by Kai Bird
92. McCloy to the judge advocate general, 9/17/42, ASW 012.2–013.1 / 013.3–013.37, box 5, RG 107, NA.
93. Irons, Justice at War, p. 160.
94. McCloy to General M. C. Cramer, 11/25/42; McCloy to General DeWitt, 11/28/42, ASW 012.2–013.1 / 013.3–013.37, box 5, RG 107, NA.
95. Weglyn, Years of Infamy, pp. 122–24.
96. Hosokawa, JACL, p. 210.
97. Irons, Justice at War, p. 269.
98. McCloy to DeWitt, 2/11/43, ASW 014.311, WDC Exclusion Orders, box 8, RG 107, NA.
99. There were actually major disturbances at some camps, where the army had to move in to restore order. The San Francisco Chronicle reported one official as saying, “You can’t imagine how close we came to machine-gunning the whole bunch of them. The only thing that stopped us, I guess, were the effects such a shooting would have had on the Japs holding our boys in Manila and China.” (Weglyn, Years of Infamy, p. 151.) Irons, Justice at War, p. 201; Hosokawa, JACL, p. 214.
100. Weglyn, Years of Infamy, pp. 143–44, 306n.
101. Irons, Justice at War, p. 209.
102. Ibid., pp. 208–10.
103. Ibid., p. 210.
104. Ibid., p. 239.
105. Personal Justice Denied, p. 202.
106. Biddle to Ickes, 12/31/44 with enclosed Biddle to FDR, 12/30/43, Harold Ickes Papers, LOC.
107. Irons, Justice at War, pp. 272–73.
108. Ickes diary, 1/1/44, LOC. In early 1944, McCloy, Marshall, and other War Department officials were still solicitous about the overwhelming Soviet contribution to the war against Hitler. McCloy’s attitude changed markedly in the aftermath of the successful cross-Channel invasion of France.
109. Irons, Justice at War, pp. 274, 276.
110. Ibid., p. 286.
111. Ibid., p. 288.
112. Ibid., pp. 290–91, 287.
NINE: POLITICAL COMMISSAR
1. Early in the war, McCloy put a halt to the Justice Department’s attempts to prosecute a number of large U.S. corporations for antitrust violations. Thurman Arnold, assistant attorney general in charge of antitrust matters at the Justice Department, was an uncompromising populist and made no secret of his dislike for big business. Now, in early 1942, despite the war, he was determined to press ahead with the prosecution of such corporate giants as General Electric, Bausch & Lomb Optical Co., Remington Arms Co., Bendix Aviation Corporation, and Dow Chemical Co. for price-fixing, and Standard Oil for having collaborated with the German chemical company I. G. Farben, to withhold synthetic-rubber technology from the government during the years immediately prior to Pearl Harbor. McCloy and Stimson warned Roosevelt that Arnold’s investigations had to stop if essential war-production targets were to be met. McCloy drafted a letter to the president for Stimson’s signature that complained, “Mr. Hitler himself could hardly have chosen a surer way to embarrass our munitions production today. . . .”
Inevitably, the War Department’s position prevailed, and most of Arnold’s investigations were allowed to die. Only after the war did the public learn the full extent of Standard Oil’s collaboration with the enemy. In 1947, an appeals-court judge declared, “Standard Oil can be considered an enemy national in view of its relationships with I.G. Farben. . . .” (McCloy to Patterson, 3/6/42, ASW 004.401, Capital & Output, box 4, RG 107, NA; Stimson to Roosevelt, 3/4/42, ASW 004.401, Capital & Output, box 4, RG 107, NA.) In the case of Standard Oil, Arnold was successful in persuading the government to seize the company’s synthetic-rubber patents. When, at the end of the war, Standard Oil sued the government in an attempt to regain control of the valuable patents, Judge Charles E. Wyzanski, a good friend of McCloy’s, ruled against Standard. (See Charles Higham, Trading with the Enemy [New York: Delacorte, 1983], pp. 45, 62.)
2. Arthur Krock to McCloy, 7/27/42, McCloy Correspondence, Arthur Krock Papers, PU.
3. Time, Aug. 10, 1942.
4. Lenore Fine and Jesse A. Remington, United States Army in World War II: The Technical Services, The Corps of Engineers: Construction in the United States (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Army, 1972), pp. 435–37.
5. McCloy interview Sept. 14, 1984; Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made, pp. 201–2. Hanfstaengl thereafter spent the better part of the war in a Virginian estate, requisitioned by the War Department, near the Civil War battlefield of Bull Run. There he was placed under the “guard” of his son, a U.S. Army sergeant, and occasionally interviewed by German experts from Bill Donovan’s organization. (See Anthony Cave Brown, Wild Bill Donovan: The Last Hero, p. 211 ; Ernst Hanfstaengl, The Unheard Witness, pp. 310–13. Hanfstaengl reports he didn’t arrive in Washington until June 30, 1942.)
6. Henry Stimson diary, 4/25/41, LOC; Ickes diary, 11/29/42, LOC; Isaacson and Thomas, Wise Men, p. 201.
7. Drew Pearson, “Washington Merry-Go-Round,” Nov. 25, 1942.
8. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Road to Victory, p. 123.
9. Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War, p. 423; Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945, p. 344.
10. Henry Stimson diary, 6/22/42, LOC.
11. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, p. 129.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.; John Grigg, 1943: The Victory That Never Was, pp. 39–40; Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, p. 347.
14. Ickes diary, 7/5/42, LOC. McCloy’s views were shared by many army generals. General Joseph Stilwell, for instance, believed that, “Besides being a rank amateur in all military matters, FDR is apt to act on sudden impulses.” (Joseph W. Stilwell, The Stilwell Papers, p. 16.)
15. Ickes diary, 7/5/42, LOC.
16. Ickes diary, 9/12/42, LOC; Henry Stimson diary, 7/12/42, LOC.
17. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, p. 144.
18. Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, p. 424.
19. Henry Stimson diary, 7/12/42, LOC.
20. Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, p. 425.
21. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, p. 150.
22. Ibid., p. 152.
23. Even Joseph Stalin approved of the Darían agreement, cabling Roosevelt on Dec. 17, “I think it a great achievement that you succeeded in bringing Darían and others into the waterway of the Allies fighting Hitler.” (Gilbert, Road to Victory, p. 276.)
24. Merry Bromberger and Serge Bromberger, Jean Monnet and the United States of Europe (New York: Coward-McCann, 1969), p. 193.
25. Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century, p. 398.
26. John Morton Blum, ed., Public Philosopher: Selected Letters of Walter Lippmann (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1985), pp. 425–30.
27. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, p. 260.
28. Piers Brendon, Ike: His Life and Times (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), p. 100.
29. McCloy to Lippmann, 12/29/42, ASW 371, Operations, Field of, box 34, RG 107, NA.
30. Steel, Walter Lippmann, p. 402.
31. Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier; General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), p. 204.
32. Henry Stimson diary, 1/13/43, LOC.
33. Henry Stimson diary, 2/5/43, LOC.
34. Ickes diary, 1/2/43, LOC.
35. McCloy memo to Eisenhower, 3/1/43, DDE.
36. Harold Macmillan, War Diaries: The Mediterranean 1943–1945 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), p. 27.
37. Ibid., p. 179.
38. McCloy to Eisenhower, 3/8/43, DDE.
39. Henry Stimson diary, 3/14–3/23/43, p. 2, LOC.
40. Isaacson and Thomas, Wise Men, p. 202.
41. Henry Stimson diary, 5/17/43, LOC.
42. Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, p. 403.
43. Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), pp. 486–87.
44. When Undersecretary of War Robert Patterson found out about the secret work that was being conducted at Oak Ridge, he sent an engi
neer to look the place over. The engineer, a contractor named Jack Madigan, came back from Tennessee and reportedly told Patterson that if the device ever exploded it would go off with such a bang that no one would stop to consider how much it cost. On the other hand, he told Patterson, if the bomb didn’t work, Congress would never stop to investigate anything else. McCloy heard this story at the time in the War Department. McCloy interview, Sept. 14, 1984.
45. Ickes to Stimson, 4/19/43; Stimson to Ickes, 4/26/43, Harold Ickes Papers, LOC.
46. Colonel John T. Bissell memo to undersecretary of war, 3/8/43, ASW 322.14, Brigades, box 17, RG 107, NA.
47. Brigadier General Edward S. Greenbaum to McCloy, 6/12/43, ASW 322.14, Brigades, box 17, RG 107, NA.
48. Ickes diary, 9/5/43, LOC.
49. Major General George V. Strong to McCloy, 7/31/43, ASW 322.14, Brigades, box 17, RG 107, NA.
50. Morris J. MacGregor, Jr., Integration of the Armed Forces: 1940–1965, Defense Studies Series (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1981), p. 39.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid., p. 35.
53. Ibid., pp. 20–21.
54. The chief of staff objected that Judge Hastie’s proposals “would be tantamount to solving a social problem which has perplexed the American people throughout the history of this nation. The Army cannot accomplish such a solution. . . .” (Ibid., pp. 21–22.)
55. Bernard C. Nalty and Morris J. MacGregor, Jr., eds., Blacks in the Military: Essential Documents (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1977, 1981), p. 118.
56. MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces, p. 51.
57. Bernard C. Nalty, Strength for the Fight (New York: Free Press, 1967), p. 148.
58. Nalty and MacGregor, eds., Blacks in the Military, p. 122; MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces, pp. 41–42; Nalty, Strength for the Fight, pp. 156–57.
59. Nalty, Strength for the Fight, pp. 156–57.
60. MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces, p. 43.
61. Early in 1944, the McCloy Committee quietly distributed a unique pamphlet entitled Command of Negro Troops. For its time, this tract was a remarkably sophisticated piece of integrationist propaganda. The pamphlet boldly stated that “competent scholars” were “almost unanimous in the opinion that race ‘superiority’ and ‘inferiority’ have not been demonstrated. . . .” Army officers in command of Negro troops were told that “scientific investigations” left no doubt that “most of the differences revealed by intelligence tests and other devices can be accounted for in terms of differences in opportunity and background.” In what must have been one of the earliest pleas within the government for affirmative action, the McCloy Committee flatly concluded, “The important consideration at this point, then, is how to offer increased opportunities—both physical and cultural—to all handicapped groups, regardless of race, since these variables account in large part for poor performance and achievement in every group.” (See Nalty and MacGregor, eds., Blacks in the Military, p. 129.)
62. MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces, p. 46.
63. Henry Stimson diary, 6/14/43, LOC.
64. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, p. 449.
65. Ickes diary, 9/5/43, LOC.
66. Rhodes, Atomic Bomb, p. 474.
67. Ickes diary, 9/5/43, LOC.
68. Henry Stimson diary, 11/12/43, LOC.
69. McCloy scrapbook, “Memorabilia Regarding John J. McCloy Kept by Mrs. John J. McCloy, Sr.,” JJM.
70. McCloy scrapbook, “Memorabilia,” JJM. Sir John Dill told Churchill two weeks later that he predicted the Germans would collapse by March 1944. (Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, p. 601.)
71. “Directory of the Mena Conference—Third Edition,” 11/24/43, AH.
72. McCloy to Stimson, 11/22/43, ASW 333.9, Cairo, box 18, RG 107, NA.
73. Major Paul L. E. Helliwell to McCloy, 12/6/43, ASW 333.9, Cairo, box 18, RG 107, NA; Robert Paul Browder and Thomas G. Smith, Independent: A Biography of Lewis W. Douglas, p. 205.
74. McCloy scrapbook, “Memorabilia,” diary entry 11/21/43, JJM.
75. Macmillan, War Diaries, p. 304.
76. Hilldring to McCloy, 11/25/43, reproduced in Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conferences at Cairo and Teheran 1943 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1961), p. 423.
77. McCloy to Hopkins, 11/25/43, ASW 333.9 Cairo, box 18, RG 107, NA. General Marshall shared McCloy’s concern regarding any attempt “to remove the center of gravity from Washington to London. . . .” (FRUS, p. 198.)
78. McCloy to Colonel Stimson, 12/2/43, ASW 333.9, Cairo, box 18, RG 107, NA.
79. Lord Moran, Churchill—Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran: The Struggle for Survival 1940–1965 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966), pp. 140–42.
80. McCloy to Stimson, 12/2/43, ASW 333.9, Cairo, box 18, RG 107, NA.
81. Henry Stimson diary, 12/5/43, LOC.
82. “Until he [Churchill] came here,” wrote Lord Moran in his diary at Teheran, “the P.M. could not bring himself to believe that, face to face with Stalin, the democracies would take different courses. Now he sees he cannot rely on the President’s support. What matters more, he realizes that the Russians see this too. It would be useless to try to take a firm line with Stalin. He will be able to do as he pleases. Will he become a menace to the free world, another Hitler? The P.M. is appalled by his own impotence.” (Moran, Churchill, p. 151.)
83. Ibid., p. 153.
84. McCloy scrapbook, “Memorabilia,” diary entry 12/14/43, JJM.
85. McCloy to Eisenhower, 12/13/43, ASW 333.9, Cairo, box 18, RG 107, NA.
86. Martin Blumenthal, ed., The Patton Diaries (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1984), vol. II, p. 387.
87. McCloy scrapbook, diary entry 12/14/43, JJM.
88. McCloy scrapbook, “Memorabilia,” diary entry 12/15/43, JJM.
89. FRUS, pp. 484–85.
90. McCloy to Stimson, 1/13/44, ASW 370.8, France 1943 through June 1944, box 25, RG 107, NA.
91. Henry Stimson diary, 1/14/44, LOC.
92. McCloy to Stimson, 1/17/44, ASW 370.8, France, box 25, RG 107, NA.
93. Henry Stimson diary, 1/13/44, LOC.
94. Henry Stimson diary, 1/21/44, LOC.
95. Henry Stimson diary, 2/28/44, 2/29/44, 3/1/44, 3/15/44, LOC.
96. Ted Morgan, FDR, pp. 717–24.
97. Donovan memo to the president, 7/6/44, PSF France, No. 42, Degaulle, 1944–45, FDR; Brown, Wild Bill Donovan, pp. 561–62.
98. John S. D. Eisenhower, Allies: Pearl Harbor to D-Day (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982), p. 457.
99. Telephone transcript, McCloy and General Holmes, 6/13/44, ASW 370.8, France 1943 through June 1944, box 25, RG 107, NA.
100. McCloy to the president, 6/13/44, ASW 370.8, France 1943 through June 1944, box 25, RG 107, NA.
101. Henry Stimson diary, 6/14/44.
102. Telephone transcript, Stimson and Marshall, 6/15/44, ASW 370.8, France 1943 through June 1944, box 25, RG 107, NA.
103. Marshall to Eisenhower, 4/3/44, ASW 333.9, ETO England 5 April-22 April 1944, box 18, RG 107, NA.
104. David Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War (New York: Random House, 1986), p. 229.
105. McCloy diary, 4/20/44, folder 13, box 1/3, JJM.
106. Ibid; McCloy interview, March 19, 1986; Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, p. 760; Isaacson and Thomas, Wise Men, p. 202. Isaacson and Thomas place this midnight visit to the House of Commons in 1943, but there’s no evidence that McCloy had a chance to see Churchill in London in 1943.
107. Henry Stimson diary, 4/22/44, LOC.
108. McCloy to Marshall, 4/26/44, ASW 333.9, Eto England 5 April-22 April 1944, Box 18, RG 107, NA.
TEN: McCLOY AND THE HOLOCAUST
1. David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941–1945 (New York: Pantheon, 1984), pp. 204, 209.
2. Deborah E. Lipstadt, Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust, 1933–1945 (New York: Free Press,
1985), p. 157.
3. Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 59–60, 91–92.
4. Lipstadt, Beyond Belief, pp. 162–64.
5. Ibid., p. 175.
6. Ibid., p. 188.
7. Ibid., p. 186.
8. Ibid., p. 194.
9. Ibid., p. 186.
10. Wyman, Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 185–87.
11. Ibid., p. 187. The brother of Alger Hiss, Donald, was the State Department official who leaked the cable to Morgenthau.
12. Henry Stimson diary, 1/26/44, LOC.
13. “Accomplishments to date,” 2/2/44, ASW 400.38, War Refugee Board, box 44, RG 107, NA.
14. Henry Stimson diary, 2/1/44, LOC.
15. “Accomplishments Since February 2, 1944,” ASW 400.38, War Refugee Board, box 44, RG 107.
16. Major General J. H. Hilldring to McCloy, 1/25/44, ASW 400.38, War Refugee Board, box 44, RG 107, NA; Wyman, Abandonment of the Jews, p. 293.
17. Wyman, Abandonment of the Jews, p. 267.
18. Ibid., p. 293. Soon after the formation of the WRB, Pehle proposed that the Yugoslav partisans be asked to provide local currency so that the Rab Jews might hire private boats to take them to Italy. In return, the War Department would promise the partisans eventual reimbursement in hard currency. Even this proposal was referred by Stimson to the Joint Chiefs, where it languished. Eventually, most of the Jews were evacuated from Rab by Tito’s partisans without any assistance from the U.S. military. Several hundred, however, were captured by the Germans and deported to death camps. (Ibid., p. 407.)
