Welles — who was a closeted bisexual — was traveling with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt from Huntsville, Alabama to Washington, D.C., when he solicited sex from two male African-American Pullman porters.

While returning to Washington by train, Welles - who was drunk and under the influence of barbiturates - solicited sex from two male African-American Pullman car porters.

[3] Cordell Hull dispatched his confidant, former Ambassador William Bullitt, to provide details of the incident to Republican Senator Owen Brewster of Maine.

While Welles vacationed in Bar Harbor, Maine,[7] "where he held to diplomatically correct silence",[8] speculation continued for another month without official word from the White House or the State Department.

"[8] In 1956, Confidential, a scandal magazine, published a report of the 1940 Pullman incident and linked it to his resignation from the State Department, along with additional instances of inappropriate sexual behavior or drunkenness.

[11] His son Benjamin Welles wrote of the incident in his father's biography as drunken advances to several porters at about 4 a.m. that was rejected and then reported to government and railway officials.