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Philip Bonsal
United States Ambassador to Morocco
In office May 24, 1961 – August 8, 1962
President	John F. Kennedy
Preceded by	Charles Woodruff Yost
Succeeded by	John H. Ferguson
United States Ambassador to Cuba
In office March 3, 1959 – October 28, 1960
President	Dwight D. Eisenhower
Preceded by	Earl E. T. Smith
Succeeded by	Jeffrey DeLaurentis (Acting, in 2015)
United States Ambassador to Bolivia
In office May 10, 1957 – February 6, 1959
President	Dwight D. Eisenhower
Preceded by	Gerald A. Drew
Succeeded by	Carl W. Strom
United States Ambassador to Colombia
In office April 1, 1955 – April 24, 1957
President	Dwight D. Eisenhower
Preceded by	Rudolf E. Schoenfeld
Succeeded by	John M. Cabot
Personal details
Born	Philip Wilson Bonsal (1903-05-22)May 22, 1903 New York City, U.S.
Died	June 28, 1995(1995-06-28) (aged 92) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Spouse	Margaret Lockett
Parent(s)	Stephen Bonsal Henrietta Morris
Relatives	Dudley Baldwin Bonsal (brother) Gouverneur Morris Jr. (great-grandfather) Gouverneur Morris (great-great-grandfather)

Philip Wilson Bonsal (May 22, 1903 – June 28, 1995) was an American career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State. A specialist on Latin America, he served as United States Ambassador to Cuba from February 1959 until October 1960, the first months of the Castro regime.

Early years

Bonsal was born in New York City on May 22, 1903. His father was Stephen Bonsal (1865–1951), a well-known journalist who served several years in the US diplomatic corps, wrote several books, and won a Pulitzer Prize. The Bonsals descended from English Quakers who participated in founding the colony of Pennsylvania in 1682. His mother was Henrietta Morris, a descendant of Gouverneur Morris, a leader in the American Revolution. He had three brothers, including New York judge Dudley Baldwin Bonsal.

Bonsal's early education took place in the Philippines and Switzerland. He graduated from Yale in 1924.

Bonsal married Margaret Lockett of Knoxville, Tennessee, circa 1929.

After living in Cuba for several months as a student trainee with the Cuban Telephone Company, Bonsal worked in Spain and Chile for its parent company, International Telephone & Telegraph, rising to become chief of its Latin American Division. He then entered government service as a specialist in telephone services with the Federal Communications Commission, where he remained from 1935 to 1937.

Bonsal was fluent in Spanish.

Diplomatic service

Bonsal joined the State Department in 1937. He was Vice Consul and Third Secretary in the US embassy in Havana in 1938 and 1939, followed by a year in Washington as Cuban desk officer at the State Department.

While on the staff of the US embassy in Bolivia in 1944, he tried without success to persuade the State Department to ignore the rhetoric of Bolivia's radical opposition parties, which he excused as reflexive opposition to the recently ousted pro-American regime of Enrique Peñaranda. He told Secretary of State Cordell Hull that the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) embodied the "legitimate and respectable... aspirations of certain sectors of the Bolivian people." Instead, the US forced President Gualberto Villarroel to remove members of the MNR from his cabinet.

Bonsal served as an adviser at the 1954 Geneva Conference on Korea and Indochina.

Colombia

Eisenhower nominated Bonsal as United States Ambassador to Colombia in February 1955. The US Senate confirmed the appointment on February 11, and he presented his credentials on April 1. He maintained friendly relations with opposition politicians, angering Colombian dictator General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, who persuaded the State Department to reassign him.

In January 1957, representing the US at the United Nations General Assembly's Special Political Committee, he supported a Philippine proposal, endorsed by representatives of Peru, Nepal, and other nations, for the UN to modify its confrontational approach in fighting apartheid in South Africa and to shift to tactics that would promote discussion and recognize the problem of racial discrimination in other countries as well.

Eisenhower nominated him as United States Ambassador to Bolivia on March 18, 1957. He concluded his service in Colombia on April 24, 1957.

Bolivia

Bonsal served as United States Ambassador to Bolivia from 1957 to 1959. He wholeheartedly supported the US economic assistance program under way there, which he later described as a "pioneer" and "solitary example" of what was required of the US in Latin America.

Cuba

In January 1959, Eisenhower named Bonsal United States Ambassador to Cuba just days after Fidel Castro came to power. The New York Times called his appointment "a splendid choice" and described him as "a distinguished career diplomat" with "every qualification that could be asked for the difficult and gratifying task he is taking on." Bonsal's predecessor, Earl E. T. Smith, had maintained friendly relations with Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista and was quickly recalled by the State Department after Batista's ouster. It has been argued that the choice of Bonsal signaled an intention on the part of the State Department to defuse the Cuban Revolution in the same way that it had defused the Bolivian Revolution of 1952.

Bonsal attempted to find a working arrangement with the leader of the new government. Bonsal admitted that "animosity was inevitable" but that he was hopeful that "at some point we can get down to a reasoned dialogue." Castro was critical of the arrival of Bonsal in the Cuban press and compared him to a colonial viceroy, and dialogue was not easily forthcoming.

When Bonsal testified before a closed session of the House Committee on Foreign Relations in May 1959, he explained why the revolution had such widespread popular support: "the corruption and the sadism of many Batista henchmen united most Cubans against the regime." He described how Batista's security forces had killed many while "many, many more were arrested on no charges and kept in jail for indefinite periods."

In August, he protested to Secretary of State Herter that Cuban-American relations were being poisoned by the fact that the US was allowing several hundred Batista allies to live in the country, which appeared to the Cubans as harboring counter-revolutionaries. He urged them to be forced to "move on to some other country."

On September 3, 1959, Bonsal met with Castro and express concern that American businesses, which had complied fully with the Land Reform Law, were concerned that government agents were acting arbitrarily and without legal sanction. He complained of anti-American comments by Guevara, who was then on a world tour. Castro advised patience and forbearance with "the exuberances of young and inexperienced revolutionaries."

In October 1959, Castro called the US "accomplices" of Batista loyalists forces who had launched air attacks on Cuba. Bonsal lodged a formal protest with Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticós on October 27 and blamed Castro for the deterioration of relations.

In mid-1960, the Cuban government reached an agreement to sell 700,000 tons of sugar to the Soviet Union, leading to a series of escalating actions by the US and Cuba. The US suspended sugar imports, Cuba nationalized American-owned businesses, and on October 19, the US imposed an embargo on US exports to Cuba except for food and medicine. Bonsal thought the Eisenhower administration was over-reacting and forcing Castro into an alliance with the Soviets.

After Castro called for a reduction in the staff of the US embassy in Havana, Bonsal was recalled to Washington in October 1960.

Formal diplomatic relations between the two countries were severed shortly afterward, and US diplomatic representation in Cuba was handled by the United States Interests Section in Havana, part of the embassy of Switzerland. That arrangement lasted until July 20, 2015, with the culmination of the Cuban Thaw.

Some leading members of the US Congress felt his attempt at a conciliatory approach to the Castro regime represented an appeasement of communism.

Morocco

Bonsal was United States Ambassador to Morocco from 1961 to 1962. He retired from government service in 1965.

Later years

As of 1971, he called for "disengagement from a bankrupt Vietnam policy" by noting that China and Russia had invested comparatively modest resources in the conflict, compared to the American loss of 40,000 lives. He hoped that all the major powers would nevertheless recognize that "big-power confrontation by proxy is so repulsively destructive of the welfare of the proxies as to render its repetition elsewhere inconceivable".

He also described the Pentagon Papers as "stolen property" and objected to those who ignored the violation of government secrecy standards because the revelations supported their political judgment.

Bonsal published a memoir, "Cuba, Castro and the United States," in 1971.

Bonsal died of pneumonia on June 28, 1995, at the age of 92. He was survived by his wife.

His papers are held by the Library of Congress.

See also

• Cuba-United States relations
• History of Cuba

Notes

1. Stephen Bonsal covered the Spanish–American War and many other conflicts for the New York Herald and reported on the revolution in Mexico for the New York Times in 1910–1911. He spent several years in the U.S. diplomatic corps and served as President Wilson's translator at the Paris Peace Conference. Among his eight books, his memoir of the Versailles Peace Conference won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1945.

References

1. ^ "Col. Bonsal Dead; Journalist was 86" (PDF). New York Times. June 9, 1951. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
2. "A Voice for Liberty: Dudley Baldwin Bonsal" (PDF). New York Times. July 9, 1956. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
3. "Mrs. Stephen Bonsal" (PDF). New York Times. July 17, 1955. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
4. "Stephen Bonsal Jr., Set 1918 Air Record" (PDF). New York Times. October 29, 1950. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
5. ^ Binder, David (July 1, 1985). "Philip W. Bonsal, 92, Last U.S. Envoy to Cuba". New York Times. Retrieved January 21, 2016.
6. Kenworthy, E.W. (January 14, 1959). "U.S. Said to Pick Envoy to Havana" (PDF). New York Times. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
7. ^ Bonsal, Philip W. (1971). Cuba, Castro, and the United States. University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 26–7.
8. Bonsal, Philip W. (1971). Cuba, Castro, and the United States. University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 46.
9. Dorn, Glenn J. (2011). The Truman Administration and Bolivia. Pennsylvania State University Press. p. 16.
10. ^ "Ambassador Nominated" (PDF). New York Times. February 5, 1955. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
11. "Envoy to Colombia Confirmed" (PDF). New York Times. February 12, 1955. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
12. McLaughlin, Kathleen (January 17, 1957). "U.S. Eases Stand on South Africa" (PDF). New York Times. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
13. "Sentae Unit Vote Backs Whittaker" (PDF). New York Times. March 19, 1957. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
14. "Havana and Washington" (PDF). New York Times. January 23, 1959. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
15. Rabe, Stephen G. (1988). Eisenhower and Latin America: The Foreign Policy of Anticommunism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina press. p. 126. ISBN 0807842044.
16. Diplomat Recalls Cuba Break in 1961 Wayne Smith Library of Congress country notes According to reports
17. Cuba: The United States and Batista, 1952-58 Hugh Thomas
18. Colhoun, Jack (2013). Gangsterismo: The United States, Cuba and the Mafia, 1933 to 1966. OR Books. ISBN 9781935928904.
19. Colhoun, Jack (2013). Gangsterismo: The United States, Cuba and the Mafia, 1933 to 1966. OR Books. ISBN 9781935928904.
20. Bonsal, Philip W. (1971). Cuba, Castro, and the United States. University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 89–91.
21. Colhoun, Jack (2013). Gangsterismo: The United States, Cuba and the Mafia, 1933 to 1966. OR Books. ISBN 9781935928904.
22. Colhoun, Jack (2013). Gangsterismo: The United States, Cuba and the Mafia, 1933 to 1966. OR Books. ISBN 9781935928904.
23. Bonsal, Philip W. (August 6, 1971). "Perspective on Papers" (PDF). New York Times. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
24. Raymont, Henry (November 14, 1971). "U.S. Shift on Cuba in 1960 Detailed" (PDF). New York Times. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
25. "Philip W. Bonsal papers, 1914-1992". Library of Congress. Retrieved January 31, 2016.

External links

• U.S. Dept. of State, Office of the Historian: Philip Wilson Bonsal (1903–1995)

v t e United States ambassadors to Colombia
Gran Colombia
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary	Anderson Watts (chargé d'affaires) Harrison Moore
Republic of New Granada
Chargé d'Affaires	McAfee Semple Blackford Bidlack Foote King Green
Minister Resident	Bowlin Jones
United States of Colombia
Minister Resident	Burton Sullivan Hurlbut Scruggs Dichman Maney
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary	Scruggs Jacob
Republic of Colombia
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary	Maury Abbott McKinney Hart Beaupre Russell Barrett T. Dawson Northcott DuBois Thompson Philip Piles Caffery Whitehouse W. Dawson
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary	Braden Lane Wiley Beaulac Waynick Schoenfeld Bonsal Cabot McIntosh Freeman Oliver Carlson Vaughn Saccio Vaky Sanchez Asencio Boyatt Tambs Gillespie McNamara Busby Frechette Kamman Patterson Wood Brownfield McKinley Whitaker Goldberg Palmieri (chargé d'affaires)

v t e United States ambassadors to Spain
Ministers Plenipotentiary to Spain (1779–1825)	Jay Carmichael (chargé d'affaires) Short Humphreys Pinckney Erving Erving Forsyth Nelson
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain (1825–1913)	Everett Van Ness Eaton Vail (chargé d'affaires) Irving Saunders Barringer Soulé Dodge Preston Schurz Koerner Hale Sickles Cushing Lowell Fairchild Hamlin Foster Curry Belmont Palmer Grubb Snowden Taylor Woodford Storer Hardy Collier Ide
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Spain (1913–present)	Willard Woods Moore Hammond Laughlin Bowers Matthews (chargé d'affaires) Weddell Hayes Armour Bonsal Culbertson (chargé d'affaires) Griffis MacVeagh Dunn Lodge Biddle Woodward Duke Wagner Hill Rivero Penn Stabler Todman Enders Bartholomew Zappala Capen Gardner Romero Argyros Aguirre Solomont Costos Buchan Pantaleón

v t e Cuba–United States relations
Diplomatic posts	Embassy of Cuba, Washington, D.C. Ambassadors of Cuba to the United States Embassy of the United States, Havana Ambassadors of the United States to Cuba United States Interests Section in Havana Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs
Diplomacy	Cuban–American Treaty of Relations (1903) Hay-Quesada Treaty Cuban–American Treaty of Relations (1934) Good Neighbor policy Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance El Diálogo Cuba–United States Maritime Boundary Agreement Tripartite Accord (1988) Cuban thaw JetBlue Flight 387
Conflicts	Spanish–American War Ostend Manifesto USS Maine Monument to the Victims of the USS Maine (Havana) United States Senate Committee on Cuban Relations The Paquete Habana Army of Cuban Occupation Medal Propaganda United States Military Government in Cuba Second Occupation of Cuba Cuban Pacification Medal (Army) Banana Wars Negro Rebellion Sugar Intervention Cuban Revolution Aftermath La Coubre explosion Cuban exodus Cuban exile Golden exile Bay of Pigs Invasion Brigade 2506 Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front Cuban Revolutionary Council Operation 40 Operation Mongoose Operation Northwoods Operation Ortsac Operation Peter Pan JMWAVE Polita Grau José Antonio Llama Bay of Pigs Monument Bay of Pigs Museum Jamaican political conflict United States invasion of Grenada United States embargo against Cuba
Incidents	Cubana de Aviación Flight 493 Matthew Edward Duke Cuban Missile Crisis Crateology Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino Zemel v. Rusk Cuba–United States aircraft hijackings Pan Am Flight 281 Trans World Airlines Flight 106 Southern Airways Flight 49 Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 Leyla Express and Johnny Express incidents Mariel boatlift Garcia-Mir v. Meese Cuban boat people Sandy Pollack Regan v. Wald 1994 Cuban rafter crisis Operations Safe Haven and Safe Passage Bill Gaede 1996 shootdown of Brothers to the Rescue aircraft Cuban Five Elián González Ana Montes Carlos Alvarez Elsa Alvarez Kendall Myers Alan Gross Havana syndrome American fugitives in Cuba Assassination attempts on Fidel Castro
Legislation	Teller Amendment Platt Amendment Cuban Assets Control Regulations Cuban Adjustment Act Wet feet, dry feet policy Helms–Burton Act Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act Cuban Democracy Act Trade Sanction Reform and Export Enhancement Act
Related	Americans in Cuba Cuban Americans Little Havana Cuban migration to Miami Havana on the Hudson Cuban–American lobby Guantánamo Bay Timeline Guantanamo Bay Naval Base Guantanamo Bay detention camp 1999 Baltimore Orioles–Cuba national baseball team exhibition series Alpha 66 Antonio Maceo Brigade Brothers to the Rescue Balseros Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba Congressional Cuba Democracy Caucus Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations Cuban American National Foundation Cuban dissident movement Cuban Liberty Council CubaOne Foundation Cuban Power Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil Engage Cuba Fair Play for Cuba Committee Friends of Democratic Cuba Havana Jam Omega 7 Radio Free Dixie Radio y Televisión Martí US-Cuba Democracy PAC Varela Project Venceremos Brigade ZunZuneo Cuban football players who defected to the United States Filibuster (military) NOAAS Oregon II (R 332) Silver certificate Troika of tyranny Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame Boquerón, Cuba Straits of Florida Third Border Initiative State Sponsors of Terrorism United States and state-sponsored terrorism Luis Posada Carriles Orlando Bosch Cuba–OAS relations United Nations Security Council Resolution 144 Overthrow The Cuba Wars Balseros 638 Ways to Kill Castro
Category:Cuba–United States relations

• 1903 births
• 1995 deaths
• Morris family of Morrisania and New Jersey
• Diplomats from New York City
• Yale University alumni
• 20th-century American diplomats
• Ambassadors of the United States to Bolivia
• Ambassadors of the United States to Colombia
• Ambassadors of the United States to Cuba
• Ambassadors of the United States to Morocco
• United States Foreign Service personnel
• American people of Powhatan descent