Eleanor Roosevelt

by Blanche Wiesen Cook

  FDR relied upon and required the enormous German and Catholic vote; and the support of the Southern Democrats who dominated Congress. Anti-Semitism was virulent throughout the United States, and was agitated and fortified by Nazi propaganda, Nazi triumphs. Eleanor relied on her Jewish friends, including Elinor Morgenthau and Bernard Baruch, who feared that domestic Jew-hatred would be intensified by protests against Germany’s official anti-Jewish decrees—and they too wanted America to remain aloof from Germany’s agony.

  Finally, there was the widespread conviction that Hitler, and Fascist successes in Europe and Asia, represented a useful force to stop the growing Communist movement.

  Whatever the reason, the United States’ determined silence of 1933–38, combined with Britain’s appeasement and collaboration, allowed Hitler to believe he had no serious opponents. In that period, he moved slowly, step by step, assessing the danger. Unchallenged, he moved on.

  While ER’s silence reflected her husband’s official noninvolvement policy, it stands alone. She wrote several columns concerning the London Economic Conference of June 1933, and opposed her husband’s decision to end multilateral efforts in favor of economic nationalism. She publicly endorsed a strong position at the disarmament conference, agitated for U.S. membership in the World Court, and continued to call for collective security in the interests of world peace.

  A measure of FDR’s curious policy regarding Germany is his contrary position concerning the Soviet Union. When he met with Maxim Litvinov in November 1933 to reestablish diplomatic relations, FDR insisted that religious freedom in Russia was basic to their negotiations.

  Russia had been unrecognized since the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, but there was now a sense of urgency to normalize relations. In addition to Hitler’s renewed militarization and announced intention to move east beyond the confines of Versailles, the Soviet Union was eager for alliances in the face of an alarming threat of war from Japan.

  On 7 November 1933, at 5:45 P.M., ER welcomed the Soviet commissar of foreign affairs, Maxim Litvinov. Committed to collective security, urbane and cosmopolitan, married to British writer and literary scholar Ivy Low Litvinov (considered by many an “Eleanor type”), he had many supporters among antifascists who trusted his integrity.

  Churchill called him “that eminent Jew,” and appreciated his western orientation. After Russia was admitted to the League of Nations on 18 September 1934, Churchill wrote, Litvinov “spoke its moral language with so much success that he soon became an outstanding figure.”

  Recognition of Russia was FDR’s first positive international act. ER called it, along with the Good Neighbor Policy, one of his “first points of attack in our foreign policy.” In addition to the strategic and security concerns behind his new diplomacy, he was prompted to recognize the Soviet Union because business interests were eager to reestablish trade with the powerful, resource-rich nation, which then covered one-sixth of the earth’s landmass.

  With complete freedom to determine the rules for recognition, FDR emphasized religious freedom and the settlement of World War I debts, which became the chief snag, although Russia owed the United States far less than Britain and France did.* In the end, Russia agreed on a sum that ranged between $75 and $150 million, which represented Litvinov’s assessment of the Soviets’ real debt for their part of the war against Germany.

  Prior to Litvinov’s visit, Esther Lape chaired a year-long study on the “Relations of Record” between the United States and and the USSR. Lape’s report concerning Russia’s eagerness to negotiate and settle differences was persuasive. Thomas Lamont wrote Lape that Litvinov should erect an icon to her for her influential work.

  FDR personally handled all negotiations with Litvinov, and he felt that everything went smoothly—especially concerning freedom of religion. According to ER, he “used to speak often” of his success on that issue, and he proudly repeated his conversations with Litvinov, which lasted into the early morning of 17 November. They met in FDR’s study after the cabinet dinner, with Henry Morgenthau, William Woodin, William Bullitt, and William Phillips. Ted Morgan described the scene:

  ‘Well now, Max, you know the difference between the religious and the irreligious person. Why, you must know, Max. You were brought up by pious parents. Look here, some time you are going to die, and when you come to die, Max, you are going to remember your old father and mother—good, pious Jewish people who believed in God, and always said their prayers. I know they must have taught you to say your prayers…’

  By this time, FDR noted, Max was as red as a beet and FDR said, ‘Now you may think you’re an atheist…. But I tell you, Max, you had a religious bringing up, and when you come to die, Max, that’s what you are going to think about, what your father and mother taught you …’ According to FDR, Litvinov hesitated, squirmed, grew uncomfortable … but I had him….

  Litvinov explained that church attendance was “discouraged.” But it was permitted. Technically, therefore, Russia had freedom of worship. He agreed to FDR’s only specific proposal: Church services would be available and protected, especially for U.S. citizens who visited Russia.

  FDR also demanded assurances that Russia would cease communist propaganda within the United States. When his meetings with Litvinov were discussed by the cabinet, Frances Perkins pointed out that Nazi propaganda flourished within the United States. According to Ickes, Perkins presented evidence that “Germany is exceedingly active here, building up German sentiment … [for] anti-Jewish, pro-Nordic, and extremely nationalistic” views. FDR had at the time no policy concerning Nazi propaganda.

  FDR told ER that Litvinov was cordial, spoke perfect English, and was a surprisingly adept negotiator. She wrote Hick that FDR believed he had achieved more than “two-thirds of the essentials,” but “every session” was “like pulling teeth.”

  The White House recognition ceremony included the first telephone conversation between the United States and the USSR. ER noted there “was considerable excitement” when Litvinov phoned his wife and son in Moscow, and the two countries formally resumed diplomatic relations.

  On a personal level, the new alliance was launched with a feeling of warmth and hope. But opposition to the Soviet Union and widespread fear of communism hobbled every diplomatic step. One day, FDR’s mother called upon her son to advise him formally that his decision troubled her. According to ER, “she felt this would be a disastrous move” and would be “widely misunderstood by the great majority of their old friends.” ER wrote:

  My husband told me this with great amusement, adding that he thought his mother was entirely correct and that probably many of his old friends were going to have to put up with a number of shocks in the years to come.

  For some, the shocks began with FDR’s decision to send William Bullitt as America’s first ambassador to Moscow. Anticommunists were horrified. But FDR wanted somebody in Moscow acceptable to the Russians, and able to advance this new alliance, as a countervailing power to fascism. The U.S. policy of nonrecognition, from 1917 to 1933, represented in part Woodrow Wilson’s betrayal of Bullitt’s first secret mission to Moscow—to end the total blockade and counterrevolutionary intervention which involved U.S. troops. In February 1919, Wilson had appointed Bullitt to lead a fact finding commission, with a view “to negotiate peace.” Bullitt toured Russia with radical journalist Lincoln Steffens, friendly to the Soviets, and was impressed by Lenin—and Russia’s plight.

  Because of the U.S. and Allied blockade, “every man, woman and child in Moscow and Petrograd is suffering from slow starvation.”

  Bullitt believed peace could not occur “until peace is made with the revolution,” and he was convinced he had negotiated a genuine peace proposal. Lenin had pledged to give up noncommunist areas of its vast empire, including Siberia, the Urals, the Caucasus, Finland, Murmansk, and the Baltic states. And he agreed to assume a share of Russia’s war debts. In return, Russia sought an armistice, a peace conference, termination of the economic blockad
e, and withdrawal of occupying forces.

  On 25 March, Steffens and Bullitt returned to Paris, where Steffens met with Bernard Baruch, whom Lenin wanted to develop industry and natural resources. It was originally to Baruch that Steffens said: “I have been over into the future, and it works.”

  The next day, 26 March, Wilson rejected Bullitt’s work. He expected counterrevolutionary forces to topple Bolshevism. Bullitt resigned “as noisily as possible.” Out of that “cave of winds” came the disastrous Treaty of Versailles, in which Bullitt could see “at least eleven wars.”

  That was when Bullitt decided “to lie on the sand and watch the world go to hell.” Humanity seemed doomed. Steffens wrote that nobody wanted war, but “we will not give up the things that cause war.”

  Now, FDR assigned Bullitt to redeem his failed 1919 mission. He arrived in Moscow on 11 December 1933, and immediately went to lay a wreath on journalist John Reed’s grave, “in tribute to the faith and passion of the revolution.”

  But the nation of the future was locked in the grip of Stalinist insanity. Only Litvinov really ever talked with Bullitt, and he found himself a virtual prisoner in the embassy. Betrayed again, he resigned his Moscow post with unending bitterness in 1936.

  Bullitt’s hatred of Stalin’s Russia dominated all other considerations. Subsequently, as ambassador to France, he campaigned for a Franco-German rapprochement: a new economic and territorial understanding that would undo the wrongs of Versailles. Hitler’s domestic policies did not concern him, and he despised William Dodd for his foolish preoccupation with Nazi brutality.*

  Although Bullitt’s detractors dismissed him as a “big Jew from Yale,” and Ernest Hemingway, who hated Bullitt, called him a “half-kike,” Bullitt always denied Jewish roots. Like other members of FDR’s State Department and inner circle who had Jewish relatives, or were thought to have Jewish relatives, Bullitt wanted nothing to do with the “Jewish question,” and never spoke of it.

  For Bullitt and the careerists in FDR’s State Department, Germany was not the enemy. At this time, only a small group of ER’s friends were distressed by the human realities in Germany.

  In the spring of 1934, Clarence Pickett and his wife, Lilly, visited England and Europe for the AFSC “to explore whether we could do anything to prevent the barbaric treatment of Jews and to assist the immigration of those who were so fortunate” as to get out. Pickett also studied housing and “resettlement schemes, for in this matter Germany and Austria especially were far ahead of the U.S.” After their five-week tour, the Picketts typed a lengthy “confidential” report for their friends, including ER. Their vivid, stirring observations updated what she had learned from Alice Hamilton the year before.

  In Paris, the Picketts confronted the “deep human tragedy of the refugees from Hitler Germany.” More than four thousand families awaited relocation. Little was being done officially, although some individuals initiated private colonization programs. For example, “Joseph Rosen, an American Jew, … colonized 100,000 Jewish families in Russia and is now in charge of a large farm in France where he is training fifty Jewish boys from Germany to farm with the plan to send them on to Palestine next year.”

  France seemed “very weak,” “ultra conservative,” and unstable. The government appeared “paralyzed with fear” because of “Hitler Germany.” Fascists and communists seemed to dominate; some talked of a “preventive war” against Germany, while pacifism grew rapidly.

  England was disturbing: The government was “inactive and conservative.” Hostility toward the United States prevailed, marked by “ignorance, antagonism and aloofness.” Despite a left and pacifist movement, “Fascism grows stronger. Two leading papers are supporting Sir Oswald Mosley….”

  In Geneva, they wondered if “the beautiful new” League of Nations building would be “completed in time to entertain the funeral of the League,” since it seemed doomed in the current climate.

  Vienna was filled with music and discord. “Austria makes one weep and laugh.” Economically paralyzed since war’s end, it was academically brilliant. Vienna featured “some of the best housing work anywhere in Europe.” But much of it was demolished in the battles of February 1934. To crush his opposition in Vienna, Engelbert Dollfuss, Austria’s Catholic fascist chancellor, destroyed entire neighborhoods of workers’ apartment houses built by socialists. Models of community living, they were blasted by howitzers and bulldozed. Thousands of workers, social democrats, socialists, and radicals were seized, killed in random shootings, executed.

  Although Dollfuss rejected “Anschluss,” unity with Hitler and absorption by Germany, his triumph was nevertheless a defeat for democracy. Driven “by German Nazis oh one side and Italian Fascists on the other,” Dollfuss, the Picketts judged, was a brutal nationalist “religious fanatic.” “And now the Pope really rules Austria, with Mussolini a strong ally…. No one can predict the future. But the Nazis grow in strength and are obviously hopeful of finally attaining power.”

  Within months of the Picketts’ visit, Hitler-supported Nazis attempted a putsch on 25 July 1934 and assassinated Dollfuss. But the Austrian military remained loyal, members of his cabinet rallied, and Minister of Justice Kurt von Schuschnigg assumed power. Bavarian Nazis crossed the frontier in large numbers, but were stopped by Mussolini, who dispatched three Italian divisions to the Brenner Pass. Hitler retreated. The Anschluss required further preparation. Hitler appointed Franz von Papen minister to Vienna—assigned to expand the Austrian Nazi Party, with “a monthly subsidy of 200,000 marks.”

  From Vienna, the Picketts went to Prague, where they found Czechoslovakia “a relief.” Thomas Masaryk, president for fifteen years, had “kept his eye … on the needs of his people for land and homes, and freedom to live unfettered lives. Democracy is a strong tradition and freedom of thought, press, assembly and worship is sacred.” But there were “jitters now,” because the Nazis banned “Germans living in Czecho-Slovakia,” and the country was filled with German refugees. Masaryk, eighty-four, had been reelected for another seven years; but the Picketts doubted Central Europe’s most democratic nation’s ability to survive.

  Finally, the Picketts arrived in Berlin. They did not “feel dogmatic” about Germany. Behind “the rule of the roughnecks,” there seemed “great human motives at work.” Above all, Germany needed to “recover” from the legacy of Versailles.

  Writing much as Alice Hamilton had, the Picketts detailed Germany’s woes. Without employment or hope, youth put its faith in Nazism. “Unemployment has decreased, but by evicting Jews, throwing women out of jobs, trying to force people to employ more servants, etc….”

  Fiscally Germany remained a nightmare, but economic worries were diverted “by Jew persecution and violence to all complainers or non-cooperators. We feel that the situation is so difficult that concentration camps, and exile and persecution are likely to continue for a long time.”

  “As to the Jew, he is again to suffer long and hard for his race and religion.” Berlin’s Rabbi Dr. Leo Baeck, “one of the finest religious leaders I have ever met,” told Clarence Pickett that his congregation had expanded from sixty or seventy people to hundreds in search now of spiritual understanding and community. There were “two, three or four services each Saturday” to accommodate the large crowds: Rabbi Baeck said that always “my message is the same—let no drop of bitterness enter your hearts no matter what comes.”

  Dr. Baeck spoke of a recent celebration in Worms to mark the synagogue’s “900th year of consecutive service. Jews were in Germany before Christ’s time. They love Germany. Most Jews will remain in Germany, will be driven in on themselves, but will suffer through.” To accommodate children dismissed from Germany’s public schools, Jews “established 400 small private schools and maintain them by voluntary contributions.” They also retrained physicians, lawyers, and other professional people now barred from their work as carpenters, locksmiths, repairmen.

  The Picketts left Europe with a sense of dread. P
overty, political torpor, repression prevailed. “We are really in a period like the Thirty Years War.” They were convinced that Germany was “a menace to world peace.” One of their closest English associates planned “to move to the country to avoid the impending destruction of his city in the war air raid. We are seeing the prelude—to what?”

  Whatever ER felt as she read the Picketts’ report, however much her thoughts must have turned to her Jewish friends, like Bernard Baruch, who continued to go to Austria and Germany each year for the curative waters of Central Europe’s spas, or the Morgenthaus, who traveled abroad annually, she wrote nothing about the agonizing information presented to her.

  In her June 1934 column for the Women’s Democratic News, ER referred to the Picketts’ report only vaguely, and on a slant. She wrote nothing of the political situation or the atrocities, not even about Vienna’s destroyed housing. Her words regarding Europe were bland. Her column was personal. It heralded the end of Washington’s social season and the end of a familial era: Her youngest son graduated from Groton, “and now we have no boys in school—next year we will have two at Harvard.”

  Concerning Europe and Asia, ER wrote:

  Though formal entertainment … has come to an end, [guests continued to arrive, including] a Japanese Prince … the Sultan of Johore … and Anne O’Hare McCormick writer of articles and traveller during the last year in thirteen different countries. Mrs. McCormick’s account of conditions in Europe are most interesting as was that of Mr. Pickett of the Friends Service Committee who has just returned from a study of the Friends’ work in certain parts of Europe and at the same time of the different methods which have been used in Germany, France and England in their subsistence homestead ventures. It is a help to us to have the knowledge gained by other countries to guide us a little in what after all are new experiences.

  How does one understand ER’s failure to impart the Picketts’ message to her readers? How did she decide to neglect their presentation of fascist violence and repression, omit entirely the situation confronting Jews and refugees, ignore indeed the gravamen and substance of their observations?