The Definitive FDR

by James Macgregor Burns

  Was Moscow bluffing? Was this subtle blackmail? Or was Russia alternating between two foreign policies, coalition-co-operative and isolationist-aggressive, as conditions seemed to demand? Roosevelt and Stalin both had hard-liners to contend with. The President’s were in the administration as well as outside. Some in the Pentagon contended that the Soviets were pursuing their own interest, the only language they understood was force, and Washington should adopt a Realpolitik, balance-of-power strategy. William Bullitt earlier in the year had presented to Roosevelt a reasoned, forceful argument that Russia would give no help in the defeat of Japan after the European war, and Britain very little, that Moscow would settle postwar European matters while the United States was still occupied in the Pacific, and hence that Roosevelt should either extract major concessions from Moscow and London or shift his whole strategy to beating Japan first.

  Many in the party opposition still argued for Pacific First. Some Republican leaders were rumored to be in secret communication with MacArthur. Others had shifted little from their isolationist positions. Still others, however—most notably Willkie—were taking advanced positions in favor of a firm Anglo-American-Soviet partnership and of United States leadership in a strong postwar security organization. The Republicans held a well-publicized conference on Mackinac Island, in Michigan, as a prelude to platform planning for the presidential campaign of 1944. Some in the congressional party seemed as conservative as ever, but the presidential Republicans, led by Dewey, of New York, Warren, of California, and other governors took a generally internationalist position. It seemed likely that Roosevelt would have to deal with two Republican-party foreign policies, one advanced by the presidential Republicans, the other by the congressional party.

  But at the darkest moment of Soviet-American relations a gleam had lighted up a great opportunity. After withdrawing his agreement to meet with Roosevelt in Fairbanks, Stalin had steadfastly refused Churchill’s and Roosevelt’s invitation to set a new time for all three to meet. He did, however, endorse the idea of a conference of foreign ministers in Moscow, and the exchanges over plans for this meeting seemed to lead naturally, though rather inexplicably, to a cautious acceptance by Stalin of a renewed invitation for a Big Three meeting. The President and the Marshal sparred at length over the place of the conference, with Roosevelt pleading that he could not fly to Teheran because he could not sign or veto congressional bills in the ten days the Constitution allowed him, and Stalin stolidly insisting on the Persian capital. Each hinted that the plan for a conference might founder if he could not get his way, but Stalin won this game of diplomatic “chicken,” and Teheran it would be.

  Hull’s mission to Moscow was a useful testing of the diplomatic waters for the President and something of a triumph for the Secretary. He left Washington with enhanced prestige in the power-conscious capital, for the President had finally asked for the resignation of Sumner Welles, who had continued to vex Hull by his independent dealings with the White House and foreign envoys. Somehow the “gallant old eagle,” as Churchill later called Hull, survived the first plane trip of his life, the tortuous discussions, and a Kremlin banquet, and he negotiated coolly, if somewhat long-windedly, with Eden and Molotov over a lengthy agenda. He found that the Russians were mainly interested in a second front and the British in political arrangements for Italy, while he pressed for a declaration of the four nations on general postwar security. He gained Molotov’s assent to the American draft; the main issue was less the content—a pledge of consultation and joint action by the big nations to maintain world law and order until a general international-security organization was established—than whether the Chinese should be included in the document and allowed to sign it, as Roosevelt and Hull keenly wished. Molotov finally agreed to this.

  On the last night of the conference Hull sat on Stalin’s right at a banquet for the delegation in the Catherine the Great Hall of the Kremlin. The Marshal was unusually agreeable, though when Hull tried to induce his host to meet Roosevelt nearer to Washington than Teheran, he turned cool. Then, out of the blue, he made a statement that electrified Hull. The Secretary considered it so important that he notified the President in a message, the first half of which went by Navy code and the second by army code.

  SECRET

  URGENT

  MOSCOW, 2 NOVEMBER 1943

  MOST SECRET FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY FROM HULL.

  A MESSAGE HAS BEEN GIVEN ME FROM THE PERSON HIGHEST IN AUTHORITY TO BE DELIVERED TO YOU PERSONALLY IN EXTREME SECRECY. THE MESSAGE PROMISES TO GET IN AND HELP TO DEFEAT HE ENEMY.

  REMAINDER FOLLOWS IN ANOTHER CODE.

  MOSCOW, 2 NOVEMBER 1943

  SECRET

  UNNUMBERED. MOST SECRET FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY FROM HULL.

  IN THE FAR EAST AFTER GERMAN DEFEAT (THIS ENDS A MESSAGE IN ANOTHER CODE). PLEASE FLASH ACKNOWLEDGE TO ME AT CAIRO.

  We have no record of Roosevelt’s response to Hull’s message. Perhaps he was as much puzzled as pleased by it. In substance the news was not startling, for Soviet willingness to take on Japan after Germany’s fall had long been hinted. But that Stalin should make such a definite and momentous promise in such a casual way, without any bargaining, and to Hull rather than to Roosevelt must have perplexed the President. Doubtless he calculated that such mysteries would soon be solved, for immediately after Hull’s triumphant return from Moscow the President would be leaving for a conference with Churchill and Chiang in Cairo, and, it was hoped, for a later rendezvous with Stalin.

  Well after dark on Armistice Day, November 11, 1943, the President, Hopkins, Leahy, Watson, and two other aides drove quietly from the White House to the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia. There the party boarded the Potomac, which chugged down the quiet river and anchored at the mouth of the Potomac early in the morning. At dawn the President could see the massive silhouette of the battleship Iowa five miles distant. Soon the Potomac lay alongside the Iowa, and the Commander in Chief was hoisted aboard, without fanfare, by a special rigging from the after sun deck of the yacht to the main deck of the dreadnaught.

  In his quarters the President found a card stating that his room was Captain’s Cabin, he would mess in the Flag Mess, abandon ship in the Lee Motor Whaleboat, and have the entire first superstructure deck, port and starboard, for promenade.

  To the new sailor on board, the Iowa was a marvel—58,000 tons displacement, 888 feet long, 108-foot beam, 210,000 horsepower, 157 guns, including nine sixteen-inchers, and 2,600 officers and men. Commanding the man-of-war was Roosevelt’s former naval aide, Captain John McCrea, who had turned his quarters over to the President and occupied his sea cabin on the navigating bridge. Already on board were Marshall, King, Arnold, and a large staff. Soon the Iowa, flanked by destroyers, was pounding through heavy seas, destination Oran. The President met with the Joint Chiefs, rested, braved the squally weather on the flag deck, and in the evening watched movies with his party.

  All was routine on the great ship except for one horrifying moment the second day out. From a vantage point just outside his cabin the President was watching the Iowa conduct a defense drill. Five-inch guns were setting up a deafening roar when the dread-naught suddenly swerved, listed heavily, and pulsed up to thirty-one knots. An officer on the bridge two decks above the President leaned over and shouted down, “It’s the real thing! It’s the real thing!” Hopkins asked Roosevelt if he wanted to go in; the President said, “No. Where is it?” Hopkins rushed to the rail in time to see a huge explosion in the wake of the ship. It was a torpedo that had been accidentally loosed by an escorting destroyer. Admiral King was all for relieving its commander at once, but Roosevelt would not have it, doubtless proceeding on the theory that it would be punishment enough for the poor wretch when he discovered he had almost torpedoed five admirals.

  “All goes well and a very comfortable trip so far,” the President wrote to “Dearest Babs” a few days later. “Weather good and warm enough to sit with only a sweater as an extra, over an old pair of tro
users and a fishing shirt. I don’t dare write the route but we should see Africa by tomorrow night and land Saturday morning.…It is a relief to have no newspapers!…”

  Roosevelt said nothing to his wife about the torpedo incident, but perhaps this was the least of the dangers. While he was on the high seas security people discovered that some newspapers were freely reporting the impending meetings. Though it was clear that German planes could attack from Greece or other points, or that Nazi fanatics could make an assassination attempt at any of the President’s stopping places, Roosevelt agreed with Churchill not to change plans. After slipping through the Strait of Gibraltar, the Iowa put in to Oran, on the old Barbary Coast. Here Roosevelt was greeted by Eisenhower and other theater commanders, and by his sons Elliott and Franklin. Then he went through a strenuous forty-eight hours: flying to Tunis with Ike, driving on to Carthage, where he stayed the night in a villa overlooking the sea; inspecting Elliott’s photo-reconaissance wing; viewing the ruins of Carthage and the burned-out tanks, blown-up ammunition dumps, tank traps, and uncleared mine fields of the Battle of Tunisia, and flying along the Nile to Cairo, where he landed Monday morning, November 22.

  Churchill had virtually enticed Roosevelt to Cairo with his tales of the lovely villas and gardens in the shadow of the Pyramids, the seclusion, and the desert trips, and he had hardly exaggerated. Churchill met his friend at the airport and escorted him to Ambassador Alexander C. Kirk’s large villa, where he was soon settled. It was here over the next few days that he received a stream of visitors like some royal potentate of old: Britons, Egyptians, Greeks, Yugoslavs, Russians, and Chinese.

  The Generalissimo and Madame Chiang called at the villa soon after Roosevelt’s arrival. The President beheld a small man in a neat khaki uniform, with a serene unwrinkled face below a clean-shaven pate. On the surface Chiang seemed calm, reserved, determined, but as the sessions went by, Roosevelt found him mercurial, defensive, and heavily dependent on his wife. While Churchill chafed and reluctantly gave up hope that the couple could be persuaded to go visit the Pyramids, the President saw Chiang and his wife as often and as privately as he could, and tried to build their trust in him. This effort took all Roosevelt’s charm and adroitness, for two cardinal factors were working against the Generalissimo. One was the ebbing confidence in his armies. The other was a fundamental shift in the Pacific situation. As the American fleet expanded west of Hawaii Joint Chief planners were swinging toward the idea that the quickest way to overcome Japan after Germany was by a direct amphibious assault across the central Pacific and up from the Southwest Pacific. Hence Chiang would before long lose his monopoly of the only feasible route for the main assault on Japan.

  But Roosevelt did his best. At dinner with Chiang and Madame the second night of the conference he made clear his view that China should have full membership in the Big Four after the war; he offered China the leading role in the postwar military occupation of Japan—a role Chiang declined—and extensive reparations; he agreed that the four northeastern provinces, Taiwan, and the Pescadores should be restored to China, and that China and the United States would jointly occupy the Ryukyus under international trusteeship; he proposed a vague postwar security alliance between the two nations; as usual he took a strong line against colonialism, even raising the question of Hong Kong.

  The couple responded appreciatively to all these rosy hopes and kind gestures, though on Hong Kong the Generalissimo discreetly suggested that the President take up the matter with the British before further discussion. On one question Roosevelt was negative, or at least evasive. Chiang proposed that his nation be allowed to participate either in the Combined Chiefs of Staff conferences or in a new China-U.S. Joint Council. The Combined Chiefs had already considered this question; the Americans were cool, and the British even cooler, toward anything more than inviting the Chinese or the Russians to attend only CCS meetings at which the Chinese or Soviet fronts were under discussion. Central, day-to-day grand strategy would be made by the Anglo-Americans.

  The Combined Chiefs had already set this pattern, for they had met that day in Cairo on the formal topic of the role of China in the defeat of Japan but allowed the Chinese military chiefs into the meeting only at the end. Mountbatten and Stilwell were there from their Asia commands to present the theater view. The precise course of all the military deliberations on China during the rest of the Cairo Conference is still not wholly known, but the main lines of contention are clear. Chiang would make a major contribution to a ground operation in Burma only if the Allies promised a big amphibious attack in the Bay of Bengal. Churchill resisted such a commitment because it might jeopardize the major projects he had in mind for the Mediterranean. Roosevelt on the one hand feared such a commitment because of the cross-channel priority; on the other hand he felt that the Chinese effort was lagging badly, that the Allies had not come through on their promises to Chungking, that Chiang must win something from the conference to take back to his people. Churchill stood firm; Chiang wavered; Roosevelt mediated.

  “Things have gone pretty well,” the President wrote to his wife. Even this was a bit of exaggeration. Chiang left with vague promises from Roosevelt of an amphibious operation in the Bay of Bengal and of American equipment for ninety Chinese divisions in the indefinite future. Western strategy was still ambiguous, too; the British, while solemnly pledging loyalty to the invasion of France, were now hedging on the day. OVERLORD, the cross-channel invasion, remained on top of the bill, Churchill said, but should not be such a “tyrant” as to overrule Mediterranean possibilities. As usual the Americans argued against dispersion; as usual King wanted to shift more American power to the Pacific. In a full year of conferences the Anglo-Americans still had not agreed on grand strategy.

  Despite these troubles Churchill had never seen the President happier than at the Thanksgiving dinner Roosevelt gave for the Prime Minister, his daughter Sarah, and his own small circle. Propped high in his chair, the President carved two huge turkeys with fine skill. After dinner Sarah danced with the younger men and Churchill with Pa Watson, while Roosevelt watched delightedly from a sofa. The President offered a toast:

  “Large families are usually more closely united than small ones…and so, this year, with the peoples of the United Kingdom in our family, we are a large family, and more united than ever before. I propose a toast to this unity, and may it long continue!”

  It was a fine sentiment on the eve of Teheran.

  May 19, 1943, Ernest H. Shepard, © Punch, London

  TEHERAN: THE MARSHAL

  Cairo West Airport, 6:35 A.M., Saturday, November 27, 1943. Mechanics and guards surrounded the “Sacred Cow,” standing bulky and dark on the apron. A limousine glided in through the fog; there was a bustle of activity as the President and his party—Hopkins, Harriman, Leahy, Watson, John Boettiger, and a half-dozen others—boarded the plane. Half an hour passed as the pilots waited for the fog to lift; then the “Sacred Cow” lumbered off the runway and roared up through the mist, finally bursting out into the brilliant sunshine. The plane turned east.

  Eagerly the President watched the storied lands flow westward beneath him. The plane crossed the Suez Canal, flew over the brown Sinai desert, circled low around Jerusalem and Bethlehem, soared across the Dead Sea and then on to the green valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris. North of Baghdad the plane turned northeast, picking up the Abadan-Teheran highway as the pilot zigzagged through the mountain passes. The President could see trains and motor convoys loaded with Lend-Lease war supply bound for Russia. The plane flew through a jumble of mountain passes and then landed on a Red Army field a few miles outside Teheran. To the north lay the towering Elburz Mountains, which cut off the Persian capital from the Caspian Sea.

  The President was driven to the American Legation, but he stayed there only one night. An assassination plot against the Big Three had been uncovered. Stalin sent word through Harriman that with Teheran infested by Nazi sympathizers and spies, he was concerned about th
e dangers of an “unhappy incident” while Roosevelt drove back and forth through the city. Would the President be Stalin’s guest at the Soviet Embassy? Under the urgings of Reilly and others the President removed to the Russian compound, where he was installed in the main building and was guarded by “servants” whose Lugers could be seen bulging on their hips beneath their white coats. Stalin retired to a smaller house, and Churchill stayed at the nearby British Legation, which had been made part of one big Soviet-British compound.

  The President was resting in his new bedroom when Reilly came in to say that the Marshal was on his way over. Roosevelt was quickly wheeled to his big sitting room. Stalin came in slowly, smiling, reached down, and shook hands. The President saw a short man, dignified, relaxed, dressed in a tightly buttoned, mustard-colored uniform with red facings, large gold epaulets on the shoulders, and one medal, a red-and-gold ribbon suspending a gold star. The two interpreters, V. N. Pavlov and Charles E. Bohlen, were the only others present.