In 1928, he joined the foreign service. He was the first US representative to the International Labour Organization of the League of Nations. He was the second secretary at the US Embassy to the Soviet Union from 1941 and remained in Moscow with a skeleton staff after the German invasion of the Soviet Union forced the US Embassy to withdraw to Kuybyshev in October, 1941. He was present at the first conference of the United Nations and participated in discussions that resulted in the Truman doctrine.