Joseph Edward Davies was an American lawyer and diplomat. He was appointed by President Wilson to be Commissioner of Corporations in 1912, and he was the first chairman of the Federal Trade Commission in 1915. He was the second ambassador to represent the United States in the Soviet Union and U.S. Ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg. From 1939 to 1941 Davies was special assistant to Secretary of State Hull, in charge of War Emergency Problems and Policies. From 1942 through 1946 he was chairman of President Roosevelt's War Relief Control Board. Ambassador Davies was special advisor of President Harry Truman and Secretary of State James F. Byrnes with rank of ambassador at the Potsdam Conference in 1945.

The Potsdam Conference was held at Potsdam in the Soviet occupation zone from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to allow the three leading Allies to plan the postwar peace, while avoiding the mistakes of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They were represented respectively by General Secretary Joseph Stalin, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee, and President Harry S. Truman. They gathered to decide how to administer Germany, which had agreed to an unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier. The goals of the conference also included establishing the postwar order, solving issues on the peace treaty, and countering the effects of the war.