Leland B. Morris

Leland Burnette Morris (1886-1950) was an American diplomat. He was the first United States Ambassador to Iran, serving that post from 1944 to 1945. Earlier he was the United States Ambassador to Iceland. Morris also served as the American Chargé d'Affaires in Germany during the outbreak of official American involvement in World War II.

Service in Germany during World War II

Morris became the American Chargé d'Affaires in Germany in October 1940. Prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States was officially neutral and retained a diplomatic corps in Germany. This included diplomat George Kennan. Morris, serving as Chargé d'Affaires, was the highest ranking American diplomat in Germany at the time (the last United States Ambassador, Hugh R. Wilson, was recalled in 1938 in protest of Kristallnacht). After the Pearl Harbor attack, on December 11 German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop summoned Morris to his office and read to Morris Germany's formal declaration of war and addressed him by accusing the United States of violations of neutrality and other acts of war. Upon handing Morris the declaration document, Ribbentrop said, "Your President has wanted this war, now he has it." Official diplomatic relations between the United States and Germany ended.

On December 14, most of the American diplomatic corps still in Germany, including Morris and Kennan, were detained by German authorities and held at a former resort near Bad Nauheim. In February 1942, through Swiss diplomats, Morris reported conditions of the detainment to his superiors in Washington. While there was relative freedom of movement around the resort grounds, he wrote of food shortages and weight-loss amongst the group. In April, Morris and the other Americans were transferred to Lisbon, Portugal where they were exchanged for German prisoners being held in the United States.

External links

• U. S. Department of State - Office of the Historian page