Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3

by Blanche Wiesen Cook

  Personally, ER was fortified by the good works of Carrie Chapman Catt, New York’s Women’s City Club, the YWCA, the Women’s Brigade of the ILGWU, and the many women organized to promote a national service act for both women and men. They called for wage and price stabilization and an end to selfish greed. ER noted that people wanted to contribute “to the limit of their abilities, because [they] have an interest in someone whose life is at stake every day that the war continues.”

  • • •

  Meanwhile Henry Morgenthau’s team worked on their report on State Department obstructionism. The treasury secretary requested specific cables, but State refused to provide them. Then Josiah DuBois asked Donald Hiss, of the department’s Foreign Funds Control, to try to get them, and Hiss, at great risk to his career, agreed to search. On 18 December he called DuBois into his office and allowed him to copy two cables. One was Cable 482, which documented the 1943 terror in Poland, where 6,000 Jews were killed each day, and in Romania, where 130,000 Jews had been deported to Transnistria in Romanian-occupied Ukraine. The other was Cable 354, which urged silence about the ongoing slaughter. It was the State Department’s order to “cease and desist” the transmission of all future information.

  When the team showed Morgenthau the bitter evidence, he became “physically ill” but told Randolph E. Paul, his counsel, to go ahead and prepare the full report. Paul asked Joe DuBois to write it, with John Pehle. In January the team finished the stunning “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews,” and they presented it to Morgenthau on 13 January. Morgenthau changed the title to Personal Report to the President and shortened its eighteen pages to nine. On Sunday morning, 16 January, he and John Pehle presented it to FDR at the White House. The three Christian attorneys had detailed State Department complicity in Hitler’s effort to end Jewish life in Europe: “One of the greatest crimes in history, the slaughter of the Jewish people in Europe, is continuing unabated” and involved not only a willful failure but acts “to prevent the rescue of the Jews”—needless restrictions, subterfuges, and bold mendacity.

  The report quoted Congressman Emanuel Celler (D-NY) naming Breckinridge Long as the primary State Department barrier to rescue and refugees: he was responsible for “the tragic bottleneck in the granting of visas. . . . It takes months and months to grant a visa, and then it usually applies to a corpse.” Without making any changes to the 1924 Immigration Act, the United States could have admitted 150,000 immigrants annually. In the previous year, Celler noted, only 23,725 immigrants had arrived on these shores, which included “only 4,750 Jews fleeing Nazi persecution.”

  The Morgenthau team’s report denounced not only Long but all responsible State Department officials who “failed to use the Governmental machinery at their disposal to rescue Jews from Hitler, but have even gone so far as to use this Governmental machinery to prevent the rescue of these Jews.” They failed “to cooperate with private organizations” engaged in rescue and sought to suppress information, even “to stop the obtaining of information concerning the murder of the Jewish population of Europe.” “They have tried to cover their guilt by . . . false and misleading explanations” of their failure to act, and regarding their alleged “actions taken to date.”

  The president “listened attentively,” and although he was “disinclined to believe that Long wanted to stop effective action,” he did agree that “it was possible to facilitate the rescue of Jews from Rumania and France to safety in Turkey, Switzerland, and Spain.”

  The team had also drafted an executive order to create an independent War Refugee Board (WRB), composed of Hull, Morgenthau, and Stimson. FDR urged Morgenthau and Pehle to consult with Undersecretary of State Edward Stettinius. Morgenthau approached Stettinius that very evening and declared the State Department’s deliberate obstructionism had to end, so that the United States would not be “placed in the same position as Hitler and share the responsibility for exterminating all the Jews of Europe.” FDR had cooled toward the man he had put in charge of “the Jewish problems” and who became the primary enemy of rescue.* Breckinridge Long finally departed on 27 November, when FDR appointed Stettinius as secretary of state. ER, who had always considered Long a fascist, was relieved.

  Stettinius considered the draft for a WRB “wonderful” and Morgenthau left his meeting with Stettinius heartened. “Those terrible eighteen months had ended,” though it was too late for too many. Morgenthau confided in his diary that the struggle was “long and heartbreaking. . . . The threat was . . . total obliteration” of all the Jews of Europe. Now there was “hope that rescue for the remnant would proceed.”

  On 22 January 1944, FDR issued the executive order establishing the War Refugee Board, for the “immediate rescue and relief of the Jews of Europe and other victims of enemy persecution.” The WRB was to cooperate with international agencies, use “the facilities of the Treasury, War, and State Departments in furnishing aid to Axis victims, and to attempt to forestall the plot of the Nazis to exterminate Jews and other minorities.” John Pehle was named director, and FDR announced that he expected “all members of the United Nations” to cooperate with the WRB.

  Within days Pehle was hard at work, and rescue “was withdrawn from the sabotaging hands of Breckinridge Long.” Journalist Ruth Gruber wrote: “Cables would no longer be suppressed. Ships would be leased in Sweden to smuggle refugees out of the Balkans. Ira Hirschmann, an executive of Bloomingdale’s Department Store . . . would be sent to Istanbul to rescue, if he could, the sixty thousand still alive in the Romanian concentration camp in Transnistria. Raoul Wallenberg, a young Swede of a distinguished family, would be sent to Hungary.”

  Between July and December 1944 the courageous and determined Raoul Wallenberg—with support from the WRB and an international staff of 115—saved more than 100,000 Jews in Budapest. He created imaginative safe houses, issued Swedish identification papers—“Wallenberg passports”—and achieved amazing feats of rescue.*

  But the WRB faced many obstacles. Churchill continued to show no interest in rescue, and the Foreign Office remained actively opposed. A dismayed ER understood that the reasons for England’s position involved Palestine, oil futures, Arab alliances, and pipeline agreements, but she was mystified that so many underpopulated and resource-rich nations refused to provide havens, including most of Latin America. Moreover, nations that ER had visited and considered virtually empty—notably Australia, New Zealand, and Canada—bolted their doors and seemed to agree that “none is too many.” Most disturbing of all, the United States failed to offer safe ports and establish havens, which it could have done at least to demonstrate that rescue was possible. On this issue, Morgenthau was alone.

  In May, at a White House meeting with Pehle, FDR was “cordial” to the idea of opening an “emergency refugee shelter” in the United States—but only one, and it would hold no more than a thousand people. On 24 May 1944, Morgenthau presented FDR’s one-camp proposal to the cabinet, for one thousand refugees to be brought from Italy. Only Harold Ickes “expressed complete support,” and now as honorary chair of Bergson’s Emergency Committee to Save the Jews of Europe, he promised an “active alliance.”

  On 6 June, D-Day, the invasion of Normandy opened the long-awaited second front. As victory in Europe seemed imminent, seven members of Congress introduced resolutions urging FDR to open “free ports.”

  • • •

  FDR’s health was one reason for the delay. Unwell since his return from Tehran, his Christmas–New Year’s episode of “flu” had been compounded by fatigue, chest pains, stomach upsets, and assorted unnamed discomforts.

  After the holidays, Anna agreed to live in the White House and serve as her father’s hostess during her mother’s many absences and prolonged travels. Missy LeHand’s stroke, Harry Hopkins’s departure, and ER’s refusal to play the role of FDR’s most intimate companion often left the president alone. ER was grat
eful that Anna took on the role of hostess. “Anna’s presence was the greatest possible help to my husband,” ER wrote. “. . . She saw and talked to people whom Franklin was too busy to see and then gave him a digest of the conversations. She also took over the supervision of his food.” Anna “had her hands full keeping peace” between SDR’s chef, Mary Campbell, and Henrietta Nesbitt, ER’s friend, the head housekeeper. But her daughter “brought to all her contacts a gaiety and buoyance that made everybody feel just a little happier because she was around.” Evidently, ER and her husband operated best as a team with a little distance between them.

  For years, ER had been aware of FDR’s flirtations and special friends. She appreciated and was actually grateful for the companionship and devotion rendered by Missy LeHand; the president’s cousin Polly Delano—purple-haired, eccentric, and always critical of ER; another FDR cousin, Daisy Suckley, who was also critical but less mean; and the flirtatious Crown Princess Martha of Norway. These women were necessary to FDR’s circle, and ER, recognizing that need, allowed him wide berth.

  Initially ER seemed to have dismissed Anna’s concerns about her father’s health, telling her that his prolonged fatigue and frequent headaches resulted from anxiety and distress and could “be conquered by will and determination.” But ER was in denial. During his White House birthday dinner, on 30 January, Daisy Suckley noticed that ER graciously “greeted [all the guests] as we came in” and spent much of the evening sitting apart with Henry Morgenthau, with whom she “spoke quietly . . . most of the time.” Then, at ten ER left for her annual round of “Birthday balls, Anna and John took the Norwegian Royals upstairs, and FDR went off with his poker players & the rest of us dispersed.”

  Three days later, on 2 February, Anna and Daisy Suckley accompanied FDR to the naval hospital at Bethesda, where he had surgery to remove a “wen” or sebaceous cyst from the back of his neck. The procedure lasted less than an hour, and he emerged with a small bandage to cover eight stitches. In her column that day, ER did not refer to her husband’s procedure. Instead she described a splendid event at the Corcoran Art Gallery, a tea at the White House, and a stirring Philadelphia Orchestra concert, conducted by Eugene Ormandy, featuring the Symphony of the Four Freedoms and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe.

  Congress was in rebellion, challenging FDR’s influence as never before. In February it passed a tax bill that FDR vetoed because it provided aid and relief “not for the needy, but for the greedy.” Congress overrode the veto. ER called FDR at Hyde Park and found him “quite calm” over the congressional upset and “more philosophical” though increasingly “weary.” She added, “He is also fighting the British now at every turn.”

  Unwell and exhausted, FDR resisted her efforts to bring neglected issues to his attention. He went back on his promise to endorse a “fighting liberal” to administer the 1944 campaign for reelection. Instead, the new national chair of the Democratic Party would be Robert Hannegan, with whom the “conservative-minded” bosses were comfortable. Hannegan seemed to ER a “practical politician, but that may be necessary.” Subsequently, she was disturbed that Hannegan rejected her invitations to discuss civil rights.

  On another occasion, she entered FDR’s cocktail reception loaded down with a high stack of papers. To Anna’s horror, she said, “Now, Franklin, I want to talk to you about this.” Anna thought, “‘Oh, God, he’s going to blow.’ And sure enough, he blew his top. He took every single speck of that whole pile of papers, threw them across the desk at me and said, ‘Sis, you handle these tomorrow morning.’” Anna was shaken, but her mother “was the most controlled person in the world.” She simply “got up . . . stood there for a half second and said, ‘I’m sorry.’ Then she . . . walked toward somebody else and started talking. And he picked up his glass and started a story. And that was the end of it.”

  ER tried to withdraw and trusted in Anna’s presence. Increasingly, she replied to questions of policy or program by saying, “Only Anna would know about that.” However distant their relations became, ER continued to bring issues to her husband’s attention. As Joe Lash later observed, “In continuing to serve him she walked a lonely path.”

  That winter ER spent considerable time with Elinor Morgenthau, and they enjoyed many concerts and plays: “What fun our spree was.” But Elinor’s health worried her: “I am anxious to hear about your cardiograph. You shouldn’t be fainting on the roadside.” She entrusted her confidences to Joe and Trude and indeed fantasized about working with them. “Trude and I talk about a research institute very often. Between you the job could be superbly set up and carried through.”

  On 4 March 1944, at FDR’s insistence, ER embarked on a thirteen-thousand-mile journey to the Caribbean and South America, to visit military bases and diplomatic installations in areas where the troops “felt they were in a backwater.” They longed to be sent to battle zones, where they might do “a more important job.” FDR sent his wife to reassure them that they were “not forgotten,” and that the president “knew and understood the whole picture and believed they were doing a still vitally necessary job.”

  But ER was uncertain about the true purpose of her mission: Had FDR simply found an excuse to remove her for several weeks? She was reluctant to go and dreaded the trip. Tommy, who was to be her companion and scribe, worried about her mood. There was “a real weariness on ER’s part which was not apparent before and a pessimism about the future. . . . I thought she was anxious to go but she says she is only going at FDR’s request and there is no enthusiasm.”

  ER and Tommy flew to Miami first, then went on to the Caribbean—to Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Antigua, St. Lucia, Trinidad, and Paramaribo. They then winged down the South American coast to Brazil, Costa Rica, the Panama Canal Zone, Salinas, Colombia, Ecuador, the Galápagos Islands, and Guatemala. The twenty-four-day trip was filled with diplomatic meetings, hospital and base camp visits, speeches, and ceremonies.

  On 10 March, ER sent FDR greetings for their thirty-ninth wedding anniversary: “Many happy returns of the 17th dear. I’m sorry I won’t be home but will you get something you want and let me pay for it on my return? I have $50 earmarked—and I’d like you to squander it!” On the seventeenth, “flying from Recife back to Belem,” she noted: “Many thanks for your message which came before we left this morning.” Her frequent letters generally repeated the theme that it was an easy trip, everyone was kind, and there was nothing to report—which was the key problem. There was little news, and the boys were bored; they all wanted to go home or into action. “I quite understand why everyone here gets a feeling of being out of things,” she wrote FDR. But true to form, according to the New York Times, ER routinely “cheered the men . . . with her friendly interest,” and all agreed that her visits to hospitals and camps raised spirits.

  On 28 March, they returned home from Havana. “The trip did [ER] a lot of good,” Tommy wrote to Lape, and the first lady was in “better spirits” than before she left.

  But ER soon had to face her husband’s poor health. Anna and Daisy had persuaded FDR to undergo a thorough physical examination. After tests and consultations at Bethesda Naval Hospital, the president was diagnosed with “hypertension, hypertensive heart disease, cardiac failure (left ventricular), and acute bronchitis.” Rest and diet, fewer cigarettes and highballs, codeine for his cough, and digitalis for his blood flow were prescribed.

  He decided to spend two weeks at Hobcaw, Bernard Baruch’s plantation in South Carolina, for a complete rest, and ER agreed that his health required it. On 9 April, FDR left by train. Instead of the scheduled two weeks, he spent a month there, relaxing and recuperating, with interludes of fishing, yachting, and driving with dapper Bernie and his entertaining equestrian daughter Belle Baruch.

  During the third week, ER and Anna flew down for a brief visit. “Hobcaw was just the right place for Franklin,” ER noted, “who loved the country and the life there . . . and I [felt] it wa
s the very best move Franklin could have made. I have always been grateful to Mr. Baruch for providing him with that holiday.”

  Subsequently rumors have persisted that FDR underwent surgery to remove his forehead blemish, thought by some to have been a melanoma. ER never referred to it, although in her memoir she wrote that the entire family and all his aides “knew that Franklin was far from well, but none of us ever said anything about it—I suppose because we felt that if he believed it was his duty to continue in office, there was nothing for us to do but make it as easy as possible for him.”

  Daisy Suckley, who spent considerable time with FDR, including several days at Hobcaw, believed the doctors did not know what was wrong with him, or if they did, they kept it a secret. “I am more worried than I let anyone know,” she confided to her diary. “. . . I pray that it is not a bad type of disease.”

  Since ER had spent only one afternoon at Hobcaw, she seemed actually unaware of FDR’s views. Close to the AFSC and previously outspoken against the 1942 carpet bombing of Cologne, ER now endorsed British and U.S. air raid massacres of major cities, including Hamburg, Nuremberg, Leipzig, and Berlin. The issue, generally ignored by the press, would become a major controversy in March 1944 when New York’s Fellowship of Reconciliation published “Massacre by Bombing,” sections of Vera Brittain’s manuscript Seed of Chaos: What Mass Bombing Really Means. Brittain was appalled by the human devastation wrought by the carpet bombings and never believed that they would, as the propagandists insisted, “shorten the war.” The Blitz had demonstrated otherwise; daily bombings only intensified England’s fighting spirit. Now war by air terror threatened the end of morality and civilization.