The Resume

(November 29, 1876-May 9, 1958)
Born in Watertown, Wisconsin
First chair of the Federal Trade Commission (1915-16)
US Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1936-38), Belgium (1938-39), and Luxembourg (1938-39)
Chaired the War Relief Control Board (1942-46)
Special advisor to President Harry S Truman during the Potsdam Conference (1945)
Wrote 'Mission to Moscow' (1941)

Why he might be annoying:

At the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, he retired from the FTC to run for a Senate seat and lost.
He declared that Communism was 'protecting the Christian world of free man.'
When a bug was discovered in the US Embassy, he laughed it off, telling his staff that if the Soviets were listening, all they would obtain would be confirmation of America's desire for cooperation.
After attending a Stalinist purge trial, he said, 'The Kremlin's fears [of treason in the Army and the Party] were well justified.'
One of the career diplomats attached to the embassy in Moscow wrote, 'Ambassador Davies was not noted for his acute understanding of the Soviet system, and he had an unfortunate tendency to take what was presented [by the Soviet government] as the honest and gospel truth. I still blush when I think of some of the telegrams he sent to the State Department.'
When Dimitri Shostakovich saw the film adaptation of 'Mission to Moscow' (which Davies had script approval on), he noted that no Soviet propaganda agency would have dared to present such blatant lies.

Why he might not be annoying:

He was an economic advisor to the US delegation at the Paris Peace Conference after World War I.
The film of 'Mission to Moscow' was endorsed by the Office of War Information for helping Americans 'understand' their Soviet ally.
His coat of arms was adopted as a logo by the Trump Organization. (Donald having presumably seen it at Mar-a-Lago, which had been owned by Davies and his wife, cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post.)

Credit: C. Fishel

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

• Attorney
• C. Fishel's Profiles [Series 72]
• Celebrities Born on the Same Date [November] (Ranked: 11291876)
• Delta Upsilon Fraternity
• I Attended University of Wisconsin-Madison
• I Died in 1958 (Ranked: 81)
• I Had a Stroke [Cerebral Vascular Accident]
• Look at Me, I'm with Joseph Stalin
• Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity
• Profiles 45501-45750 (Ranked: 45650)

Year In Review:

In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
In 2022, Out of 4 Votes: 0% Annoying
In 2021, Out of 7 Votes: 85.71% Annoying
In 2020, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2019, Out of 30 Votes: 50.0% Annoying