income tax, being declared unconstitutional. Earle, who was constitutionally ineligible to run for a second consecutive term as governor, ran for the Senate in 1938, but lost to incumbent Republican James J. Davis. Earle's loss to Davis coincided with a Republican landslide that saw Republicans re-gain control of the legislature and governorship. Pennsylvania would not elect another Democratic governor until 1954. Post-governorship Earle was appointed as Minister to Austria on July 24, 1933, and served until March 25, 1934. He was appointed Minister to Bulgaria on February 14, 1940, and served until December 13, 1941. During World War II, he served again in the United States Navy, this time as a lieutenant commander and as a special emissary to the Balkans, where Earle proposed a plan that he believed might bring the war in Europe to an early end. The German ambassador and the head of the German secret service had secretly proposed a coup against Adolf Hitler that would end with Hitler turned over to the US as a war criminal, but the plot was not approved by the US government. In 1944, President Roosevelt assigned Earle to compile information on the Katyń massacre, the massacre of the Polish intelligentsia by the Soviet government. Earle did so, using contacts in Bulgaria and Romania, and concluded that the Soviet Union was guilty. After consulting with Elmer Davis, the director of the Office of War Information, Roosevelt rejected Earle's conclusion, saying that he was convinced of the responsibility of Nazi Germany, and ordered Earle's report suppressed. At this time, the United States and Soviet Union were still fighting Nazi Germany and Japan. When Earle formally requested permission to publish his findings, the President gave him a written order to desist. Earle was reassigned and spent the rest of World War II in American Samoa. After the war, Earle served as assistant governor of American Samoa, and then returned to the private sector. Ambassador Ralph Earle II is his son. He died on December 30, 1974, and was interred at the Church of the Redeemer cemetery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. References External links George Howard Earle Papers 1890 births 1974 deaths 20th-century American politicians Ambassadors of the United States to Austria Ambassadors of the United States to Bulgaria Burials in Pennsylvania Democratic Party governors of Pennsylvania Earle family Harvard University alumni People from Chester County, Pennsylvania Recipients of the Navy Cross (United