Icons Presented to The University of Wisconsin; Catalogue issued by the Alumni Association of the University of Wisconsin of the City of New York, 1938
- Maclean, Elizabeth Kimball, Joseph E. Davies and Soviet-American Relations under The Truman Administration; Paper for the American Historical Association - 98th Meeting, San Francisco, December 27-30, 1983
- Maclean, Elizabeth Kimball, Joseph E. Davies: The Wisconsin Idea and the Origins of the Federal Trade Commission;The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era - Volume 6, Number 3, July 2007
- Department of Commerce - Bureau of Corporations, "TRUST LAWS AND UNFAIR COMPETITION" - Joseph E. Davies, Commissioner of Corporations - March 15th 1915 (832 page tome - out of print)
- Library of Congress: Joseph Edward Davies Papers http://www.loc.gov/rr/mss/text/davies.html
External links
- United State Embassy, Russia. US Ministers and Ambassadors to Russia
- Political Graveyard Web Site
- Mission to Moscow (AMC Network)
- Joe Davies Foundation
- Joseph E. Davies Collection - Chazen Museum of Art University of Wisconsin, Madison