Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (129 page)

S
OVIET SENSIBILITIES
did have to be considered on the issue of war aims. The outline of what the United States and Britain were fighting for had been established at the Atlantic Conference and articulated in the Atlantic Charter. But the war had grown since then, and Roosevelt deemed essential the inclusion of all the nations that, by choice or circumstance, found themselves fighting the Axis. It was Roosevelt who suggested the label “United Nations” for the anti-Axis coalition. And it was Roosevelt who included religious freedom as a principle the United Nations ought to be fighting for.

This was what rubbed the Soviets the wrong way. Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet ambassador to the United States, complained that a religious freedom clause was deliberately provocative. Litvinov allowed that the Soviet government—meaning Stalin, as everyone realized—might accept “freedom of conscience” as a substitute. Roosevelt stood firm, even as he noted that in American practice, dating to Jefferson and the other founders, religious freedom was understood to include the right to embrace no religion at all. Surely Stalin could live with that.

Stalin could, and did. The document that Litvinov signed on behalf of the Soviet Union—beneath the signatures of Roosevelt and Churchill but above the signatures of T. V. Soong, the Chinese foreign minister, and of the representatives of the other anti-Axis governments—committed the signatory nations to the “common program of purposes and principles…known as the Atlantic Charter.” The signatories also promised “to defend life, liberty, independence, and religious freedom, and to preserve human rights and justice in their own lands as well as in other lands.”

The declaration was less airy regarding military strategy.

(1) Each Government pledges itself to employ its full resources, military or economic, against those members of the Tripartite Pact and its adherents with which such Government is at war.

(2) Each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto and not to make a separate armistice or peace with the enemies.

There was art in the first pledge, in that the signers committed to fight not the entire Axis but only those Axis countries with which they were already at war. Thus Russia didn’t declare war on Japan and didn’t propose to.

The hard core of the declaration lay in the second pledge, forswearing any separate peace. If this pledge could be believed, the three great powers of the United Nations—as well as the lesser powers—would fight together till Germany was defeated. Each would resist all temptations to strike a deal with Hitler or his successors. They were in the war together until the bitter end.

C
HURCHILL HAD INTENDED
to remain in Washington a week and be headed home by the beginning of the new year. But he got on so well with Roosevelt that he extended his visit to three weeks.

At times the relationship threatened to become too cordial for America’s good. “Generals Arnold, Eisenhower, and Marshall came in to see me,” Henry Stimson wrote in his diary for Christmas Day 1941, “and brought me a rather astonishing memorandum which they had received from the White House concerning a meeting between Churchill and the President and recorded by one of Churchill’s assistants.” The war secretary was referring to Henry—“Hap”—Arnold, the commander of America’s air corps, and Dwight Eisenhower, the operations chief of the general staff, besides the chief of staff.

It reported the President as proposing to discuss the turning over to the British of our proposed reinforcements for MacArthur. This astonishing paper made me extremely angry and, as I went home for lunch and thought it over again, my anger grew until I finally called up Hopkins, told him of the paper and of my anger at it, and I said if that was persisted in, the President would have to take my resignation.

The memorandum in question had been compiled by Leslie Hollis, a brigadier general in the Royal Marines and the secretary of the British chiefs of staff. Roosevelt and Churchill had been discussing the dire peril of the British garrison in Malaya following the sinking of the
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse.
Churchill’s military and naval chiefs explained that they were diverting all available units to Singapore in an effort to hold that crucial garrison. Roosevelt remarked that the American reinforcements currently en route to the Philippines via Australia would be unlikely to be able to fight their way to the Philippines in time to relieve Douglas MacArthur. “His view was that these reinforcements should be utilized in whatever manner might best serve the joint cause in the Far East,” Hollis recorded, “and in agreement with the Prime Minister he expressed the desire that the United States and British Chiefs of Staff should meet the following day to consider what measures should be taken to give effect to his wishes.”

The purpose of Hollis’s memo was to inform the American chiefs of the president’s commitment; the memo’s effect was to alarm Arnold, Eisenhower, and Marshall and infuriate Stimson. The war secretary phoned Harry Hopkins, who said he would check the matter out. In a few minutes he called back and said he had asked Roosevelt, in the presence of Churchill, about the diversion of American reinforcements to Malaya. Roosevelt denied that any commitment had been made, and Churchill supported the president. Stimson was dubious and told Hopkins so. “I then read to him extracts from the paper…,” Stimson wrote in his diary, “and he said that they certainly bore out my view.”

Roosevelt apparently had realized his mistake even as he denied making it, and Churchill was sufficiently gracious—and farsighted—to cover for him. Nothing more was said about sending the American forces to Singapore, beyond an oblique remark by Roosevelt that evening in a session with Stimson, Marshall, Arnold, Hopkins, and a few others. The president led a review of recent developments. “We discussed various things which were happening and the ways and means of carrying out the campaign in the Far East,” Stimson recorded. “Incidentally and as if by aside, he flung out the remark that a paper had been going around which was nonsense and which entirely misrepresented a conference between him and Churchill.” Stimson kept quiet—till he got home to his diary. “This incident shows the danger of talking too freely in international matters of such keen importance without the President carefully having his military and naval advisers present…. I think he felt he had pretty nearly burned his fingers and had called this subsequent meeting to make up for it. Hopkins told me at the time I talked with him over the telephone that he had told the President that he should be more careful about the formality of his discussions with Churchill.”

W
HILE
H
OPKINS WAS
warning Roosevelt to resist Churchill’s charm, the prime minister was testing that charm on the American people. Roosevelt had invited him to speak from the White House balcony the night before Christmas. “This is a strange Christmas Eve,” Churchill told the crowd of several hundred gathered in the darkness of the mansion’s garden. “Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle, and with the most terrible weapons which science can devise the nations advance upon each other.” And yet, for a moment, a different mood reigned. “Here, amid all the tumult, we have tonight the peace of the spirit in each cottage home and in every generous heart. Therefore, we may cast aside, for this night at least, the cares and dangers which beset us, and make for the children an evening of happiness in a world of storm.”

Two days later Churchill became the first British prime minister to address the American Congress. His rhetorical reputation preceded him; his defiant speeches during the bleak moments of 1940 had stirred the souls even of many who wished to keep America’s distance from Britain. Now he was an ally, a comrade-in-arms, and America tuned in—his speech was broadcast by the major radio networks—to hear him speak.

He reminded his audience of his American maternity. “I wish indeed that my mother, whose memory I cherish across the veil of years, could have been here to see me,” he said. “By the way, I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British, instead of the other way around, I might have got here on my own.” After letting the laughter subside, Churchill continued in the same vein. “In that case, this would not have been the first time you would have heard my voice. In that case I would not have needed any invitation. But if I had it is hardly likely that it would have been unanimous.” More laughter. “So perhaps things are better as they are.”

He turned serious as he noted that he, like the legislators in front of him, served at the will of the people. This was the glory of democracy, and its strength. “In my country, as in yours, public men are proud to be the servants of the state and would be ashamed to be its masters.” And this was what distinguished America and Britain from those that made war against them.

Churchill thanked the members of Congress for the assistance America had provided Britain in its darkest hour. He pledged Britain’s assistance to America in the struggle ahead. The contest would be neither swift nor easy. But progress would come. “I think it would be reasonable to hope that the end of 1942 will see us quite definitely in a better position than we are now; and that the year 1943 will enable us to assume the initiative upon an ample scale.” Churchill understood that his listeners included more than a few persons who had long discounted the threat fascism posed to democracy. His own country had contained many of similar short sight. Changing their minds had been difficult. “Prodigious hammer blows have been needed to bring us together today.” But the hammer blows had done their work. “Here we are together defending all that to free men is dear.” Fate had chosen the English-speaking peoples.

He must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below, of which we have the honor to be the faithful servants…. In the days to come the British and American people will for their own safety and for the good of all walk together in majesty, in justice, and in peace.

The speech was a tremendous hit. Alben Barkley, the Senate majority leader, characterized Churchill’s comments as “auspicious and impressive.” Frederick Van Nuys, a Democratic senator from Indiana, declared, “The speech was a grand résumé not only of past conditions but of what we may expect in the future.” Joseph Guffey of Pennsylvania called it “one of the greatest speeches I have ever heard.” Even Burton Wheeler, the crusty isolationist, admitted that the address was “clever” and “one which will appeal to the ordinary American,” although he added that what America needed at present was “less oratory and more action.”

By every measure Churchill’s visit was a smashing success for Roosevelt no less than for the prime minister. The two leaders demonstrated that their administrations could work together. Their staff chiefs might argue about this tactic or that, but on the essential elements of strategy they concurred. Germany would be the focus of their countries’ combined efforts; Japan would be held at bay. A single commander would direct operations in each theater. The Atlantic Charter would motivate the war effort.

And Roosevelt and Churchill would cooperate as partners and friends. “The last evening of Churchill’s visit the President, Churchill, and I had dinner together,” Harry Hopkins wrote.

The President and Churchill reviewed together the work of the past three weeks, and Churchill expressed not only his warm appreciation of the way he and his associates had been treated but his confidence that great steps had been taken towards unification of the prosecution of the war.