TheWelles Declaration was a diplomatic statement issued on 23 July 1940, bySumner Welles, the then actingUS Secretary of State, condemning theJune 1940 occupation by theSoviet army of the threeBaltic countries –Estonia,Latvia, andLithuania – and refusing todiplomatically recognize their subsequentannexation into theSoviet Union.[1] It was an application of the 1932Stimson Doctrine of nonrecognition of international territorial changes that were executed by force[2] and was consistent with US PresidentFranklin Roosevelt's attitude towards violent territorial expansion.[3]
The 1940 Soviet invasion was an implementation of its 23 August 1939Nazi-Soviet Pact, which contained a secret protocol by whichNazi Germany andStalinist USSR agreed to partition the independent nations between them. After the pact, the Soviets engaged in aseries of ultimatums and actions ending in the annexation of the Baltic states during the summer of 1940. The area held little strategic importance to the United States, but several legations of theUS State Department had established diplomatic relationships there. The United States and theUnited Kingdom anticipated future involvement in the war, butUS non-interventionism and a foreseeable British–Soviet alliance deterred open confrontation over the Baltic states.
Welles, concerned with postwar border planning, had been authorized by Roosevelt to issue stronger public statements that gauged a move towards more intervention.Loy Henderson and other State Department officials familiar with the area kept the administration informed of developments there, and Henderson, Welles, and Roosevelt worked together to compose the declaration.
The declaration established a five-decade nonrecognition of the annexation.[4] The document had major significance for overall US policy toward Europe in the critical year of 1940.[5] The US did not engage the Soviet Union militarily in the region, but the declaration enabled the Baltic states to maintain independent diplomatic missions, andExecutive Order 8484 protected Baltic financial assets. Its essence was supported by all subsequent US presidents and congressional resolutions.
The Baltic states fully restored independence in 1990–1991.
From the late 18th into the early 20th century, theRussian Empire annexed the regions that are now the three Baltic states as well as Finland. The 19th centuryEstonian Age of Awakening, theLatvian National Awakening, and theLithuanian National Revival expressed their wishes to create independent states. Their national awareness movements began to gain strength, and the three countries declared their independence in the wake ofWorld War I. Lithuaniadeclared independence on 16 February 1918; Estonia on24 February 1918; and Latvia on18 November 1918. All three states were admitted into theLeague of Nations in 1921.[6]
Although Baltic states often were seen as a unified group, they have dissimilar languages and histories.[6] Lithuaniawas recognized as a state in 1253, and Estonia and Latvia emerged from territories held by theState of the Teutonic Order and other vassal states of theHoly Roman Empire (from early 1200s until 1562).
The U.S. had granted fullde jure recognition to all three Baltic states by July 1922. The recognitions were granted during the shift from theDemocratic administration ofWoodrow Wilson to theRepublican administration ofWarren Harding.[4] The U.S. did not sponsor any meaningful political or economic initiatives in the region during the interwar period, and its administrations did not consider the states to be strategically important, but the country maintained normal diplomatic relations with all three.[7]
The U.S. had suffered over 100,000 deaths during the war[8] and pursued anon-interventionist policy since it was determined to avoid involvement in any further European conflicts.[7] In 1932, however, U.S. Secretary of StateHenry L. Stimson formally criticized the 1931Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and the resultingStimson Doctrine would go on to serve as a basis for the Welles declaration.[9]
The situation changed after the outbreak ofWorld War II. Polandwas invaded in September 1939. TheUnited Kingdom became involved, and the series of German victories inDenmark, Norway, and theNetherlands during spring 1940 were alarming. Britain was clearly threatened, and its leadership discussed the possibility of an alliance with the Soviet Union.[10] Under the circumstances, direct British confrontation over the Baltic states was difficult.[10]
Roosevelt did not wish to lead the U.S. into the war, and his 1937Quarantine Speech indirectly denouncing aggression byItaly and Japan had met mixed responses. Welles felt freer in that regard and looking towards postwar border issues and the establishment of an American-led international body that could intervene in such disputes.[11][page needed] Roosevelt saw Welles's stronger public statements as experiments that would test the public mood towards American foreign policy.[11][page needed]
The secret protocol contained in the 1939Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union had relegated Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to the Sovietsphere of influence. In late 1939 and early 1940, the Soviet Union issued a series ofultimatums to the Baltic governments that eventually led to theillegal annexation of the states.[7] (At about the same time, the Soviet Union was exerting similarpressure onFinland.) About 30,000 Soviet troops entered the Baltic states during June 1940, followed by arrests of their leaders and citizens.[12]
Elections to "People's Assemblies" were held in all three states in mid-July; the Soviet-sponsored slates received between 92.2% and 99.2% of the vote.[13] In June,John Cooper Wiley of the State Department sent coded telegrams to Washington reporting developments in the Baltics, and the reports influenced Welles.[14] The U.S. responded with a July 15 amendment toExecutive Order 8389 that froze the assets of the Baltic states, grouped them with German-occupied countries, and issued the condemnatory Welles Declaration.[4]
The Welles Declaration was written byLoy W. Henderson in consultation with Welles and Roosevelt. Welles would go on to participate in the creation of theAtlantic Charter, which stated that territorial adjustments should be made in accordance with the wishes of the peoples concerned.[15] He increasingly served as acting Secretary of State duringCordell Hull's illnesses.[16] Henderson, the State Department's Director of the Office of European Affairs, was married to aLatvian woman.[17] He had opened anAmerican Red Cross office inKaunas, Lithuania, after World War I and served in the Eastern European Division of the State Department for 18 years.[18]
In a conversation on the morning of July 23, Welles asked Henderson to prepare a press release "expressing sympathy for the people of the Baltic States and condemnation of the Soviet action."[18][19] After reviewing the statement's initial draft, Welles emphatically expressed his opinion that it was not strong enough. In the presence of Henderson, Welles called Roosevelt and read the draft to him. Roosevelt and Welles agreed that it needed strengthening. Welles then reformulated several sentences and added others which apparently had been suggested by Roosevelt. According to Henderson, "President Roosevelt was indignant at the manner in which the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic States and personally approved the condemnatory statement issued by Under Secretary Welles on the subject."[18] The declaration was made public and telegraphed to the U.S. Embassy inMoscow later that day.[18][20]
The statement read:[2]
During these past few days the devious processes whereunder the political independence and territorial integrity of the three small Baltic Republics – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – were to be deliberately annihilated by one of their more powerful neighbors, have been rapidly drawing to their conclusion.
From the day when the peoples of those Republics first gained their independent and democratic form of government the people of the United States have watched their admirable progress in self-government with deep and sympathetic interest.
The policy of this Government is universally known. The people of the United States are opposed to predatory activities no matter whether they are carried on by the use of force or by the threat of force. They are likewise opposed to any form of intervention on the part of one state, however powerful, in the domestic concerns of any other sovereign state, however weak.
These principles constitute the very foundations upon which the existing relationship between the twenty-one sovereign republics of the New World rests.
The United States will continue to stand by these principles, because of the conviction of the American people that unless the doctrine in which these principles are inherent once again governs the relations between nations, the rule of reason, of justice and of law – in other words, the basis of modern civilization itself – cannot be preserved.
Welles also announced that the US government would continue to recognize theforeign ministers of the Baltic countries as the envoys of sovereign governments.[21] Meanwhile, the Department of State instructed US representatives to withdraw from the Baltic states for "consultations".[21] In 1940,The New York Times described the declaration as "one of the most exceptional diplomatic documents issued by the Department of State in many years."[21]
The declaration was a source of contention during the subsequent alliance between the Americans, the British, and the Soviets, but Welles persistently defended it.[22] In a discussion with the media, he asserted that the Soviets had maneuvered to give "an odor of legality to acts of aggression for purposes of the record."[21][2] In a memorandum describing his conversations with British AmbassadorLord Halifax in 1942, Welles stated that he would have preferred to characterize theplebiscites supporting the annexations as "faked".[23] In April 1942 he wrote that the annexation was "not only indefensible from every moral standpoint, but likewise extraordinarily stupid." He interpreted any concession in the Baltic issue as a precedent that would lead to further border struggles in eastern Poland and elsewhere.[24]
As the war intensified, Roosevelt accepted the need for Soviet assistance and was reluctant to address postwar territorial conflicts.[25][26] During the 1943Tehran Conference, he "jokingly" assuredStalin that when Soviet forces reoccupied Baltic countries, "he did not intend to go to war with the Soviet Union on this point." However, he explained, "the question of referendum and the right ofself-determination" would constitute a matter of great importance for the Americans.[27] Despite his work with Soviet representatives in the early 1940s to forward the alliance, Welles saw Roosevelt's andChurchill's lack of commitment as dangerous.[26]
The declaration linked American foreign policy towards the Baltic states with theStimson Doctrine, which did not recognize the 1930s Japanese, German and Italian occupations.[28] It broke withWilsonian policies, which had supported a strong Russian presence as a counterweight to German power.[12][1] During theCold War, the Baltic issue was used as a point of leverage in American–Soviet relations.[1]
SirHersch Lauterpacht, a judge of international law, described the basis of the nonrecognition doctrine as being founded on the principles ofex injuria jus non oritur:
This construction of non-recognition is based on the view that acts contrary to international law are invalid and cannot become a source of legal rights for the wrongdoer. That view applies to international law one of "the general principles of law recognized by civilized nation." The principle ex injuria jus non oritur is one of the fundamental maxims of jurisprudence. An illegality cannot, as a rule, become a source of legal right to the wrongdoer.[29]
Like the Stimson Doctrine, Welles's declaration was largely symbolic in nature, but it offered some material benefits in conjunction withExecutive Order 8484, which enabled the diplomatic representatives of the Baltic states in various other countries to fund their operations, and it protected the ownership of ships flying Baltic flags.[30] By establishing the policy, the executive order allowed some 120,000 postwardisplaced persons from the Baltic states to avoid repatriation to the Soviet Union and to advocate independence from abroad.[31][32]
The American position that the Baltic states had been forcibly annexed would remain its official stance for 51 years. Subsequent presidents and congressional resolutions reaffirmed the substance of the declaration.[28] PresidentDwight Eisenhower asserted the right of the Baltic states to independence in an address to theU.S. Congress on January 6, 1957. After confirming theHelsinki Accords in July 1975, theU.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution that it would not affect U.S. recognition of the sovereignty of Baltic states.[28]
On July 26, 1983, on the 61st anniversary ofde jure recognition of the three Baltic countries by the U.S. in 1922, PresidentRonald Reagan re-declared the recognition of the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The declaration was read in the United Nations as well.[28] Throughout the 51 years that followed the 1940occupation of the Baltic states, all U.S. official maps and publications that mentioned the Baltic states included a statement of U.S. non-recognition of Soviet occupation.[28]
The independence movements in the states in the 1980s and the 1990 succeeded, and the United Nations recognized all three in 1991.[33] They went on to become members of theEuropean Union andNATO. Their development since independence is generally regarded as the most successful among post-Soviet states.[34][35]
Commenting on the declaration's 70th anniversary, U.S. Secretary of StateHillary Clinton described it as "a tribute to each of our countries' commitment to the ideals of freedom and democracy."[36] On July 23, 2010, acommemorative plaque inscribed with its text in English and Lithuanian was formally dedicated inVilnius, the Lithuanian capital.[37]
