How Truman Didn't Start The Cold War, Part 4: Wallace, Byrnes and the Leadup to Potsdam

 

 

Truman’s meeting with Henry Wallace and James Byrnes while waiting for FDR’s body to return to DC might have been awkward but it wasn’t entirely by chance. As was made clear in the previous article Truman would rely heavily on his advisors in an attempt to learn about FDR’s vision for the post-war world and how he might best achieve it. And going forward his original intention was to rely heavily on two of FDR’s most trusted advisers over the course of his administration.

Truman would talk with many men who would run the gamut of opinion on how to deal with the Soviet Union but the best way to illustrate it may be through the advice he got from the man who he had replaced as FDR’s running mate in 1944 and the man who many had thought would have the first choice to do so.

The two men were polar opposites in the Democratic Party on many ways: Wallace represented the leftist progressive wing; Byrnes’ the more conservative Southern wing. But both men were more than qualified when it came to being in FDR’s inner circle. Wallace was one of the few members of FDR’s original cabinet who was still part of the administration in 1945 (albeit in a different position) and Byrnes had served at every level of the government in his career in public service to the point many had considered him ‘the Assistant President’. And it might be fitting to begin this discussion with how FDR viewed both me going into the 1944 election.

As I have mentioned many times one of the myths held deeply by leftists is that the delegates wanted Henry Wallace as FDR’s running mate in 1944 but the bosses pushed him out and put Truman in his place. I’ve done much to try and debunk this rumor in some of my earlier writing so its worth remembering one critical fact: Wallace knew better than anyone how tenuous his position as FDR’s running mate well before the Democratic convention.

Wallace would demonstrate his naivety when it came to both politics and the world countless time during his career but he knew one thing very clearly: he could show as many polls as he wanted say that he was the choice of the people but the man who was going to be the final choice was FDR.

He also knew how hard it had been to get the delegates to accept him the first time. While he might not have known that FDR had actually threatened not to run if Wallace had not been chosen, he did know what the final vote count had been in 1940 with FDR’s backing: he had barely managed to get enough delegates on the first ballot. And he knew that FDR was not standing behind Wallace this time around; the fact that he was being so squishy about it in the first place was a red flag. When he had made his nomination speech for FDR in the convention he had done so knowing his political life was on the line. Despite what the bosses had tried to do, it had done nothing to change FDR’s mind before the balloting began. When FDR sent a telegram saying that “I like Wallace and I would vote for him if I were a delegate to the convention. Obviously the convention must do the deciding”, much as they tried to spin it, it was basically the kiss of death.

But Wallace, unlike his predecessor John Nance Garner, was loyal. He campaigned tirelessly for FDR throughout the summer and fall, personally advocating for the man who had thrown him aside. In reward to that loyalty FDR allowed him a cabinet position and he chose Commerce. That itself had already caused trouble for Truman. Wallace’s position alienated the conservatives who nearly torpedoed Wallace’s nomination. Truman had to break two ties as presiding officer of the Senate to get ‘the son of a bitch confirmed’.

Nevertheless Wallace as Vice President had been privy to quite a bit of FDR’s thinking or at the very least his point of view. As different as the two men’s views were Wallace had been on the inside and despite the difficulty in confirming Truman had been willing to keep him on at Commerce.

James Byrnes was a completely different sort of political figure than Wallace. He’d represented South Carolina in the House of Representatives for seven terms and had been an ally of President Wilson in Congress. He’d run for Senate in 1924 but because he’d been raised Catholic the Klan spread rumors he still was, which caused him to narrowly lose the run-off vote to Coleman Blease. Six years later he ran against Blease and this time narrowly defeated him.

A friend of FDR he was an avid spokesman for the New Deal on the Senate floor. He took up the cause of a massive dam building project Santee Cooper, a massive dam building system that would use hydroelectric power to electrify the state. This had been a dream of South Carolina politicians since the colonial era and Byrnes managed to realize. In February of 1942 it was completed and  put it to operation and has been a model for public-owned utilities worldwide ever since.

However on the issue of race Byrnes was as conservative as his colleagues. He played a critical role in blocking anti-lynching legislation in the Senate and opposed FDR’s effort to purge conservative Democrats in 1938. But unlike some Southerners and conservative Republicans, he was a champion of FDR’s war effort, both in terms of support of England, a hard diplomatic line against Japan and repeated denouncements of isolations like Charles Lindbergh.

FDR nominated Byrnes as an associate justice on the Supreme Court and he began serving in July of 1941. However, fifteen months later he resigned as FDR had a more significant job in mind for him.

FDR named him to head the Office of Economic Stabilization, which dealt with prices and taxes more critical then ever during the War. Byrnes did such a good job at that post that he left it in the hands of Fred Vinson five months later for the new position of the Office of War Mobilization, which effectively supervised the office he’d just left. Under his leader the program managed newly constructed factories  across the nation that used raw materials, civilian and military  transportation for Army personnel that provided employment that effectively ended the Depression. Because of Byrnes experience, intellect, friendship with the President and his charm Byrnes was soon so influential than many in Congress and the press called him ‘the Assistant President’. As early as the fall of 1943 many suspected Byrnes would run with FDR in 1944.

FDR himself had a high opinion of Byrnes. On multiple occasions when he was asked who the best man to run the country would be should something happen to him he named James Byrnes. Few could argue that Byrnes was unqualified to be the next President and Truman himself went to the convention expecting as much. (McCollough’s biography of Truman says that Byrnes asked him to give the speech putting his name in nomination and Truman agreed, but it is unclear of the veracity of that remark.)

However while the bosses were afraid of Wallace becoming the next President, they were just as afraid of FDR losing the Presidency in 1944. Wallace had flaws that very likely were going to isolate voters and Byrnes had a different set of baggage. Because of his vote against the Fair Labor Standards act, organized labor was on the fence of him. The bosses were afraid that being an ex-Catholic would offend the Catholic voters. Most important because of Byrnes views on integration and race, Northern blacks – increasingly voting Democratic – were weary of him as a candidate. As a result Byrnes never had much of a chance.

Like Wallace he dealt with it well. He remained at his post at OWMR and even gave a nationally broadcast radio speech in October of 1944 in favor of the new ticket. He might have hoped FDR would nominate him to replace Cordell Hull at State but FDR considered Byrnes too independent and picked Stettinius instead. Nevertheless he accepted FDR’s invitation to Yalta and went out of his way to sell it to Congress and the public.

While Wallace and Byrnes were in disagreements on many issues, they were both in accord with FDR’s approach to foreign policy. However there was one critical difference between Wallace and Byrnes, and it was something that Truman himself would not be aware of until after he ascended to the Presidency. In that sense, there might well have been an argument to have had Byrnes on the ticket after all.

Because Byrnes was head of the OWMR, he had knowledge of the Manhattan Project. Indeed he was part of the interim committee that made recommendations on the use of the atomic bomb both before and after the war. That meant he was aware of the scientific work done by men such as Oppenheimer, Fermi and Lawrence (the scientists on the committee) as well as various cabinet members such as Secretary of War Henry Stimson and the Under Secretaries of the Navy and the Assistant Secretary of State. Indeed while Stimson was the chair Byrnes had significant influence on it.

It is worth noting that Byrnes’s view of this was more personal than many of the other members. He had both a political and personal investment in the project and he new clearly what would happen if it failed. He had put this forth to FDR in the aftermath of FDR’s reelection and warned in a memorandum a month before the President’s death: “if the project proves a failure, it will then be subjected to relentless investigation and criticism.”

Byrnes was adamant on the idea of sharing atomic research with anyone, whether it be the Soviets or the British. His political acumen made it clear in a discussion he had in May of 1945 with physicist Leo Szilard that the bomb not only had to be used but used without warning on the Japanese. Byrnes believed that Congress would want a return on the more than 2 billion dollars they had put into the project by 1945 but just as important he said that the public would be outraged if it came out that the administration had a chance to end the war early and had foregone the opportunity to use a weapon that could do so.

Truman didn’t learn as much as Byrnes already knew about the atomic bomb until April 25^th when he was briefed by Stimson and General Leslie Groves, the head of the project. Stimson brought up the potential relationship between how the atomic bomb might change America’s policy towards the Soviets but it doesn’t seem that Truman paid much attention to the lesson at the time. To be fair, he was now wrestling with the fact that he was going to have authorize the use of this weapon. “I am going to have to make a decision which no man in history has ever had to make,” he reportedly told the next person he saw after Groves and Stimson left his office. “I’ll make the decision, but it is terrifying to think about what I will have to decide.”

It was Stimson who recommended Byrnes serve on the committee. By that point rumors had begun to spread that Truman might very well nominate Byrnes to succeed Stettinius. However Truman left the committee to its own devices and during May they began to decide on the use of it against Japan. Truman was dealing with more pressing matters.

On May 8^th, 1945 Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allies. In one of those coincidences of the calendar on his 61^st birthday Truman broadcast to the nation that “flags of freedom fly all over Europe” and called on his fellow citizens to face the task of defeating Japan and winning the peace. He expressed his regret to his fellow Americans that his predecessor had not lived to see the victory and wrote to Anna Roosevelt that it would have been “a most happy day if your father could have been present.”

The tension did not ease one iota for Truman in the aftermath of V-E Day. Truman now had to deal with such matters as the occupation of Germany as well as reparations. Truman also had to deal with the future of Lend-Lease in regard to the Soviets which led to conflicting reports from hardliners like Averill Harriman and Joseph Davies on the other. Davies had been FDR’s second ambassador to Moscow and a complete dupe of Stalinist propaganda, who nevertheless had a very good reputation with both FDR and the public throughout the war. Davies more than any other advisor urged Truman to maintain the relationship Stalin and Roosevelt had during the war, even as Churchill advised a stronger stance about what was now occurring in Yugoslavia, and his position as a trusted council with FDR undermined Truman’s confidence when it came to a hardline approach.

This concerned many and when Anna Roosevelt learned after a meeting with Truman on May 16^th, she confided in Wallace about his worries. Wallace met with Truman two days later and upon hearing his successor’s concern about the situation in Russia expressed the hope that the President ‘would not accept the representations made to him in the state department without looking at them twice. Truman replied quickly that he had no confidence in the State department and was going to get new leadership as soon as possible. He further informed Wallace that he believed the Russians had not kept to the Yalta agreements but as a desire for further cooperation he made it clear a top priority was getting Russia to enter the war against Japan.

Truman had reservations about the State Department and at this point he was relying heavily on FDR’s former advisers – Davies, Cordell Hull and Harry Hopkins. In his diary he referred to them as ‘our three ablest foreign relations me’ and lamented the fact that they were now ‘old and physically incapacitated.” Indeed Hopkin would die by the end of the year and Davies had declined his President’s invitation to trek to Moscow because of his poor health. He eventually decided to send Hopkins to Moscow – on what would be the last international trip the ailing advisor would make – on the advice of Harriman and with the backing of Hull. (Byrnes opposed the idea.)

Davies, however, agreed to make a trip to London to talk with Churchill, flying there on May 25. The following night he met with the prime minister, who had spent the day campaigning for the upcoming elections in Britain. Davies told Churchill that ‘there could be no reasonable prospects for peace without the unity of the Big Three.” He suggested that Truman and Stalin meet prior to this in order for them to develop their relationships and clear thinks up. Churchill had a different opinion, bitterly denouncing Russia as a threat to the security and freedom of Europe and made it very clear that if America withdrew there would be grave dangers. And he was particularly hostile to the idea of Stalin and Truman meeting without himself present.

Davies proceeded by lecturing the elder statesmen on Churchill’s argument of “Europe had to be saved from the Bolsheviks and the Communist menace, even going so far to tell the man who’d had to rally his nation to fight on against Germany when the situation seemed most dire if he felt Churchill had ‘bet on the wrong horse’. It’s fairly remarkable that Churchill managed to remain relative calm during this conversation..

Churchill made sure that his point of views were sent in a communique he sent back with Davies and by the end of their meeting said ‘he needed a bath to get rid of the ooze and slime’ he’d accumulated from being near him.  He also sent a telegram to Truman making clear his principles about the Soviet threat.

Over the next few days Truman began to make replacements in the cabinet he’d inherited, including the posts of Attorney General, Secretary of Labor and Agriculture. Upon Davies’s return, he met with the President for breakfast and gave a full report. Truman seems to have taken Davies’s advice to heart, despite what he might have written in his memoirs years later. Understandably he had no desire to precipitate a conflict with the Soviets, certainly not with the war in the Pacific still going on and with no clear picture as to when it might end.

By this point Hopkins had more or less agree to Stalin’s decision to a Communist-dominated regime in Poland. George Kennan refused to endorse the deal that Hopkins had in mind. By this point Hopkins was not even willing to talk with Churchill over the phone. The Truman administration more or less were willing to surrender the freedom of Poland to the Soviet Union in an effort to keep good relations with Stalin.

Truman was convinced the international situation was improving even as the Soviets began to roll over Poland and made it clear that they were going to have a presence in China as a cost for entering the war. To be fair Truman was dealing with the possibility of Japanese invasion and after such high casualties had been reported as Iwo Jima and Okinawa, he had more reason to fear just how many more American lives would be lost.

By the end of June Truman was preparing to depart for Potsdam where the Big Three would have their first meeting since Yalta. On June 20^th he watched as Secretary Stettinius signed the United Nations Charter for the United State and addressed the delegates of fifty nations. “The Charter of the United Nations which you have just signed is a solid structure on which we can build a better world,” he told the assembled delegates. Calling on the memories of both Wilson and FDR, he called upon the representatives ‘to grasp this supreme chance to establish a world-wide rule of reason – to create an enduring peace under the guidance of God.” This was lofty rhetoric that reflected the high hopes and inflated and unreal expectations that many Americans held for the UN. As they were speaking certain nations used raw power and military force to determine Europe’s future, something that if it cross Truman’s mind at the time, he kept it to himself and left in high spirits.

Back in DC he presented the Charter to Congress and Truman called upon the Senate to ratify it quickly. Before the month was out, the Senate had done so by a vote of 89 to 2. FDR could hardly have done better.

On his way back to DC from San Francisco Truman made a stop in his home state of Missouri. Stettinius announced his resignation on June 27^th in order to serve at the UN. Not much later he confirmed what many suspected: Byrnes would be named to succeed Stettinius. Byrnes was appointed on June 30^th and confirmed by a unanimous vote. On July 3^rd he swore his former colleague in the Senate in as Secretary. He had little to time to acclimate himself to his new position: in less than a week, he was scheduled to travel with Truman to Potsdam.

Initially Byrnes would rely on a small circle of trusted confidantes that included his secretary Walter Brown, State Department counselor Ben Cohen, and Charles Bohlen, who’d translated at Yalta. Like Truman, he identified with the broad policies of FDR’s post-war world and was determined to maintain good relations with the Soviets. He initially showed no sympathy for the hardliners and was as open as Truman to the advice of men like Davies. Byrnes had been present at Yalta convinced Stalin was a man of his word and showed no sympathy for the interpretation of the Yalta agreement of Poland that men like Harriman offered. Byrnes had spent much of his life in politics as a negotiator and in his memoir asserted: “good government lies in seeking the highest common denominator. That is as true in international councils as it is in the county court house.”

And Byrnes was well tuned on German matters and their implications both domestically and internationally. In Truman’s first week in office, Byrnes alerted his new superior to the importance of German reparations. He also shared Truman’s concern about the danger of political, social and economic upheaval in Europe in the wake of Hitler’s defeat. This was clear in his decision to address the importance of German coal as critical to the stabilization and reconstruction of Western Europe. It was quickly realized that this couldn’t be done in isolation and that increasing production of coal depending on solving transportation problems, food shortages and currency stability – as well  as importing much of that to Germany itself.

While Wallace himself may not have contributed as much directly to Truman’s approach to foreign policy, it is worth noting many of his counselors – among them men like Davies who Truman himself would later describe as a Russophile – held similar, if not even stronger views in his early days. In his memoirs he would regret that he’d brought Davies instead of Dean Acheson with him to Potsdam. And Byrnes himself had similar views when he began to serve as Secretary of State. That would begin to shift slowly but surely at Potsdam.

In the next article we will deal with the Potsdam conference, what Truman and his team hoped to achieve from it and how things changed during Truman’s first – and  only – meeting with Stalin.