The Mantle of Command

by Nigel Hamilton

  Mackenzie King was not alarmed by that. What struck him was how graciously and yet firmly Roosevelt was handling his enlarged role. Where Churchill had recently become somehow smaller, in both spirit as well as power, the President had seemed to grow larger. The President explained how he had secretly sent Marshall and Hopkins to London “to urge the necessity for offensive action which would help to relieve pressure on the Russians by creating another front”—but that this certainly did not mean he was willing to give in to the “Russian request regarding guaranteeing of [postwar] frontiers. He said any consideration of this meant an ignoring of the Atlantic Charter. The main difficulty was that beginning with one concession would only lead to concessions regarding boundaries of other countries. The Russians,” Roosevelt said, “would keep pressing for all they were worth,” but as president of the United States he would not alter his stance—leading King to consider “it inadvisable” to contest the matter at the meeting, no matter how much Churchill was imploring him to do so, in pursuit of a British treaty with the Soviet Union. The dispute was, as King noted, “a matter of rather delicate discussion at the moment between the United Kingdom and the United States.” Canada, he said, would stay right out of it.

  The Chinese, Netherlands, and Australian and New Zealand representatives on the council “all seemed to approve cordially of the President’s action,” King noted—Roosevelt promising at the meeting to dispatch not only U.S. planes to give backbone to the British in defending Ceylon, but American crews and even troops.7

  All in all, however, it seemed a veritable tragedy that, with so many hundreds of thousands of British troops and personnel in India and Burma, the British had so ignominiously surrendered the Allies’ overland route via Burma to China—and now looked like they were being pushed back across the Burmese border into India itself.

  The meeting of the Pacific War Council ended at 5:30 P.M. Later that evening the President gave a small, intimate dinner for Mackenzie King, who was staying in what was called Queen Elizabeth’s Bedroom, or the Rose Room—beginning with cocktails in the President’s Oval Study, next to his bedroom, at 7:10 P.M.

  “The President himself mixed up the cocktails before going down to the small dining room, and we had a very happy little dinner party during which time the President recounted some of the events in connection with Churchill’s visit and his stay in Florida” during his convalescence in January 19428—including the British prime minister’s embarrassment when telephoning Wendell Willkie, the 1940 Republican contender for the U.S. presidency, and getting, instead, President Roosevelt.9

  Churchill, in other words, was admired as a great character, but not quite to be trusted. “We had a little talk with regard to some aspects of the war, but mostly a pleasant social evening during which the President and I talked a good deal across the table to each other and the younger people joined in with their observations,” King wrote in his diary that night. “I confess I felt how much it adds to one’s life to be surrounded by young people.”10

  The President seemed relaxed—and sanguine. Over dinner he had amused his guests by saying, in the event of an air attack, he would use the underground tunnel to the Treasury Building vaults, where he hoped “they would arrange to have some card tables and poker chips” set up, “so they could appropriately pass the time while concealed there.” He had from the Army Air Forces the latest information on U.S. long-distance bombers—and expected that, over time, both the Japanese and the Germans would surely build similar ones that could reach the U.S. eastern and western coasts, and even bomb “the capital,” Washington. “The news had just come before dinner of the very successful attack of MacArthur’s men from Australia upon the Japs at the Philippines by bomber plane, taking a trip of 4,000 miles and return. Naturally every one was relieved and rejoiced at what had been done in that way,” King noted.11

  After dinner, “the young people withdrew and the President and I went to his circular library”—the President’s upstairs Oval Study. There “the President seated himself in the corner of a large leather sofa to the left,” King recorded, “and told me to sit on the sofa beside him.”12

  King at first declined, thinking it would be easier to converse facing his American counterpart, and took a chair instead. He quickly noticed, however, that this would cause the President “to be seated at a lower level,” which seemed wrong. Moving to the place on the sofa that the President indicated, King was once again drawn into Roosevelt’s affectionate orbit: his easy, intelligent charm and goodwill, despite his affliction—indeed the President’s disability, as they sat there, seemed almost the opposite, investing Roosevelt, who was six feet, two inches tall, with a strangely powerful aura, at once humble and magnetic.

  The President asked what King thought of the afternoon meeting. “I thought from the way he referred to the Pacific Council that he was a little uncertain himself as to its value”—given that it was originally to have had its location in London—“and really wanted to know what I thought of it. He then said to me he wanted to tell me about India, and made the significant remark that this would be of historic interest” in the future. “He then repeated what he had said at dinner, that he believed that the plan he had proposed” for an Indian national government “might have met the situation satisfactorily, and would have been accepted had the British Government been agreeable to it. He said: ‘the idea was not my own but I communicated it to Churchill. He [Churchill] had this material before Cripps’ interviews in India.’”

  Churchill, clearly, had not been amused, the President confided. “‘He, Churchill, sent me’ (I am not using his exact words but tone) ‘long accounts of the situation respecting India, going back to the days of [Governor-General] Warren Hastings and [General] Clive,” in the eighteenth century. By contrast, “‘What I proposed was along the lines of the way America proceeded at the time of the Revolution’” when American independence was declared. “‘It was arranged that the delegates should be sent to an Assembly and an ad hoc provisional government set up which would carry on the government of the different states on matters of general concern, and later allowing a Constitution to be formed which would give full powers of government. What I proposed for India,’” the President explained, “‘was to give the Indians complete right of government themselves at once with regard to such matters as tariffs, trade and commerce, post office, communications and external affairs or foreign policy, and also defense with the understanding, however, that for the actual military operations, General Wavell would have control of the strategy and direction of forces, etc. I pointed out that it was a great mistake in the British proposal to allow any part [of India] to secede, and spoke particularly of the civil war in our country which had been the result of an attempt at secession. All should have been prepared to work together for a time admitting there would be problems to be overcome, but that these should be worked out between themselves.’”13

  King found himself astonished at how closely the President had been involved in the Cripps mission—and its reception in India. “The President went on to say,” the Canadian premier stated, “that he had reason to know that his proposals would have been accepted by all of the different groups in India, and that they would have been satisfactory to Cripps.”14 Roosevelt had not, however, been able to get Churchill “to arrange for a plan on those lines”—this account verified by the Chinese foreign minister, Dr. Soon, the following day. (Dr. Soon confided to Mackenzie King “for my strictly personal information,” that he had it “on the best of authority that a settlement could have been reached by Cripps, had the British Govt. allowed him to make the settlement on a basis which the Indians and he were prepared to agree on, but that the British Govt. would not give that extent of authority.”)15

  Clearly, the President was frustrated that the British would simply fiddle while Calcutta burned. It was, Roosevelt lamented, too bad. Yet not as bad as the next morning, when the President told King of the latest cable he had received from Churc
hill.

  “It was midnight when I turned out the light. Slept soundly,” King recorded in his diary.16 When he awoke at 7:30 on April 16, 1942, in the Rose Room’s four-poster bed, he had two visions, which deeply affected him. They both concerned, he thought, the President’s plans for prosecuting the war against the Nazis in Europe—but before he could discuss them personally with Mr. Roosevelt, he met Admiral King (no relation) in the upstairs hallway. The admiral had been urgently summoned, together with General Joseph McNarney, the acting chief of staff of the U.S. Army in the absence of Generals Marshall and Arnold in London, to an early meeting with the President. Admitted into the Oval Study while the officers were asked to wait outside, Mackenzie King listened in amazement as the President told him the latest news.

  The night before, Roosevelt had said he thought the British were falling apart—“that they had the worst case of jitters in Britain that he thought they had ever had,” as King recorded in his diary. “That they were terribly concerned and fearful of the whole situation” in India and the Indian Ocean.17 King had agreed—saying it was with good reason, given the British failure to handle the situation in India sensibly. Looking at the President on the morning of April 16, however, King was aware that the President’s worst fears had now been realized, as Roosevelt “put his hand to his forehead.” On the desk in front of him was a pile of telegrams. “I had a bad night last night,” the President confided. “At 11:30, I received a war message from Winston. It is the worst message that I have received.” Pointing to the cables, he said: “They are the most depressing of anything I have read.”18

  Calling in Admiral King and General McNarney, the President read aloud Churchill’s tale of woe—a long cable “to the effect that he, Churchill, was greatly concerned about his position in the Indian Ocean. That he feared the Japanese were assembling a powerful fleet which might succeed in taking Ceylon and later Calcutta and lead to landing Japanese forces in India with internal situation arising there which might lead to any kind of consequences. That if Ceylon was taken, the getting of assistance to the Middle East, to Egypt, etc, might be cut off with consequent demoralizations of British position there. He [Churchill] did not think the British could hold the situation without some of the American fleet coming to their assistance and asked for a couple of battleships, mentioned one or two additional battleships which the British might be able to send.”19

  Churchill’s panic was evident in every line. As the Canadian premier noted afterwards: “the passage that impressed me most in what came from Churchill was a statement to the effect that Madras and Ceylon might both be taken; also the steel industries of Calcutta. The possibility of internal trouble in India which might lead to anything there; also the Japanese might sweep on to the Persian Gulf, and that the whole Middle East might become demoralized. The message was a plea for urgent assistance by the American fleet.”20

  It was understandable that Churchill would later excise this entire saga from his six-volume war memoirs. It was far from his finest hour.

  The “situation in India, and in the Indian ocean” marked the turning point in World War II, in the President’s eyes: the moment when the collapse of the British as a primary global power became manifest.

  “China and the U.S. together would have to settle the affairs in the Far East,” Mackenzie King had noted Roosevelt’s view the night before. “He did not see how Britain could be expected to do much in that area.”21 If the British fell apart, the United States would have to take over responsibility for the defense of the hemisphere. With “about 100,000” American troops already stationed in Australia and New Zealand22—men who would actually fight, rather than running away—the President had no real concern that this transfer of power in the Orient could be achieved—anchoring U.S. power in Hawaii and the Antipodes. Nevertheless, Roosevelt clearly felt the British had made a historic mess of their empire in the Far East.

  “He could not understand that there was no reference,” in Churchill’s latest entreaty, to Roosevelt’s “previous communication by which he had offered to supply large quantities of bombing planes to Ceylon which could be sent from Montreal and which were ready to start, just awaiting the press of a button. . . . He then said that he had repeated to Churchill that they should not let their ships get beyond air protection. The loss of the last two ships was like the loss of the Repulse and the Prince of Wales, getting far enough from land to be unable to take care of themselves. He felt the British were thinking too much of a fleet battle in the Indian Ocean”23—for, in his latest panic-stricken telegram, Churchill had informed the President that he was not only immediately dispatching his First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, to Washington to “discuss with you and Admiral King the whole position and make long term plans” but expressed the hope that, if the President agreed to use the U.S. Pacific Fleet as he, the Prime Minister, had suggested, in the Indian Ocean, “you will be able to have the necessary orders given without waiting for his arrival. We cannot afford to lose any time.”24

  A “fleet battle” by the U.S. Navy in the Indian Ocean, at the British prime minister’s suggestion? Roosevelt was, once again, incredulous. “Until we are able to fight a fleet action,” Churchill’s cable ran, “there is no reason why the Japanese should not become the dominating factor in the Western Indian Ocean. This would result in the collapse of our whole position in the Middle East, not only because of the interruption to our convoys to the Middle East and India, but also because of the interruptions to the oil supplies from Abadan, without which we cannot maintain our position at sea or on land in the Indian Ocean Area. Supplies to Russia via the Persian Gulf would also be cut . . .”25

  It was an absurd request. Not only had Roosevelt, as U.S. commander in chief, no intention whatsoever of sending an American fleet into the Indian Ocean, he had no intention of allowing the British tail to wag the American dog. Coming on top of the Prime Minister’s earlier threat to resign, Churchill appeared to have lost his mind.

  To Admiral King’s relief, the President explained he had no intention, nor had he had at any time any intention, of fighting a “fleet action” in the Indian Ocean—particularly in conjunction with a Royal Navy that had no idea how to cooperate with modern air force units. Even the British Army’s chief of staff, General Brooke, was in despair at the refusal of the RAF to see its role as supporting British Army or Navy forces—dooming the British to defeat in battle. Why, then, would the President of the United States replicate the antiquated approach of the “Former Naval Person”—as Churchill called himself in his cables to the White House—to modern warfare?

  Moreover, to imagine that the dimwitted, brave but ailing First Sea Lord would be able on arrival to sway the President and his chiefs of staff, especially Admiral King, to accept strategic direction from the Prime Minister, was, in this regard, yet another demonstration of Churchill’s almost infallible instinct for choosing the wrong commanders of his military forces.

  In the presence of the Canadian prime minister, the President told Admiral King and General McNarney to draft a blanket no to Churchill’s cable—but to add a brief but guarded mention of American plans that were already in hand in the Pacific.

  “Luncheon was served at his desk” in the downstairs Oval Office, Mackenzie King recorded—“which like the one in his library upstairs was literally covered with a lot of political souvenirs. Cloth dunkeys and other fantastic figures”—bric-a-brac from past political campaigns depicting Democrats as donkeys—seemed to the ascetic Canadian to be “incongruous. The President clearly enjoys nothing more than political campaigning and its associations. The game of politics is a great stimulus to him”—affording him “as many personal contacts as possible,” despite his disability.26

  The Canadian premier had been amazed, earlier that morning, to have been invited into the President’s study while the chiefs of staff were kept waiting: a deliberate gesture designed, he realized, to remind the President’s military advisers of their lower place
in his sun—and a warning not to exceed it. Similarly, he would never allow a cable to go out over his signature that did not reflect his genuine views or feelings. “After lunch General McNarney and Admiral King came in with a telegram prepared for Churchill which the President read over and”—to Mackenzie King’s fascination—“revised and softened a bit here and there,” as King noted.27 Roosevelt was clear that, whatever Admiral King or General McNarney might draft, he was not going to humiliate his great ally in the war, despite Churchill’s missteps.

  The Prime Minister’s stature as the embodiment of defiance was, Roosevelt thereby indicated to Mackenzie King, an essential part of the Allied cause. Using the USS Ranger aircraft carrier as a fast plane-transport, the President advised Churchill he would send planes immediately to reinforce British forces in India—not only to ensure the defense of Ceylon, Madras, and Calcutta from Japanese naval attack, but to “compel you to keep your fleet under their coverage,” as the President added, pointedly. As for sending an American fleet to the Indian Ocean, though, Roosevelt was polite, but firm: “I hope you will agree with me that because of operational differences between the two services there is a grave question as to whether a main fleet concentration should be made in Ceylon with mixed forces.” To follow such a course would be to play the Japanese game. Instead, the President had in mind a quite different strategem: to make the Japanese Navy withdraw from the Indian Ocean without the President having to compromise his ever-growing U.S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. This plan was something he was not, however, willing to confide to Churchill, as his second paragraph made clear.