Edward R. Stettinius, Jr.

October 22, 1900 – October 31, 1949

Edward Stettinius, the son of J.P. Morgan partner and Assistant Secretary of War Edward Stettinius, Sr., attended very few classes in his days as a student at the University of Virginia, preferring to volunteer his time working on behalf of poor families. Though he never graduated, he went on to a distinguished career at General Motors, where he first came into contact with Franklin Roosevelt. Stettinius was heavily involved in employment relief programs, and this zeal for public service brought him to Roosevelt’s attention during the New Deal era. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Stettinius’ career would take him back and forth between the public and private sector several times, through various positions within the New Deal, the Council of National Defense, and the Office of Production Management, and ultimately to Chairman of the Board of Directors of one of the most powerful corporations in America, U.S. Steel. When longtime Secretary of State Cordell Hull resigned due to poor health in 1944, Roosevelt tapped Stettinius for the job. He took office on December 1, 1944, giving him a mere two months to prepare for one of the most complex foreign policy negotiations in modern history: the Yalta Conference. After the war, foreign policy would remain a fixture of Stettinius’ career. He would go on to become the first Ambassador to the United Nations and was instrumental in bringing American investment to Liberia.

Photograph: Wikimedia commons, public domain