Arthur B. Lane

U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary Arthur Bliss Lane presents his credentials
to the Estonian Republic's State Elder Konstantin Päts on September 10, 1936. Minsister Lane is
sitting in the front row, second from the left. U.S. Consul Harry E. Carlson is sitting on the far right.
(Photo by Parikas from Eesti Filmiarhiiv)

Arthur Bliss Lane was born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, N.Y. on June 16, 1894. He studied at the Browning School in New York City and Ecole de l'Ile de France in Liancourt, France. A gifted student, Lane excelled in history, foreign languages, and sports. Lane served in the Connecticut National Guard from 1915-16 while attending Yale College's Business School. Upon his graduation in 1916, U.S. Ambassador to Italy Thomas Nelson Page asked Lane to serve as his private secretary. In the summer of 1917, Lane officially entered to the U.S. Foreign Service and was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Rome as Third Secretary. In 1918, Lane married Florence-born Cornelia Thayer Baldwin with whom he later had a daughter named Peggy.

On April 16, 1919, Lane moved from Rome to Warsaw to open the first U.S. Legation in the newly re-established nation of Poland. Later that year, Lane served as a member of the U.S. delegation at the Paris Peace Talks. In 1920, he joined the U.S. Mission to Great Britain as the private secretary of Ambassador John W. Davis, who would later be the Democratic Party's nominee for the 1924 U.S. Presidential elections. In 1921, the Department of State appointed Lane to be Secretary to the U.S. Delegation at the Supreme Council in Paris (the League of Nations counterpart to the United Nations Security Council).

Lane's next assignment took him to the U.S. Mission to Switzerland in 1922. After serving in Berne, Lane completed a detail as Assistant to the Under Secretary of State in Washington, D.C. At the Department of State, Lane developed an interest in Latin American affairs. In 1925, he was named First Secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. Upon completion of his tour in 1927, Lane returned to Washington to serve as Chief of the Division of Mexican Affairs. In 1930, he returned to Mexico City to serve as the Counselor (the number two person) at the U.S. Embassy. On July 31, 1933, Lane received a very demanding assignment when he was appointed U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Nicaragua.

On January 24, 1936, Lane was appointed U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Resident in Riga, he presented his credentials in Tallinn on September 10, 1936. He departed post on September 16, 1937. That same month, Lane became the new U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Yugoslavia. He left Belgrade on May 17, 1941 after the Germans occupied Yugoslavia. Later that same year, Lane returned to Latin America when he was appointed the U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Costa Rica. From San Juan, Lane would go on to become U.S. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to first Columbia (1942). He would be followed in that position by another U.S. Minister resident in Riga: John C. Wiley.

Ambassador Lane's final assignment in the U.S. Foreign Service was as the U.S. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in Poland – a U.S. Mission he had helped establish. He was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Poland on September 21, 1944 and presented his credentials only on August 4, 1945 when the new Polish government was established. After the communist take over of Poland, Ambassador Lane resigned from the U.S. Foreign Service in February 24, 1947. For the next ten years, Ambassador Lane became an active anti-communist campaigner and became a member of the National Committee for a Free Europe, the Committee for a United Europe, and the Council on Foreign Affairs. In 1951, former Ambassador Lane joined the Republican National Committee and advised former General Eisenhower's successful 1952 presidential campaign. Ambassador Lane died from acute hepatitis in 1956 at the age of 62.

Source:
Petrov, Vladimir. A Study in Diplomacy: the Story of Arthur Bliss Lane. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1971.