Historians in Politics: Carlton J. H. Hayes as American Ambassador to Spain 1942-45

Abstract

In March 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked the eminent historian Carlton J. H. Hayes to become United States ambassador to Spain.1 Dr Hayes never ascertained who recommended him to the Chief Executive but the Columbia University professor assumed he had been nominated because he was a scholar of European history and a Roman Catholic.2 Hayes was reluctant to accept the ambassadorship but he decided to take the assignment because he viewed it as a patriotic obligation in time of war.3 He also regarded the posting as a challenge, an attitude encouraged by Roosevelt and others. The idea of selecting Hayes may have originated with the President. For at least a year, Roosevelt had been drawing the conduct of American foreign relations more and more into his own hands. A facet of this process was the President's replacement of 'independent' ambassadors with inconspicuous amateurs, a development that presumably would give the Chief Executive a freer hand in diplomacy.4 As Hayes' appointment was non-political and the professor inexperienced in official work, the choice may have seemed an ideal one. Of course Roosevelt realized that the ambassadorship in Spain required a delicate touch. Events since the collapse of France had made Spain and the actions of its government strategically significant. That regime, led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco, had never been warm towards the United States and such amity as had existed had dwindled after the drastic shift in the European balance of power in 1940. Yet the rulers of this 'new Spain' probably had no serious objections to Hayes. It was true that during the Spanish Civil War he had broken with some American Catholics because of their unqualified support of