Guillermo Belt

Guillermo Belt Ramírez trained in law at the University of Havana and entered public office during the political upheaval of 1933. He held education and cabinet posts and became mayor of Havana in 1935. His municipal work included a children’s hospital and restoration of the Plaza de Armas. A close associate of Ramón Grau San Martín, he accompanied the president-elect to Washington in 1944 before becoming ambassador. ^{1, 2}

His Washington work included negotiations over Cuban sugar sales and access to the American market. He also represented Cuba in the Pan American Union. At the 1947 Rio conference he argued that the inter-American security system should address economic coercion as well as military attack; his son’s account traces this initiative into the prohibition on economic and political coercion adopted in the original OAS Charter. ²

Belt led Cuba’s delegation at the 1945 San Francisco conference and signed the United Nations Charter on 26 June. He opposed the great powers’ veto and defended the position of smaller countries and regional organizations. ^{3, 2}

On 19 April 1948 he addressed a joint session of the United States Congress during the fiftieth anniversary commemoration of the 1898 war. The House historian identifies his speech as one of only two addresses by foreign dignitaries delivered in a formal joint session, a procedure distinct from the more usual joint meeting. ⁴

After the Cuban revolution, Belt remained in the United States. He died in 1989. His life and diplomatic papers later became the subject of Daniel Pedreira’s biography, An Instrument of Peace. ⁵