Stettinius, Edward Riley (1900–1949)

US business executive and diplomat. During World War II, President F D Roosevelt appointed him lend-lease administrator. He was made secretary of state in 1944, and was chief adviser to Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference of 1945.

Stettinius was born in Chicago and educated at Virginia University. In 1926 he joined General Motors, becoming vice president of the company in 1931. In 1934 he moved to the US Steel Corporation, and subsequently became chair of its board of directors. He became undersecretary of state in 1943, before succeeding Cordell Hull as secretary of state the following year. His work at the Inter-American Conference at Mexico City confirmed his abilities as a negotiator, and he was appointed, by President Harry Truman, the first US delegate to the United Nations conference in San Francisco. In 1946 he returned to business.

He wrote Lease-Lend: Weapon for Victory (1944), and Roosevelt and the Russians: the Yalta Conference (1949).