Roosevelt:
The Soldier of Freedom
James MacGregor Burns
FOR
Joan
David
Stewart and Sally
Deborah
Trienah
Becky
Peter
A prince must have no other object and no other thought than war and its methods and conduct…for this is the only branch of knowledge that is required of him who governs….The prince should read history, and give attention to the actions of great men related to it, and to examine the cause of their victories and defeats….A wise prince should practice such habits as these …so that when Fortune grows contrary he may be found ready to assist her.
—Machiavelli, The Prince, 1532
History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. What is the worth of all this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the Fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour.
—Winston Churchill to the House of Commons, November 9, 1940
…Do you realize that there is no definitive (I hate the word) short history of any of our past wars?…We ought…to capture or recapture the public pulse as it throbs from day to day—the effect on the lives of different types of citizens—the processes of propaganda—the parts played by the newspaper emperors….It is war work of most decided value. It is not dry history….It is trying to capture a great dream before it dies.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt to Archibald
MacLeish, June 9, 1943
PREFACE
THE PROPOSITION OF THIS work is that Franklin D. Roosevelt as war leader was a deeply divided man—divided between the man of principle, of ideals, of faith, crusading for a distant vision, on the one hand; and, on the other, the man of Realpolitik, of prudence, of narrow, manageable, short-run goals, intent always on protecting his power and authority in a world of shifting moods and capricious fortune. This dualism cleft not only Roosevelt, but also his advisers, separating Henry Stimson and others who acted consciously on the basis of the “righteousness” of their cause from those who followed the ancient practices of the Prince. And it divided the American people themselves, who were vacillating between the evangelical moods of idealism, sentimentalism, and utopianism of one era and older traditions of national self-regard, protectiveness, and prudence of another.
This dualism between the prophet and the prince was not clear-cut; nothing could be neat or tidy in the complexity of Roosevelt’s mind and heart or in the fuzzy ideology and volatile politics of Americans. Nor is it the only key to understanding Roosevelt’s war leadership. Several subthemes run through his war administration.
One such theme is the origin of the Cold War. While the roots of post-World War II hostility between Russia and the West are of course multifold, lying deep in Russian, European, and American history, I have concluded that the decisive turn toward the Cold War came during the war, at the very time when Anglo-American-Soviet relations were, on the surface, almost euphoric—indeed, partly because they did seem euphoric.
Another theme is the transformation of the presidency. It was during World War II, in Roosevelt’s third term, rather than in the earlier New Deal years, that the foundations of modern presidential government were laid. The courts sustained presidential curtailment of liberties, such as those of the Japanese-Americans. Congress was surly and prickly on minor issues, generally acquiescent on the big. Under the pressure of war, the presidential staff proliferated; the “presidential press” had a wider role; the bureaucracy was refashioned for war.
A third theme is the alteration in American society. War is the forcing house of social change; World War II cut deep into the bone and marrow of American life. The vast migration of whites and blacks, the growth of a new culture of war at home and overseas, the creation of novel and ominous war industries, especially the atomic and electronic—these and other developments set off revolutions in the interstices of American society.
But always one must return to the division in the war strategy of Franklin Roosevelt and in the moods and practices of the American people, for that division informs all the lesser issues of the war. It was because Roosevelt acted both as a soldier bent on a military victory at minimum cost to American lives and as an ideologue bent on achieving the Four Freedoms for peoples throughout the world that his grand strategy was flawed by contradictions that would poison American relations with Russia and with Asia. It was in part because he ran the White House as a personal agency that subsequent Chief Executives had to deal with the acute problem of how the White House could master the bureaucratic giants springing up on the banks of the Potomac. It was in part because federal power during the war, especially over such matters as race relations, could not channel the fast-running social and economic currents that the war seemed to release, and bring them into balance with crucial sectors of life that burst out of control.
None of this, however, need diminish the stature of Roosevelt the man. He picked up Woodrow Wilson’s fallen banner, fashioned new symbols and programs to realize old ideals of peace and democracy, overcame his enemies with sword and pen, and died in a final exhausting effort to build a world citadel of freedom. He deserves renewed attention today especially from those who reject the old ways of princes and demand that people and nations base their relations on ideals of love and faith. He was indeed, in all the symbolic and ironic senses of the term, a soldier of freedom.
J.M.B.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
PROLOGUE Fall 1940
HYDE PARK
LONDON
BERLIN
TOKYO
WASHINGTON
PART ONE THE MISCALCULATED WAR
The Struggle to Intervene
THE NEW COALITION AT HOME
LEND-LEASE: THE GREAT DEBATE
“SPEED—AND SPEED NOW”
ROOSEVELT’S WHITE HOUSE
The Crucibles of Grand Strategy
HITLER: THE RAPTURE OF DECISION
CHURCHILL: THE GIRDLE OF DEFEAT
KONOYE: THE VIEW TOWARD CHUNGKING
ROOSEVELT: THE CRISIS OF STRATEGY
STALIN: THE TWIST OF REAL POLITIK
Cold War in the Atlantic
ATLANTIC FIRST
RUSSIA SECOND
GOVERNMENT AS USUAL
RENDEZVOUS AT ARGENTIA
Showdown in the Pacific
THE WINDS AND WAVES OF STRIFE
THE CALL TO BATTLE STATIONS
A TIME FOR WAR
RENDEZVOUS AT PEARL
PART TWO DEFEAT
“The Massed Forces of Humanity”
A CHRISTMAS VISITOR
SENIOR PARTNERS, AND JUNIOR
THE SINEWS OF TOTAL VICTORY
The Endless Battlefields
DEFEAT IN THE PACIFIC
THIS GENERATION OF AMERICANS
THE WAR AGAINST THE WHITES
The Cauldron of War
REPRISE: RUSSIA SECOND
ASIA THIRD
THE LONG ARMS OF WAR
THE ALCHEMISTS OF SCIENCE
The State of the Nation
THE ECONOMICS OF CHAOS
THE PEOPLE AT WAR
THE POLITICS OF NONPOLITICS
The Flickering Torch
THRUS ACROSS THE ATLANTIC
WALK WITH THE DEVIL
ROOSEVELT: A TURNING POINT?
PART THREE STRATEGY
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br /> Casablanca
THE GAMING BOARD OF STRATEGY
TOWARD THE UNDERBELLY
THE FIRST KILL
The Administration of Crisis
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
THE TECHNOLOGY OF VIOLENCE
ROOSEVELT AS CHIEF EXECUTIVE
The Strategy of Freedom
“A WORLD FORGED ANEW”
THE BROKEN PLEDGE
THE KING’S FIRST MINISTER
ROOSEVELT AS PROPAGANDIST
Coalition: Crisis and Renewal
THE MILLS OF THE GODS
CAIRO: THE GENERALISSIMO
TEHERAN: THE MARSHALL
PART FOUR BATTLE
The Lords of the Hill
A SECOND BILL OF RIGHTS
THE REVOLT OF THE BARONS
THE SUCTION PUMP
The Dominion of Mars
SECRECY AND “SEDITION”
THE MOBILIZED SOCIETY
THE CULTURE OF WAR
The Fateful Lightning
CRUSADE IN FRANCE
PACIFIC THUNDERBOLTS
ROOSEVELT AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF
The Grand Referendum
AS A GOOD SOLDIER
A NEW PARTY
A GRAND DESIGN
THE STRANGEST CAMPAIGN
FOR YOU ARE THE MAN FOR US
The Ordeal of Strategy
EUROPE: THE DEEPENING FISSURES
CHINA: THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS
ROOSEVELT AS GRAND STRATEGIST
CHRISTMAS 1944
PART FIVE THE LAST HUNDRED DAYS
The Supreme Test
“THE ONLY WAY TO HAVE A FRIEND …”
THE KING OF THE BEARS
ASIA: THE SECOND SECOND FRONT
With Strong and Active Faith
EUROPE: THE PRICE OF INNOCENCE
ASIA: NEVER, NEVER, NEVER
“THE WORK, MY FRIENDS, IS PEACE”
EPILOGUE Home-coming
FREEDOM’S ONCE-BORN
DEMOCRACY’S ARISTOCRAT
VOYAGER’S RETURN
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER BIBLIOGRAPHIES WITH BASIC BOOK LIST
INDEX
ILLUSTRATIONS
(Cartoons depicting the Roosevelt era, interspersed throughout the book, are not listed here.)
Hyde Park in the piping days of peace. Franklin D. Roosevelt receiving a medal on his 25th anniversary as an Odd Fellow in Hyde Park Lodge 203, September 16, 1938
President Roosevelt in Washington, Lincoln’s Birthday, 1940
Returning to the White House with Mrs. Roosevelt after the third inaugural, January 20, 1941
Roosevelt with Winston Churchill at the Atlantic Charter conference, Argentia,
Newfoundland, August 9-12, 1941. General George C. Marshall stands in the middle above.
The President reading the joint resolution by both houses of Congress declaring that a state of war exists with Germany and Italy, December 11, 1941
Hitler and Mussolini conferring in 1941
Emperor Hirohito of Japan
Joint press conference with Winston Churchill, Washington, D.C., December 23, 1941
Roosevelt’s “secret” war-plant inspection tour: Addressing workers at the Oregon
Shipbuilding Corporation, September 23, 1942. Henry J. Kaiser is in the back seat. Inspecting bomber production at the Douglas Aircraft Corporation, Long Beach, California, September 25, 1942
John Nance Garner visiting Roosevelt aboard the President’s inspection-tour train, Uvalde, Texas, September 27, 1942
Lunch in the field: Lt. Gen. Mark Clark, President Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins, Maj. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., Rabat, Morocco, January 21, 1943
Forced handshake: Generals Henri Giraud and Charles de Gaulle with Roosevelt and Churchill, Casablanca, January 24, 1943
United States and British military leaders discussing strategy at Casablanca: Adm. Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations; Gen. George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff; Lt. Gen. H. H. Arnold, Air Force Chief; Brig. Gen. John R. Deane, U.S. member of secretariat; Brig. Vivian Dykes, British member of secretariat; Brig. Gen. A. C. Wedemeyer, member of War Plans Division; Lt. Gen. Hastings L. Ismay, Chief Staff Officer to Minister of Defence; Vice Adm. Lord Louis Mountbatten, Director of Combined Operations; Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound, First Sea Lord; Gen. Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff; Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, Chief of the Air Staff; and Field Marshal Sir John Dill, chief of the British Mission, Washington
Roosevelt, en route home from Casablanca, celebrating his 61st birthday aloft, with Adm. William D. Leahy, Harry Hopkins, and Capt. Howard M. Cone, commander of the Boeing Clipper January 30, 1943
The President with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang, at the Cairo Conference, November 25, 1943
Roosevelt, on the way to the Teheran Conference, in Sicily with Gen. Dwight
D. Eisenhower, December 8, 1943
At the Teheran Conference: Harry Hopkins, Stalin’s translator, Marshal Stalin,
Vyacheslav Molotov, K. Y. Voroshilov
Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Senator James F. Byrnes, and Senator Alben W. Barkley welcome Roosevelt back from Teheran, Washington, D.C., December 17, 1943
Pacific strategy conference, Honolulu: the President with Gen. Douglas Mac-Arthur and Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, July 27, 1944
Judge Samuel I. Rosenman and Lt. Comm. Howard G. Bruenn, Medical Corps, U.S. Navy, during the President’s Hawaiian trip, July 1944
Americans of Polish descent calling on the President at the White House, Pulaski Day, October 11, 1944
President and Mrs. Roosevelt on the campaign trail, New York City, October 21, 1944
Roosevelt after addressing the Foreign Policy Association, with William H. Lancaster, Association Chairman; Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson; Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal; UNRRA Director General Herbert H. Lehman, New York City, October 21, 1944
Roosevelt with Fala, at Hyde Park, October 22, 1944
Campaign banner in his political homeland floating above the President’s car, Newburgh, N.Y., November 6, 1944
Roosevelt campaigning with Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., near Hyde Park, N.Y., November 6, 1944
The President, after re-election to a fourth term, with Vice President-elect Harry S Truman and Vice President Henry A. Wallace, making a brief radio address on his arrival in Washington, November 10, 1944
Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd. Painting by Elizabeth Shoumatoff
The President and Mrs. Roosevelt with their thirteen grandchildren, in the White House, January 20, 1945
The first day of the Big Three meetings at Yalta, February 1945
Roosevelt making a point to Churchill at Yalta
The President reporting to the Congress on the Yalta Conference, March 1, 1945
Roosevelt with the United States delegation to the United Nations founding conference at San Francisco: Rep. Sol Bloom, of New York; Virginia Gilder-sleeve, Dean of Barnard College; Sen. Tom Connally, of Texas; Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Jr.; Harold Stassen; Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg, of Michigan, and Rep. Charles Eaton, of New Jersey, at the White House, March 1945
The caisson bearing President Roosevelt’s coffin approaching the Capitol on the way from Union Station to the White House, April 14, 1945
PROLOGUE
Fall 1940
THE GLEAMING LIGHTS OF the house shone against the dark that enveloped the south lawn and the woods and the Hudson below. Inside, a host of family and friends celebrated over scrambled eggs as the final clinching returns came in through the chattering teletype machines. The President sat with a small group in the dining room, his coat off and his necktie loosened, tally sheets spread out before him. It was election night, November 5, 1940.
Toward midnight the guests rushed to the windows at the sound of a commotion outside. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s neighbors were straggling down the entrance
road and mustering in a singing, jostling crowd before the portico. Their torches threw dancing tongues of red light onto the ancient trees, the thick hemlock hedge around the rose garden, the long white balustrade. A drum-and-bugle corps blared out victory tunes. An exuberant banner proclaimed SAFE ON THIRD.
A door opened. Franklin Roosevelt moved haltingly to the balustrade. He leaned on a son’s arm, his face full and ruddy in the glow of the cameramen’s flares. Arrayed with him were his mother, Sara, his wife, Eleanor, his sons Franklin and John and their wives. At the rear of the portico, standing alone, his face exultant, Harry Hopkins smacked his fist into his palm as he performed a little pirouette of triumph. Out front a boy darted forward with a placard on which the words SAFE ON THIRD had been clearly printed over OUT STEALING THIRD, and the President laughed with the crowd.
It was a moment of enormous relief for Roosevelt. Earlier in the evening he had been upset by early election returns from New York; but far more important, he had been worried for weeks about the ominous forces that seemed to be lining up with the opposition. There were altogether too many people, he felt, who thought in terms of appeasement of Hitler—honest views, most of them, he granted, but views rising out of materialism and selfishness. Vague reports had come in of obscure fifth-column activities. Speaking to Joseph Lash that election night, Roosevelt was blunt: “We seem to have averted a Putsch, Joe.”
But now, standing before the crowd, Roosevelt could forget the stress of the campaign. He joked with his neighbors and reminisced about this “surprise” celebration—actually an old election-night tradition at Hyde Park.
“A few old greybeards like me,” he said, “go back to 1912 and 1910. But I think that, except for a very few people in Hyde Park, I go back even further than that. I claim to remember—but the family say that I do not—and that was the first election of Grover Cleveland in 1884.
“I was one and a half years old at that time, and I remember the torchlight parade that came down here that night….
“And this youngster here, Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., was just saying to me that he wondered whether Franklin, 3rd, who is up there in that room, will also remember tonight. He also is one and a half years old….