Commander in Chief

by Nigel Hamilton

  To outsiders, the President thus appeared in an even more confident frame of mind than usual on August 25, as Mr. Roosevelt and the governor-general, the Earl of Athlone, were driven to the seat of Canadian government, having traveled to Ottawa by train from Quebec. “It was estimated that there were a crowd of approximately 30,000 people on hand at Parliament Hill and its vicinity to welcome President Roosevelt and to hear his address,” the official chronicler of the President’s trip noted. “This was said to be the largest crowd ever to welcome a distinguished visitor to Ottawa, even exceeding the welcome accorded to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth” in 1939.8

  “The setting of the ceremony was one of the finest if not the finest ever provided for a Presidential speech,” the New York Times agreed the next day. “Through streets packed with people and lined with sailors, soldiers, airmen and uniformed women in all services, the President drove from the railroad station into the parliamentary grounds in his open car.” As people swarmed over the lawn, the President, “looking down on the waving crowd, turned to Prime Minister King and said, ‘I shall never forget this sight.’ The crowd in turn looked up at the magnificent Gothic building with its tower stretching up into the blue sky, as imposing a monument to parliamentary government as exists in the world. Carved over the portal are the lines by a Canadian poet descriptive of this great country: ‘The wholesome sea is at her gates, her gates both east and west.’”9

  The President was determined to give no hint of weakness—physical or moral. He “stood throughout the ceremony,” Mackenzie King recorded in his diary. “Quite an effort as one could see, and shaking a good deal as he held on a chair and the stand”—kept upright by his steel leg braces.10

  Robert Sherwood and Rosenman—“the firm of Sherwood and Rosenman, astrologers,” as they signed their first draft—had been tasked with helping the President compose an address that would encompass his political philosophy, as well as his vision of the war’s purpose—and the future. The two speechwriters had thus done their best and had arranged for the first finished draft to be flown to Canada, along with a plea that they be invited to Quebec to incorporate the new military decisions being made there. “It was signed with a drawing (by Sherwood) of a tall thin man—Sherwood; and a short fat man,” Rosenman recalled humorously.11

  The President had turned down their request, however—for he had no intention of announcing the military decisions he’d made, either to the Germans or to the Japanese. He liked the “astrologers’” initial draft, however, which he then worked on “very carefully, making many changes in language here and there, which strengthened it,” Rosenman later recalled. Most significantly he’d added a whole new section relating to the postwar. “The Ottawa speech was not a major policy speech in any sense of the word,” Rosenman explained its tenor. “It was, however, important,” for in it the President declined to mention the Russians—at all.12

  What Roosevelt had decided to do, instead of talking about the things his military advisers were discussing with their counterparts, was to raise instead, at a critical moment in the prosecution of the war, a rallying cry for the democracies. A call for the United States and the United Nations to put isolationism finally and forever behind them, and embrace his larger, moral vision of the future. He therefore “discarded the last few pages of our draft,” Rosenman recalled, “and wrote a new conclusion with an optimistic note.”13 A note that would follow his grimmer picture of the turmoil that Hitler and the Japanese had brought to mankind. “We did not choose this war,” the President reminded his audience—“and that ‘we’ includes each and every one of the United Nations. War was violently forced upon us by criminal aggressors who measure their standards of morality by the extent of the death and destruction they can inflict upon their neighbors.”

  With war forced upon them, the United Nations were now pulling harder and harder together, the President emphasized. He mocked the panickers who, after Pearl Harbor, had “made a great ‘to-do’ about the invasion of the continent of North America”—especially the Aleutian Islands. “I regret to say that some Americans and some Canadians wished our Governments to withdraw from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean campaigns and divert all our vast supplies and strength to the removal of the Japs from a few rocky specks in the North Pacific”—from which the Japanese had now wisely retreated, he pointed out. America was, he made clear, taking upon itself a much, much larger challenge. “Today, our wiser councils have maintained our efforts in the Atlantic area, and the Mediterranean, and the China Seas, and the Southwest Pacific with ever-growing contributions.” It was in this context he himself had come to Canada—“Great councils are being held here on the free and honored soil of Canada—councils which look to the future conduct of this war and to the years of building a new progress for mankind.”

  During the past few days in Quebec, the Combined Staffs have been sitting around a table—which is a good custom,

  the President explained,

  —talking things over, discussing ways and means, in the manner of friends, in the manner of partners, and may I even say in the manner of members of the same family. (applause)

  We have talked constructively of our common purposes in this war—of our determination to achieve victory in the shortest possible time—of our essential cooperation with our great and brave fighting allies.

  And we have arrived, harmoniously, at certain definite conclusions. Of course, I am not at liberty to disclose just what these conclusions are. But, in due time, we shall communicate the secret information of the Quebec Conference to Germany, Italy, and Japan. (applause) We will (shall) communicate this information to our enemies in the only language their twisted minds seem capable of understanding. (laughter and applause).14

  As the New York Times reporter described, “Thirty thousand persons had gathered on the lawns in front of the building to welcome the President and to hear him speak and their cheers rolled up in a storm when he uttered that warning.”15

  Sometimes I wish that that great master of intuition, the Nazi leader, could have been present in spirit at the Quebec Conference—I am thoroughly glad that he wasn’t there in person. (laughter) If he and his generals had known our plans they would have realized that discretion is still the better part of valor and that surrender would pay them better now than later.

  Hitler and his Volk were, however, unlikely to surrender without a great deal more bloodshed.

  The evil characteristic that makes a Nazi a Nazi is his utter inability to understand and therefore to respect the qualities or the rights of his fellowmen. His only method of dealing with his neighbor is first to delude him with lies, then to attack him treacherously, then beat him down and step on him, and then either kill him or enslave him. And the same thing is true of the fanatical militarists of Japan.

  Because their own instincts and impulses are essentially inhuman, our enemies simply cannot comprehend how it is that decent, sensible individual human beings manage to get along together and live together as (good) neighbors.

  That is why our enemies are doing their desperate best to misrepresent the purposes and the results of this Quebec Conference. They still seek to divide and conquer allies who refuse to be divided just as cheerfully as they refuse to be conquered. (applause)

  We spend our energies and our resources and the very lives of our sons and daughters because a band of gangsters in the community of Nations declines to recognize the fundamentals of decent, human conduct . . .

  We are making sure—absolutely, irrevocably sure—that this time the lesson is driven home to them once and for all. Yes, we are going to be rid of outlaws this time. (applause)

  Under the heading “Much Post-War Discussion,” the Times reporter noted the President’s speech then addressed a much bigger challenge than merely winning the war. “There was much talk” in the speech, he added, “of the post-war world.”

  Every one of the United Nations believes that only a real and lasting peace can justify the
sacrifices we are making,

  the President claimed,

  and our unanimity gives us confidence in seeking that goal.

  It is no secret that at Quebec there was much talk of the postwar world. That discussion was doubtless duplicated simultaneously in dozens of nations and hundreds of cities and among millions of people.

  There is a longing in the air. It is not a longing to go back to what they call ‘the good old days.’ I have distinct reservations as to how good ‘the good old days’ were. (laughter) I would rather believe that we can achieve new and better days.

  Absolute victory in this war will give greater opportunities to the world, because the winning of the war in itself is certainly proving to all of us up here that concerted action can accomplish things. Surely we can make strides toward a greater freedom from want than the world has yet enjoyed. Surely by unanimous action in driving out the outlaws and keeping them under heel forever, we can attain a freedom from fear of violence.

  I am everlastingly angry only at those who assert vociferously that the four freedoms and the Atlantic Charter are nonsense because they are unattainable. If those people had lived a century and a half ago they would have sneered and said that the Declaration of Independence was utter piffle. If they had lived nearly a thousand years ago they would have laughed uproariously at the ideals of Magna Carta. And if they had lived several thousand years ago they would have derided Moses when he came from the Mountain with the Ten Commandments.

  We concede that these great teachings are not perfectly lived up to today, but I would rather be a builder than a wrecker, hoping always that the structure of life is growing—not dying.

  May the destroyers who still persist in our midst decrease. They, like some of our enemies, have a long road to travel before they accept the ethics of humanity.

  Some day, in the distant future perhaps—but some day, it is certain—all of them will remember with the Master, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”16

  Mackenzie King, standing behind the President, was deeply moved. “I noticed that he had the speech in a ring binder so as to prevent the leaves slipping away. He followed what he was saying by running his little finger along the lines as he spoke. He was given a most attentive hearing and a fine ovation at the close.”17

  It was small wonder. Rosenman was both right and wrong in writing that the Ottawa address was not a “policy speech.” In its deeply personal way, using the simplest of language, it was perhaps the most heartfelt moral speech the President would ever give, cutting to the essence of what he believed: spoken to an audience in the open sunshine and through microphones and radio to the world, on behalf of a country that was rapidly becoming the most powerful nation on the earth: a nation that, with enough determination, would be able with its democratic allies to safeguard at war’s end the future of humanity.

  46

  The President Is Upset—with the Russians

  FOLLOWING THE PRESIDENT’S speech, there was lunch at Government House, following which Mr. Mackenzie King took FDR on a drive through the city, and showed him his two homes, Kingsmere and Laurier House, where they had tea.

  On the drive Roosevelt confided to King how glad he was to have gotten from Churchill the now firm, formal British commitment to launch “an attack from Britain to the North of France,” and that “he believed he could get a million men across [to England] during the remainder of the summer and on in the autumn,” that very fall, 1943, ready for D-day on May 1, 1944. He felt, in retrospect, that the Quebec discussions had been, despite the fierce arguments, ultimately satisfactory and boded well for the successful prosecution of the war. Was that all, though?

  “The most important of all he told me,” King dictated that night, “was in answer to the question which I asked him: how satisfied he was with the conclusions of the conference.”

  Expecting the President, from what he’d shared, to say that he was—especially in view of his rapturously received speech that day—the Canadian prime minister was stunned. “He replied instantly that everything was most satisfactory until last night—just after 6. A telegram came from Stalin at that time which was most disconcerting; very rude and wholly uncalled for. It was the reply to the invitation that had been sent him to meet Winston and himself somewhere, the suggestion having been made in particular of Nome, Alaska. Stalin had replied that he, himself would arrange a conference, and it would be in Sicily”—but not between leaders, only “on a lower level.” He, Stalin, had other things to attend to, of “greater importance.”1

  “I asked the President what it meant. He said there were only two interpretations. The most charitable one is that [just] like the Russians, they are one day with you, and the next day, they are prepared to take a very opposite course and be against you. You never feel sure of them. They may one day be very cheerful on your side; later, very down against you.”2

  And the other?

  “The other interpretation—which is a very serious one and which is quite possible—is that Stalin is trying to work up a record against us”—in order to have an excuse “to make a separate peace with Germany. In this way, get us out of the war [with Hitler], leaving it to us to bring the war to a conclusion. He said that would be a very serious matter as the German armies would then be quite free of the Russian attack from the rear and,” as King noted with alarm, “could devote all their energies to fighting against our forces.”3

  Certainly, the two leaders of North America agreed, the very threat of making a separate peace with Germany would give Stalin more leverage in making further demands for American aid and for more Allied operations in the West—as well as more concessions in terms of the end-of-war/postwar. Demands, amounting to blackmail, that Stalin “could not hope to get out of a peace conference,” as King noted.

  “We talked a good deal of the conference,” King summarized; “of what had been achieved. He was greatly pleased that all had been so harmonious” with the British, in the end. But the President “made no bones about telling me how deeply concerned he was”—about Russia.4

  The President’s concern was palpable—and understandable. Not only was Stalin an unreliable ally, constantly refusing to get together to discuss the prosecution of the war, but more worryingly still, refusing to get together to discuss either the endgame or postgame.

  Roosevelt found himself amazed not only by the arrogance of the Soviet leader, after refusing to attend the summit meetings, but at his shameless hypocrisy. Cocooned in secrecy and almost pathological security in the Kremlin, Stalin was still forbidding any but the barest information about Russian forces and operations to be shared with the United States or Britain, his allies, and had declined to meet with the President and Prime Minister—yet was now fiercely decrying them for not including him in their deliberations. Given that the Soviets would permit virtually no Allied access to Russian cities, organizations, or individuals, his sudden demand that Soviet politico-military representation be set up in Sicily, an island thousands of miles from Moscow and which the Western Allies had only captured a few days previously, was significant. Stalin, clearly, was flexing his muscles: dictator of a power or quasi-empire now boasting two hundred army divisions in the field, on the Eastern Front—and the Western Allies still without a single division on the mainland of Europe.

  It was, in other words, Stalin taking stock of the resolve of the Western Allies—a test that would best be met by a demonstration of Allied unity, not irritation.

  Mackenzie King and Harriman—who had few illusions about the nature of the Soviet police state—seemed nevertheless surprised by how offended the President seemed to be over Stalin’s two cables, once they heard their content. As Harriman put it, at the time, surely “one can’t be annoyed with Stalin for being aloof and then be dismayed with him because he rudely joins the party.”5

  The President was dismayed, however—and not merely at Stalin’s gatecrashing with regard to imminent Italian surrender negotiations. There was the question
of how Stalin would behave, once he arrived at the bigger “party,” when German surrender was in sight: a dictator running an impenetrable police state at home, yet announcing he wished to be treated as a controlling presence in Western councils: even dictating where the political-military surrender commission should be located.

  However dismaying, it was clear that the balance of power within the United Nations was changing. In the spring of 1943, nervous about Hitler’s impending Kursk offensive, Stalin had felt compelled to make certain concessions to his capitalist allies, such as closing down the egregious Comintern—which he’d finally done in May 1943. As the dictator explained to a Reuters correspondent, “the dissolution of the Communist International” as the purveyor of world communist revolution since 1919 would, once effected, increase the “pressure by all peace-loving nations against the common foe, Hitlerism, and expose the lie of the Hitlerites that Moscow allegedly intends to interfere in the life of other states and to ‘bolshevize’ them.”6

  Now, in late August, 1943, Stalin sounded quite different. With the great German offensive at Kursk called off thanks to the Allied invasion of Sicily, and with Russian armies pushing the Wehrmacht out of Orel and Kharkov—moreover with a huge Russian battle in the offing to move forward their forces from the Dnieper River in the south—Stalin clearly felt he could bang the Allied drum without having to leave Russia to meet with the President or Prime Minister.