Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Modern Age
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
103
proper qualities of sympathy and imagination to deal with him, that he had been
snubbed all along by the arrogant conservatives of the Western capitals; and that if
only he could be exposed to the persuasive
charms of someone like FDR himself, ideological preconceptions would melt and Russias cooperation with the West could be
easily arranged. For these assumptions
there were no grounds whatsover; and they
were of a puerility that was unworthy of a
statesman of FDRs stature?
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
Spring 1986
will stand against the onslaughts of the German army. He takes it for granted that you
have no doubts either.. . 6
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
105
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
Spring 1986
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
108
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
wouldnt show that these eastern provinces would prefer to go back to Russia.
Yes, 1 really think those 1941 frontiers are
as just as any.lg
There was thus no predisposition on
Roosevelts part to try to block Soviet
plans for Poland. He was quite agreeable
to the cartographic lifting of Poland and
setting it down a few hundred miles to the
west, and thus giving Russia the parts of
eastern Poland it wanted. Roosevelt did
ask for one concession. He explained that
he was probably going to run for a fourth
term in the next year, 1944, and if so he
would need the votes of the millions of
Polish-Americans. Could Stalin therefore
remain publicly silent about this agreement until after the election? Stalin indicated that he could. Wheeler-Bennett
observes: Rooseveltswords were of tremendous importance. On the one hand
they virtually guaranteed to Stalin the
temtorial prizes he had been seeking in
Eastern Poland. On the other, they removed all necessity for the Soviet Union to
make its peace with the Polish government .2u
There was little of genuine significance
to the war and the postwar circumstances
that was not dealt with by Stalin and
Roosevelt in their three private sessions.
They agreed on the very earliest possible
cross-Channel second front as well as on a
diversionary operation, so called, in the
south of France, to be manned by divisions transferred from Italy. When Japan
was brought up by the president, Stalin
agreed that after a brief period of rest
following Hitlers surrender, the Soviets
would join the Pacific war. Roosevelt made
evident that there would be generous
territorial prizes for the Soviet Union. It
was agreed that France should be reduced
to a third-rate power and its empire scattered. Stalin did not want possible French
challenges to his anticipated power over
Western as well as Eastern Europe. Roosevelt seems to have had no other reason
beyond personal dislike of de Caulle and
suspicion of French morality and culture.
Roosevelt introduced his Wilsonian
dream-a United Nations organization
Modern Age
109
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
respect to Poland, its boundaries, its coming election, its Soviet-created Lublin
government, the status of Russian relations with the Baltic and the Balkan states,
the United Nations with the special representation in the Assembly allowed the
Soviet Union, and the expansive, specifically designated areas of the Far East that
would go to Stalin for his willingness to
join the Anglo-American war against
Japan-once the European war was safely
and securely ended, of course. All in all, as
Professor Eubank describes in detail, Yalta
was more ceremony and reaffirmation
than it was new substance. Teheranmost especially its three private Roosevelt-Stalin meetings-had done all the
real work.=
Roosevelt and Stalin enjoyed a reunion.
This time Stalin met alone with Churchill
once, but clearly the zest was in further
meetings with Roosevelt. Again, as at
Teheran, Roosevelt shied away from any
danger of being thought by Stalin to be
ganging up with Churchill against him.
The Teheran format was repeated,
writes Eubank; Stalin waited for Roosevelt to bring topics up for discussion. Yet
to Roosevelt this was a meeting of old
friends who had met previously and corresponded ever since. At Yalta they were
only renewing old contacts.29
Churchill had known from the Teheran
conference that he was out of it, really. In
his characteristic, impish way, he described his position to an old friend as that
of a little donkey, alone knowing the way,
but caught between the Russian bear and
the American buffalo. There were times
during the year following Teheran when it
was feared that Churchill might even resign as prime minister over differences in
military and political strategy with Roosevelt and the American chiefs. But General
Brooke seems to have persuaded Churchill to imbibe some of his own philosophy
toward the Americans: All right, if you insist upon being damned fools, sooner than
fall out with you, which would be fatal, we
shall be damned fools with you, and we
shall see that we perform the role of
damned fools damned well.
Spring 1986
110
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
Modern Age
111
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
Spring 1986
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
205
that so appalling and geopolitically cretinous a measure would never get through
Roosevelts chief advisers in Washington.
And Churchill was right. When Roosevelt
returned to Washington, he was confronted by a grim Stimson, Hull, McCloy, and
even Hopkins,who explained just what the
plan meant. Roosevelt was overcome, and
the plan was allowed to die quietly. At
least, he may well have thought, Stalin
knew he had tried.%
The Warsaw Uprising in August 1944,
with its massacre by the Germans of thousands of Poles, many of high station, is
another unsavory illustration of AngloAmerican, chiefly American, cravenness
before Stalin. But to appreciate this horror, we are obliged to go back to an earlier
one: that of the slaughter-execution by
the Soviets of thousands of Polish officers
in the Katyn Forest in 1939 after Stalin had
divided shares of Poland with Hitler. Some
15,000 Polish officers were rounded up by
the Soviets; about a third were cruelly executed on the edges of pits they had been
forced to dig themselves. The rest of the
captive officers were shipped to the gulag,
never to be heard of again, presumably
destroyed by the Russians. Despite repeated efforts by the Polish governmentin-exile in London to obtain information
about them from the Soviet government,
nothing was ever disclosed by the Kremlin.
In 1943 the German army came across
the shallowly buried Polish corpses. Naturally the Nazis publicized to the world their
grisly discovery, using it as anti-Soviet and
also anti-British and -American propaganda. The Polish government in London
exile called for an international commission to investigate the charges, which the
Soviets promptly denied, accusing the
Polish government of collaborating with
the Nazis. There was no question in any
responsible persons mind of Soviet guilt in
the massacre of the Polish officers, but
from the day of the call for an international
commission, the Soviets kept up a perpetual barrage of hatred against the official
Polish government.
Then, in August 1944,the Soviets cruelly
widened their attack. Germans were still in
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
Summer/Fall1986
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
207
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
Summer/Fall 1986
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
209
most other American generals in US.history, had a passion for confining himself
solely to military matters, leaving everything with political overtones to the President alone. As Forest Pogue has concluded: Eisenhowers wartime decisions
hewed strictly to Roosevelts political
desires.
Political policy was Roosevelts alone to
make, Ike insisted, and he was hardly in
any doubt of what Roosevelts policy
toward the Soviets was. As Stephen Ambrose has written: There can be legitimate debate about the wisdom of the
Presidents policy, but there can be no
doubt . . .what the policy was; it is equally
clear that Eisenhower was trying to act
within the context of the wishes of his
political superior.44
Precisely. Of course Eisenhower might
at least have allowed his closest staff to
draft the message to Stalin to ensure
clarity. For, as the result of Ikes own hasty
drafting of the telegram to Stalin, twentyfour hours were lost while the American
Military Commission under General Deane
in Moscow frantically sought, by messages to SHAEF, the precise meaning of
Eisenhowers original telegram, which the
Commission was required to translate.
General Deane was well aware of the
agreed upon strategy by the AngloAmerican forces to take Berlin for both
military and political reasons. Now, this
sudden, badly written message to Stalinin violation of the chain of commandcould only throw confusion into General
Deanes mind. And of course into Churchills and the British chiefs minds.
The British had not even had the courtesy of an advance notice of what Eisenhower planned to write Stalin. Only after
the telegram was dispatched to Moscow
were the British notified, and accordingly
stunned. Churchill pleadedwith Ike to cancel his message to Stalin; but to no avail. It
was, declared Eisenhower, a strictly militarycommunication to Stalin, and he,
Eisenhower, deferred to Roosevelt, his
commander in chief, in all political affairs:
or rather, to Roosevelt and Hopkins. There
was not the slightest question in his or
210
General Marshalls mind that he had conformed utterly and completely to the Presidents political wishes.
American General Simpson of the Ninth
Army was probably the severest casualty-that is, he and his entire confident
and eager army. By early April, a few days
after Eisenhower dispatched his telegram
to Stalin, the Ninth Army stood poised on
the bank of the Elbe, a few crossings
already achieved, waiting for the order
from headquarters to march into Berlin,
less than a two-daysoperation, what with
generally receptive Germans along the
way only too happy to welcome AngloAmericans instead of the feared and hated
Russians. But instead of the order to proceed, there came an order to stop permanently-an order from Ike himself.
Nothing ever shook him [General Simpson] from the belief that the only thing
standing between the Ninth Army and
Berlin was a wide open autobahn,45writes
Ambrose. And with every reason. Berlin
was a gift to Stalin by Eisenhower in the
name of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Churchill,echoing his chiefs consternation, started to protest strongly to Roosevelt, but he desisted shortly; by this late
date in the war, he knew only too well the
hopelessness of countering decisions and
actions which were stimulated by the
Presidents desire to assure Staliin of his
unwavering trust. Churchill thought a
Latin quotation was in order. What he
might have sent FDR was the chilling Lucretian Concede: Necessesf (Relax: its inevitable) directed at himself in irony. But
what he did send was Amantium irae
amoris infegrafio est, translated by the
Presidents staff as Lovers quarrels
always go with true
By the spring of 1945 there could not
have been many in the higher councils of
the British and the Americans who were
unaware of Rooseveltsalmost compulsive
strategy of reassuring and pleasing Stalin
at just about any cost. General Deane and
Averell Haniman in Moscow were high
among the initiated in this respect. Both
sent telegrams to the President or to Hopkins seeking to warn the White House of
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
Surnrner/Fall 1986
the by now naked Soviet policy of exploiting the Anglo-American aid program for
all it was worth. 1 have evidence, Harriman wrote, that they have misinterpreted
our generous attitude toward them as a
sign of weakness and acceptance of their
policies.. . . Unless we take issue with the
present policy, there is every indication
that the Soviet Union will become a world
bully. 47 But Harriman,by this time, had little confidence that he could succeed, at
least lastingly, in his effort to warn. The
President consistently shows very little
interest, Harriman wrote in his diary, in
Eastern European countries except as they
affect sentiment in America.*
Two incidents suggest that occasionally
at least the light shone through to
Roosevelts inner mind. Once at lunch in
the White House, when one of Harrimans
cables was brought to him, he reacted
angrily: Averellis right. We cant do business with Stalin. He has broken every one
of the promises he made at Yalta.49And
about the same time he uttered a similar
remark to Anne OHare McCormick of The
New York Times, declaring that although
he continued to believe in the Yalta
agreements, he had since found out that
Stalin was no longer a man of his word
either that or he was no longer in control of
the Soviet
No doubt such stones reflect a part of
the truth; even FDR and perhaps Hopkins
had moments when Stalins actions became too blatantly self-serving or antagonistic for easy assimilation. But, on
balance, the fairest judgment is that
Roosevelt remained serenely confident to
the very end that he could personally
handle Stalin, as he had boasted to
Churchill as far back as March 1942. His
final letter to Churchill,written by his own
hand at Warm Springs a day before he
died, read in part: I would minimize the
general Soviet problem as much as possible. This after months of Soviet rapacity,
duplicity, and brutal subjugation of occupied East European countries!
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
21 1
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
Summer/Fall 1986
had not made possible the kind of knowledge that was mere routine in Churchills
and even Staliis modus operandi. Roosevelt confessed to Frances Perkins one day
that whiile he knew good Italians and
Frenchmen from bad ones, he was not
sure about Russians. This, the reader must
be advised, was spoken after he had come
back from Teheran, where, as we know,he
had quite literally given away the store to
the Russians. FDR asked Miss Perkins if
she would help him out by taking special
note in her ordinary reading of any characterizations of the Russian
But such confessed ignorance of Russians did not hinder Roosevelts openmouthed appreciation of the Soviets and
their consecration to the good society. He
told the Secretary that there was an
almost mystical devotion in the Soviet
leaders attitude toward their people.
They all seem really to want to do what is
good for their society instead of wanting
to do for themselves. We take care of ourselves and think about the welfare of the
people afterward. 53 If that particular piety
were not still aliie and well in American
liberal thought, we could stop a moment
and marvel at it in Roosevelt.
There was simply no restraining Roosevelt when it came to the Russians. At Yalta,
according to the Alanbrooke diaries, he
declared Of one thing I am certain, Stalin
is not an imperialist. In the strict M m ian sense, Stalin of course was not. But that
bit of Marxist writ surely was not in
Roosevelts mind when he spoke. The
question is, what was in it? He had, as we
have seen, an uncanny ability to overlook
Soviet annexations and depredations in
Eastern Europe, once the tide of war had
changed and the Germans were retreating
westward, all the while he was evercensorious about British and French protectiveness of their dependencies.
Once Roosevelt confronted Churchill in
person about his and Britains imperialism.
Winston, this is something you are not
able to understand. You have 400 years of
acquisitive instinct in your blood, and you
just dont understand how a country
might not want to acquire land somewhere
Modern Age
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
213
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
Summer/Fall 1986
answer. He had learned it during his second term, when the New Deal had suffered
not only increased opposition from Congress but also irremediable setbacks by
the Supreme Court. His effort to pack the
Court-necessarily by congressional action-failed, and Roosevelt came face to
face with the monumental obstacle the
American Constitution is to eruptions of
Caesarian or Napoleonic power. He had no
difficulty in recalling Wilsons lamentable
experience with the Senate over the
League and the loss of the League to
America. But Wilson had made the mistake
of going it alone; and, with the presence of
Stalin on the world scene, Roosevelt did
not have to. Wheeler-Bennett writes:
President Roosevelts ambition was to establish the United Nations but to superimpose upon it an American-Soviet alliance
which should dominate world affairsto the
detriment of Britain and France, and to this
end he made copious concessions to Marshal Stalin.G1
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
215
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
Surnrner/Fall 1986
Soviet, unlike reactionary, power, democracy will grow like grass-in time, if
we are patient. The reason is perhaps the
almost mystical devotion the Pol Pots,
Castros, and Ortegas-not to forget the
Lenins-have toward their peoples.
The farce begun March 18, 1942, goes
on and on.
WVheeler-Bennett, pp. 178, 181, 184.Worrespondence. Roosevelt to Churchill, August 26,1944.3616id.
Churchill to Roosevelt, August 23,1944;Roosevelt to
Churchill, August 28, 1944. Michael Howard, The
Mediterranean Strategy in the Second World War
(London, 1968) is the definitive study. Worrespondence. Roosevelt to Churchill, June 10,and Churchill
to Roosevelt, June 11, 1944. Wi Arthur Bryant,
Triumph in the West:Based on the Diaries of Lord
Alanbrooke (New York, 1959), pp. 64-65.%heelerBennett, p. 290.41Correspondence.ChurchiU to Roosevelt,Julyl, 1944.42CitedbyFubank,p.442.43Ch~rch-
Modern Age
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
217