 As an agent of Standard Oil, he played a role in the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay and espoused an openly anti-union position.Braden was a delegate to the Montevideo Convention (Seventh International Conference of American States) in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1933, where he sat with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, former American ambassador to Mexico J. Reuben Clark, American minister to Uruguay J. Butler Wright, and University of Chicago professor Sophonisba Breckinridge.He held several brief but important ambassadorships in Colombia (1939–1942), Cuba (1942), and Argentina.