American Warlords

by Jonathan W. Jordan

  ONE “NEW POWERS OF DESTRUCTION”

  1 Ickes, 5/12/40, LC (Ickes Papers); Sherwood 500.

  2 Samuel Rosenman, interview, 4/9/59, 160–64, FDRL; FDR, inscription in personal copy of Mein Kampf, 1933, FDRL.

  3 “Roosevelt’s Valet Joins Navy,” NYT, 2/22/43; Tully 111; “Irvin M’Duffie, 63, Roosevelt’s Valet,” NYT, 1/31/46.

  4 Tully 76–77; Sherwood 206; Leahy 123; “24-Hour Day at the White House,” NYT, 5/26/40; Goodwin 17, citing New Yorker, 6/16/34; Charles Hurd, “As His Third and Hardest Term Begins,” NYT, 1/19/41.

  5 Ickes, 5/19/40, LC (Ickes Papers).

  6 Ickes, 5/12/40, 5/26/40, 3:175, 190; Goodwin 31, quoting Morgenthau, memorandum, 5/10/40, Morgenthau Papers, FDRL.

  7 FDR, Jr., interview, 1/11/79, FDRL; “Hopkins Disbursed Billions on Relief,” NYT, 8/25/40.

  8 ER, interview, 7/13/54, FDRL (Oral Histories, box 1); Goodwin 31 (“ill-fed”).

  9 Sherwood 203–04, 212 (“extraordinary”).

  10 W. A. Jansen to HLH, 5/10/40, FDRL (Hopkins Papers, box 302); Holt to Carroll Wilson, 5/9/40, FDRL (Hopkins Papers, box 302); “Turning Point,” Time, 5/20/40; Ickes, 5/12/40, LC (Ickes Papers); “H.F.” to HLH, 5/15/40, FDRL (Hopkins Papers, box 302); Ickes, 5/12/40, 3:173–75; Grosvenor M. Jones to James W. Young, 5/9/40, FDRL (Hopkins Papers, box 302); Carroll L. Wilson to HLH, 5/16/40, FDRL (Hopkins Papers, box 302).

  11 Ickes, 5/12/40, LC (Ickes Papers) (“drunk”).

  12 “President Solemn,” NYT, 5/17/40; Goodwin 41, citing WP 5/17/40; “Asks $1,820,000,000 for Defense,” Corsicana Daily Sun, 5/16/40; ER, interview, 9/3/53, FDRL (Oral Histories, box 1); Ickes, 5/19/40, LC (Ickes Papers); Samuel Rosenman, interview, 4/9/59, 183, FDRL; Tobin 327–28 n.69.

  13 FDR, address, 5/16/40, FDR-PP, 1940, 199–202 (“ominous”).

  14 FDR, address, 5/16/40, FDR-PP, 1940, 202; Smith, “Battle of the Atlantic,” 12; Heinrichs 10.

  15 James Cate and E. Kathleen Williams, “The Air Corps Prepares for War, 1939–41,” in Craven and Cate 1:107; Goodwin 41.

  16 FDR, address, 5/16/40, FDR-PP, 1940, 203–04 (“There are some”).

  17 GCM, “Biennial Report of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, July 1, 1939, to June 30, 1941, to the Secretary of War,” 3 (“third-rate”); GCM, speech to American Historical Association, 12/28/39, Vital Speeches, 6:268–70; Smith, Economic Mobilization, 24–36, 119–126.

  18 DDE, interview, 6/28/62, PL (“helluva”); GCM, “Biennial Report of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, July 1, 1939, to June 30, 1941,” 3; Pogue 2:7.

  19 W. B. Smith, interview, 7/29/58, PL; Leonard T. Gerow, interview, 2/24/58, PL; Thomas Handy, interview, 3/23/59, PL; Parrish 357, quoting Mona Nason, interview, 6/26/86; M. C. Stayer, interview, 1/20/60, GCML; MP 1:684 n.2.

  20 Mrs. J. J. Singer, interview, 2/7/60, GCML.

  21 Parrish 49–51, quoting Frank H. Partridge to Edgar F. Puryear Jr., 9/10/62; Cray 103.

  22 Helen Bailey, “The Office of the Chief of Staff,” 4/11/01, GCML (World War II–Korean War Memories Project); Parrish 55, 93–94; Taaffe 3.

  23 Felix Frankfurter, interview, 2/20/58, PL; GCM, interview, 7/9/47, GCML; Bernard Baruch, interview, 4/15/57, 3/14/61, PL.

  24 Usher’s Log, 4/23/39, FDRL; Parrish 137, quoting James T. Williams, Jr., GCML (“When I disapprove”); Parrish 97–98 (“unpleasant”); GCM, interview, 7/9/47, GCML; “Marshall Named as Chief of Staff,” NYT, 4/27/39.

  TWO THREE MINUTES

  1 Thomas Handy, interview, 7/9/70, PL; Louis Johnson, interview, 10/28/57, PL; Parrish 121-22.

  2 Pogue 1:271; Bernard Baruch, interview, 10/15/57, 3/14/61, PL.

  3 Bernard Baruch, interview, 3/14/61, PL; GCM, testimony, 2/23/40, MP 2:163–64 (“blazes”); Pogue 2:17; Goodwin 25 (“After the war”).

  4 Hassett 1/8/42; Beschloss 46–50 (“only Jew”); FDR to GCM, 5/24/40, FDR-PL 2:1030.

  5 Usher’s Log, 5/13–14/40, FDRL; Blum, Years of War, 2:140–41 (“filed your protest”); GCM, interview, 11/15/56, GCML (“three minutes”); Parrish 133–34.

  6 Truman Smith, interview, 10/15/59, PL; John Hull, interview, 5/5/70, PL; GCM, interview, 11/21/56, GCML; HLS, 11/16/42; Vogel 284; Thomas Handy, interview, 3/23/59, PL; Pogue 3:59, citing Marjorie Payne Roberts Lunger, interview, 6/20/69, GCML; McCarthy to GCM, 6/25/42, GCML (McCarthy Papers, box 17); Pogue 3:60, 65–66; Crosswell 207–09; Parrish 171.

  7 Helen Bailey, “The Office of the Chief of Staff,” 4/11/01, GCML (World War II–Korean War Memories Project); Matthew Ridgway, “My Recollections of General of the Army George C. Marshall,” 10/3/80, GCML (Reminiscences File, box 1); Truman Smith, interview, 10/15/59, PL; John Hull, interview, 5/5/70, PL; GCM, interview, 11/21/56, GCML; HLS, 11/16/42; Vogel 284; Thomas Handy, interview, 3/23/59, PL; Pogue 3:59, citing Marjorie Payne Roberts Lunger, interview, 6/20/69, GCML; Pogue 3:60, 65–66; Crosswell 207–09.

  8 James Powder, interview, 10/19/59, GCML; GCM to Morrison C. Stayer, 1/15/39, MP 1:682–84; Pogue 3:60–61; Larrabee 102–05; Crosswell 207–09, 223–24.

  9 Helen Bailey, “The Office of the Chief of Staff,” 4/11/01, GCML (World War II–Korean War Memories Project); Felix Frankfurter, interview, 2/20/58, PL (“solve”).

  10 Albert Wedemeyer, interview, 2/1/58, PL; Parrish 368, quoting Mona Nason, interview, 6/26/86 (“It’s difficult”); Parrish 358, citing Mona Nason, interview, 6/26/86 (“Wedemeyer”).

  11 GCM to HLS, 5/16/41, MP 2:508–10; FDR-PL 2:1303; Richard G. Davis, “Hap: Henry H. Arnold, Military Aviator” (Washington: U.S. Government, 1997); HHA, Global Mission, 186.

  12 “Five-Alarm Rib,” SEP, 12/9/44; “Prankster, Actor Vince Barnett Dies,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/10/77.

  13 Pogue 3:327–28; Parrish 345.

  14 Parrish 136 (“In the first place”).

  15 Cray 401 (“most brilliant”); Parrish 354–55; Pogue 3:218–19.

  16 DDE, interview, 6/28/62, PL (“outburst”).

  17 DDE, interview, 6/28/62, PL; Crosswell 209–10; Parrish 138–39.

  18 James Powder, interview, 10/19/59, GCML; Frank McCarthy, interview, 6/56, PL; “Marshall’s Big Sergeant,” St. Petersburg Times, 10/18/59; Pogue, speech to U.S. Air Force Association, Harmon Memorial Lecture #10, 1968 (“No one”).

  19 “General Marshall’s Greatest Satisfaction As Told to a Friend,” GCML (Reminiscences File, box 1); James Powder, interview, 10/19/59, GCML; Thomas Handy, interview notes, 8/21/56, PL; William M. Kerrigan to Frank Cash, Jr., 9/22/83, GCML (Reminiscences File, box 1); Felix Frankfurter, interview, 2/20/58, PL; Truman Smith, interview, 10/15/59, PL; W. B. Smith, interview, 7/29/58, PL; Mark Clark, interview, 11/17/59, PL; Bernard Baruch, interview, 10/15/57, PL (“tired”).

  20 Pogue 2:302 (“pants”); GCM, interview, 2/11/57, GCML (“fearful”).

  21 “Promotion Issue Stirs Army, Navy,” NYT, 7/10/39 (“The President”).

  22 Bundy, Active Service, 238; Pogue 2:22–23; HLS, 11/25/40; Morison 488–89; Stoler 16.

  23 GCM, interview, 11/13/56, GCML (“cigarette-holder”); Pogue 1:324 (“dinner table”).

  24 W. B. Smith, interview, 7/29/58, PL (“disposal”).

  25 GCM, interview, 2/11/57, GCML (“voluble”).

  26 FDR to Asa Singleton, 11/22/39, MP 2:107–08 (“bored”); DDE, interview, 6/28/62, PL.

  27 FDR to Hopkins, 11/4/42, MP 3:423–24.

  THREE “THE HAND THAT HELD THE DAGGER”

  1 WSC to FDR, 5/15/40.

  2 GCM, interview, 1/15/57, GCML; Pogue 2:50 (“shortage”); Pogue 2:48–50; Watson, Chief of Staff, 305–08.

  3 Ickes, 6/5/40, 3:200 (“guess wrong”); Watson, Chief of Staff, 303, quoting GCM, memorandum, 2/21/40 (“adverse”); Matloff, 1941–1943, 17 (“lamp post”); Pogue 2:52, quoting WBS to GCM, 6/11/40.

  4 Larabee 644, q
uoting Gunther, Roosevelt in Retrospect, 326 (“he decides”); FDR, fireside chat, 12/29/40.

  5 WSC to FDR, 5/15/40; FDR to WSC, 5/16/40; Rosenman 192; “Last Call,” Time, 8/5/40.

  6 FDR to WSC, 5/16/40; Rosenman 190; Watson, Chief of Staff, 310.

  7 Morgenthau 6/5/40, in Blum, Years of Urgency, 155 (“extra push”); Pogue 2:51.

  8 Chief of Ordnance to GCM, 5/22/40, Watson, Chief of Staff, 309; Pogue 2:51 (citing Hall, North American Supply, 134–35); Kent 39–41; GCM, interview, 12/7/56, GCML (“duplicity”); MP 2:262; Louis Johnson, interview, 10/28/57, PL.

  9 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fact Sheet, “FUDS: Former Raritan Arsenal, Edison, New Jersey,” www.nan.usace.army.mil/Portals/37/docs/civilworks/projects/nj/fuds/Raritan/raritan0410.pdf; “Nazi Ring Closing in on Paris,” New York Times, 6/13/40; Stettinius, Lend-Lease, 27.

  10 Watson, Chief of Staff, 304; Morison 477; Goodwin 23; Pogue 2:20.

  11 FDR to Harry Woodring, 6/25/40, FDR-PL 2:1042–44; Stettinius, Lend-Lease, 28; Goodwin 66

  12 “The Tenth of June,” Time, 6/17/40; HLS, 12/29/40; William Safire, “What’s in a Phrase: ‘Stab in the Back,’” New York Times Magazine, 5/21/89.

  13 Rosenman 347; HLS, 12/29/40 (“conscience”).

  14 FDR, address, 6/10/40, FDR-PP, 1940, 263–64 (“dagger,” “all roads”); “The Tenth of June,” Time, 6/17/40.

  15 “Walsh Navy Bill Passed by Senate,” NYT, 6/21/40 (“dangerous”); Walsh, Congressional Record, 76 Cong., 3rd Sess, 6/21/40, 8784 (“American boy”); Charles Lindbergh, address, 5/19/40, Vital Speeches 6:484–85 (“hysteria”).

  16 Ickes, 5/19/40, LC (Ickes Papers, reel 2).

  17 HLS to FDR, 5/21/40, PSF box 106, FDRL (“Goebbels”); “Turning Point,” Time, 5/20/40 (“fold up”); Sherwood 165.

  18 “24-Hour Day at the White House,” NYT, 5/26/40.

  19 Felix Frankfurter, interview, 2/20/58, PL (“baby”).

  20 Ickes, 5/19/40, LC (Ickes Papers, reel 2); Goodwin 23, quoting ER, interview, FDRL (“angry”); Pogue 2:20; Morison 477–78.

  FOUR “FEWER AND BETTER ROOSEVELTS”

  1 HLS, 2/16/41; Bundy, Active Service, 94–99; Hodgson 8–9.

  2 Morison 12–13.

  3 Bundy, Active Service, 235–37, 249; Morison, Turmoil, 385–87, 472; Hodgson 218–19; Hassett 4/5/43.

  4 HLS, 5/8/40 (“half-baked”); Hodgson 210–11, citing HLS, 11/9/32, 11/16/32.

  5 Felix Frankfurter, interview, 2/20/58, PL; Ickes, 5/19/40, LC (Ickes Papers, reel 2); FDR to Harry Woodring, 6/19/40, FDR-PL 2:1041; Hodgson 61, 221–23; Morison 480–82; Watson, Chief of Staff, 190–95.

  6 Annie Knox, “Pattern of Life of Frank Knox from 1898–1944,” n.d., LC (Knox Papers, box 1); “U.S. at War,” Time, 9/7/42, LC (Knox Papers, box 4); Frances Perkins, interview, part viii, 64, COHP; James Forrestal to Knox, 1/20/44, LC (Knox Papers, box 4); “Text Book of the Republican Party, 1936,” Republican National Committee, 22.

  7 Knox to FDR, 12/15/37, FDRL (PPF, box 4083) (“drunk”); “Secretary Knox,” Life, 3/10/41; Sherwood 163; “Turning Point: Moving Away from Isolationism,” Time, 5/20/40; “Bulletin,” The Daily Times-News (Burlington, NC), 5/17/40; Smith, FDR, 365 (“fewer”).

  8 Ickes, 7/5/40, LC (Ickes Papers, reel 2); Annie Knox, “Pattern of Life of Frank Knox, 1898–1944,” n.d., LC (Knox Papers, box 1); “Roosevelt Signs Two-Ocean Navy Bill,” NYT, 7/21/40; EJK, Report to the Secretary of the Navy, 3/27/44, 12–13; Reilly 87; Morison 1:27; Morison 482, quoting Grenville Clark, interview, 8/17/54, and Felix Frankfurter, interview, 9/29/54; HLS, 6/25/40; Bundy, Active Service, 323–24; Larrabee 108.

  9 H. R. Stark, interview, 3/13/59, PL; Leahy, interview, 5/24/48, 4, KP (box 9); Knox to FDR, 1/4/43, KP (box 9).

  10 HLS, 6/25/40; Bundy, Active Service, 323–24; Morison, Turmoil, 481; Hodgson 214–15; Smith, FDR, 450.

  11 “Stimson and Knox Disowned by Party,” NYT, 6/21/40 (“treachery”); “Scores Hamilton on Knox,” NYT, 6/26/40; “Two Appointments,” Time, 7/1/40 (“If there”); Ickes, 7/5/40, LC (Ickes Papers, reel 2); Hodgson 224.

  12 “Turning Point: Moving Away from Isolationism,” Time, 5/20/40; PM, 10/22/41, 10/24/41, University of California San Diego (Dr. Seuss Collection, MSS 230); Casey 28, citing Fortune, 7/21/40.

  13 HLS, 7/9/40; Hodgson 224.

  14 GCM to HLS, 1/22/27, MP 1:322; HLS to GCM, 1/21/28, MP 1:322; GCM to HLS, 1/21/29, MP 1:322; GCM, interview, 4/11/57, GCML; Greg Franke, “Henry Stimson and George Marshall: An Enduring Friendship,” GCML; “Henry L. Stimson Dies at 83 in His Home on Long Island,” NYT, 10/21/50; Hodgson 231.

  15 GCM to Katherine Marshall, 6/28/40, MP 2:252 n.1 (“They are”); GCM to Frank McCoy, 6/26/40, MP 2:252.

  16 Morison, Turmoil, 508 n. 7, citing HLS, 8/14/41; Hodgson 231.

  17 HLS, 7/29/40; Hodgson 241; “Henry L. Stimson Dies at 83 in His Home on Long Island,” NYT, 10/21/50; HLS, 7/29/40; Bundy, Active Service, xxii.

  18 Smith, “Battle of the Atlantic,” 12; Roscoe 25.

  19 Keegan, Atlas, 35.

  20 WSC to FDR, 7/31/40 (“Mr. President”).

  21 “Last Call,” Time, 8/5/40; Rosenman 204; Goodwin 138–39 (“survival”).

  22 Stark to FDR, 9/28/38, KP (box 9); FDR, memorandum, 8/2/40, FDR-PL 2:1050–51; HLS, 8/3/40; “In the Open,” Time, 8/12/40; Simpson 52–53, quoting Stark to Knox, 8/17/40; Jackson 97; Ickes, 7/5/40, LC (Ickes Papers, reel 2); Naval Expansion Act, 6/28/40, in Baptiste 53; FDR to Sumner Welles, 6/1/40, FDR-PL 2:1036; FDR to Frank Knox, 7/22/40, FDR-PL 2: 1048–49; H. R. Stark, interview, 3/13/59, PL; Stevenson 105 (“not essential”); Simpson 52.

  23 Jackson 87, 97; FDR, memorandum, 8/2/40, FDR-PL 2:1050–51; HLS, 8/2/40; FDR, memorandum, 8/2/40, FDR-PL 2:1050–51; HLS, 8/3/40; “In the Open,” Time, 8/12/40; Simpson 52–53, quoting Stark to Knox, 8/17/40.

  24 “No Legal Bar Seen to Transfer of Destroyers,” NYT, 8/11/40; HLS, 8/12/40; Jackson 95.

  25 HLS, 8/13–14/40.

  26 FDR, press release, 8/31/35, FDRL (Berle Papers, box 58); HLS, 8/21/40; Simpson 52–54.

  27 Jackson 74, quoting Robert Jackson, interview, COHP (“The President”).

  28 Stark, interview, 5/26/48, KP (box 9) (“I’ll be breaking”).

  29 FDR, memorandum, 8/13/40, FDR-PL 2:1052; HLS, 8/17/40; “Roosevelt to See MacKenzie King,” NYT, 8/17/40; FDR to David Walsh, 8/22/40, FDR-PL 2:1056–57; Jackson 91; “US-Canada Ties Welded,” NYT, 8/18/40; Goodwin 142–43.

  30 HLS, 8/19/40 (“funny”).

  31 FDR, press conference, 9/3/40, FDR-PP 1940, 376 (“Louisiana Purchase”), 379 (“all over”).

  FIVE THE NEW DEAL WAR

  1 Sherwood 159, quoting Harold Smith (“total war”); Hassett, 2/3/42; Tully 17.

  2 FDR, press conference, 8/7/42, FDR-PP, 1943, 326 (“home front”); Janeway 71 (“New Deal war”).

  3 Hodgson 227, citing Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, 355 & n.595; Hodgson 224, citing Hillman, “Comparative Strength of the Great Powers,” in Arnold Toynbee (ed.), The World in March 1939, 443.

  4 FDR, address, 10/31/36, FDR-PP, 1936, 568–59 (“hatred”).

  5 “Arming America,” NYT, 6/2/40; FDR, press conference, 5/28/40, FDR-PP, 1940, 245–48; Ickes, 6/2/40, LC (Ickes Papers, reel 2).

  6 Sherwood 161–62; “Members of the President’s National Defense Commission,” Washington Evening Star, 5/29/40; Rosenman 224; Goodwin 55–56; FDR, press conference, 5/28/40, FDR-PP, 1940, 242 (“cosmetics”).

  7 FDR to Grenville Clark, 5/18/41, FDR-PL 2:1026.

  8 Rosenman 225; Goodwin 139; FDR to William White, 12/14/39, FDR-PL 2:967 (“to get”); Murphy 69 (“Mothers”).

  9 HLS, 8/1/40; Ickes, 7/5/40, LC (Ickes Papers, reel 2); Stark, interview, 5/26/48, KP (box 9) (“You could”).

  10 Rosenman, Working wi
th Roosevelt, 167 (“It is a terrible”).

  11 GCM, interview, 1/22/57 (“crude”).

  12 Earl Rickard, “Marshall Builds the Defense Army,” WWII History (September 2012) 50; Pogue 2:58–59, citing Senate Comm. on Mil. Aff., Compulsory Military Training and Service, 7/12/40.

  13 FDR, press conference, FDR-PP, 1940, 320 (“We figured”).

  14 “First Lady Expands Her Views on Draft,” NYT, 9/17/40; “First Lady Ready for Sons’ Drafting,” NYT, 9/17/40.

  15 Ickes, 7/4–5/42, LC (Ickes Papers, reel 2); HLS, 7/19/40; Harold Ickes to Grace Tully, 7/14/50, FDRL (FDR Memorial Foundation, Ickes folder); FDR, Jr., interview, 1/11/79, FDRL, 4.

  16 FDR, address, 7/19/40, FDR-PP, 1940, 296–97 (“lying awake”).

  17 “The Crowd at Ellwood,” Time, 8/26/40 (“cannot ask”): “Text of Willkie Speech,” NYT, 8/18/40.

  18 Goodwin 146.

  19 HLS, 8/22/40, 9/9/40; “Exchange Blows in House,” NYT, 9/6/40; “The Bitter End,” Time, 9/16/40.

  20 FDR, proclamation, 9/16/40, FDR-PP, 1940, 429–31; Photograph, 9/16/40, GCML; Pogue 2:62.

  21 “The Draft: How It Works,” Time, 9/23/40; Pogue 2:63.

  22 GCM, radio address, 9/16/40, MP 2:311–12 (“for the first time”).

  SIX “ONE-FIFTY-EIGHT”

  1 HLS, 9/9/40 (“agonizing”); Pogue 2:63.

  2 Pogue 2:64, quoting HLS, 9/27/40 (“chest”).

  3 HHA, Global Mission, 184–86 (“Guam”); “Plan Exports Stir Capitol Tempest,” NYT, 3/13/40.

  4 Watson, Chief of Staff, 306 (“even-Steven”); HLS, 11/8/40, 9/23/41.

  5 Pogue 2:64, citing HLS, 9/27/40 (“chart”); Pogue 2:67, citing COS Conference, 12/2/40.

  6 FDR, handwritten memo, 11/12/40, in HLS, 11/12/40; HLS, 11/12/40 (“only peg”), 11/24/40; Marshall, interview, 11/15/56, GCML; Pogue 2:66.

  7 HLS, 11/13/40; GCM, interview, 1/15/57, GCML (“ashamed”); HLS, 11/15/40.

  8 HLS, 8/5/41, 11/12/41 (“topsy-turvy”), 12/18/40 (“vagrant beam”); Morison 508–09.