High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Welles Declaration, issued on July 23, 1940 by United States Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, then acting Secretary of State, condemned what the U.S. and the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) saw as the USSR’s annexation of the Baltic states and initiated its refusal to recognize the legitimacy of Soviet control over these three states. It was an application of the Stimson Doctrine to the Baltic issue. The Declaration was consistent with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attitude towards territorial expansion, and reflected the views held by the highest levels of the Roosevelt administration.