Bliss, Tasker Howard

Bliss, Tasker Howard, 1853–1930, American army officer and statesman, b. Lewisburg, Pa., grad. West Point, 1875. He was (1898) chief of staff to Gen. James H. Wilson in the Puerto Rico campaign of the Spanish-American War, served (1898–1902) as collector of customs in Cuba, and in 1902 negotiated the treaty of reciprocity between Cuba and the United States. Several important administration appointments followed in the United States and in the Philippines, and he was appointed (1917) chief of staff of the U.S. army. He helped work out the mobilization plans followed by the United States in World War I. President Wilson promoted (1917) him to the rank of general and appointed him to the Allied Supreme War Council. As a delegate at the Paris Peace Conference, Bliss urged the admission of Germany and the USSR to the League of Nations and advocated postwar disarmament.

Bibliography

See biography by F. Palmer (1934); study by D. F. Trask (1966).