Commander in Chief

by Nigel Hamilton

Roosevelt’s retort was instant. “How do they belong to France?” he countered. “Why does Morocco, inhabited by Moroccans, belong to France? Or take Indo-China. The Japanese control that colony now. Why was it a cinch for the Japanese to conquer that land? The native Indo-Chinese have been so flagrantly downtrodden that they thought to themselves: Anything must be better, than to live under French colonial rule! Should a land belong to France?” he demanded. “By what logic and by what custom and by what historical rule?”16

  “I’m talking about another war, Elliott,” the President told his son, “his voice suddenly sharp,” Elliott recalled. “I’m talking about what will happen to our world, if after this war we allow millions of people to slide back into the same semi-slavery.”

  He looked deadly serious. “Don’t think for a moment, Elliott, that Americans would be dying in the Pacific tonight, if it hadn’t been for the shortsighted greed of the French and the British and the Dutch. Shall we allow them to do it all, all over again?”17

  It would be hard enough to revive the battered economies of the world and guard against the insidious, antidemocratic ideology of communism, but how much harder it promised to be if Britain, France, and the Netherlands committed themselves to huge military and financial outlays to perpetuate imperialism. They would then be, he predicted, sucked into vain efforts to stop calls for self-government and self-determination in their former colonies—a recipe for postwar disaffection, revolt, and wars.

  “One sentence, Elliott. Then I’m going to kick you out of here. I’m tired. This is the sentence: When we’ve won the war, I will work with all my might and main to see to it that the United States is not wheedled into the position of accepting any plan that will further France’s imperialist ambitions, or that will aid or abet the British Empire in its imperial ambitions.”18

  And with that the President pointed to the door—and the light switch.

  Before he returned to his photoreconnaissance unit in Algiers, Elliott Roosevelt had one more talk with his father. It was clear de Gaulle’s determination to reassert French imperialism still enervated the President. De Gaulle had at least been open about his aims, however—to the point of outright rudeness. Churchill was, by contrast, keeping his own counsel for later. The President therefore interrogated Elliott as to opinion among U.S. troops and airmen—what did they, who were risking their lives, think?

  Before Elliott could respond, his father launched into another deeply felt articulation of his views. “You see, what the British have done, down the centuries, historically, is the same thing. They’ve chosen their allies wisely and well. They’ve always been able to come out on top, with the same reactionary grip on the peoples of the world and the markets of the world, through every war they’ve ever been in.

  “This time,” his father continued, “we’re Britain’s ally. And it’s right we should be. But . . . first at Argentia, later in Washington, now here at Casablanca,” the President reminded Elliott, “I’ve tried to make it clear to Winston—and the others—that while we’re their allies, and in it to victory by their side, they must never get the idea that we’re in it just to help them hang on to the archaic, medieval Empire ideas.”19

  Elliott agreed, but his father wasn’t done. “I hope they realize they’re not senior partner.” America was—and would be more and more so, as the war progressed and the postwar world took shape. The United States was “not going to sit by, after we’ve won, and watch their system stultify the growth of every country in Asia and half the countries in Europe to boot,” he warned. Britain had “signed the Atlantic Charter” at Argentia, and “I hope they realize the United States government means to make them live up to it.”20

  These were perhaps the most impassioned words Elliott had ever heard his father say—spoken after inspecting thirty thousand young Americans preparing for imminent combat, and having visited the cemetery of those who had already fallen. They also helped explain his father’s determination to insist upon unconditional surrender of the Axis powers, precluding any possibility of negotiated armistice with nations simply too dangerous to be allowed ever to rearm.

  Operation Symbol had been the code name given to the Casablanca Conference. The biggest symbol of Roosevelt’s intent to end German, Italian, and Japanese military empires and establish a completely new, postimperialist global order would be, the President had planned, his forthcoming announcement to the world, on the field of battle, of his implacable condition for ending the war.

  Hour after hour the President had hoped that de Gaulle would make at least a tentative agreement to work with General Giraud—one that could be announced at the President’s looming press conference.

  De Gaulle refused, however, to make any accommodation with his French rival. In particular he turned down a draft communiqué drawn up by Robert Murphy and Harold Macmillan, Eisenhower’s British political adviser—declaring he would not be party to any solution to French political matters “brought about by the intervention of a foreign power, no matter how high and how friendly.”21

  The President, with a kind of bemused amazement, breathed another sigh of vexation. “Finished the staff conferences—all agreed—De Gaulle a headache—said yesterday he was Jeanne d’Arc & today that he is Georges Clemenceau,” he scribbled to Daisy—for de Gaulle now insisted on a compact with Giraud in which he, Major General de Gaulle, would be the French political leader in exile, while Giraud would be merely the French military commander in chief—whom de Gaulle could dismiss. Giraud, who had come to hate de Gaulle with Gallic venom over the past few days, refused. There would thus be no unification of the Free French and Algiers committees—and with that, de Gaulle prepared to leave Casablanca.

  The President was disappointed, but tried not to be unduly concerned.

  De Gaulle, for his part, believed he’d made his point: proving to the President of the United States and the world that he, on behalf of La France, was not going to toady to American wishes, or dollars. He certainly seemed to have no idea how rude he’d been, or how small he appeared, in the President’s eyes, despite his six-foot-six-inch height. History had given him the chance to lead a great reconciliation of neutral, Vichy, and Free French nationals in the struggle to defeat the Axis powers and to usher in a new world. Instead, he’d pursued the politics of personal ambition and an implacable view of French honor. However laudable the latter, it was sheer obstructionism in terms of the war against the Third Reich—something de Gaulle seemed unable to comprehend. To his aide, Hettier de Boislambert, he confided, the night he’d met the President at the Villa Dar es Saada: “You see, I have met a great statesman today, I think we got along and understood each other well”—but the truth was the very opposite.

  For his part, Churchill was dumbfounded. Learning that de Gaulle was refusing to sign the proposed communiqué, prior to the President’s press conference, “he was beside himself with rage,” the historian of the Churchill–de Gaulle relationship later chronicled. “General de Gaulle’s farewell visit to the Prime Minister was therefore uncommonly animated, even by Churchillian standards; the latter chose to omit any reference to it in his memoirs. Not so General de Gaulle,” François Kersaudy chronicled.

  Kersaudy was not exaggerating. De Gaulle’s account, recording how Churchill had threatened to “denounce” him “in the Commons and on the radio” unless he signed the communiqué, pulled no punches. The Prime Minister was “free to dishonor himself,” de Gaulle had retorted. “In order to satisfy America at any cost, he was espousing a cause unacceptable to France, disquieting to Europe, and regrettable to England.”22

  Churchill was apoplectic, but in one sense de Gaulle was right. The President was a true statesman, and even if he disliked de Gaulle for making difficulties, he understood him, for all his foibles, as a statesman in the making. Thus at the Villa Dar es Saada shortly before noon on January 24, Roosevelt accepted that de Gaulle would simply not sign an interim communiqué or agreement of a three-man Committee for the Liberation
of France—and did not turn away from Charles d’Arc, so to speak. Instead, in his inimitable fashion, the President asked for at least a symbol of French purpose in fighting the Nazis. “In human affairs the public must be offered some drama,” Roosevelt said to the general. “The news of your meeting with General Giraud in the midst of a conference in which both Churchill and I are taking part, if it were to be accompanied by a joint declaration of the French leaders—even only a theoretical agreement—would produce the dramatic effect required.”23

  The President’s almost Olympian approach and charm moved de Gaulle, as Churchill’s did not. “‘Let me handle it,’” de Gaulle later recalled his response. “‘There will be a communiqué, even though it cannot be yours.’ Thereupon I presented my [French] colleagues to the President and he introduced me to his.”24

  The press conference was due to take place at midday, but Harry Hopkins, mistaking de Gaulle’s sudden graciousness, rushed out and grabbed General Giraud, asking him and Churchill to enter, in the hope that, if he could get “the four of them into a room together,” then “we could get an agreement.”25

  This was silly, in view of de Gaulle’s stalwart refusal to allow a “foreign power” to dictate French agreements. Moreover, Churchill’s renewed “diatribe and his threats against me, with the obvious intention of flattering Roosevelt’s disappointed vanity,” as de Gaulle put it in his memoirs, only made matters worse. But Roosevelt would not have been Roosevelt, the leader of the United Nations and a man of almost heartbreaking humanity, if he had not attempted a different approach. He therefore made one last request of de Gaulle, “on which he had set his heart,” as de Gaulle recalled.

  “Would you agree to [at least] being photographed beside me and the British Prime Minister, along with General Giraud?” he asked, in “the kindest manner.”

  “By all means,” de Gaulle responded, “for I have the highest regard for this great soldier.”

  “Would you go so far as to shake General Giraud’s hand in our presence and in front of the camera?”

  “My answer, in English, was, ‘I shall do that for you.’ Whereupon Mr. Roosevelt, delighted, had himself carried into the garden where four chairs had been prepared beforehand, with innumerable cameras trained on them and several rows of reporters lined up with their pens poised.”26

  16

  The Unconditional Surrender Meeting

  “CASABLANCA, FRENCH MOROCCO,” the AP reporter (once his report was cleared for release) described, was “probably the most important gathering of leaders of two great nations in history.” It was also, the reporter maintained, even more extraordinary for the setting—the results “disclosed in the most informal press conference ever held.”1

  The picture, in the midst of a global war, was certainly unique—the scene a “garden of a villa on the outskirts of Casablanca,” where “the entire area for blocks around was full of troops, anti-aircraft equipment and barbed wire. The correspondents were told they would have a conference at noon. They assembled in the rear garden of the villa, which is a luxurious gleaming white home with many windows overlooking the Atlantic. In the garden were two white leather chairs. A microphone was in front of them for newsreel camera men. Red flowers were in profusion. Inside, reporters could see Harry A. Hopkins and his son, who is now a corporal, rushing around making arrangements. Then Lieut. Colonel Elliott Roosevelt appeared at the rear door carrying two more chairs. The President appeared. He wore a gray business suit and a black tie, and, as usual was smoking a cigarette in a long holder. A minute later Prime Minister Churchill walked out with a cigar in his mouth.”2

  The two giant, giraffe-like French generals in their kepis were also brought out. “Some photographers called out, ‘Generals shake hands!’” Captain McCrea recounted—and, as agreed with de Gaulle, when the President said, “Why not? You two Frenchmen are loyal to your country and that warrants a handshake anytime,” they did so—not only once but twice, since cameramen complained they’d failed, in their surprise, to get a good photo the first time.

  “The four actors put on their smiles,” de Gaulle later recorded—in a chapter of his memoirs that he titled “Comedy.” “The agreed-upon gestures were made. Everything went off perfectly! America would be satisfied, on such evidence, that the French question had found its deus ex machina in the person of the President.”3

  Giraud was as sniffy of the proceedings as de Gaulle, but for the opposite reason: to wit, his profound hostility to de Gaulle, a mere major general who had only minimal support from Frenchmen in Northwest Africa, appearing on the same stage—especially after having been so rude to him ever since he’d arrived. The very suggestion the two Frenchmen might work amicably together seemed to him dishonest, however noble its intention. “Excellent photos that will be transmitted across the world, and be seen as documentary evidence of irrefutable veracity,” he recalled sarcastically several years later. “That,” he added, “is how public opinion is fashioned.”4

  It was—unabashedly, since Allied unity was as important a weapon in the war as military arms. Even the President’s naval aide was amazed. “The pictures went all over the world and I would suppose contributed to French unity in all parts of the globe,” McCrea reflected, for even he had not foreseen the power of such simple imagery. “The President literally cajoled the two proud and greatly different persons into making a gesture of friendship—and did it well, indeed. The generals bade farewell to the President and the Prime Minister and then withdrew—forthwith,” leaving the President to explain to reporters from across the world the purpose of the summit that had just concluded.

  In his business suit and tie, sitting with his long legs crossed, the President “invited the assembled newsmen to seat themselves on the lawn and make themselves comfortable for the discussion which was to follow,” the AP reporter described. “It was a beautiful day—brilliant sunshine and with these two heads of state the correspondents heard a complete description of the purpose and the reasons of bringing the British and our own Chiefs of Staff together in North Africa for discussions necessary for further prosecution of the war.”5

  The President certainly looked the picture of confidence and good health. Referring to Torch, he began by reminding his audience how the current campaign in North Africa had begun. “This meeting,” he explained, “goes back to the successful landing operations last November, which as you all know were initiated as far back as a year ago, and put into definite shape shortly after the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington in June.

  “After the operations of last November,” the President went on, “it became perfectly clear, with the successes, that the time had come for another review of the situation, and a planning for the next steps, especially steps to be taken in 1943.” It was for this reason he’d arranged for Churchill to come to Casablanca, “and our respective staffs came with us, to discuss the practical steps to be taken by the United Nations for prosecution of the war. We have been here about a week.”6

  For the journalists who had been kept in the dark since the President’s State of the Union address on January 7 in Washington, D.C., two weeks before, this was something of a bombshell. The very fact that the two leaders of the Western democratic alliance could have spent an entire week on the recent field of battle without anyone knowing was a shock—the more so as no American president had ever previously traveled abroad in wartime, or even flown in an airplane while in office. Yet here he was, in bright Moroccan sunlight, addressing them—largely extempore and in person.

  I might add, too, that we began talking about this after the first of December [1942], and at that time we invited Mr. Stalin to join us at a convenient meeting place. Mr. Stalin very greatly desired to come, but he was precluded from leaving Russia because he was conducting the new Russian offensive against the Germans along the whole line. We must remember that he is Commander in Chief [of the Soviet armies], and that he is responsible for the very wonderful detailed plan which has been brought to such
a successful conclusion since the beginning of the offensive.

  Knowing the Russians had cornered the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, the President had felt certain the surviving Germans would now be killed or forced to surrender—whatever Hitler might order to the contrary. It was a tremendous Soviet victory in the making, after months of the most lethal, often hand-to-hand, combat of the war, involving vast casualties. Soon the Western Allies would be achieving a similar, momentous victory, however, the President implied. “In spite of the fact that Mr. Stalin was unable to come, the results of the staff meeting have been communicated to him, so that we will continue to keep in very close touch,” Roosevelt assured the reporters. Meantime, with regard to the many meetings and discussions between the U.S., British, and French generals, the President expressed his great satisfaction as U.S. commander in chief. What had taken place was different, he said, from, say, Lincoln’s visits to his generals in the field, or those of Allied leaders in World War I. This was now coalition warfare, on a global scale, but with the leaders and their military staffs working in the closest cooperation and harmony:

  I think it can be said that the studies during the past week or ten days are unprecedented in history. Both the Prime Minister and I think back to the days of the first World War when conferences between the French and British and ourselves very rarely lasted more than a few hours or a couple of days. The [U.S. and British] Chiefs of Staffs have been in intimate touch; they have lived in the same hotel. Each man has become a definite personal friend of his opposite number on the other side.

  Furthermore, these conferences have discussed, I think for the first time in history, the whole global picture. It isn’t just one front, just one ocean, or one continent—it is literally the whole world; and that is why the Prime Minister and I feel that the conference is unique in the fact that it has this global aspect.