Jefferson Caffery

Jefferson Caffery (December 1, 1886 - April 13, 1974) served as US Ambassador to Brazil during the wartime period when Nelson Rockefeller's CIAA was most active in the country, and was replaced in early 1945 by Adolf Berle at Rockefeller's explicit request after Rockefeller was appointed assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs. His earlier posting as ambassador to Cuba in the 1930s had intersected with Fulgencio Batista's rise, and his subsequent tenure in Brazil laid the embassy groundwork that Berle would turn to more interventionist purposes. After Brazil, Caffery served as ambassador to France and Egypt, continuing to operate at Cold War flashpoints without the Rockefeller network's active backing. He served as chief of mission for 29 years, a record in the history of the U.S. diplomatic corps.¹

Early Life and Entry into the Foreign Service

Caffery was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, the son of Charles Duval Caffery, a lawyer who served as mayor of Lafayette from 1897 to 1903, and Mary Catherine Parkerson Caffery. He attended the Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) during its inaugural year (1901-1902), then earned his undergraduate degree from Tulane University in 1906 and was admitted to the bar in 1908. He read law with his father briefly before choosing diplomacy over legal practice.

His first posting, in 1911, was as second secretary of the American legation at Caracas, Venezuela. Subsequent assignments carried him to Sweden, Persia, and France before his promotion to minister to El Salvador in 1926 (appointed January 7, 1926; credentials presented July 20, 1926; departed July 22, 1928). He then served as minister to Colombia (appointed June 27, 1928; credentials presented November 28, 1928; departed May 20, 1933), followed by a brief period as Assistant Secretary of State (July 12 - December 4, 1933) before his Cuba appointment.²

Cuba: The Caffery-Batista-Mendieta Government (1934-1937)

Caffery was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Cuba on February 23, 1934, presented his credentials on February 28, 1934, and departed March 9, 1937. He arrived as a direct replacement for Sumner Welles, whose interventionist posture had made him persona non grata with the One Hundred Days Government of Ramon Grau San Martin.

Grau's government lasted until January 15, 1934, when Caffery coordinated its removal. While Grau nominally retained presidential authority, Batista as Army Chief of Staff was engaged in parallel negotiations with U.S. embassy personnel. On January 15, 1934, Colonel Batista, acting with Caffery's backing, forced Grau's resignation. Caffery communicated U.S. approval of Carlos Mendieta as provisional president, and the Mendieta government received formal U.S. recognition within days of taking power. The resulting arrangement was referred to by historians as the "Caffery-Batista-Mendieta" government, reflecting the degree to which U.S. embassy influence was constitutive of the new order rather than external to it.³

In 1934, four assailants attempted to assassinate Caffery in front of his home in Havana; he escaped because he had left earlier than usual to attend mass. From 1934 to 1937, Caffery and Batista maintained close personal contact, and Caffery consistently approved of the political direction Batista was taking in consolidating power within the Cuban military and political system.⁴

Brazil: Wartime Diplomacy and the Corridor of Victory (1937-1944)

Caffery was appointed Ambassador to Brazil on July 13, 1937, presented credentials on August 17, 1937, and departed September 17, 1944. He married Gertrude McCarthy of Indiana in Rio de Janeiro on November 20, 1937, at age 51; they had no children.

His arrival coincided almost immediately with Getulio Vargas's November 10, 1937 proclamation of the Estado Novo constitution. Caffery expressed skepticism about what the proclamation meant for "the preservation of democratic institutions" but quickly moved to leverage economic pressure as his primary tool. On November 13, 1937, three days after the Estado Novo declaration, he met with Vargas and threatened reductions in U.S. coffee import quotas to prevent Brazilian alignment with the Axis powers.⁵

The economic dimension of Caffery's Brazil posting was substantial. The U.S. received over 50 percent of Brazilian coffee exports and supplied over 30 percent of Brazilian imports before 1937, but by that year Germany had become Brazil's chief export recipient. German Ambassador Dr. Karl Ritter, who mockingly called Caffery "the Ambassador of Revolutions," represented a genuine competitive threat to U.S. commercial position. By September 1938, the Brazilian Foreign Minister Oswaldo Aranha declared Ritter persona non grata.

In 1941, Caffery's embassy engaged in active denazification of Brazilian commercial infrastructure. On August 15, 1941, Caffery reported to the Secretary of State that the last remaining German official of any importance had been dismissed from VASP (Viacao Aerea Sao Paulo), the Brazilian airline, noting that "the degermanization of Vasp has in fact been accomplished at no cost to us."⁶ On June 27, 1941, Caffery proposed that Brazilian forces join the U.S. in occupying Surinam; Roosevelt sent a letter to Vargas on July 10, 1941, and Vargas accepted the proposal.

The January 1942 Rio Conference resulted in Brazil breaking with the Axis powers. On March 7, 1942, Caffery transmitted what colleagues called the "Midnight Telegram," reporting that "Vargas has given me the green light" for access along Brazil's Atlantic coast - the arrangement that became the Corridor of Victory, allowing U.S. military aircraft to fly from Brazil's northeastern bulge to British forces in North Africa. This corridor was operationally decisive for Allied logistics in the North African campaigns.

On January 28 to 29, 1943, Caffery participated in the Natal Conference alongside Roosevelt and Vargas at the Potengi River, in which the two presidents discussed ongoing Brazilian combat support and which led to the formation of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force.⁷

On October 6, 1942, Caffery and Foreign Minister Aranha signed three major commodity agreements. The first committed the U.S. Commodity Credit Corporation to purchase Brazil's entire unshipped coffee quota and guarantee purchases of 9,300,000 bags for the 1943 quota year. The second committed the U.S. to purchase approximately 1,300,000 tons of Bahia cocoa between October 1942 and March 1943. The third had the Rubber Reserve Company purchase up to 10,500 tons of existing rubber stock. Caffery characterized these agreements in his cable to Washington as demonstrating "the vast range of practical cooperation" between the two nations.⁸

In August 1944, Aranha was forced from office, a development that signaled deteriorating relations within Vargas's cabinet. Caffery departed Brazil on September 19, 1944, before the political crisis fully resolved. Berent Friele, Rockefeller's close associate and informal representative in Brazil, had been a persistent irritant during Caffery's tenure: Caffery was reportedly jealous of Friele's nearly unrestricted access to both Aranha and Vargas, which bypassed normal embassy channels.

Embassy Transition to Berle

The transition from Caffery to Berle in Rio marked a shift from traditional State Department caretaker diplomacy toward the more interventionist approach that Rockefeller and Berle shared. Within weeks of Berle's arrival, the embassy was actively gathering intelligence on Brazilian political factions, cultivating informants within the Brazilian military, and positioning itself to influence the outcome of Brazil's 1945 presidential elections. Caffery's tenure had laid the organizational groundwork that Berle turned to political use.⁹

When Rockefeller was appointed assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs in late 1944, Berle was given Caffery's job in Brazil. Rockefeller described the personnel change as having his "full support," and Berle immediately initiated a shake-up of embassy personnel upon arrival in Rio de Janeiro.¹⁰

France: Anti-Communist Pressure and Postwar Reconstruction (1944-1949)

Caffery was appointed Ambassador to France on November 25, 1944. The embassy formally opened on December 1, 1944, with Caffery in charge; he presented credentials to the de Gaulle government on December 30, 1944, and departed May 13, 1949.

His primary mandate in France was to promote economic recovery while containing the influence of the French Communist Party (PCF), which had emerged from the Resistance as a major political force. Caffery's approach was direct. When Prime Minister Paul Ramadier was managing coalition pressures in 1947, Caffery delivered an unambiguous message: as Caffery recorded in his own diary, "I told Ramadier, no Communists in gov. or else." In May 1947, Ramadier dismissed the five Communist ministers from his government. Caffery had also made the stakes explicit publicly, telling French officials that "if the Communists got back into the government, France wouldn't get a dollar from America."¹¹

On March 21, 1945, Caffery transmitted to the Secretary of State a summary of findings by Judge Samuel Rosenman's special mission to liberated areas of France, reporting acute shortages in coal, fat, and meat, and transmitting French officials' indication that France would require substantial rehabilitation aid and would need to begin substantive financial discussions by early summer 1945.¹²

At the conclusion of his posting, the French government awarded Caffery the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1949.

Egypt: The 1952 Revolution and Suez Negotiations (1949-1955)

Caffery was appointed Ambassador to Egypt on July 9, 1949, presented credentials on September 29, 1949, and departed January 11, 1955. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles considered Caffery "an irreplaceable man at the time" and requested that he remain three years past the mandatory retirement age of 65; Caffery was 68 when he finally retired.

On July 23, 1952, the Free Officers Movement under General Mohamed Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser seized power and forced the abdication of King Farouk. Caffery made immediate representations to the new Prime Minister Ali Maher Pasha regarding U.S. interests. A State Department weekly summary from July 28, 1952 (prepared by Alta F. Fowler, Office of Near Eastern Affairs) recorded that "Ali Maher Pasha later reaffirmed his government's intention to protect foreign lives and property when representations were made by Ambassador Caffery regarding United States interest and concern."¹³

In the factional competition within the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), Caffery exercised direct influence over personnel decisions: he rejected the proposed appointment of Rashad al-Barawi as prime minister, characterizing al-Barawi as a communist, and the appointment did not proceed.

On February 25, 1954, Caffery transmitted to the State Department a secret telegram analyzing Naguib's resignation from all Egyptian posts, characterizing it as "a surprise and shock" even to Nasser himself. Caffery assessed that while Naguib held symbolic value as "father of the country," Nasser was the real authority within the RCC. He documented that Naguib had "demanded same authority as United States President" but was rebuffed. Caffery predicted correctly that the RCC would accept the resignation and that the military and public would not respond with disruption despite Naguib's personal popularity.¹⁴

On the Anglo-Egyptian Suez negotiations, Caffery served as intermediary between the Egyptian and British governments. Both Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden sought to enlist Caffery as an ally for the British position; Caffery declined, maintaining U.S. evenhandedness. His long relationship with the Egyptian leadership, and the trust built during the 1952 transition when he remained formally neutral while privately supportive, gave him unusual access to Nasser. The negotiations resulted in Britain's October 1954 agreement to evacuate military bases from the Suez Canal zone by summer 1956, with redeployment rights under specified conditions. In 1955, Nasser presented Caffery with the Cordon of the Republic upon his departure.¹⁵

Later Life

Caffery retired to Rome in 1955 with his wife Gertrude, where he served as honorary private chamberlain (Papal Gentleman) to Popes Pius XII, John XXIII, and Paul VI. He returned to Lafayette in 1973, shortly before Gertrude's death on July 13, 1973. Caffery died on April 13, 1974, and is buried in the cemetery behind St. John's Cathedral in Lafayette. In 1967, he donated his papers, artifacts, and $5,000 to establish the Jefferson Caffery Research Fund at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. His papers (Collection 45) span 1902 to 1974 and measure 27 feet 6 inches, held in the Acadiana Manuscripts Collection. A portion of Louisiana Highway 3073 in Lafayette is named the Ambassador Caffery Parkway in his memory.¹⁶