Donovan's Devils

by Albert Lulushi

  Mayor La Guardia drew great outbursts of applause from the audience when he said, “We have established the lesson for the entire world. We have demonstrated that it is possible for people coming from all lands and climes of the world, or their descendants, to live together as good neighbors, in peace and harmony. If we can do it here, it can be done elsewhere. We have demonstrated that a democracy can be strong. We are demonstrating now that a democracy can be efficient, and let me say to Adolf, Benito and Joe: ‘We are not afraid to defend our institutions!’”

  The principal speaker of the meeting was Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes who declared, “If we are to retain our own freedom, we must do everything within our power to aid Britain. We must also do everything to restore the conquered peoples their freedom. This means the Germans, too.” Ickes attacked directly the isolationists’ stance that if Britain were defeated the United States could live along and “defend ourselves single-handed,” which Ickes called a “cold-blooded lie.” For that to be possible, it was necessary for “the United States to become an armed camp and such a regimen would endanger freedom, democracy and our way of life,” he continued. “Perhaps,” he said, “such is the America that a certain Senator desires. Perhaps such is the America that a certain aviator, with his contempt for democracy, would prefer. Perhaps such is the America that a certain mail-order executive longs for.” Ickes roused the audience’s applause when he concluded the speech saying that America must give “everything needed to beat the life out of our common enemy” to friends and allies everywhere in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America.

  In addition to the serious speakers who reminded those present of the dangerous times they lived, the meeting included representatives of the lighter side of the American life, singers and comedians “who demonstrated most satisfactorily that to be an American is not merely a matter of grave responsibility but also a lot of fun.” Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, the iconic African American tap dancer and star of multiple Broadway and Hollywood musicals,3 promised, “if Hitler ever started for Harlem, he personally would guarantee that he’d never get past Yankee stadium.” Eddie Castor, a country music singer, with his wife Ida standing next to him, told the crowd spread before him that he had not seen that many people “since Ida’s relatives came to live with us.” Lucy Monroe sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” this being one of the estimated five thousand times over her lifetime in which she would perform the national anthem, including performances for Presidents Roosevelt, Johnson, and Kennedy, at President Truman’s inauguration, and at hundreds of other civic and patriotic gatherings.4 To conclude the program around 5:00 PM, Irvin Berlin led the crowd in the singing of “God Bless America,” the “peace song” he had introduced to the public on Armistice Day, 1938,5 and had since been associated with the internationalists’ cause.

  “By Nazi standards, the meeting was a flop,” declared the New York Times the next day, tongue-in-cheek. “Except for a few bands and a few children’s groups, nobody marched to it…. People walked on the grass…. Applause throughout the afternoon was frequent and loud … but by any Nazi standards the expressions of approval would have been most inadequate.”6

  * * *

  Less than a week later, on May 23, 1941, the American First Committee, the most prominent anti-war organization in the United States at the time, organized a counter-rally at Madison Square Garden.7 The doors opened at 5:00 PM and by 8:00 PM, the audience had reached the Garden’s twenty-two thousand capacity with an estimated eight to fourteen thousand in the streets outside listening to the proceedings in loudspeakers set up on Forty-Ninth Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. During a short musical program before the rally, a musician on the podium asked the audience if it wanted to sing “God Bless America.” A chorus of voices responded “NO!” They sang “America” instead, while ushers passed out small American flags in an auditorium itself decorated with flags and white, red, and blue bunting. When the rally opened at 8:40 PM, the audience sang “The Star Spangled Banner” and then recited “The People’s Pledge to the Flag,” which was done all standing with arms outstretched.

  Charles A. Lindbergh and Senator Burton K. Wheeler received an enthusiastic reception from a standing, cheering, and flag-waving crowd when they made their entrance on the platform. In their speeches, they both attacked Roosevelt’s foreign policy and demanded that leadership in Washington keep the country out of the war and return to isolationism. They told the audience that America did not have to fear foreign invasion, provided it had the right leadership. Without mentioning the president by name, Lindbergh alluded to him in warning of the loss of democracy at home under the guise of protecting it abroad. If the United States entered the war, Lindbergh continued, our losses are “likely to run into the millions” and “victory itself is doubtful.” He asked interventionists to “stop and consider whether democracy, tolerance and our American way of life are likely to survive in such a struggle.”

  Senator Wheeler in his speech urged the audience to “fight against one-man government in the United States.” He expressed fears of the president waging an undeclared war, of the end of constitutional democracy, of inflation or debt repudiation, of trouble from wounded soldiers returning from the war, of post-war economic breakdown and of the establishment of a dictatorship as a result. Wheeler was particularly scornful toward Roosevelt’s advisers who were pushing him to wage an undeclared war. He called them “that little coterie who surround him, most of whom have never faced an electorate or met a payroll, or tried a lawsuit and many of whom are impractical dreamers.”

  Norman Thomas, the Socialist leader, appealed “from the Roosevelt of today to the Roosevelt of yesterday” on the issue of war and peace. He led the audience in the ironic recitation of Roosevelt’s pledge during the 1940 campaign that American boys were not going to be sent into any foreign wars. Telegrams read to the audience included anti-war sentiments from novelist Sinclair Lewis, actress Lillian Gish, and Robert E. Wood of Chicago, chairman of Sears and national chairman of the American First Committee.

  The audience responded with loud and repeated outbursts of applause for every isolationist slogan, statement that “America wants to keep out of the war,” and for every mention of Lindbergh, Wheeler, and other isolationist leaders. Equally loud boos and hisses filled the hall each time the speakers mentioned President Roosevelt, members of his cabinet, and other persons and organizations who favored all-out aid to Britain or who argued that it was in the interest of the United States to keep Nazi Germany from defeating Britain.

  The New York afternoon tabloid newspaper PM was an unequivocal critic of the isolationist stance of the American First Committee and its leaders. In the editorial page of the newspaper at the time, its publisher, Ralph Ingersoll, addressed the readers directly with clear warnings that America’s fate was tied to the success of the British forces and other nations fighting Germany and Italy. The newspaper’s chief political cartoonist, Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, regularly drew cartoons that reinforced this message featuring his unique characters. In the issue published on the day of the Madison Square Garden rally, the editorial cartoon urged the readers considering attending the rally to “Listen and Think!” A cartoon published a few days later showed Lindbergh on a soapbox delivering his speech while petting a monstrous snake covered in swastika tattoos. “Tis Roosevelt, not Hitler, that the world should really fear,” Lindbergh exclaims.

  * * *

  William J. Donovan was one of the president’s advisers who Wheeler and other speakers attacked at the Madison Square Garden rally. At the time, Donovan was one of the most vocal proponents of the idea that the United States needed to prepare for the inevitable conflict and provide all the support possible to Britain in its fight against the Axis forces. As a World War I hero, a Republican politician, and a successful Wall Street lawyer, Donovan embodied the opposite attributes of those who Wheeler called Roosevelt’s “little coterie” during his speech.

&nbs
p; Donovan earned recognition in World War I at the head of the 165th Infantry Regiment of the 42nd Division of the New York National Guard—the renowned “Fighting 69th” of the Rainbow Division. The legend goes that after the regiment landed in France he ran his men five miles with full packs to “limber them up.” As the men were grumbling with exhaustion, Donovan pointed out that he was ten years older and carrying the same fifty-pound pack. One of the men replied, “But we ain’t as wild as you, Bill!” There Donovan got his nickname Wild Bill, which stuck with him for the rest of his life.8 People who knew him well thought of the nickname as affectionate sarcasm because in behavior Donovan was “about as wild as a good baby’s nurse, but the nickname has stuck all these years because although inaccurate as an adjective it does somehow fit the drama of his record.”9

  The citations Donovan received in France tell the story of his military service there. On July 28, 1918, a Distinguished Service Cross: “He was in advance of the division for four days, all the while under shell and machine gun fire from the enemy, who were on three sides of him, and he was repeatedly and persistently counterattacked, being wounded twice.” Three days later the Distinguished Service Medal: “He displayed conspicuous energy and most efficient leadership in the advance of his battalion across the Ourcq River and the capture of strong enemy positions…. His devotion to duty, heroism, and pronounced qualities of a Commander enabled him to successfully accomplish all missions assigned to him in this important operation.” And then, for action in combat in the Meuse-Argonne on October 14, the highest of all awards, the Congressional Medal of Honor: “Colonel Donovan personally led the assaulting wave in an attack upon a very strongly organized position, and when our troops were suffering heavy casualties he encouraged all near him by his example, moving among his men in exposed positions, reorganizing decimated platoons and accompanying them forward in attacks. When he was wounded in the leg by a machine gun bullet, he refused to be evacuated and continued with his unit until it withdrew to a less exposed position.” “No man ever deserved it more,” said General Douglas MacArthur, who witnessed this action as his commander.10

  Donovan had an innate intuition on how to handle people. In one of his war letters, describing a very bad thirty-six hours at the front, he mentioned dispassionately clipping one man in the jaw because this fellow was destroying the morale of the group, and then later putting his arm around another terrified soldier and coaxing him back to confidence. A veteran of the Old Sixty-Ninth said that the men would follow Donovan anywhere, but they also knew that it was impossible to put one over on him. Reverend Francis P. Duffy, the famous fighting chaplain of the Sixty-Ninth whose monument stands today in Times Square at Broadway and Forty-Sixth Street, said, “His men would have cheerfully gone to hell with him, and as a priest, I mean what I say.”11

  When he returned from France, Donovan put his uniform and medals away and gave his Congressional medal to the regiment. In 1922, he was appointed US attorney in Buffalo, New York. When President Coolidge reorganized the Department of Justice in 1924, he called Donovan to Washington to be assistant to the attorney general, in charge of the Antitrust Division. He was offered the Governor Generalship of the Philippines when President Hoover entered the White House in 1929, but turned it down and went into law practice in New York City. In 1932, he ran for Governor of New York but he was defeated in the Democratic landslide of that year’s elections. During this period of corporate law practice, Donovan never lost his interest in world affairs. He visited China and Far East Russia in the early 1920s, and took time off to visit Ethiopia during the 1935 Italian invasion. He was in Spain during its Civil War, carefully observing the Axis efforts to test their new equipment in these foreign adventures.12

  As World War II engulfed Europe, Donovan became increasingly active in raising awareness of Americans to the dangers ahead. In late 1939 and early 1940, he embraced the cause of the Polish people, raising substantial relief funds in honor of the eighty-year-old Ignace Jan Paderewski, the famous pianist who had served as the president of the first Polish republic after World War I and had gone into exile after the German invasion.13 As president pro tem of the Paderewski Fund for Polish Relief, Donovan served with Eleanor Roosevelt, enlisted as a vice president of the Fund, which probably brought him for the first time into contact with the inner circle of the president, although surely he was a personality known to Roosevelt.

  Donovan, a lifelong Republican, aligned publically with the Democrat president in mid-June 1940, in the midst of the electoral campaign in which Roosevelt was seeking an unprecedented third presidential term. With the Republicans gathered for their nominating convention in Philadelphia, Roosevelt appointed Colonel Henry L. Stimson and Colonel Frank Knox to his cabinet as Secretary of War and Secretary of the Navy, respectively. Both were prominent internationalist Republicans who supported aiding the Allies and were against isolationists. In the face of the initial negative reaction of the convention toward the appointments, Donovan sent a telegram to John D. M. Hamilton, chairman of the Republican National Committee, which was published in newspapers on June 22, 1940. In it, he urged his party to support “without imputation or motive” the commander in chief, who faced the urgent task of preparing the nation for defense. “The immediacy of this problem is measured by days, cannot await the outcome of the election and transcends all other questions,” Donovan wrote. “This action does not mean we are prepared to intervene, but only that we are preparing to defend our country. Nor does it preclude us as the opposition party from differing with the President on any other policy, foreign or domestic. A statesmanlike distinction between our right to oppose him as a political leader and our duty to support him as Commander in Chief would strengthen our position before the country,” Donovan concluded.14

  * * *

  Knox was confirmed as secretary of the navy and assumed his post on July 11, 1940. Just three days later, Donovan left from La Guardia on the Pan American flying boat Atlantic Clipper en route to London on a confidential trip for Secretary Knox and the president. The conflict in Europe was at a critical juncture. The massive German offensive on the western front that had started with the invasion of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands on May 10 had forced the evacuation of over 340,000 British, French, and Belgian troops from the beaches of Dunkirk in early June and concluded with the surrender of France on June 25. German forces occupied the Channel Islands on July 1, and the bombing of Britain by the Luftwaffe on July 10 signaled the beginning of the Battle of Britain. An invasion of the British Isles was imminent.

  Winston Churchill, who had replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister on the same day that the German offensive began, was determined to energize his people for the decisive battles ahead while reaching out for assistance to the United States. Churchill did not paint a rosy picture of the road ahead to his compatriots, having “nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” and “many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.” But his aim was clear: “It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”15 On June 4, one day after the British Expeditionary Force pulled out of Dunkirk, he told the House of Commons:

  “[W]e shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight … on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”16

  Churchill’s appeal to the United States—the
new world expected to come to the rescue of the old—became more direct after the fall of France, leaving no doubt about the stakes at play. In a speech to the House of Commons he warned, “If we can stand up to [Hitler] all Europe may be free, and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands; but if we fail then the whole world, including the United States, and all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age….”17

  In this context, then, Donovan’s mission to Britain was threefold: assess the ability of the British to withstand the Nazi onslaught, study the formula that had fueled the impressive German conquests, and most importantly look for ways in which the United States could defeat that formula.

  Upon his return to the United States, Donovan reported his findings to Knox and Roosevelt in early August and then articulated his views in four articles written in collaboration with Edgar Mowrer, a distinguished foreign correspondent for the Chicago Daily News who had won the Pulitzer Prize in 1933 for reporting from Berlin the rise to power of Adolf Hitler. In these articles, Donovan described Hitler’s efficient use of subtle as well as covert actions, so called “fifth column” methods, to weaken the resistance of target countries and undermine the morale of their armed forces in advance of lightning strikes by the German air and armored forces. The purpose of the articles was to raise public awareness in the United States to ways in which Nazis had used German nationals and sympathizers to advance their agenda in the victim countries. Donovan outlined the novel ways in which the Nazis had combined overt diplomatic, artistic, business, and propaganda activities, financed to the tune of $200 million annually, with covert espionage and sabotage efforts to soften resistance to the German invasion when it eventually came.18