Welles needed little convincing. A key presidential adviser—he often enjoyed closer access to the president than did his boss Cordell Hull, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Hull—the urbane and articulate undersecretary spoke frequently of the surging nationalism in the colonial world and of the folly of attempting to deny Asian peoples’ demands for independence. “In various parts of the world,” Welles said in extolling the trusteeship idea, “there are many peoples who are clamoring for freedom from the colonial powers. Unless some system can be worked out to help these peoples, we shall be
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