The Definitive FDR

by James Macgregor Burns

  The question of command was more easily resolved. Even though his troops were now bogged down in the Tunisian mud, Eisenhower had so impressed both his military associates and his political masters with his capacity to lead and unify an inter-Allied headquarters that there was little question of his retaining top command. Some of the British—especially Brooke—were concerned about his lack of combat experience, but these worries were assuaged when General Sir Harold Alexander was made Eisenhower’s deputy, with direct command of combat forces, and Arthur W. Tedder and Sir Andrew Cunningham were given executive command of the air and naval forces respectively. Marshall wanted Eisenhower to be a full general, to rank with the British leaders, but Roosevelt said that he would not promote Eisenhower until he had done some real fighting and knocked the Germans out of Tunisia. However, he soon relented, and Eisenhower got his fourth star.

  Roosevelt had hoped that he could avoid political issues at Casablanca and focus on military. But throughout the conference he was entangled with the toughest kind of political problem—French factionalism—and at the end he initiated a doctrine that would have immense political implications.

  The specter of de Gaulle had hung over the conference from the start. To much of the French underground, and to partisans of the Free French everywhere, he remained the proud if touchy leader and symbol of French resistance. He was free to enunciate the noble ideals of French patriotism and grandeur while Giraud and other French chiefs in Africa had to make compromises with their Anglo-American conquerors, Vichyites, and military necessity. Eisenhower, handicapped by his political inexperience and by conflicting orders from the State Department, had just given an office to Marcel Peyrouton, an anti-Laval Vichyite. Once again roars of disapproval had sounded in America and Britain. Roosevelt had called Darlan a temporary expedient, and he had now been delivered of Darlan by an assassin; why were he and Churchill, liberal organs protested, still playing with fascist collaborators in the war against fascism?

  Sensitive to these outbursts even while pooh-poohing them, Roosevelt felt that the solution was obvious—get de Gaulle and Giraud together at Casablanca and let them hammer out an agreement on the provisional leadership of the fighting French pending the liberation of France, the re-establishment of the French Republic, and a fresh determination of leadership by the French people. It was easy for Eisenhower to produce the “groom,” Giraud, but the “bride” in London seemed frigid and unprocurable. De Gaulle had his reasons. He had contempt for the Peyroutons and the whole crew of Vichyites and defeatists. Above all, he wanted to maintain the symbol of French authority and glory, unbroken by the armistice and the Vichy regime, that could protect French interests against both enemies and allies until the time of liberation. He was willing—indeed, had asked—to parley with Giraud separately, but the notion of making a forced visit to an Anglo-American camp to conduct business with another Frenchman deeply offended him.

  Roosevelt and Churchill were equally determined that de Gaulle should come to Casablanca. Churchill asked Eden in London to tell the General in effect that if he did not, the President and the Prime Minister would proceed without him and would bypass his movement. Grumbling, de Gaulle came, but he proved as stubborn as ever. In his talks with Churchill and Giraud he was unyielding; he would not deal with Giraud as long as Algiers harbored Vichyite officials, and he wanted top political control, while Giraud as number two could command the reborn French Army. Suspicion of de Gaulle was so strong among the Americans that Mike Reilly and other agents stood outside Roosevelt’s room, guns in hand, while de Gaulle poured out his bitterness. Still no agreement.

  By now Roosevelt and Churchill were indignant with the tall man. The President told friends that de Gaulle compared himself with Joan of Arc at one moment and Clemenceau the next; this was an exaggeration, but de Gaulle by his very bearing produced caricatures of himself in other leaders’ eyes, just as he did in cartoonists’ sketches. Yet Roosevelt and Churchill had to admire the Frenchman. The President was taken by a spiritual look in his eyes. Churchill could not help reflecting that this arrogant man, a refugee, an exile from his country under sentence of death, completely dependent on British and American good will, with neither funds nor foothold, still defied all.

  During this stalemate there occurred a curious incident. Murphy and his British counterpart, Harold Macmillan, had been hurrying from villa to villa trying to patch up a compromise, to no avail. Giraud had been willing to sign almost any agreement so that he could concentrate on military matters, but de Gaulle was still adamant. The conference was nearing its end, and Roosevelt and Churchill were worried about returning home with the French still divided and Darlanism still an issue. On the last day of the conference Giraud stopped in to see Roosevelt. He brought two documents that dealt in part with military and economic matters, the product of much earlier discussion, but contained political provisions that promised every facility to Giraud to reunite “all” Frenchmen fighting against Germany and gave Giraud “the right and duty of preserving all French interests in the military, economic, financial and moral plane” until the French people could ultimately set up a constitutional government of their own. The President rapidly looked through these documents and signed them. Thereby he upset the elaborate matrimonial negotiations that he and Churchill had been conducting between Giraud and de Gaulle and he committed Churchill to Giraud without the Prime Minister’s approval or even knowledge. Consternation resulted when London and Washington learned of Roosevelt’s action later; Churchill had to alter the agreement quietly to restore the balance between the two Frenchmen.

  Why had Roosevelt signed the documents? One theory was that he was simply piqued by de Gaulle, but the President had dealt with more exasperating men than the Frenchman without losing his sang-froid. Another explanation is more plausible—that the documents were a pressure ploy against de Gaulle, that they constituted the shotgun for the proposed forced marriage—but it is not clear that the bride, the reluctant partner in this match, ever knew of the shotgun. Several at Casablanca had other explanations. They felt that Roosevelt was remarkably gay and lighthearted at the meetings. He seemed to Macmillan in a happy holiday mood; “he laughed and joked continually.” Macmillan’s feelings might reflect British reserve, but Eisenhower and Murphy also noted independently that the President was lighthearted, even frivolous.

  Certainly the President was in a happy holiday mood when after a week of conference duty he was able to get away to visit American troops in the field. He had hoped to be allowed to visit the front, but his military chiefs resisted this notion. The President settled for a 110-mile automobile excursion to Rabat, where he lunched in the open on ham and sweet potatoes with 20,000 soldiers of General Mark Clark’s Fifth Army, while a band played “Alexander’s Rag-Time Band” and “Deep in the Heart of Texas” against a stiff wind. Afterward he inspected the 9th Infantry Division, where he “felt closer to having tears in my eyes than any other time,” he told reporters, because these men were headed toward the front. Later he motored on to Port Lyautey, inspected the old Moorish fort where French defenders had held out under intense bombardment by the American Navy, and laid wreaths at both the American and the French cemeteries. The President was amused on the trip back by the antics of Reilly and his crew, in the lead jeep, pretending to see planes in the sky or to fall out of their vehicle in order to divert the attention of bystanders from the armed sedan that followed.

  Roosevelt seemed in an equally lighthearted mood the following night when he entertained the Sultan of Morocco and the Sultan’s son. Dressed in flowing white silk robes, the royal visitors presented their host with a high tiara for his wife—and Elliott was sure that his father winked at him as they both thought of Eleanor presiding over a White House function with this golden object perched atop her hairdo. Churchill was glum at the start, what with the Moslem ban on drinking, and his gloom deepened as the President used the occasion to talk to the Sultan about colonial aspirations toward independen
ce and the end of imperialism after the war. Macmillan felt that the President’s performance was provocative, and Murphy worried that de Gaulle might hear of this attempt to woo the royalty of French Morocco.

  The Casablanca Conference came to both a climax and a conclusion on the same day, January 24, 1943. During much of the previous night Roosevelt, Churchill, Macmillan, Murphy, and Hopkins had still been trying to frame a compromise formula that both de Gaulle and Giraud would support. In the morning Roosevelt had signed Giraud’s documents. Churchill at this point was working on de Gaulle, to no avail. Roosevelt then saw the Frenchman and talked with him in urgent terms, equally to no avail. For a time it was a game of Cox and Box in Roosevelt’s villa as the contestants and aides shuttled in and out. By noon Roosevelt had had enough—and reporters and photographers were gathering outside in high hopes of major announcements. After their aides managed to get the two Frenchmen into Roosevelt’s villa at the same time, Roosevelt and Churchill put the heaviest kind of pressure on de Gaulle. Finally he agreed to sign a memorandum of unity with Giraud.

  At this point Roosevelt acted with his usual nimbleness. What about a picture? The whole party moved out onto the terrace, and the principals sat down in four chairs. Would de Gaulle and Giraud shake hands? The Generals stood up and gingerly held hands while the cameras clicked and whirred and Roosevelt and Churchill looked on with ill-concealed satisfaction. Then the Frenchmen left to compose their communiqué.

  It was a typically Rooseveltian performance. Now at Casablanca, as so often in Washington, he had symbolically “locked up” the disputants in a room and forced an agreement. But here, as so often before, the image of unity was more impressive than the substance. That afternoon de Gaulle and Giraud duly put out an eloquent but vague declaration of unity, but the final irony was that after all Roosevelt’s talk of the shotgun marriage, no baby was born or even conceived. The Generals parted still in dispute over substance.

  With the Frenchmen gone from the courtyard, Roosevelt and Churchill proceeded with the press conference. Roosevelt spoke first. He described the close unity of the Americans and British at the meetings, the determination of the military staffs to give all possible aid to the “heroic struggles of China.” Then he paused.

  “Another point. I think we have all had it in our hearts and our heads before, but I don’t think that it has ever been put down on paper by the Prime Minister and myself, and that is our determination that peace can come to the world only by the total elimination of German and Japanese war power.

  “Some of you Britishers know the old story—we had a General called U. S. Grant. His name was Ulysses Simpson Grant, but in my, and the Prime Minister’s, early days he was called ‘Unconditional Surrender’ Grant. The elimination of German, Japanese, and Italian war power means the unconditional surrender by Germany, Italy, or Japan. That means a reasonable assurance of future world peace. It does not mean the destruction of the population of Germany, Italy, and Japan, but it does mean the destruction of the philosophies in those countries which are based on conquest and the subjugation of other people.” The other United Nations, he added, felt the same way.

  Churchill was surprised. He and Roosevelt had discussed unconditional surrender briefly and he had exchanged views with his War Cabinet, especially on the question of whether Italy should be included. But he did not know that Roosevelt planned to announce it—and announcing it was the crucial step. In explaining his statement somewhat later, the President said that getting de Gaulle and Giraud together had been so difficult it reminded him of Grant and Lee—“and then suddenly the press conference was on, and Winston and I had had no time to prepare for it, and the thought popped into my mind that they had called Grant ‘Old Unconditional Surrender’ and the next thing I knew I had said it.” Actually the doctrine had not been born as spontaneously as Roosevelt implied, for a State Department advisory group had made known to him its consensus view that unconditional surrender should be imposed on Germany and Japan. It was the publicizing of the policy, with its critical implications for grand strategy and political warfare, that surprised Roosevelt’s British comrades—and indicated again his euphoric mood at Casablanca.

  That euphoria was hardly dimmed in the last hours of Roosevelt’s and Churchill’s African safari. Churchill insisted that the President drive with him to Marrakesh, which Churchill described as famous for its fortunetellers, snake charmers, and brothels—and for an incomparable view of the Atlas Mountains. So the two men drove 150 miles over the desert, talking shop and touching on lighter matters, while American troops stood at attention along the highway and fighters hovered overhead.

  The sun was setting as they reached their villa at Marrakesh. Churchill climbed to the roof to see the evening light on the snowcapped peaks and purple foothills and urged Roosevelt to come up. Servants made a chair with their arms and carried the President up the winding stairs, his legs dangling like the limbs of a ventriloquist’s dummy. In the evening the President and the Prime Minister dined with a jolly company of a dozen or so. The two leaders made affectionate little speeches to each other; the President toasted the King; Churchill sang, and Roosevelt joined in the choruses.

  “I love these Americans,” Churchill remarked to his physician before dinner. “They have behaved so generously.” Next morning, in slippers and a bright robe covered with dragons, the Prime Minister drove with the President to the airfield and saw his friend off on the long journey home.

  THE FIRST KILL

  The President was running a little fever by the time he reached Bathurst and the waiting Memphis, but the next day he insisted on taking a trip up the Gambia on a seagoing tug. Once again he was struck by the bad health and living conditions in the British colony; Africa would be a problem for years to come, he told reporters on returning. Next day the President flew to Liberia for lunch with President Edwin Barclay; then he reviewed American Negro troops and was gawked at by natives clustered outside their high grass huts. Then the long flight across the South Atlantic to Brazil, where he conferred at length with President Getulio Vargas on an American destroyer and reviewed troops from a jeep.

  He was hollow-eyed and tired by now; the long hours in the air had been distressing, for flying “affects my head just as ocean cruising affects yours!” he wrote to his wife. He was glad to board his train for the trip back to Washington.

  By now Stalin had received a message that Roosevelt and Churchill had painstakingly drawn up at the end of the Casablanca Conference. The message told in some detail the plans for the next few months, plans which, “together with your powerful offensive, may well bring Germany to her knees in 1943.” Britain and America would keep the pressure on Japan, sustain China, push the Axis out of Africa, clear an effective passage through the Mediterranean, bombard Axis targets in southern Europe, “launch large-scale amphibious operations in the Mediterranean at the earliest possible moment,” and step up the bomber offensive from Britain against Germany. Several times the message referred to the paramount objective of re-entering the Continent, but there was no date. This would happen “as soon as practicable.”

  In the Kremlin, Stalin listened to the translation of this note with a stony face. He turned to Molotov. Had they set a date? No, Molotov ejaculated—not yet, not yet. Stalin remained impassive. He waited out the day, and on January 30 sent thanks to Roosevelt and Churchill for “your friendly joint message” and added: Just when would the concrete second-front operations take place?

  Almost two weeks later Churchill replied for Roosevelt and himself. They hoped to expel the quarter-million Axis troops from eastern Tunisia during. April, if not earlier. After that they intended to seize Sicily, in July at the latest; after that they would stage an operation in the eastern Mediterranean, probably against the Dodecanese. These operations would take 300,000 or 400,000 men and all the shipping and landing craft in the Mediterranean. The cross-channel attack would come in August or September. There was a slight hedging here. Shipping and assau
lt landing craft would be “limiting factors.” And the timing “must of course be dependent upon the condition of German defensive possibilities across the Channel at that time.”

  Stalin’s reply was frosty. It appeared, he said, that operations in Tunisia had been set back to April. But it was now, when the Soviet troops were keeping up their broad offensive, that Anglo-American action in Africa was imperative. And to hammer Hitler from both directions the cross-channel attack must take place much earlier. Stalin here made a hard thrust:

  “According to reliable information at our disposal, since the end of December, when for some reason the Anglo-American operations in Tunisia were suspended, the Germans have moved 27 divisions, including five armored divisions, to the Soviet-German front from France, the Low Countries and Germany. In other words, instead of the Soviet Union being aided by diverting German forces from the Soviet-German front, what we get is relief for Hitler, who, because of the let-up in Anglo-American operations in Tunisia, was able to move additional troops against the Russians.”

  Roosevelt cabled a conciliatory response. He shared Stalin’s regret that the Allied effort in North Africa had not gone according to schedule. Heavy rain and poor transportation had been the trouble. He realized the adverse effect of the delay on the common effort and he understood “the importance of a military effort on the continent of Europe at the earliest date practicable in order to reduce Axis resistance to your heroic army.” But again there was a slight hedge. The cross-channel attack would go ahead as fast as transportation facilities could be provided.