"[1] After graduating from Princeton, Welles was commissioned as an ensign in the United States Navy and assigned to the USS Midway (CV-41).
An article he had written about the neglect of American oil shale reserves by the petroleum industry that Life turned down was expanded into book form and published in 1970 as The Elusive Bonanza: The Story of Oil Shale, America's Richest and Most Neglected Natural Resource.
His 1975 book The Last Days of the Club documented the decline and fall of old Wall Street institutions and the ascendancy of new companies that would come to replace them.
Mobil Corporation, a longtime sponsor of the fellowship, backed out of its financial support in retaliation for Welles' earlier writings about the oil industry, stating that the company "didn't have confidence in the leadership" of the program.
[3] A resident of Brooklyn, Welles died at age 72 on June 19, 2010, due to complications of Alzheimer's disease, while at a nursing home in Salisbury, Connecticut.