Naón, Rómulo S. (1876–1941)

Rómulo S. Naón (b. 17 February 1876; d. 29 December 1941), Argentine politician and diplomat. Having served in the cabinet of José Figueroa Alcorta, Naón in 1910 began an eight-year diplomatic posting in Washington, D.C., first as envoy extraordinary and, after 1914, as Argentina's first ambassador to the United States. Naón represented Argentine interests in Washington in a time of rapid changes in U.S.-Argentine relations. Naón was a supporter of increased bilateral trade and financial ties, and his expertise in international law helped facilitate the growing American dominance of many Argentine commercial markets.

During the First World War Naón began to influence Argentine foreign policy, exceeding the normal ambassadorial role. In 1917 and 1918, as relations between the United States and Argentina deteriorated over the issue of Argentine neutrality, Naón worked hard to convince American officials that the nationalist rhetoric of President Hipólito Irigoyen and Foreign Minister Honorio Pueyrredón was of little practical significance. For a time, and on the basis of his success in negotiating an important wheat sale agreement between Argentina and the Allied powers, Naón succeeded in defusing this antagonism. But in 1918, after having played a major role in the strengthening of U.S.-Argentine economic ties, Naón resigned his post in a rejection of what he regarded as Irigoyen's intransigent anti-Americanism.

See alsoIrigoyen, Hipólito; Pueyrredón, Honorio; United States-Latin American Relations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Harold F. Peterson, Argentina and the United States, 1810–1960 (1964).

Joseph S. Tulchin, Argentina and the United States: A Conflicted Relationship (1990).

Additional Bibliography

Lanús, Juan Archibaldo. Aquel apogeo: Política internacional argentina, 1910–1939. Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores, 2001.

Siepe, Raimundo. Yrigoyen, la Primera Guerra Mundial y las relaciones económicas. Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1992.

                                  David M. K. Sheinin