Welles Declaration
웰스 선언
A statement issued on 23 July 1940 by Sumner Welles, the acting US Secretary of State, condemning the Soviet army’s occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in June 1940 and refusing to recognise their annexation into the Soviet Union; it began the US policy of non-recognition that lasted until 1991.
In depth
An application of the Stimson Doctrine of 1932, which refused to recognise territorial changes made by force, the declaration was strengthened by Welles in consultation with President Franklin D. Roosevelt from a State Department draft. The United States had frozen the Baltic states’ assets on 15 July, and after the declaration it continued to recognise their envoys as representatives of sovereign governments.
The declaration became a point of contention within the American–British–Soviet alliance, but Welles defended it, writing in 1942 that the annexation was “not only indefensible from every moral standpoint, but likewise extraordinarily stupid.” The United States did not confront the Soviet Union militarily, but the declaration enabled the Baltic states to maintain independent diplomatic missions, and Executive Order 8484 protected their financial assets. Its essence was upheld by every later US president and by congressional resolutions.