Hull, Cordell (1871-1955)

US Democratic politician. As F D Roosevelt's secretary of state 1933-44, he was a vigorous champion of free trade, and opposed German and Japanese aggression. He was identified with the Good Neighbor policy of nonintervention in Latin America. An advocate of collective security after World War II, he was called by Roosevelt ‘the father of the United Nations’. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1945 for his work in organizing the United Nations (UN).

He was a member of Congress 1907-33. After December 1941 foreign policy was handled more directly by Roosevelt, but Hull was active in reaching agreements with Vichy France, though these were largely cancelled by the rising influence of General Charles de Gaulle.

Hull was born in Olympus, Tennessee, graduated from Cumberland University and became a lawyer. He served as a captain in the Spanish-American War in 1898. He was a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives 1893-97, then a judge in Tennessee 1903-07. He was a leading figure in the Pan-American conference at Montevideo in 1933. Like Roosevelt, he showed, as early as 1933, that he belonged emphatically to the internationalist, as opposed to the isolationist, school of thought.