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The world looked on in stunned disbelief. How could this have happened? The total strength of the German military, on the one hand, and the French, British, Belgian, and Dutch forces, on the other, were after all roughly comparable. The French had more wheeled vehicles and tanks, and arguably the edge in the quality of their tanks and artillery. Even in the air, France and its allies had a comparable number of bombers and fighters to the Germans. To top it all off, the signs were abundant in the lead-up to the attack that Hitler was massing troops for an assault through the Ardennes forest. Yet now, less than a week in, the battle had the makings of a rout. In tactics and leadership, the Germans had shown themselves superior. The French general staff didn’t even fully grasp what was happening to them as radio communications broke down between General Maurice Gamelin, the overall commander, and his officers at the front.77
It got worse from there. In the north, masses of French and British troops were soon trapped in the coastal area of Calais and Dunkirk—300,000 men were pinned against the sea. They appeared to be doomed, until Hitler astonished his generals by ordering Guderian to halt (probably in a mistaken belief that Britain would wish to sue for peace). The British Expeditionary Force, and many French units, too, were able to escape from the Dunkirk beaches thanks to the heroic efforts of an armada of ships—some of them crewed by naval personnel, some manned by their civilian owners and crew—though despite later mythology, it was hardly an Allied victory.78 In the east, the Wehrmacht captured the fortresses along the Maginot Line in short order; in the center, the Allies fell back in confusion. On June 17, with the French war effort collapsing wholesale, and with German armies south of Dijon and pressing down the coastline, Prime Minister Paul Reynaud—who had succeeded Daladier three months before—resigned. From there the end came quickly. On June 22, France capitulated at Compiègne, in the same railway car used for the signing of the armistice in November 1918. In the earlier war, Germany had sacrificed a million of its soldiers over four years in a vain effort to defeat France; this time it had succeeded in six short weeks, at the cost of a mere 27,000 German lives. A jubilant Hitler, visiting Paris for the first and only time in his life, posed like a tourist before the cameras next to the Eiffel Tower.
In London, Joseph Kennedy despaired at the developments. “The situation is terrible,” he wrote to Rose on May 20. “I think the jig is up. The situation is more than critical. It means a terrible finish for the Allies.” Disappointed to see Neville Chamberlain’s government give way to one headed by Winston Churchill, the ambassador implored President Roosevelt to sue for peace on behalf of the Allies. “I saw Halifax last night,” he cabled Cordell Hull on May 24. “The situation according to the people who know is very very grim. The mass of the people just never seem to realize that England can be beaten or that the worst can happen to them….I do not underestimate the courage or guts of these people but…it is going to take more than guts to hold off the systematic air attacks of the Germans coupled with terrific air superiority in numbers….[Halifax] is definitely of the opinion that if anybody is able to save a debacle on the part of the Allies if it arrives at that point it is the President. Halifax still believes that that influence is one that the Germans still fear.”79
FDR refused the suggestion, but his ambassador had not exaggerated the sense of imminent doom on the part of Halifax and other senior British officials, and among London’s upper classes in general. “A miracle may save us,” Alexander Cadogan, the head of the Foreign Office, confided in his diary on May 21, “otherwise we’re done.” On May 25, the day after Kennedy sent his cable, the War Cabinet commenced an extraordinary three-day debate, unknown to anyone outside this tight circle, over whether to seek a negotiated settlement with Hitler, by way of Italian mediation. Halifax argued in favor: even as he conceded that the chances of gaining an agreement that preserved Britain’s independence and freedom of maneuver were slim, every political alternative, he said, should be pursued. Churchill stood in firm opposition—“peace and security could never be achieved in a German-dominated Europe,” he insisted. But the new prime minister had to move gingerly, his hold on power in these early weeks more tenuous than we tend to remember. He knew he could scarcely afford a Halifax resignation. Bit by bit, through cajolery and rhetorical flourish, Churchill won his colleagues over, and by May 28 there was agreement: Britain would fight on, alone if necessary.80
One can’t help but wonder: What if Churchill had lost the debate? What if the War Cabinet had chosen differently in those indigo days of May 1940 and Britain had sued for peace? What would have been the effect on the war, on the course of the twentieth century, on America’s standing in the world? And what would it have meant for Joe Kennedy and his family?
A few days later, Kennedy was ushered into a meeting with the prime minister, who told him that England stood next on Hitler’s list and that therefore the United States must provide more aid. “The president can’t do anything with Congress lined up against him,” Kennedy replied, “and Congress won’t act unless it feels that the American people are behind it.” The argument had always worked with Chamberlain, but Churchill barreled ahead. “The American people will want to come in when they see well-known places in England bombed,” he assured his guest. “After all, Hitler will not win this war until he conquers us, and he is not going to do that. We’ll hold out until after your election and then I’ll expect you to come in. I’ll fight them from Canada. I’ll never give up the fleet.”81
VII
A third development on May 10, 1940, was of rather less consequence than the leadership change in Britain or Hitler’s attack in the west, though in time it would prove highly significant in our story: young John F. Kennedy, having completed his last exams as a Harvard undergraduate, launched into the task of revising his senior thesis for publication. The new European situation compelled changes to the manuscript, he realized—Chamberlain’s leadership had plainly been found wanting, and Jack understood it would be necessary to shift more of the responsibility for Britain’s predicament to the decisions at 10 Downing Street and away from the broader electorate. His father reinforced this notion, informing his son that he had shown the thesis to several people and all of them converged on this point. “The basis of this criticism,” the ambassador wrote, “is that the National Government was in absolute control from 1931 to 1935, and that it was returned to office in November 1935, with another huge majority. This mandate, it is contended, should have been used to make the country strong. If the country supported such a policy, well and good; if not, then the National leaders should have thrown caution out the window and attempted to arouse their countrymen to the dangers with which Britain obviously was confronted.” In other words, the thesis had been too cynical in its acceptance of politicians doing whatever was necessary to get elected.82
To undertake the work, Jack ensconced himself in the library of Arthur Krock’s home in Washington, D.C. “I can’t say that I did much more than polish it and amend it here and there because it was very, very definitely his own product,” Krock later said. This seems correct, for a close comparison of the two versions shows the core content and structure to be substantially the same. (Nor were all the alterations necessarily for the best—notwithstanding Krock’s “polishing,” some sections of the thesis follow a cleaner, clearer line.) In addition to assigning somewhat more blame to Baldwin and Chamberlain, Jack also scrapped his earlier conclusion, measured and academic in tone, for a sharper one geared specifically to an American reading audience. “We must always keep our armaments equal to our commitments,” he wrote. “Munich should teach us that; we must realize that any bluff will be called. We cannot tell anyone to keep out of our hemisphere unless our armaments and the people behind these armaments are prepared to back up the command, even to the ultimate point of going to war.”83
As if to underscore the point, Jack dashed off a letter to The Harvard Crimson protesting the paper’s sta
unch opposition to American rearmament. It ran in the June 9 issue, mere days before its author’s graduation:
In an editorial on Friday, May 31, attacking President Conant’s speech you stated that “there is no surer way to war, and a terribly destructive one, than to arm as we are doing.” This point of view seems to overlook the very valuable lesson of England’s experience during the last decade. In no other country was this idea that armaments are the prime cause of war more firmly held….Senator Borah expressed the equivalent American opinion, in voting against the naval appropriations bill of 1938 when he said, “one nation putting out a program, another putting out a program to meet the program and soon there is war.”
If anyone should ask why Britain is so badly prepared for this war or why America’s defenses were found to be in such shocking condition in the May investigations, this attitude toward armaments is a substantial answer. The failure to build up her armaments has not saved England from a war, and may cost her one. Are we in America to let that lesson go unlearned?84
Barely had the ink dried on Jack’s letter when there came crushing news from New York: Harper & Brothers had decided to cancel an offer to publish the revised thesis, on the grounds that the study had been eclipsed by recent events. It would be “practically impossible,” the editors said, “to get attention for any historical survey” of this kind, given the crisis situation in France. The decision put a damper on Jack’s commencement ceremony, but he determined to enjoy the big day in any event, surrounded by his college pals and with grandfather Honey Fitz, mother Rose, sisters Rosemary (newly returned from England), Kick, and Eunice, and brothers Joe Junior and Bobby in attendance in Harvard Yard.*2
“He was really very handsome in his cap and gown as he had a tan which made him look healthy,” Rose reported to her husband, “and he has got a wonderful smile.” Though Joe’s ambassadorial duties kept him in London, he instructed Paul Murphy to send Jack a graduation gift in the form of a $1,000 check, “with his deep appreciation and congratulation for the work you have done and with all his love.” Jack wrote immediately to say thanks (the sum would allow him to “remain solvent for a bit more”), to inform his father that he intended to attend Yale Law School in the fall, and to say he was still working on finding a publisher for his thesis. “I have changed it considerably, it is now about 210 pages where formerly it was only 150, and I have tried to make it more readable.”85
Freshly minted college graduate.
Nonetheless, another rejection soon followed, this one from Harcourt Brace. Publisher Alfred Harcourt, who like Harper saw only the original thesis, not the revised manuscript, conceded that “the boy has written a much better than average thesis,” but he questioned whether the subject matter would resonate with American readers. His chief editor agreed: the European situation was simply moving too fast to proceed with publication. Sensing a pattern with the established presses, agent Gertrude Algase changed tack and tried upstart Wilfred Funk, who had recently created a small imprint bearing his own name. Algase sent Funk the revised version and got back word immediately: he would publish. The author was Joseph P. Kennedy’s son, after all, and Algase had hinted that Henry Luce would read the manuscript and perhaps pen a foreword. Funk secured the book, paying its author an advance of $225 ($250 minus the 10 percent agent’s commission).86
A shrewd decision it was. Advance sales exceeded expectations by a wide margin, and Wilfred Funk realized he would at least recoup his investment. Whether the early interest “is just a flurry because of the youngster’s name and curiosity on the part of the book stores, we can’t tell,” Algase wrote candidly to Krock. “It probably is, and whether or not the book will renew its sale after the book shops have available copies I don’t know.” She added that the author himself left a winning impression: “Jack Kennedy is one of the nicest youngsters I’ve met, unaffected, cordial and hard-working in his own right. I’d like to watch him grow up and go places.”87
Algase would get her chance to see him “go places,” and could justifiably claim to have played a part in setting him on his way. For the book she helped shepherd into production would strike a chord among Americans and would signify for all to see that Jack Kennedy, age twenty-three and a freshly minted Harvard graduate, was his own man, not beholden to his father’s isolationist views. Indeed, he was willing to rebuke in print the core tenets of appeasement.
It was a message whose time had come. In ways not yet fully clear as Why England Slept hit the shelves in the middle of 1940, the fall of France had changed the calculus for millions of Americans, even the man in the White House. Adolf Hitler suddenly seemed poised to conquer all of Europe, including Great Britain, and meanwhile the Japanese threat grew steadily in East and Southeast Asia. Preparedness took on a whole new meaning, a whole new level of importance—could it be that the slim new volume by the ambassador’s handsome second son offered useful lessons?
*1 Jack attended the Cannon-Hersey wedding, in North Carolina in April 1940, having swallowed the reluctance he expressed humorously to a friend: “I would like to go but don’t want to look like the tall slim figure who goes out and shoots himself in the greenhouse halfway through the ceremony.” (Treglown, Mr. Straight Arrow, 56.)
*2 The commencement speeches showed the continuing campus divisions over the war. Class orator Tudor Gardiner (’40) called it “fantastic nonsense” to aid the Allies and said the United States should instead focus on “making this hemisphere impregnable.” David Sigourney (’15), the class orator from twenty-five years before, spoke differently at a reunion event, extolling his class’s service in the Great War: “We were not too proud to fight then and we are not too proud to fight now.” His remarks were met with loud and sustained boos, mostly from members of recently graduated classes. Commencement speaker Cordell Hull, for his part, condemned isolationism as “dangerous folly” as an appreciative President Conant nodded in agreement. (Bethell, Harvard Observed, 132–33; Lee Starr [’40], interview with the author, May 2, 2017.)
TEN
INTERLUDES
The defeat of France in June 1940 had a transformative effect on American attitudes toward the European war, and toward national defense in general. The Nazi threat was now real, in a way it hadn’t been before. Hitler’s previous conquests had been regrettable but explicable, worrisome but involving comparatively small nations about which many Americans knew little. France was different. France was a storied world civilization, a center of art and literature and music, the home of high fashion and high cuisine. France was Paris, with its Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower, its beautiful boulevards and charming sidewalk cafés, familiar even to Americans who had never been there. And France was a major world power, its empire second only to Britain’s in size, its military the most powerful (by some measures) in the world. Yet it had just been vanquished—brutally, with fearsome totality, in six short weeks.
Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II spoke to the moment in song:
The last time I saw Paris
Her heart was warm and gay
No matter how they change her
I’ll remember her that way
Overnight, the complacency that had characterized U.S. thinking during much of the Phony War gave way to acute apprehension, even panic. Not since the early years of the republic had overseas developments seemed so close to America’s shores, so capable of threatening the nation’s security. If the Nazi war machine could trounce the Low Countries and France with such clinical efficiency, wouldn’t it sooner or later present a direct and existential threat to the United States?1
Even in the short term, numerous analysts warned, a Germany that toppled Great Britain and thereby gained control of the Atlantic sea lanes would post severe challenges to U.S. interests. “We have been deluding ourselves,” the influential columnist Walter Lippmann wrote, “when we have looked upon a vast expanse of salt wate
r as if it were a super Maginot Line. The ocean is a highway for those who control it. For that reason every war which involves the dominion of the seas is a world war in which America is inescapably involved.”2
Franklin Roosevelt wholeheartedly agreed. As a former assistant secretary of the Navy who fancied himself an expert on sea power, the president shuddered at the thought that Hitler would soon conquer Britain and its formidable Royal Navy. British chances of survival, he mused privately in July, were one in three. FDR wanted very much to meet Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s pleas for U.S. assistance with a tangible offer of support, but what could he do? America’s defenses were grievously underdeveloped in all areas (in 1939 the U.S. Army, with 190,000 men, ranked seventeenth in the world in size, just behind Romania’s), insufficient to guard the nation’s geographic approaches, never mind help allies. Nor was Germany the only looming threat: in East Asia the Japanese were poised to expand their reach southward. At Roosevelt’s insistence, the administration moved with rare certitude and dispatch to secure a massive arms buildup, gaining congressional support for a staggering $12 billion in new military spending. Over objections from the War Department, FDR also gained the release of significant quantities of arms and ammunition to be sold to private firms and then, through cash-and-carry, to Great Britain.3