The Definitive FDR

by James Macgregor Burns

  Steinberg, Alfred, The Man from Missouri (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1962)

  Stilwell, Joseph W., The Stilwell Papers (New York: William Sloane Associates, Inc., 1948)

  Stimson, Henry L., and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948)

  Stouffer, Samuel A., The American Soldier, Vol. I (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1949)

  Sulzberger, C. L., A Long Row of Candles (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1969)

  Tansill, Charles Callan, Back Door to War (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1952)

  Taylor, Telford, Sword and Swastika (New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1952)

  Teller, Edward, and Allen Brown, The Legacy of Hiroshima (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1962)

  Timmons, Bascom N., Jesse H. Jones (New York: Henry Holt & Company, Inc., 1956)

  Trevor-Roper, H. R. (ed.), Blitzkrieg to Defeat: Hitler’s War Directives, 1939-1945 (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc., 1965)

  Tsou, Tang, America’s Failure in China, 1941-50 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963)

  Tugwell, Rexford G, The Democratic Roosevelt (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1957)

  Tully, Grace, F.D.R. My Boss (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949)

  Ulam, Adam B., Expansion and Coexistence (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1968)

  The United States at War, see War Records Section

  United States Relations with China. Department of State Publication 3573, Far Eastern Series 30 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949)

  Vandenberg, Arthur H., Jr. (ed.), The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1952)

  Viorst, Milton, Hostile Allies (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1965)

  Walker, Turnley, Roosevelt and the Warm Springs Story (New York: A. A. Wyn, Inc., 1953)

  War Records Section, Bureau of the Budget, The United States at War (Washington, D.C.: Committee of Records of War Administration, 1946)

  Warlimont, Walter, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1964) Warner, Geoffrey, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1969)

  Watson, Mark Skinner, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1950)

  Wedemeyer, Albert C, Wedemeyer Reports! (New York: Henry Holt & Company, Inc., 1958) Welles, Sumner, The Time for Decision (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944)

  Werth, Alexander, Russia at War, 1941-1945 (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1964)

  White, Theodore H., and Annalee Jacoby, Thunder Out of China (New York: Williams Sloane Associates, Inc., 1946)

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  Whitney, Courtney, MacArthur: His Rendezvous with History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1964)

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  Willkie, Wendell L., One World (New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1943)

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  Wilson, Theodore A., The First Summit (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1969)

  Wohlstetter, Roberta, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962)

  Woodward, Llewellyn, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1962)

  Wright, Gordon, The Ordeal of Total War (New York: Harper & Row, 1968)

  Yakovlev, Nikolai N., Franklin Roosevelt—chilovek i politik (Moskva: Mezhdunarodnoye otnosheniye, 1965)

  Young, Roland, Congressional Politics in the Second World War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956)

  Yu Te-jen, The Japanese Struggle for World Empire (New York: The Vantage Press, Inc., 1967)

  Zhukov, Georgi K., Marshal Zhukov’s Greatest Battles, Harrison E. Salisbury, ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1969)

  PROLOGUE

  Election night account: NYT, Nov. 6, 1940, pp. 1-2; Lash, pp. 191-193; Eleanor Roosevelt, “My Day,” Nov. 7, 1940. Roosevelt’s comments on the election: Rosenman, p. 236; to Lash: Lash, p. 194. Roosevelt dictated a letter to Henry Luce denying that pencils were laid out, his necktie loosened, etc., but he did not send it; see Robert T. Elson, Time Inc. (Atheneum, 1968), pp. 443-444; I have corresponded with Judge Samuel I. Rosenman on the matter and believe that Time and the above sources were essentially accurate. The President spoke later in the evening to a second group that assembled; some accounts refer to both meetings. Roosevelt’s fears of “fifth column” activity: Roosevelt to King George, Nov. 27,1940, PSF, Diplomatic Corr., Great Britain, 1933-45, King and Queen, Box 7. Roosevelt to Attorney General, June 18, 1940, enclosing clippings from Eleanor Roosevelt, OF 4022; see Friedländer2, pp. 97-101, 152-155. Purported ties between elements of the Republican party and fascist elements: HHP, Box 297, “Confidential Political File—Corr.—Misc.” Nazi plans re the United States: copy of confidential memorandum from Alexander Kirk to State Department, left with Missy LeHand, June 17, 1940, PSF, Diplomatic Corr., Germany, 1934-41. See, generally, Niles Papers, especially N5.211, N5.44 (1940); Alton Frye, Nazi Germany and the American Hemisphere (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), especially pp. 136, 142, 150.

  Hyde Park. Sara Roosevelt’s remark about her son: NYT, Nov. 6, 1940, p. 2. Contemporary attitudes toward, and bafflement by, Roosevelt: Charles Hurd, NYT Magazine, Jan. 19, 1941, p. 3. Eleanor Roosevelt comment to Lash: Lash, p. 203; Vandenberg, p. 5. Roosevelt’s affair with Lucy Mercer: Daniels2, chap. 6; confidential source. Noddle-Fala exchange: PPF 1, Dec. 23, 1940; see also Roosevelt to Eleanor Roosevelt, PPF 2, April 9, 1941. Joan Erikson on Eleanor Roosevelt: Erik H. Erikson, Gandhi’s Truth (Norton, 1969), p. 127.

  London. This material is drawn largely from Churchill2, pp. 23, 375-376, 553; I have consulted also Ismay; Walter Henry Thompson, Assignment: Churchill (Farrar, Straus, 1955); Pawle; Moran, pp. 321-322. Churchill’s Dec. 8, 1940 letter to Roosevelt is quoted in full in Churchill2, pp. 558-567. A document that reflects administration views of the time as to ways of aiding Britain is E. S. Land to Roosevelt, “Proposed British Shipbuilding in the United States,” Dec. 2, 1940, OF 99.

  Berlin. For the general background to the events of fall 1941, see Shirer; Telford Taylor, The Breaking Wave (Simon and Schuster, 1967); Bullock; Frederick L. Schuman, The Nazi Dictatorship (Knopf, 1935). Quotations from Hitler’s speeches are from Raoul de Roussy de Sales (ed.), My New Order (Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941), pp. 871-873, 873-899. Taylor; Schmidt; Hitler’s Secret Conversations; and Führer Conferences are sources of private statements on Hitler. Molotov-Ribbentrop exchange in the bomb shelter: Berezhkov (Molotov’s interpreter) to author, Moscow, May 6, 1969

  Tokyo. Tokyo’s reaction to the election results: NYT, Nov. 7, 1940, p. 9. Description of the imperial ceremony: Hugh Byas, Government by Assassination (Knopf, 1942), chap. 5; Ambassador Joseph C. Crew’s diary, Ten Years in Japan (Simon and Schuster, 1944), pp. 352-353; but see Heinrichs, pp. 367-369. For the historical and general background to Japanese politics and policy, see Butow. Ike is an indispensable source of records of the 1941 policy conferences in Tokyo. Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1946), probes deeply into Japanese values and culture patterns. On more immediate events prior to fall 1941, see Langer and Gleason, chaps. 1 and 2; Hull, Vol. I; Heinrichs, chaps. 18-19; Mosley. The “Green Light” message is in Grew, pp. 1224-1229; see also Heinrichs, pp. 317-318. On various views within the administration: Morgenthau to Roosevelt, “Petroleum Situation in Japan,” Aug. 14, 1940; Stimson to Roosevelt, Oct. 12, 1940; Knox to Roosevelt, Oct. 23, 1940; Sayre to Roosevelt, Nov. 13, 1940; Eleanor Roosevelt to Roosevelt, Nov. 12, 1940; Roosevelt to Eleanor Roosevelt, Nov. 13, 1940—all in FDRL. Grew’s letter of Dec. 14, 1940 to Roosevelt and Roosevelt’s reply
are quoted in Grew, pp. 359-363.

  Washington. On Roosevelt’s daily schedule and life, see Tully; Sherwood; Reilly. The source of Roosevelt’s statement to Lothian is Blum1, p. 199; of Hull’s statement to Latin-American diplomats, Hull, p. 824. Roosevelt’s parking-shoulders crack: PC 697, Nov. 26, 1940; PPA, 1940, p. 584. Hopkins’s comment on Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease germinations: Sherwood, p. 224. Earlier origins of his Lend-Lease ideas: see Land to Roosevelt, Nov. 29, 1940, FDRL; Eccles, pp. 348-349; Churchill2, p. 567; Ickes, p. 367; Blum1, pp. 98, 211; Freedman, pp. 573-574. The Lend-Lease press conference: PC 702, Dec. 17, 1940; PPA, 1940, pp. 604-615. The German reaction: NYT, Dec. 21, 1940, p. 6; Dec. 22, 1940, p. 1. Writing of the Dec. 29 speech: Sherwood, p. 227. The speech itself is in PPA, 1940, pp. 633-644; film excerpts are in NA. Grew’s reaction: Ten Years in Japan, pp. 357-358. See, generally, Clapper Papers (Diaries, 1940-1942), Box 9, LC, for this period.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Rosenman, p. 262 ff., and Sherwood, p. 231, describe Roosevelt’s preparation of his annual message to Congress; for the result, see PPA, 1940, pp. 663-672; and for one reaction, Freedman, p. 577. Roosevelt’s earlier reference to the “5th” freedom is in PC 658, July 5, 1940; PPA, 1940, p. 285. The Inaugural Address of 1941: PPA, 1941, pp. 3-6; see also PL, pp. 1111, 1117. Rosenman reports the President’s misgivings about the reception of the speech: Rosenman, p. 271.

  The New Coalition at Home. Cantril, pp. 756-758, provides a most useful listing over time of responses to the question “If you were voting today, would you vote for or against Roosevelt?” The responses are broken down by geographical section, economic status, and other categories. The Republican Senator was Vandenberg: Vandenberg, p. 10. Dr. McIntire’s comment on Roosevelt’s health: NYT, Jan. 19, 1941, p. 36. I have described the historical development and structure of Roosevelt’s party coalition of 1941 in The Deadlock of Democracy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963). Noses: Roosevelt to Glass, PSF, U.S. Senate Folder, Box 58. Banning of Hamilton Fish: Roosevelt to Sherman Minton, March 1, 1944, PSF, Minton Folder, Box 52. Stimson: Stimson and Bundy; Elting E. Morison; Current. There is no adequate biography of Knox, and most of the other key civilian figures in defense have not had the biographies they deserve; but see Rogow’s probing James Forrestal. On Ickes, see The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes. Much of Frances Perkins’s personality emerges in her sparkling The Roosevelt I Knew. On Southern politics in the South and on Capitol Hill, see V. O. Key, Jr.’s brilliant Southern Politics (Knopf, 1949).

  On the nature of public opinion on foreign policy, see Cantril Notebook I; Cantril, pp. 971 ff.; I have had some of these measures broken down with the assistance of the Roper Public Opinion Research Center, at Williams College. The two standard works on organized isolationists and interventionists are Wayne S. Cole, America First (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1953), and Walter Johnson, The Battle Against Isolation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944). How closely in touch the White House was with William Allen White and his committee is indicated in William Allen White Papers, Box 317, LC. On the committee generally, see Clapper Papers (Diaries, 1940-1942), Box 9, LC. On the background of attitude and mood, see Selig Adler, The Isolationist Impulse (Collier Books, 1961), and Manfred Jonas, Isolationism in America, 1935-1941 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1966). See Gabriel A. Almond’s path-breaking The American People and Foreign Policy (Praeger, 1960) on moods in American public opinion toward foreign-policy making. Roosevelt’s meeting with Willkie: Sherwood, pp. 233-234. HHP, Box 298, contain some public-opinion data.

  Lend-Lease: The Great Debate. Preparation of Lend-Lease legislation: Cox Diary, Jan. 6, Feb. 13, 1941, FDRL. The text of Wheeler’s speech is in Congressional Record, Vol. 87, Pt. 10 (Appendix), A178-179; Roosevelt’s reply, PC 710, Jan. 14, 1941; PPA, 1940, pp. 711-712. Blum1, pp. 211-222, and Langer and Gleason, pp. 254ff., provide accounts of the Lend-Lease debate; there is some relevant material in HHP, Box 296. On Stimson’s dilemma, see Elting E. Morison, p. 518, and Current, pp. 148-149. Testimony is taken from the House and Senate hearings: “To Promote the Defense of the United States,” Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 1941; and before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate (on S. 275), Jan.-Feb. 1941, Pts. 1-4. See also Osgood, pp. 417-420.

  Cole and Johnson describe the role of the two big isolationist and interventionist organizations. State Department, Box 28, FDRL, throws light on Roosevelt’s reaction to the debate.

  “Speed—and Speed Now.” Roosevelt’s indignation session: Sherwood, pp. 265-266; see also Rosenman, p. 273. Speech to the White House correspondents: PPA, 1941, pp. 60-69. On the general background of defense mobilization, see The United States at War and Industrial Mobilization for War. The press conference on the new defense-production setup is in PPA, 1940, pp. 684-685. On some of the problems of early 1941, see Janeway; the Stimson quotation on aluminum is from Janeway, p. 240. See Ickes, on other defense problems, especially oil and power. Press conference on the Dunn report: PC 722, Feb. 28, 1941. Baruch’s role and relation to Roosevelt: Baruch; Coit. On Baruch’s advice on defense production, see these works and Baruch to Roosevelt, PPF 88, Dec. 20, 1940, and Clapper Papers (Diary, May 19, 1941), LC. Stimson’s “sting of responsibility” comment: Blum1, p. 272; see the same, p. 273, for Morgenthau’s view on defense organization.

  PM’s story on the New York derelicts is in the edition of Jan. 21, 1941, pp. 1, 12-13; see this newspaper and the liberal weeklies The Nation and The New Republic for reports on social conditions during the mobilization period. The findings of Gunnar Myrdal and his associates were reported in the magnificent An American Dilemma; see pp. 420 and 421 for examples of the plight of Negroes in the Army. Josephson provides full coverage of Hillman’s defense role. Strike situation in early 1941: War Department Memo (n.d.), PSF, Strikes Folder. Allis-Chalmers: Patterson to Roosevelt, April 3, 1941, PSF, Strikes Folder.

  Roosevelt’s White House. The account of John Gunther’s interview is taken from his sensitive and knowing Roosevelt in Retrospect, pp. 24, 27; I have both paraphrased and quoted it. Sherwood’s description and memories of the White House: Sherwood, pp. 203ff. The most revealing book on Eleanor Roosevelt in the White House is Lash; see also Alfred Steinberg, Mrs. R: The Life of Eleanor Roosevelt (Putnam, 1958); Eleanor Roosevelt; Tully; Roosevelt and Shalett. Roosevelt on Hopkins: Sherwood, pp. 2-3; on Hopkins in the White House: Ickes, p. 471; Blum1, p. 231; Stimson Diary and Papers. Baruch’s comment on Hopkins was made to Raymond Clapper: Clapper Papers, Cont. 23, Jan.-Feb. 1942 Folder, LC. Moley’s and Corcoran’s departures from the presidential limelight: Raymond Moley, After Seven Years (Harper, 1939); Freedman, pp. 577-578. Many items in PL indicate Roosevelt’s capacity to deal with day-to-day problems and to indulge in small jokes; see, for example, PL, pp. 1092, 1100, 1148; also Rosenman to author. The call for diaper service is recorded for history in Henrietta Nesbitt’s Diaries, Feb.16, 1941, LC.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Churchill and Roosevelt exchange on repair of British ships: Langer and Gleason, p. 424; PL, p. 1137. On Roosevelt’s policies toward Vichy, Madrid, Athens, etc., see Hull; Leahy, chaps. 2-4; Churchill3, pp. 130-131. Langer and Gleason is especially useful for its detailed studies of the diplomatic background to the events of early 1941. Ickes’s denunciation of the State Department: Ickes, p. 473; see Ickes also for occasional criticism of Roosevelt’s failure to act more decisively, and for indicating Frankfurter’s view. Stimson’s comment: Stimson Diary, April 22, 1941. The President’s discussion on the flux of public opinion with the press: PC 737, April 22, 1941; and on defeatism: PC 738, April 25, 1941; PPA, 1941, p. 132. His letter to Norman Thomas, May 14, 1941, is in PL, p. 1156. For day-to-day attitudes of American and other officials, see Clapper Papers (Diaries, 1941), LC. Pacific Theater background: “Admiral Hart’s Narrative of Events, Pacific Theatre, Leading Up to War,” PMRP, Naval Aide’s Files (no box number).

  Hitler: The Rapture of Decisio
n. Hitler’s Rheinmetall-Borsig speech, Dec. 10, 1940: Raoul de Roussy de Sales (ed.), My New Order (Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941), p. 889. Churchill’s comments on Hitler can be found in his works. Studies of Hitler’s personality are legion; I have used especially Shirer; Bullock; Trevor-Roper; Erik H. Erikson, Young Man Luther (Norton Library, 1962), pp. 105-110; Jochen von Lang, Adolf Hitler: Faces of a Dictator (Harcourt, Brace, 1969). Hitler’s strategic decisions of late 1940 and early 1941: Sontag and Beddie, pp. 258-259, 260; Führer Conferences, 1941; Hinsley; other sources cited in Prologue notes; interviews with German and Soviet historians. Hitler’s strictures against the Russians and the Jews are quoted in My Nexu Order, p. 973. His message to Mussolini is in Sontag and Beddie, p. 353. The Führer’s relations with his generals are reflected in Hitler’s Secret Conversations; Taylor; and in Keitel and other memoirs by his generals. Shirer, p. 1080, and Keitel, p. 138, indicate Hitler’s reaction to the change of government in Belgrade. Hitler’s Russian strategy: Hinsley, chap. 6; Warlimont, chap. 3; Liddell Hart, chap. 13. Warlimont, p. 161, is the source of the description of the officers’ meeting with Hitler; and Bullock, p. 652, of the Führer’s comment on kicking down the Russian door.

  Churchill: The Girdle of Defeat. Churchill’s estimate of the situation, winter 1940-41: Churchill2, p. 626. His note to Roosevelt on a possible invasion: Churchill3, p. 26. His vignette of Hopkins, ibid., p. 24. Bryant2 is a useful source for a more professional view of Britain’s situation during this period; see also Eden; Ismay. On the question of diversion from Africa to assist the Greeks, see the above sources. Brooke’s comment is in Bryant2, p. 198; see also Ismay, p. 199. Churchill’s questioning message to Eden: Churchill3, p. 70. The House of Commons debate is quoted from 371 H.C. Debates, 5th session, May 1941, pp. 871, 880, 927, 937. Roosevelt’s letter to Churchill on the Near Eastern situation: Churchill3. Churchill’s increasing emphasis on the need for full American intervention: ibid., pp. 160, 274, 283, and his flat call for participation, ibid., p. 235. The Prime Minister’s description of his relations with the Americans: 371 H.C. Debates, May 7, 1941, p. 945. Forrestal on Churchill’s private attitude and expectations of American involvement: Clapper Papers (Diary, May 15, 1941), LC.