Over dinner that evening—an intimate affair limited to the Big Three, their interpreters, and Elliott Roosevelt, who wandered in uninvited—Churchill and Stalin had the most famous exchange of the conference. Stalin declared that it would be necessary to liquidate the German General Staff and the cohort of perhaps 50,000 German officers who sustained it. Churchill expressed shock: “I would rather be taken out into the garden here and now and be shot myself than sully my own and my country’s honour by such infamy.” The president offered a “compromise”: shoot only 49,000. Elliott arose and delivered an alcohol-fueled speech in favor of Stalin’s proposal. Churchill got up and left the room. Stalin hurried after him, assured him it was all a joke, and persuaded him to return.32
Perhaps it had all been in good fun. One might remember, however, that Stalin uttered his words just eight months after the discovery of the Katyn Forest Massacre. Quite a prankster, that Stalin.
The conference ended on December 1 to the general satisfaction of all parties. Roosevelt invited Stalin to his quarters for a final tête-à-tête. He told the Soviet leader that because of the upcoming presidential election, he could not publicly express his support for the Soviet acquisition of eastern Poland. For the same reason, he hoped that the Russians would provide him electoral cover in the form of free elections that would endorse the annexation of the Baltic states. Stalin replied that the Baltics had been part of the czarist empire and thereby should belong to the Soviet Union. When the president explained that the American people did not understand that, Stalin recommended that the administration do “some propaganda work.”33
The Soviet dictator’s standoffishness notwithstanding, Roosevelt left Teheran optimistic about future relations. He clearly believed that, as Robert Sherwood put it, Stalin, for all his bluntness, was primarily concerned with legitimate security interests and was “getatable.” That a productive partnership lay in the future was easy to believe.34
On December 2, the presidential party flew back to Cairo for a final round of British-American conferences. The centerpiece of the endeavor was a meeting with Turkish president Ismet Inonu and his delegation. Held at Churchill’s insistence, the conclave was a last-ditch attempt to enlist Turkey in the war and salvage the prime minister’s plans for an eastern Mediterranean campaign. It fizzled badly. The Turks were willing to talk but not to commit. General Marshall’s stoicism finally cracked. Referring to Churchill’s project to capture the island of Rhodes, he shot a profane veto to his British colleagues: “Not one American soldier is going to die on [that] goddamned beach.”35
The Teheran and Cairo meetings were the pivotal decision-making forums of the war, launching the participants on a trajectory that would largely determine the outcome of the Yalta conference fifteen months in the future. With Churchill’s Mediterranean ambitions finally shelved and the cross-channel invasion firmly scheduled, it was up to Roosevelt to name a supreme commander. He moved quickly.
The president had been engaged in more than a sightseeing interlude when he had spent that day in Tunis with Eisenhower. By every measure of loyalty, duty, and capability, Marshall deserved what would be the nation’s greatest military distinction. But Marshall, however respected, had never commanded a major combat operation, much less a multinational, multiservice effort. Although greatly admired by his colleagues on the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington, he would have to build a new structure of relationships if sent to Europe. Eisenhower, despite some setbacks, had triumphed in North Africa, where he had handled difficult American and British generals, managed political problems, and won the admiration of his troops. He had built a web of goodwill that could not be simply transferred to someone else. Not least, he had a magnetic personality perfectly suited to the leadership of a democratic military effort. Roosevelt doubtless understood all these considerations, especially the power of charisma.
Back in Cairo, FDR saw Ike deliver a report on the Mediterranean theater to the Combined Chiefs of Staff. He dispatched Harry Hopkins to ascertain that Marshall would accept continuance as army chief of staff, then made his decision. He sent for Marshall, told him, “I could not sleep at night if you were out of the country,” and dictated a message for him to send to Stalin: “The immediate appointment of General Eisenhower to command of OVERLORD operation has been decided upon.” Marshall took the news with scarcely a blink and had the communication transmitted; he kept Roosevelt’s handwritten copy and later passed it along to Eisenhower. Roosevelt then flew to Tunis for a meeting with Eisenhower, who still expected to return to Washington as army chief of staff, and said with mock casualness, “Well, Ike, you are going to command OVERLORD.”36
The pull of OVERLORD was now irresistible, leaving no resources for the eastern Mediterranean and relegating the hard and costly slog up the Italian boot toward Rome to a sideshow.
Roosevelt arrived back in Washington on December 17. The impact of a successful Big Three meeting, symbolizing a global alliance and demonstrating the reach of American power around the world, was great. Frank Knox’s old newspaper, the Chicago Daily News, best described as internationalist-Republican, represented a widespread exultation: “United in war, united in peace—the United Nations!”37
The president delivered a radio report to the American people on Christmas Eve. Those who listened closely heard a voice that lacked the richness of earlier years and was interrupted by an occasional cough and throat clearing. Yet, for all its tiredness, it remained commanding and authoritative. Roosevelt reminded his listeners of their nation’s strength—10 million men and women in the armed forces, half of them scheduled to be overseas by midsummer and stationed all over the globe—then announced Eisenhower’s appointment. Victory, he warned, would require grim sacrifice but was within reach. The personal contacts with Chiang Kai-shek (“a man of great vision, great courage, and a remarkably keen understanding of the problems of today and tomorrow”) and Stalin (“a man who combines a tremendous, relentless determination with a stalwart good humor”) had cemented the addition of two great nations to the American-British alliance and created the foundation for a new era of global collective security and a lasting peace. He closed the talk with a prayer for America’s soldiers, sailors, and airmen—and for the nation’s mission in the world.38
Teheran had confirmed the solidity of the alliance and its victorious trajectory. During the first half of 1944, Allied armies would advance, painstakingly but steadily, staving off Japanese offensives in Burma and China, capturing more strategic Pacific island bases, pushing German forces toward the western boundaries of the Soviet Union, and moving up the Italian Peninsula toward Rome. Even the slippage of the May 1 OVERLORD date would bring no complaint from Stalin.
The long trip to Cairo and Teheran nonetheless took a heavy toll on Roosevelt. He never fully recovered from it. Soon after he was back in Washington, Anna grasped the seriousness of his condition and demanded the services of the young cardiologist Dr. Howard Bruenn. At a time when the burdens of his office demanded a sixty-hour week, the president was told to take his monthlong vacation in the spring of 1944 at Bernard Baruch’s southern estate. Once he was back in Washington, the time he could devote to his duties was sharply curtailed. Rumors circulated about his health, but all except an opposition media with scant credibility largely ignored them. His public appearances were few, and he remained capable of gathering his strength for them. The tight White House control of press photos meant that readers of the newspapers and magazines generally saw him, if not at his best, at least as a leader who had aged well and appeared commanding. (The official Teheran photo showed him looking fit, seated between Churchill and Stalin, left leg over right knee, free of the braces he usually wore.)
Late in the spring, he went on the radio to comment on Rome’s fall to the Allied armies. He was in great voice, sounding as strong and authoritative as when he had assumed office in 1933. It was the evening of June 5, 1944. He already knew that an Allied invasion
fleet was in the English Channel and that he would be on the radio again the next day.39
Chapter 25
Indispensable Man
June 6, 1944–November 7, 1944
Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.1
Roosevelt spoke to the nation on the evening of D-day, June 6, 1944. Nearly twenty-four hours before, the first British and American forces had made their way into Normandy. A three-sentence introduction aside, the entire talk was a five-minute prayer to a God whose commandments aligned with America’s cause. Solemn and eloquent, the D-day prayer was of a piece with the first inaugural address of 1933, delivered by a commander in chief still capable of mobilizing the American spirit.
D-day was a turning point. During the last half of 1944, military advances in Europe and the Pacific were costly and painful but steady. By the beginning of November, Allied forces in Europe would be pushing the Germans back to their homeland. In the Pacific, US forces would have won bloody battles at Guam and Saipan, effectively destroyed Japanese air and naval power, and begun the reconquest of the Philippines. Victory was in the air—politically more valuable as a prospect than as an accomplished fact that would shift attention to the many hard foreign and domestic issues of an uncertain peacetime.
The objective of winning the war intertwined with that of winning a fourth term. Roosevelt could not resist the lure of presiding over America’s greatest military triumph and playing a major role in shaping the peace to follow. On July 11, eight days before the Democratic convention, he released a public letter to Democratic National Committee chairman Robert Hannegan: “All that is within me cries to go back to my home on the Hudson River,” but as a good soldier, he would continue in office if the American people commanded him.2
Political victory required a difficult tactical retreat: the dumping of the vice president whom Roosevelt had forced on the convention in 1940. Henry Wallace had become the darling of the liberal–New Deal wing of the party. His rhetoric had been instrumental in keeping the New Deal flame alive while Roosevelt busied himself with the war. In the minds of the liberals, he was the heir-apparent to his chief. Yet he had been a failure as an administration liaison to Capitol Hill, disliked not only by the hard-core conservative wing of the party but also by the pragmatic organization politicians who mobilized the northern big-city machine vote.
Who could replace him? The list of usual suspects was uninspiring. James Byrnes had demonstrated strong executive capabilities as head of the Office of War Mobilization, but he would have little appeal in the northern industrial states essential to Democratic victory. A South Carolinian, he was unavoidably a white supremacist; he was also a former Catholic who had left the church to get ahead in the politics of his state.
The list after Byrnes consisted of a number of leading senators with scant national appeal. One slowly came to the surface: Harry S. Truman of Missouri. Truman had achieved national prominence as chair of a special Senate committee investigating waste, fraud, and abuse in national defense; he castigated corporate managers and military procurement officers while avoiding criticism of the president. He had a reliable New Deal voting record but enjoyed friendships with many southern senators. A product of Kansas City’s Pendergast machine, he was acceptable to northern organization Democrats. One of his closest associates was party chairman Hannegan, a shrewd St. Louis pol, who held his position largely because of Truman’s backing. Truman himself seems to have been uninterested in the vice presidency. Nevertheless, he was emerging as a twentieth-century Missouri Compromise for the number two slot on the ticket.3
Wallace sealed his own fate by pressing Roosevelt to send him on a fact-finding mission to Siberia and China. He left Washington on May 20 for travels that took him from Moscow to Chungking. The poorly conceived trip not only deprived him of the opportunity to organize support for his renomination but also highlighted his naiveté, most notably when he let Soviet authorities pass off a Siberian gulag labor camp as a settlement of hardy pioneers. Hannegan and other party leaders convinced the president that Wallace was not worth a party-splitting convention fight.4
Wallace did not return to Washington until July 10, just nine days before the Democratic convention. At Roosevelt’s request, Harold Ickes and Sam Rosenman met with him, told him that the president had decided against insisting on his renomination, and asked him to announce that he would not be a candidate. Wallace responded that he would discuss his future only with Roosevelt. Later that day, he met with the president for a difficult two-hour talk. Roosevelt said he had received credible warnings that the vice president would cost the ticket as many as 3 million votes. He pretty clearly hoped Wallace would withdraw but would not order him to do so.5
The two met again on July 11 and 13. Roosevelt assured Wallace of his personal affection, said he would issue a statement that if he were a delegate he would vote for Wallace, but stopped short of promising to dictate to the convention. As Wallace remembered it, the July 13 meeting ended with a handshake and the president’s declaring, “While I cannot put it just that way in public, I hope it will be the same old team.”6
Roosevelt did not tell Wallace that in an off-the-record dinner meeting with party leaders on July 11, he had, after getting a tepid response to Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas as a vice presidential possibility, all but acquiesced in the nomination of Truman. He jettisoned the vice president with reluctance but also with a cold, pragmatic evaluation of Wallace’s ineptness in his 1943 fight with Jesse Jones and his general ineffectiveness in dealing with congressional leaders.7
He also had to deal with Byrnes, for whom he possessed considerable fondness. Roosevelt treated him much as he had Wallace and left him believing he was the president’s choice. Byrnes promptly called Harry Truman and asked the senator to place his name in nomination at the convention. Truman, who does not seem to have been aware of his name coming up in Roosevelt’s meeting with party leaders, promptly agreed.8
Roosevelt had by this point encouraged Wallace, apparently settled on Truman, and encouraged Byrnes. He may have judged it counterproductive to veto any of the possible candidates and likely felt it emotionally painful to do so. He may have been trying to divide the opposition to Wallace. Still, he must have known that after his meeting with Hannegan and the other party leaders, his running mate would be Truman.
What did Roosevelt expect from Truman? He probably thought of the Missourian as a liberal John Nance Garner, a party regular with backing from the northern machines, acceptable to both Negroes and white southerners, and capable of providing reliable information on the pulse of Congress. He almost surely did not see a possible successor. The power of denial overwhelmed any intimation he may have had about being unable to serve out another four years in the White House.
The Democratic convention in Chicago was hectic and disorderly. Roosevelt stayed well clear of it. Traveling in secrecy under wartime censorship rules, he journeyed across the country by train, stopping in Chicago long enough for a final confidential meeting with Bob Hannegan. He arrived in San Diego on the convention’s opening day.
Harry Truman came to Chicago planning to deliver a vice presidential nominating speech for Byrnes. Instead he found himself in a hotel room hearing Roosevelt declare via telephone that Truman’s refusal to accept the vice presidency would break up the party in the middle of a war. Wallace delivered a stem-winding speech that electrified the delegates and would have resulted in his renomination if the convention had proceeded immediately to a vote. Hannegan countered by releasing a carefully crafted letter in which Roosevelt said, “You have written me about Harry Truman and Bill Douglas. I should, of course, be very glad to run with either of the
m.” With that offhand endorsement, Truman won a close nomination vote from a sharply divided gathering. The president’s behavior in l’affaire Wallace did him no credit. It displayed the waning judgment of a tired and unwell man beginning to bend under the burdens of leadership.9
On the morning of July 20, alone in his railroad car with his son Jimmy, the president had an attack similar to the one he had experienced in Teheran. “For perhaps ten minutes,” Jimmy later recalled, “Father lay on the floor of the railroad car, his eyes closed, his face drawn, his powerful torso occasionally convulsed as the waves of pain stabbed him.” Yet, although both Doctors McIntire and Bruenn were in the presidential party, they agreed that medical treatment was not necessary.10
The malaise passed as suddenly as it had begun. Roosevelt went off to review a military training exercise at nearby Camp Pendleton. That evening, he delivered his nomination acceptance speech by radio from an undisclosed “Pacific Coast naval base.” Touting his administration’s record in achieving economic recovery and managing a winning war effort, he promised both postwar prosperity and an enduring peace. His voice was strong, but a widely circulated press photo showed him looking worn and haggard. He and Jimmy privately decided to call the event that had felled him a digestive upset. There may have been other such episodes. Writing to Eleanor, FDR simply said, “I got the collywobbles.” He apparently felt no need to explain the term.11
On the evening of July 21, after a day that included a visit with wounded troops at a military hospital, Roosevelt boarded the cruiser USS Baltimore for a voyage to Hawaii. He arrived at Pearl Harbor on the afternoon of July 26. For the next two and a half days, he conducted inspections, met soldiers and sailors, and received briefings from General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz.
Man of Destiny: FDR and the Making of the American Century Page 54