The Definitive FDR

by James Macgregor Burns

  Harriman flew with Churchill to Moscow and cabled the proceedings to an anxious Roosevelt. On the first evening, Harriman reported, Stalin answered Churchill’s arguments with a bluntness that approached insult. You cannot win wars, he said, if you are afraid of the Germans. He showed little interest in a 1943 second front. Churchill adroitly brought the discussion around to the increased heavy bombing of German cities—an agreeable topic to Stalin—and then to the plans for North Africa. Instantly Stalin showed an intense interest in these plans and before long was giving a masterly defense of them.

  At the next evening’s session, however, the atmosphere turned polar again. Stalin opened the meeting by handing Churchill and Harriman an aide-mémoire asserting that a 1942 second front had been “pre-decided” during Molotov’s trip, that the Soviets had based their summer and fall plans on the assumption of such a front, that this failure not only inflicted a “moral blow on the whole of the Soviet foreign opinion” but would impair the Anglo-American military position as well. When Stalin said that if the British infantry would only fight the Germans as the Russians and indeed the RAF had done, it would not be so afraid of them, Churchill said: “I pardon that remark only on account of the bravery of the Russian troops.” When Harriman asked about plans for ferrying American aircraft across Siberia the dictator turned on him: “Wars are not won with plans.”

  Another strange shift of mood occurred the next evening, Harriman reported to the President. Stalin was in good spirits at the state dinner and seemed completely oblivious of the previous evening’s unpleasantness. On the final evening Stalin invited Churchill to his apartment, and, after introducing his daughter, Svetlana, to his guest, talked with Churchill for six hours. “On the whole,” Churchill cabled to Roosevelt, “I am definitely encouraged by my visit to Moscow.” Roosevelt cabled Stalin that “we must bring our forces and our power against Hitler at the earliest possible moment.”

  Roosevelt, like the others, wondered why the Russians had blown so hot and cold during the short series of meetings. Both Harriman and Eden had encountered equally mystifying shifts in earlier conferences. There was speculation that Stalin on his own was friendly but had to take a harsher line in the presence of Politburo members or in reporting to them. Probably the truth was simpler. Frightful reports from the front, especially the Stalingrad sector, were arriving at the Kremlin during Churchill’s visit.

  Still, Stalin was profoundly ambivalent. Even as he denounced the lack of American and British help he must have reflected—for he never lost sight of the long-run, postwar implications of immediate decisions—on the strategic aspect of the Soviets’ taking the brunt of the ground fighting in 1942. If the Anglo-Americans were tardy in returning to Europe, where would the various armies stand after the crushing of Germany?

  ASIA THIRD

  All the immediate decisions made in the crucible of crises and conflict, all the improvisations and expediencies, would have their long-run effects. Doubtless Hopkins was reflecting much of the President’s feeling when he wrote to Winant after Molotov’s departure from Washington in June: “We simply cannot organize the world between the British and ourselves without bringing the Russians in as equal partners. For that matter, if things go well with Chiang Kai-shek, I would surely include the Chinese too. The days of the policy of the ‘white man’s burden’ are over. Vast masses of people simply are not going to tolerate it and for the life of me I can’t see why they should….” But the Soviets could hardly feel they were equal partners if they took an unequal share of the losses among the United Nations without an extra share of postwar compensation. Nor could the Chinese. Nor could the Indians.

  While Churchill was dampening Soviet second-front hopes in Moscow, his political policy in Asia was facing its harshest test. The failure of the Cripps mission precipitated a crisis in the Indian Congress. Gandhi and the other militants were urging civil disobedience. Nehru was in a dilemma. He abhorred any brand of fascism, supported the cause of the United Nations, and admired the Russian and Chinese defense against invaders. He believed, indeed, that a United Nations victory was necessary for Indian freedom. But he distrusted the British and wanted to stay abreast of his master, Gandhi, and the other nationalists as India marched toward independence. At a meeting of Congress leaders late in April Nehru supported a Gandhi-inspired resolution calling for a scorched-earth resistance to the Japanese while neither helping nor hindering Britain’s war effort. “Quit India,” Gandhi demanded of the British Raj; soon thousands were rallying to the call.

  Early in the summer, as emotions were rising, Gandhi appealed to Roosevelt. “Dear Friend,” he began.

  “I twice missed coming to your great country. I have the privilege [of] having numerous friends there both known and unknown to me.…I have profited greatly by the writings of Thoreau and Emerson. I say this to tell you how much I am connected with your country.” He went on to speak in the same vein of Great Britain; his plea that the British should unreservedly withdraw their rule, he said, was prompted by the friendliest intention.

  “My personal position is clear. I hate all war. If, therefore, I could persuade my countrymen, they would make a most effective and decisive contribution in favour of an honourable peace. But I know that all of us have not a living faith in non-violence.” So he proposed that if the Allies thought it necessary, they might keep their troops, at their own expense, in India, not for maintaining internal order but for preventing Japanese aggression and defending China. Then India must become free, even as America and Britain were. Only the full acceptance of his proposal could put the Allied cause on an unassailable basis.

  “I venture to think that the Allied declaration, that the Allies are fighting to make the world safe for freedom of the individual and for democracy sounds hollow, so long as India and, for that matter, Africa are exploited by Great Britain, and America has the Negro problem in her own home. But in order to avoid all complications, in my proposal I have confined myself only to India. If India becomes free, the rest must follow, if it does not happen simultaneously….”

  It was a compelling appeal to the Roosevelt of the Four Freedoms, a bold linking of the aspirations of Indians, Chinese, Africans, and even American Negroes—but it produced no reply from Washington. In Chungking, now almost cut off from India by Japanese troops, Chiang somberly watched the growing crisis in the subcontinent. He had long felt a natural kinship with Indian nationalists. As the British position collapsed in Malaya and India he had talked with Gandhi in Calcutta and later had told Churchill and Roosevelt that he was shocked by the military and political situation in India and that, while he had tried to view the colonial problem objectively, he was certain that the political problem must be solved before Indian morale collapsed. In yielding to Churchill, Roosevelt had in effect repudiated Chiang’s view. In their extremity the Chinese and Indian nationalists were drawing closer together. Late in June Gandhi wrote to Chiang.

  “I can never forget the five hours close contact I had with you and your noble wife in Calcutta. I had always felt drawn towards you in your fight for freedom….” He described his early friendships with Chinese in Johannesburg. Because of his warm feeling toward China he was anxious to make clear that his appeal to British power to withdraw from India was not meant in any way to weaken India’s defense against the Japanese. “I would not be guilty of purchasing the freedom of my country at the cost of your country’s freedom.” Japanese domination of either country must be prevented. “I feel India cannot do so while she is in bondage. India has been a helpless witness of the withdrawal from Malaya, Singapore and Burma.” The failure of the Cripps mission had left a deep wound that was still running.

  Gandhi described to Chiang his overtures to the British. “…the Government of Free India would agree that the Allied powers might under treaty with us keep their armed forces in India and use the country as a base for operations against threatened Japanese attack.” His heart went out to China in its heroic struggle and endless s
acrifice. “I look forward to the day when Free India and Free China will cooperate together in friendship and brotherhood for their own good and for the good of Asia and the world.”

  Late the next month, with the situation degenerating as he had predicted, Chiang wrote a long letter to the President. “With both sides remaining adamant in their views, the Indian situation has reached an extremely tense and critical stage.…If India should start a movement against Britain or against the United Nations, this will cause deterioration in the Indian situation from which the Axis powers will surely reap benefit. Such an eventuality will seriously affect the whole course of the war and at the same time the world might entertain doubts as to the sincerity of the lofty war aims of the United Nations.” The letter was rather repetitive, but Chiang put the matter squarely to the President. “Your country is the leader of this war of right against might and Your Excellency’s views have always received serious attention in Britain.” The Indians had long been expecting the United States to take a stand for justice and equality. The Indians were by nature a passive people, but likely to go to extremes. Repression would bring a violent reaction. The enlightened policy for Britain would be to grant complete freedom “and thus to prevent Axis troops from setting foot on Indian soil.”

  Chiang emphasized that this message was “strictly confidential…only for your Excellency’s personal reference.” But the day after receiving it Roosevelt, by telephone, instructed Welles to send the complete text of Chiang’s cable to Churchill, with a covering message. Welles drafted the message, arguing that it would do no good. All State Department information, he told the President, confirmed Chiang’s views that a desperately serious situation was at hand in India, of vital concern to American military interests in the Far East, and that Washington and Chungking should try to mediate between London and New Delhi. But the cable went to Churchill with a request for the Prime Minister’s thoughts and suggestions. The reply came not from Churchill, but from Attlee for the War Cabinet. It was a stiff defense of the British position, plus a notification that stern measures would be taken in the event of mass civil disobedience.

  Roosevelt sent a bland message to Chiang, stressing the need for military defense against Japan and declining to put pressure on the British. From New Delhi, Currie warned Roosevelt that Gandhi was accusing the United States of making common cause with Britain, and that this tendency “endangers your moral leadership in Asia and therefore America’s ability to exert its influence for acceptable and just settlements in postwar Asia.”

  June 1, 1942, Rollin Kirby, reprinted by permission of the New York Post

  After Gandhi, Nehru, and other Indian leaders were arrested in early August, Chiang sent a final appeal to the President as “the inspired author of the Atlantic Charter.” Roosevelt answered that neither he nor Chiang had the moral right to force their feelings on either the British or the Congress party, and that “irrespective of the merits of the case, any action which slows up the war effort in India results not in theoretical assistance, but in actual assistance to the armed forces of Japan.”

  Chiang had more than enough problems in his own country. China was nearing the end of its fifth year of war. The economy was steadily deteriorating. Artillery and aircraft were in desperately short supply. For months Washington had been promising military aid; much of it had been diverted to other, nearer fronts; some had been held in India; only a trickle had got through over the long, tortuous, and embattled supply lines. Chennault was still fighting gamely with his volunteer air group, and an army general, Joseph Stilwell, had been appointed commander of United States Army forces in China, Burma, and India, as well as Chief of Staff to Chiang, but neither officer had much to operate with. Roosevelt personally was the soul of graciousness to the Chinese, but also somewhat remote and evasive.

  China simply had a low priority in Washington compared with other fronts. But Chiang at least had comrades in adversity. By a twist of fate Roosevelt, within the span of a few weeks, was the target of direct and moving appeals from the leaders of a billion people—Stalin and Molotov for a second front, Gandhi and Nehru for aid in their campaign for independence, Chiang for expanded military support to China and for moral support of Indian nationalists. Roosevelt had found it necessary to deny all these appeals.

  There was a brief moment when the American military, galled by British rebuffs over the second front and other issues, flirted with the notion of repudiating Atlantic First and giving the Pacific top priority. MacArthur and King, both Pacific-oriented, favored heavy commitments to their respective theaters. The idea might have contained a bit of bluff; still, Marshall formally proposed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that if the British prevailed on cross-channel postponement, “the U.S. should turn to the Pacific for decisive action against Japan.” This would be a popular step with the American public, he added, and the Chinese and Russians would be in accord.

  Roosevelt would have none of it. To draw back from the Atlantic, he told Stimson, would be a little like taking up your dishes and going away. He stood fast for the basic plan of defeating Germany first, on the continuing assumption that trying to defeat Japan first would increase the chance of complete German domination of Europe and Africa. Defeat of Germany first, on the other hand, meant the defeat of Japan, probably without “firing a shot or losing a life.”

  THE LONG ARMS OF WAR

  So it was still Atlantic First—but of all the Commander in Chief’s battle efforts in the early months of the war, the most ineffective and humiliating occurred in the Atlantic itself. By spring 1942 the German submarine offensive against coastal shipping was scoring stunning triumphs. Within a day of declaring war Hitler had summoned Admiral Raeder to plan the offensive. Gone were the days when the Führer had to order his Navy to avoid provoking the Americans in the Atlantic. Now he could take the offensive. Raeder’s and Karl Doenitz’s U-boats were scattered from the Arctic to the South Atlantic, including a sizable fleet in the Mediterranean, but six large submarines were dispatched to the western Atlantic, with more to follow.

  The German commanders found a U-boat paradise. Hundreds of Allied ships were beating along the great lanes that ran from off the coast of Nova Scotia down to Nantucket Shoals, to New York City, to the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, to Florida, and thence to the rich oil ports of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Few of the ships were armed; they did not sail in convoys; often they were silhouetted, a perfect target for German torpedoes, against the glowing shore lights of tourist cities like Miami and Atlantic City, whose neon signs were not doused until mid-April. The U-boats would strike without warning, sometimes blowing a tanker or cargo ship in two with one torpedo, usually rescuing survivors or letting them get away in lifeboats, sometimes offering provisions to survivors—“send the bill to Roosevelt”—but occasionally machine-gunning them. The young U-boat commanders sometimes had so many targets they would coolly let a ship in ballast pass by and wait for a laden freighter. In March the over-all toll was 788,000 tons of dry cargo shipping, 375,000 tons in tankers, mostly along the coast and in the Gulf. The loss in tankers was so severe they had to be withdrawn from the Atlantic coastal trade.

  The Nazis were exultant. Raeder calculated that total Allied shipbuilding in 1942 would be seven million tons and that the Navy need sink only 600,000 tons a month to keep ahead; it was doing far better than that. Hitler, once so parsimonious with his Navy, played with the enticing hope that the offensive could slow down all Allied operations across the Atlantic or even stop them completely.

  For a man who had dealt with a somewhat similar though far less critical problem during World War I, Roosevelt commanded a Navy that was surprisingly unprepared to cope with the fury and scope of the U-boat offensive. In part the problem was the usual one of scant equipment. Three months after Pearl Harbor the Navy had only eighty-six planes, sixty-seven Coast Guard cutters, and a motley collection of converted yachts and trawlers to cover the whole East Coast. The President had complained that
it was hard to interest the Bureau of Ships in small vessels, but he merely ruffled the independent-minded admirals instead of commanding them. For a time the Navy tried aggressive patrolling, but as the sinkings mounted and ships had to run in and hole up in sheltered bays at night, King turned to ingenious combinations of convoys.

  Not only was the Navy ill prepared and equipped when the U-boats first struck the coast in force; it also had virtually no plans to enlist, and co-operate with, the Army Air Force. The admirals became so desperate, however, that they turned to the Army as a temporary expedient. The Army Air Force was eager to help. It had been unable to close with the enemy in the Pacific, and its grandiose plans for the strategic bombing of Germany were still mere plans. Now it could fight Germans. By early spring a few score army bombers of any type that could be scratched up—one observer was reminded of Joffre’s taxicab army—were running patrols out over the sea. The whole operation was gallant but amateurish. The pilots had not been trained for their work; indeed, under an old Army-Navy treaty, the Army controlled land-based and the Navy sea-based aviation. Army pilots had had little training in the fine art of hunting the U-boat; some of them first went out with demolition rather than depth bombs, ship identification was poor, and there was always the problem of co-ordinating with the Navy under harrowing conditions of shortages, faulty intelligence, and the constantly growing and moving packs of submarines.

  The President was annoyed by the Navy’s slow mobilization against the Nazi attack, Sherwood said later, but he took little direct hand, aside from suggesting to King on one occasion that a PBY be fit with a searchlight for night-hunting of submarines. In mid-April Hopkins cabled from London that losses were now running at more than half a million tons a month and that the need for ships over the next few months would be desperate. It was clear to the White House that the antisubmarine campaign would not succeed in time. The best way to overcome shipping losses was to outbuild them.