Because of FDR’s place
in history as one of the greatest Presidents of all time, there is a tendency to
view him as perfection in the office personified and that everything that went wrong
with the Soviets could have been avoided because of a misunderstanding of
Roosevelt’s vision. But while he had the greatest political instincts
imaginable and was superb at using the strength of his personality to sweep his
vision for the office along, the fact remains that he was so convinced of his
own vision that he far too often refused to consider anyone else’s position
then his. He was considering running for a third term even before circumstances
made it necessary and the fact remains that during the years leading up to that
decision he did nothing to groom a potential successor.. In a way for FDR that
statement of Louis XIV “l’etat es Moi’ was a reality. As is written by Wilson Miscamble
whose From Roosevelt to Truman is one of my primary sources:
“FDR relished moving
outside established channels and in diplomacy he seemed especially to enjoy overlooking
State Department officials and foreign service professionals in favor of
confidantes and personal emissaries….His keen desire to preserve his freedom of
action led him often to either postpone decisions or to make them hastily without
significant study regarding implications or consequences. Both approaches
would be evident in his wartime diplomacy.
Roosevelt’s personalization
of the office and of foreign policy was only going to be effective as long as
he was President. It was inevitable when he died that there would be immediate
changes in the way foreign policy was formulated. Harry Truman was not FDR and
couldn’t carry on policies the way he had. Somehow that fact never enters into certain
interpretations of the post-war policy.
And the fact remains
that FDR’s international policies were formed in a very real sense by his
experiences as part of his role in Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet. This is understandable
considering how the failures to realize a world after Versailles were the
underlying cause of Hitler’s rise in Germany. Roosevelt understandably viewed
Germany as the villain and its total defeat was the underlying goal of whatever
post-war policy he imagined.
And he also believed in
a ‘radical reduction of the weight of Europe’. This amounted to a permanent
disarmament of all nations in colonial Europe. The problem was that in this
post war Europe he saw the Soviet Union taking the role, along with the United
States, Britain, and (improbably) China as the world’s policemen, something me
told Foreign Minister Molotov in a visit he made to DC in May of 1942. In his
conception of it, the extension of Soviet power into Eastern and Central Europe
was acceptable.
While FDR was
foresighted in seeing that America would have to take the central place of
leadership in his envisioned postwar world and that the policies of isolation
of his predecessor were no longer applicable he fundamentally and repeated
failed to misjudge that the Soviet Union could play a similar role in a
post-war world. While he was reluctant to even consider reviving the League of
Nations that had doomed Wilson’s Presidency he eventually conceded to it in 1943.
Nevertheless he was still insistent that this could only work with continued
cooperation among Britain, the Soviet Union and America, particularly between
the latter two countries.
He was also correct in
his position on colonialism and the dissolution of imperialism, a view that
Churchill in particular was never onboard with and spent much of his leadership
and indeed the rest of his life fighting against. FDR and Churchill’s
relationship, however strong it was, does not hide the fact that both men had radically
different views of the post-war world. Churchill believed unabashedly in the
idea of the British Empire and for all his views on Hitler to the freedom of
the world, it was clear his vision of involved a restoration of Great Britain
and by extension’s Europe’s superiority in the world order. Churchill was a
member of the Conservative Party and that was what conservative met in Britain
then – and still holds over the United Kingdom today.
FDR rejected the idea
of continued British imperialism and he was speaking from a clear position of
strength. The British Empire place in the world was in decline even before the
war began and as the war progressed it became more evident. But where FDR clearly
blundered was to ‘trust the Russians and win their trust in return.” And it’s
there that his fundamental flaw in post-war policy is the most obvious,
From the start of his
administration FDR had never been as anti-communist as the rest of the country,
granting diplomatic recognition to the Communist regime something no
predecessor had done. The first American ambassador to the U.S.S.R William Bullitt,
quickly learned what was happening under Stalin. His successor Joseph Davies,
however, had a high regard for Stalin and chose to ignore or dismiss the
realities - which including, need the
left be reminded, purges, show trials, brutality and tyranny. Laurence
Steinhardt, Davies’s replacement, was a realist and took an accurate measure of
the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the War against Finland, and the seizure of the Baltic
states. He correctly saw the Soviets as ‘accomplices’ of Nazi aggression in the
first two years of the war in Europe. As a result he opposed unrestricted aid
after Hitler violated that pact, recommended reciprocity and then only in exchange
for Soviet cooperation. As a result, FDR would marginalize him because of this.
FDR seems to have
basically chosen to ignore what Stalin was doing to much of Europe,
rationalizing it as ‘a natural step in view of the (supposed) British and
French intentions to push Hitler eastward.”
Nor was he troubled by Stalin’s record of ruthless violence and internal
repression as cause for restraint. Apparently he was in accord with the
left-wing and progressives of his New Deal coalition for the Soviets when they
moved into the anti-fascist camp and even seemed to believe the Western
intellectual romance of the Soviet experiment. That would seem to be an absurd
point of view to take for not only the President but a man who was getting
radically different pictures of the reality on the ground from his diplomatic
corps. And yet he chose to ignore then in favor of Davies and more importantly
Harry Hopkins. Even the fact that his administration consistently warned him of
Soviet espionage efforts within it – which would later be revealed to include
dozens of mid-level government employees, including Harry Dexter White, his
assistant secretary of the treasury – he spent the war basically ignoring what
he was hearing. There is even a real possibility that Hopkins himself may have
been a Soviet agent.
Incredibly the administration
determined that the Soviet Union was evolving towards democratic socialism and that
much of its pathological behavior had to be overlooked or tolerated. They were
certain that if they were patient, accommodating, friendly and did everything
short of appeasement, democracy would take root in the Soviet Union. Less than
a year after Stalin was still maintaining his pact with Hitler, FDR assured
Molotov that they would be part of the post-war world.
The clearest difference
between Churchill and FDR, in many ways, comes down to their approach to
Stalin. Churchill famously said about him once: “If Hitler invaded Hell I would
at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.” He was also fooled by Stalin to an extent,
but he had no illusions at to the kind of devil he was dealing with. FDR either
never recognized that Stalin was ‘the Devil’ or somehow thought through the
sheer force of his political personality that he could convert him. He remained
in complete denial of that fact throughout the war and no matter how many times
Stalin betrayed that trust, particularly near the end of the war, he seemed
more convinced in his own judgment and those of a very narrow circle. He continuously
ignored the advice of his own ambassadors. When Bullitt said in August of 1943
about a dominion of Europe by Stalin FDR said: “I have a hunch that Stalin is
not that kind of man. Harry Hopkins says he not….and I think that if I give him
everything I possibly can and ask nothing in return, noblese oblige, he won’t
try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace.”(Bullitt
has confirmed this multiple times.). FDR genuinely seemed to think that he
could dispel the prejudices of a man who had no interest of being manipulated
of a capitalist nation whose ultimate destruction he welcomed. Indeed the
reverse proved to be true: Stalin quickly gained the initiative in this
relationship and put all of the burden on Roosevelt to prove Western
friendship.”
And FDR was more than
willing to do that. He delivered soothing addresses in his fireside chats and
promoting what was for all intents and purposes Soviet propaganda to improve
their image in America. He either downplayed or didn’t appreciate the
ideological chasm between democracy and Stalin’s regime. He actually began to
believe the Russian’s predilection for ‘spitting in his eye’ as a mechanism of
their diplomacy.
Charles Bohlen, a
longtime State department official and who never felt badly towards FDR said
the following:
“…as far as the Soviets
were concerned, I don’t think Roosevelt had any real comprehension of the
thinking of a Bolshevik from a non-Bolshevik, and particularly from an
American. He felt that Stalin viewed the world somewhat in the same light that
he did, and that Stalin’s hostility and distrust, which were evident in the
wartime conferences, were due to the neglect Russia had suffered at the hands
of other countries for years after the Revolution. What he did not understand
was that Stalin’s enmity was based on profound ideological convictions.”
And this showed his
utter disinterest in anything but the defeat of Germany. He had no real concern
what happened to all the conquered nations in Europe once Germany collapsed. If
that meant the Soviet Union took their place in Central and Eastern Europe, he
seemed blasé about it. When the three leaders met in Teheran FDR was absolutely
fine letting Stalin absorb not only the Baltic states but redraw the boundaries
of Poland. He seemed more concerned about keeping all of this quiet until after
the 1944 election then anything else about the fate of the nation. He teased
Churchill in front of Stalin, visibly humiliated him in order to make Stalin ‘laugh’,
which he consider proof that Stalin was ‘get-at-able’. FDR seemed to believe
more that personal relations would bring about a post-war world rather than a
hard-headed strategy.
The longer 1944 went Americans
seemed to accept that Eastern Europe would be under Soviet control. “The
Russians are perfectly friendly,” FDR explained. “They aren’t trying to gobble
up Europe or the rest of the world.
Poland showed the
fundamental blindness of FDR. Britain had, lest it be forgotten, enter the war
in defense of Polish sovereignty which had been divided between Germany and the
Soviet Union. FDR’s approach to Poland throughout 1943 and 1944 was essentially
to tell them to stop complaining about being Anti-Soviet. When the Polish government
was understandably hesitant about this FDR was irritated – and made it clear to
his Vice President Henry Wallace that ‘the Poles were handling things very
badly and that Stalin’s ideas were sound
with regard to Poland.” Even after the Soviet government announced their puppet
Polish committee would oversee the administration of Poland and Stalin’s
behavior led to the Warsaw uprising and subsequent massacre FDR chose to turn
the other cheek. Despite the advice of George Kennan and Averill Harriman
during this period FDR blithely denied even the concept of harsher restrictions
or demands on Stalin.
Churchill eventually
realized that he was dealing with ‘a monstrous Tsar writ large, a new Ivan the
Terrible’ and that it was geography and territory that now mattered. But FDR
only cared about how Stalin’s behavior would reflect on America. Postponement and
obfuscation were now his main instruments.
And all of this falls
under the equally undeniable fact that while most of this was going on FDR’s
was dying. He was in no condition to run for reelection and the fact that
Truman ended up his nominee for Vice President was a sign that everyone around
him knew he would not survive to see this post-war world. If ever there was a
time to at the very least start telling other people of his post-war vision it
was now. And yet FDR remained in denial of that fact all the way through his
reelection campaign and up to his inauguration. He still believed his vision
could prevail, despite the fact he was in no condition to govern, much less
lead. FDR had made it very clear how the world was going to be well before he
flew to Yalta.
In the next part of
this article I will deal with the events of Yalta, how they were less
significant than history has made them appear and how FDR’s passing ensured his
legacy would be intact – and that Truman could only disappoint.
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