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In 1933 President Franklin Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull began a new kind of diplomacy in Latin America known as the Good Neighbor Policy. One key person they chose to implement this policy was Spruille Braden, a former mining engineer and financier who had spent much of his life in Latin America. Braden was first named as a delegate to the 1933 Monte­video Conference. From late 1935 through 1938, as U.S. delegate to the Chaco Peace Conference, he helped achieve a lasting peace between Bolivia and Paraguay. As ambassador to Colombia from 1939 to 1942, he was instrumental in re­organizing Colombia's airline and ridding it of allegedly . Nazi personnel. While ambassador to Cuba during World War II, he pressured the Batista government into close collaboration with the Allies. Braden was a blunt, tough, outspoken man, whose charisma and prior achievements made him a logical candidate, in April 1945, to handle U.S. relations with the Argentine revolutionary government. After four controversial months as ambassador there, he was named assistant secretary of state for American Republic Affairs, a post he held from November 1945 until July 1947. Because the swiftly changing world political and security situation in 1945 and 1946 created a policy and administrative vacuum, Braden largely determined U.S. policy for Latin America during this critical period. He continued his personal feud with Argentina's dictator, Juan Peron, blocked the proposed Rio Conference for the negotiation of a mutual defense pact, and fought Latin American fascism and nationalism. When the United States became increasingly concerned, in 1946 and early 1947, about USSR influence and intentions and the need for Cold War diplomacy, Braden refused or was unwilling to change his priorities. In mid-1947 he was dismissed. This study attempts to assess the impact of Braden's charismatic style of diplomacy upon U.S.-Latin American relations. By examining his des