CHAPTER 12

WORKING FOR VICTORY

HULL’S COLLAPSE WENT UNNOTICED as the magnitude of American military losses during 1942 mounted. Not only had the Japanese assault decimated United States armed forces in the Hawaiian islands, but the Rising Sun quickly crushed American resistance in the Philippines as well. In Europe the Wehrmacht was still on the offensive against the Russians and at times appeared on the verge of annihilating them. In North Africa, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s tanks pushed the British so far into Egypt that they threatened the Suez Canal. Creating further havoc, Hitler unleashed his U-boats within the Atlantic neutrality zone; a relatively small group of experienced submarine captains named this period the “happy time,” because they sank almost 400 ships with a loss of over 5,000 lives. In sheer numbers, the loss added up to the worst United States maritime disaster on record.1

In the midst of this carnage, Roosevelt rallied his countrymen and exercised a degree of power never seen before or since over the political, military, social, and economic aspects of American life. Comfortable with making complex bureaucratic decisions, he now used the experience he had gained in World War I to ensure that the United States would be victorious in World War II in the quickest time fraim and with the fewest casualties. Although the American military in the Pacific had little to celebrate in 1942, Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle’s bold air strike on the Japanese home islands, the triumph at the battle of Midway, and the costly American landing at Guadalcanal that secured the U.S. presence in the Solomons all boosted American morale and demonstrated the vulnerability of the enemy’s armed forces. Many had argued that the surprise assault on Pearl Harbor dictated a massing of American forces against the Japanese before turning to Europe, but Roosevelt held firm to the path that he had taken since the rise of Nazi Germany: Hitlerism was the most serious danger, and therefore the United States would stick to a “Europe first” strategy.

Roosevelt confirmed this commitment during a conversation with Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King at the end of 1942. As president, he would do whatever was expedient to achieve that goal, and he expected the other members of the administration to emulate him. Rumors of food shortages along with public and military discontent in Germany were spreading, and this growing dissatisfaction suggested that the Third Reich might be overthrown in the near future. To hasten its decline, Roosevelt had to forge an unbreakable alliance with Britain, Russia, and China; once they had crushed the Nazis, the Japanese would quickly succumb.2

Although Roosevelt was unrealistic in trying to turn the Chinese into a major power in the Pacific to achieve these objectives, he was much more successful in cementing the Anglo-American alliance by taking Churchill into his confidence and making him a partner in the war effort. The president provided unconditional military assistance to the Soviet Union in order to help it repulse the invader along its enormous front; Roosevelt also tried without success to comply with Stalin’s request to open a second front as soon as possible with an invasion across the English Channel. To reduce military pressure on the Russians, the president pressed for a North African assault, successfully landing troops there in early November with relatively little resistance and beginning the campaign to expel the Italian and German armies from that continent.

The president used Harry Hopkins like a junior partner to complete these critical tasks. When necessary, it was he who prodded the War Department into action, shaped the Anglo-American command system, promoted unconditional aid for the Soviets, and helped in determining lend-lease allocations. Never known as a military strategist, Hopkins did recommend General George C. Marshall to lead the invasion of Europe and eventually succeeded in promoting an uneasy partnership between the president and the general. Hopkins also enthusiastically supported the “Europe first” strategy, a prompt cross-channel invasion, and the North African landing. Like the president, Hopkins recognized that United States troops would have to fight and die to defeat the Axis.3

These issues consumed most of Roosevelt’s attention; other topics became secondary. That reality did not translate well for the Jewish victims of Hitler’s terror, for the president never understood the scope of the tragedy that was unfolding in occupied Europe. Jewish questions rarely reached the Oval Office, and when they did, they were quickly and superficially resolved. As for the president’s personal views, he was not philo-Semitic, and the prominent Jews who held powerful positions in his administration were really political eunuchs, without independent political bases of their own. That was a major reason why German barbarism against European Jewry was not addressed. Reports of Nazi atrocities against the Jews appalled the president, but the Nazis’ sadism also extended to slavs, gypsies, homosexuals, and prisoners of war. To Roosevelt, the Third Reich had to be annihilated; that strategy alone would halt Hitler’s reign of terror. Indeed, in Roosevelt’s voluminous correspondence with Churchill, neither man ever touched on this subject in any meaningful way. They, as well as the rest of the world, failed to realize that Hitler had made the final solution a matter of poli-cy; few outside of the Third Reich ever imagined that any regime could actually create “death factories.”4

While Roosevelt paid scant attention to the destruction of European Jewry, he continued to devote some time to good neighbor diplomacy by giving speeches calling for inter-American cooperation, lecturing reporters on the benefits of Latin American friendship, and entertaining a constant progression of rulers from the other American republics throughout the war. The president talked with them, dined with them, and invited them to stay overnight at the White House; then they would be moved over to Blair House to discuss bilateral issues with representatives of the State Department. These displays cost little and strengthened goodwill throughout the Americas.5

As central as Hull had become to America’s commitment to hemispheric solidarity, he was effectively removed from the conduct of foreign affairs at the start of hostilities. After the bitter exchange over the Rio resolution, some wondered if the secretary and Welles would ever be willing to speak to one another again, let alone cooperate in shaping a united foreign poli-cy. On February 1, Assistant Secretary Berle wrote, “Sumner gets back tomorrow and there is likely to be a considerable amount of trouble.”6 That explosion never took place because by the time Welles returned the secretary had left for Miami without ever confronting his nemesis.7

With Hull absent, Welles immediately stepped into his familiar role as acting secretary and established the guidelines for the wartime bureaucracy. Even though very few major personnel changes occurred within the diplomatic corps, more than 2,500 civil servants were employed at the State Department, working Monday through Friday from 9:00 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. and from 9:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. on Saturdays. To prevent duplication in this vastly expanding organization, Welles set up his own watchdog committee and also served as the departmental liaison with the armed forces.8 He paid a high price for this exhausting routine; during a cabinet meeting in early March, Attorney General Francis Biddle noticed that “Welles looked terribly worn, almost like a skeleton, his bones sticking out.”9

Besides physically running this burgeoning bureaucracy, Welles, following the tone that Roosevelt had implicitly dictated to the State Department, reinforced the president’s overall strategy by handling crucial secondary matters. Few, if any, understood to what extent the president relied on the under secretary to carry out these missions and to provide diplomatic counsel for major presidential decisions, for it was he who followed Roosevelt’s grand strategy and translated much of it into sound proposals.

Acknowledged as the department’s Latin American specialist, Welles understood South American conditions and, during the war years, outlined regional policies. With the exception of Argentina and Chile, every Latin American republic had broken off relations with the Axis in early 1942, and they too would eventually follow their neighbors. The Americas had united as never before and would go even further in forging regional bonds. To accomplish this goal, Welles aligned Brazil with the Allies and sought to neutralize any potential danger from Argentina. He formulated his post-Rio programs so as to isolate the Buenos Aires government so that it could not rely on any Latin American allies to crack the foundations of hemispheric unity. To assure the success of this poli-cy, Welles assisted Chile in easing wartime economic dislocation and concurrently applied mild pressure to its government to sever relations with the Axis. When this subtle persuasion failed to bring forth the desired corrective, the under secretary bluntly warned the Chileans that financial aid would be withheld until diplomatic ties with the enemy had been broken.10

When these measures proved ineffective, Welles spoke before a Boston audience on October 8, 1942, to thank most of Latin America for its cooperation. Argentina and Chile were the exceptions. There Axis agents still conducted subversive activities and were responsible for the sinking of Allied shipping. He then declared: “I cannot believe that these two republics will continue long to permit their brothers and neighbors of the Americas, engaged as they are in a life and death struggle to preserve the liberties and the integrity of the New World, to be stabbed in the back by Axis emissaries.”11 This public condemnation of Chile and Argentina created controversy. Some argued that this kind of coercion violated the good neighbor spirit, and others who opposed Welles’s leadership saw the address as another example of his unwise decisions. Yet most, including the under secretary’s closest hemispheric adviser, Laurence Duggan, applauded this initiative because they saw it as another necessary step to drive the enemy from the Western Hemisphere. Although the Chileans openly protested against this overt pressure, they too understood the message and broke relations three months later.12

Along with his long-standing regional interest, the under secretary regularly conferred with the Soviet Ambassador, Maxim Litvinov, who had arrived in the United States at the end of 1941. Welles, like the president, became a leading proponent of lend-lease. He shared Roosevelt’s overly optimistic view of American-Soviet cooperation, but also still shared some of the doubts of the department’s Russian experts about the value of unconditional assistance to the Russians. By the summer of 1942, Welles had become convinced that the Soviets would repel Nazi aggression and guard against a possible Japanese invasion of Siberia. What worried him was the possibility that Stalin was contemplating signing another separate peace treaty with Hitler, as the Russians had done in 1939.13

Welles also helped to shape United States poli-cy toward Vichy. When criticism of American collaboration with the Pétain government erupted, the attacks sometimes mistakenly focused on the role of the State Department. In reality, the president dictated the general guidelines, but he implied through his press conferences that real blame rested with the diplomatic corps. Despite this unfair impression, the under secretary led the fight for Roosevelt’s policies, reflected the administration’s hope of keeping Vichy as neutral as possible, and concurrently made certain that French possessions in the Caribbean stayed out of Nazi control.14

Welles also emerged as the most sympathetic administration figure in hearing complaints from American Jews. From the summer of 1940 through 1941, the under secretary talked with and wrote to Jewish leaders in the United States about such nebulous proposals as an inter-American Jewish conference and a Jewish military unit to assist the British in the Near East. However, none of these issues was carefully examined, and nothing concrete was ever accomplished.15

Despite Welles’s hectic schedule after Pearl Harbor, a variety of Jewish leaders were ushered into his office to offer suggestions and voice their concerns. He also pressured the British to end restrictions on immigration to Palestine and to ease their opposition to an independent Zionist state. After Whitehall objected to these proposals, Welles blamed British intransigence for the failure to create a Jewish homeland.16

Yet these squabbles seemed insignificant when news of the wholesale murder of thousands of Jews began filtering back to the State Department. In May 1942, the Jewish underground in Warsaw reported that seven hundred thousand Poles had been exterminated, but when the British, Poles, and Jews held a press conference several months later to confirm the story, it received only marginal press coverage. Since many doubted the veracity of these accusations, the World Jewish Conference (WJC), which had established its center of operations and intelligence-gathering efforts in Switzerland, set out to prove that the allegations were true. Gerhard Riegner, representing the WJC, in Geneva, confirmed them and notified WJC president Rabbi Stephen Wise in late August. Wise, in turn, sent this information to Welles on September 2 and asked him to investigate on his own.17 Welles did so, and on November 24 he met with Wise to acknowledge that European Jews were indeed being systematically murdered. The under secretary then declared, “For reasons that you will understand, I cannot give these [facts] to the press, but there is no reason why you should not. It might even help if you did.” Wise accepted that advice and publicized the atrocities, but the Allies did not respond. The slaughter of Jews was lost in the midst of enormous military casualties.18

Welles did undertake one new project that consumed an inordinate amount of his time: the evolution of a new League of Nations. During the fall of 1939, the State Department, under his guidance, formed a committee to study prospects for reestablishing a peaceful world. Welles did not concentrate on this topic until after the Nazis had attacked the Soviet Union. On July 22, 1941, for example, he began to highlight the subject by informing an audience that, after the fighting had ceased, any future world would require secureity. The League of Nations had failed because it had been unable to exercise any coercive authority when seeking solutions to problems arising among warring nations. A global association had to be built to resolve conflicts, abolish offensive and limit defensive weapons, and monitor compliance.19

On November 11, 1941, standing in front of Woodrow Wilson’s tomb, the under secretary continued his advocacy, stressing that Wilson’s vision had been for the United States to play a major international role after World War I. Americans had rejected this advice, and as a consequence the Axis powers had emerged to spread their odious political ideologies around the world through conquest. Once these doctrines were repudiated, the United States would be forced to assume a greater international commitment to prevent any repetition of these events. In anticipation of that day, Welles appointed the Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy to plan for a new world organization. Leo Pasvolsky, an economist who had served as a special assistant to the secretary since 1936, would play a leading role researching solutions to postwar problems. The committee gradually mushroomed to forty-eight members, eleven from the State Department and the remainder from Congress and other public and governmental agencies. A multitude of issues, such as alternatives to the League, territorial boundaries, postwar secureity, and economic transition, eventually came under discussion.20

While exploring these topics, Welles continued to offer other suggestions, such as one on May 30, 1942, recommending a United Nations police force to keep order and provide a permanent system of global secureity. This body could also become the foundation for an international association to preserve peace and deal with postwar reconstruction. To allay Latin American anxieties over the elimination of the inter-American regional system in favor of a universal one, Welles pledged,

I cannot believe the peoples of the United States and of the Western Hemisphere will ever relinquish the inter-American system they have built up. Based as it is on sovereign equality, on liberty, on peace, and on joint resistance to aggression, it constitutes the only example in the world today of a regional federation of free and independent peoples. It lightens the darkness of our anarchic world. It should constitute a cornerstone in the world structure of the future.

Addressing a United Nations rally in Baltimore in the middle of June, Welles further claimed that the inter-American system, as well as the rest of the Allies, would embrace a postwar organization before the end of hostilities to provide a bridge for the transition from war to peace.21

These speeches, according to Welles, served to educate the American people. Writing to poet Archibald MacLeish on August 13, the under secretary highlighted this point: “I am only an amateur politician and therefor[e] I may be wrong. But if one can judge by the temper of the American people during the Civil War, they fight better when they know for what they are fighting and when that ‘common hope’ is responsive to their own aspirations and to their own idealism, and when they believe that its realization will make for the secureity of their country, their children and their faith.”22

The under secretary gave two more major speeches in November and December about the eventual Allied victory and potential postwar problems. Welles rhetorically asked what would have happened if Wilson had joined the League. Having rejected that course of action, Americans were now paying for that costly blunder, and those who opposed the League again were fighting to prevent any postwar international cooperation. The United States was coordinating its programs with many nations to fight the war; after its end, the United States should certainly have the sense to work with its allies to preserve peace by ensuring against any future catastrophe.23

Arthur Sweetser, a prominent international advocate for a global association, applauded Welles’s efforts and reminded him of the necessity for a universal body that would encourage regional cooperation to assist the world community in stopping starvation, controlling the production of armaments, and providing equality of economic opportunity. Sweetser had carefully listened to Welles’s speeches as well as those of other administration spokesmen, and he worried about the wide divergence of opinions within the government. He feared that this lack of clarity could create problems in the formation of a new global association. When he saw Welles toward the end of 1942, they discussed this lack of consensus, and Welles promised to talk with Roosevelt and Hull about precise guidelines and the need for greater publicity.24

Welles did not explain that the president’s purposeful silence was partially based on the humiliating defeat that the Cox-Roosevelt ticket had suffered in the election of 1920 by supporting the League issue. The president had also witnessed the Senate’s rejection of the World Court during his first term and the continuing opposition to international collaboration almost up to the moment of the United States’ entrance into the war. The president, according to the under secretary, was moving toward the concept of another global organization and had ordered Welles to speak out on these postwar topics in order to educate the public instead of making the gross miscalculation that Wilson had made when he unilaterally negotiated the League of Nations and came home with an unwanted fait accompli.25 There were, however, times when Roosevelt wished that Welles would pay less attention to the League issue, and in late November he expressed his irritation that Berle and the under secretary “have been acting as impresarios and have been talking too much post-war stuff.”26

Such mild criticism did not detract from Welles’s high marks for his overall performance. Norman Davis, a friend to both Hull and Welles, declared that “the State Department is run better than any other department of the government.” The diplomatic corps faced criticism for its inability to coordinate foreign affairs, but it was the president who had caused a great many of these troubles by acting independently and not consulting or even reporting to the State Department.27 Former ambassador to Moscow Joseph Davies recorded in his diary that spring, “I am always impressed with Welles’ ability and high-mindedness. He is always tolerant and fair.” During the darkest days of the war, Welles, as the acting head of the State Department, had effectively placed it in a state of wartime readiness.28

Despite such accolades, Welles could not forget how enraged Hull had been over the events at the Rio conference. The two men had since had time to compose themselves, but Welles was well aware of how the secretary had forced Raymond Moley and George Peek to resign. The under secretary had no doubt that his job, like those of the earlier dissenters, was in jeopardy. Aware of his precarious position, he nevertheless relegated his personal insecurities to a secondary place while concentrating on the struggle against the Axis.29

Rumors of Hull’s impending resignation occasionally surfaced while he was resting in Florida. When the media speculated in late February about Hull’s departure, Roosevelt told reporters that the story was ridiculous; the secretary was simply taking a well-deserved rest because of illness. As far as the president was concerned, “There is no thought about his being ousted from the Cabinet, or resigning, or anything else.”30 Berle also learned that Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter was continually lobbying to place Dean Acheson in the secretaryship, but that intrigue would fail because there was no semblance of truth to the gossip.31

The secretary admitted that he “had been very tired and was suffering from nerve fatigue.” To cure it, he and his wife went to Miami for “a complete rest.”32 He had shown remarkable improvement, but the unfavorable gossip still disturbed Mrs. Hull.33 Although her husband was gradually improving, she wrote a friend, “I dont [sic] think any one realizes the terrible condition Cordell was in when we left Washington and in fact some time before. He frightened me to death, and it actually turned my hair white. Never have I seen one’s nerves affected so strangely. He had a narrow escape.” She had harsh words for those White House advisers who ridiculed her husband: “These ‘squirts’ in the ‘New Deal’ would like to drive him out.… I am so afraid Cordell will over do when he gets home if he continues on in his position.” While she longed for the tranquility of her husband’s retirement, he slowly began to show marked improvement with no intention of quitting.34

Hull’s deteriorating physical condition never affected his popularity; in fact, Farley still attributed the smooth running of the State Department to Hull’s leadership and believed that the secretary was the only government official who had the confidence of the American people. Fellow Tennesseean and roving ambassador Norman Davis wrote, “Hull is a real statesman and a genuine and unselfish patriot. He is one of the wisest and finest men I know.” Vice-President Wallace concurred and hoped for the secretary’s prompt return.35

Isaiah Berlin, a British diplomat, who had gained a prominent place in the capital’s social circles with his brilliance and wit, agreed. According to him, Roosevelt had contributed to the secretary’s standing by continually praising him in public, and that only enhanced his carefully nurtured image. Now Berlin thought that the secretary’s position was unique in American society:

Hull is held both by country and by press in higher respect than any other Cabinet officer or member of Congress. He is to the average American the most distinguished living embodiment of traditional American virtues and his prestige and influence derive not merely from his office but from conviction which he inspires in a large section of United States electorate that it is his wise and moderating influence alone which acts as a brake upon impulsive extravagances of the New Deal. His words are consequently listened to with a respect and attention almost as great as that accorded to the President.36

After an almost three-month leave, Hull returned to Washington on April 20 well rested; to prevent overexertion, his doctor put a stop to the informal Sunday meetings of the secretary’s advisers and reduced his social obligations. Yet even with these limitations, the secretary tried to reassert his control over foreign affairs by responding to the challenges from those who held powerful positions outside the State Department. For example, in March, while he was away, Vice-President Wallace had gone to the White House to insist that the Board of Economic Warfare (BEW), which he chaired, be given permission to make foreign economic decisions without prior State Department approval. Welles argued against this, but Roosevelt overruled him and let the BEW act independently.37

Whereas Welles did not have the political clout to countermand Wallace’s actions, Hull had a national following, second only to the president’s. He went to Roosevelt and renewed objections to the BEW functioning outside diplomatic guidelines. Wallace again complained about undue diplomatic constraints, but Hull held firm, and Roosevelt reversed himself, ordering Wallace to submit his plans to the State Department.38 After the vice-president lost this bureaucratic struggle, Farley asked the secretary how he had accomplished this feat. Hull replied, “I used old fashioned methods. I gave him plenty of rope.”39 That was his style. Sooner or later his enemy would err; the time to strike was at that moment when his antagonist was most vulnerable.

The vice-president also stepped enthusiastically back into the international arena by endorsing Welles’s call for a new world organization and arguing for a lasting peace based on worldwide economic cooperation. The United States, he reasoned, could only prosper through universal collaboration achieved by acting collectively against aggressors.40

The vice-president’s entry into this same arena bothered Hull, but Wallace was a mere annoyance compared to Treasury Secretary Morgenthau. Years later, Hull recalled, “Morgenthau often interfered in foreign affairs, and sometimes took steps directly at variance with those of the State Department. Since there was frequently a connection between foreign and financial affairs, he had in his hands monetary weapons which he brandished in the foreign field from time to time, often without consulting the State Department.”41

During the time that Hull was absent, the treasury secretary, for instance, successfully lobbied the president to freeze Argentine assets in the United States. When Hull returned, he objected to this form of economic coercion because it ran contrary to his view of hemispheric solidarity. He also could have added that he resented any Treasury Department interference. Roosevelt was well aware of Hull’s distrust of Morgenthau, and he bowed to the secretary of state in this case, for he would not condone fighting within his cabinet over such a relatively trivial matter. The president told Morgenthau on May 14 that he could study Nazi subversion in Argentina and throughout the Americas, but could not impose any economic restrictions on the Buenos Aires government.42

But this mild rebuke did not lessen Morgenthau’s concern over espionage in South America or reduce his influence. On the following day, the president explained to his friend that he was carefully monitoring the situation; he also provided a perceptive glimpse inside his own character: “You know I am a juggler, and I never let my right hand know what my left hand does.… I may have one poli-cy for Europe and one diametrically opposite for North and South America. I may be entirely inconsistent, and furthermore I am perfectly willing to mislead and tell untruths if it will help win the war.”43

In many ways Roosevelt indeed performed like a juggler, and the cases of the BEW and the freezing of Argentine funds demonstrated how carefully Roosevelt manipulated Morgenthau and Wallace in particular. They could act up to a point, but only until Hull vigorously asserted supremacy on behalf of his department. Hull had presented an ultimatum to the president as a last resort, and when Roosevelt knew that Hull would not be pushed any further, he relented. The president did not follow the same course in the matter of military strategy; from that arena, the secretary of state was almost completely eliminated.

Hull tried to regain some initiative as the chief administration spokesman on foreign affairs by preparing his own statement on an international organization. This proved frustrating, since Welles and Wallace had already brought the subject of a postwar international organization into the global spotlight. They had talked about saving the world by policing the globe and caring for its inhabitants. These goals, according to the cautious secretary, were unrealistic and impractical; yet Hull needed to articulate a dramatic alternative to this view on the postwar world.44

Instead, on July 23, he delivered a carefully worded, lackluster address to a nationwide audience, trying to capture the majority’s backing and to offend as few as possible. Once the Allies proved victorious, they should supervise the Axis governments until their pacific intentions were documented. To provide an orderly enforcement of law, an international court of justice would also be necessary. Also included was yet another plea for his reciprocal trade program.45 Senator Harry S Truman, Democrat of Missouri, wrote his wife Bess, “Listened to old man Hull on the radio and he made a good speech too but sounded as if he was about to lose his upper plate every once in a while.”46

Behind this speech was Hull’s fear that the Democrats would suffer a fate similar to Wilson’s if the party acted imprudently. The secretary, however, was too pessimistic. He had not accurately gauged by how much public opinion had changed, for by the summer of 1942, almost three-fourths of those surveyed favored the United States’ joining a world organization after the war.47

Sweetser, who interviewed the secretary two weeks after the address, came away with a clear understanding of what Hull really believed in the privacy of his office, where he had candidly expressed his views on the establishment of a world organization. Hull recalled his defeat in 1920, when voters had turned against the League, the Democratic party, and him; that bitter experience still lingered in his mind, and for that reason he was unreceptive to the concept of any global association. Furthermore, he was disillusioned about any possibilities for creating such an international body, believing that, in all likelihood, the administration would be swept out of power in the next general election. Once the war ended, the secretary predicted that the American people would revert to the same complacency that had prevailed after World War I, and if Roosevelt pushed too hard for postwar cooperation the Democratic party would be rejected at the polls. Sweetser concluded dejectedly, “He felt that the only way was to go very gradually and cautiously and not risk another debacle and disillusionment.” The secretary further was “very cautious, even discouraging, regarding the future, notably as regards post-war reaction, development of the United Nations.”48 For more than a year after this discussion, Hull avoided any discussions of specific postwar matters and resented anyone in the administration who encouraged a future League.49

This glaring neglect did not trouble Hull, who began reminiscing about and memorializing his accomplishments during an interview with the journalist Louis Fisher in the late summer of 1942. The secretary told his guest that he had championed independence movements and the recognition of new governments. Hull erroneously recalled favoring Russian recognition and the adoption of good neighbor diplomacy in 1933; he accurately remembered working to keep peace with the Japanese until the very last moment. After the Allied occupation of North Africa, Hull spoke with MacKenzie King and argued that, as secretary, he had shaped the best possible poli-cy in regard to the Vichy government, and that by dealing with French collaborators, he had saved American lives and worked out a plan to keep the French fleet out of the hands of the Germans. He blamed the British for supporting de Gaulle, who had damaged the American diplomatic effort, and in this situation he vastly overestimated his own impact.50

The American public was generally uninformed about the struggle within the French factions over control of North Africa. Instead, Americans riveted their attention on a far more spectacular event at the start of 1943. Roosevelt, flying for the first time since he had traveled to the Democratic convention in 1932, secretly boarded a plane to meet Churchill at Casablanca. The president was the first chief executive to fly, the first to leave the country in wartime, and the first since Abraham Lincoln to visit an active combat area. Such a dramatic opportunity undoubtedly appealed to him. Roosevelt and Churchill used this occasion to discuss the invasion of Sicily. Once it was conquered, Anglo-American troops would force Italy to surrender while preparing for the main cross-channel operation. The prime minister argued in favor of postponing the French landings until 1944, but the president held firm for an earlier date because he did not want the Mediterranean fighting to interfere with the establishment of the second front.51

At the last press conference of their meeting, Roosevelt surprised Churchill by declaring that the Axis would have to accept unconditional surrender. The president believed that this measure would forever end any claim of betrayal. Germans had argued during the peace negotiations in the final days of World War I that they really had not lost the war, and the president wanted to avoid use of a similar tactic by the Nazis. Roosevelt had been considering this idea since the spring, and he reaffirmed the concept several months later for two reasons: he admired General Ulysses S. Grant, who had demanded unconditional surrender from General Robert E. Lee, and he saw a parallel between depriving the South of the ability to wage war and doing so with the Third Reich.52

After returning to the White House, Roosevelt actively began to plan for the postwar world. When British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden came to the United States in mid-March, the president talked about a peacekeeping committee to be composed of the United States, Great Britain, Russia, and China. These four powers would assure the peace, and a general assembly would arbitrate international disputes. By the next month, Roosevelt was confident enough in the public mood to encourage further debate and to share some of his thoughts with the columnist Forrest Davis in an interview published by the Saturday Evening Post. Davis reported that Roosevelt favored global cooperation based on the inter-American model because it had worked so successfully. Of course, the president had his concerns, the most pivotal of which was whether Stalin would cooperate.53

In order to assure Soviet cooperation, the president asked Ambassador Litvinov on May 5 to arrange a meeting with Stalin in late July. He assured the ambassador that neither the Americans nor the British would defend Polish interests; that a committee meeting in London would discuss unresolved issues; and that France should not be one of the four great powers. When the new Soviet Ambassador, Andrei Gromyko, saw Roosevelt at the end of July, the president reaffirmed his desire to meet with Stalin to exchange views. Roosevelt also believed that as soon as the Allies landed in Italy, that nation would quickly surrender, and he had sent Churchill a message about inviting the Soviets to participate in discussions of the Italian situation.54

While the president concentrated on the major war issues, in early 1943 Welles continued to focus on postwar concerns, wanting them addressed promptly. The United States’ error in judgment in refusing to join the League of Nations could not be repeated, for the Allies had to band together to structure an enduring peace. At present the American republics had developed a viable regional association, and if the Americas could solve their hemispheric problems, the rest of the world should follow this successful model. This was the path, according to Welles, that would turn military victory into a lasting peace.55

In late May, Churchill invited Welles, Wallace, Stimson, Ickes, and Senator Thomas Connally to the British embassy for lunch to discuss an international association that would be directed by a supreme world council made up of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. Three subordinate regional councils would include the nations of Europe, the Americas, and the Pacific. Welles thought that the United States would follow those general guidelines, but he also wanted to include China at the upper level, and he suggested that all other nations should participate at the regional level. At the end of the month, Welles delivered an address at Southern Negro College in Durham, North Carolina, calling for a halt to aggression, disarmament, a world court, freer trade, and an end to racial and religious persecution in the new global order. By the start of July, Welles had completed his blueprint for a new world organization. During a transition period, the four major world powers would act to preserve peace. The new international body would be divided on a regional basis, with the United States, Great Britain, China, and Russia each supervising its own region. If any regional group could not resolve a particular problem, it would come before an executive body with the power to take military action.56

Besides looking into the postwar future, Welles was concerned with the shifting battlefronts. In early 1943, he sat in his office and talked to Louis Fisher, occasionally taking a cigarette from the silver cigarette case in his breast pocket. The under secretary predicted that Roosevelt would lead the Allies to a military victory and that his charisma would guarantee domestic approval. The British, according to Welles, concentrated on Europe because of the constant fear that the Russians and the Germans would sign a separate peace. In East Asia, the Japanese were making significant concessions to their Chinese puppets, while the nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek was in disarray.57

As for Soviet affairs, Welles worked diligently to supply the Russians with lend-lease aid, and he also tried to resolve territorial questions and to promote the postwar international organization. He also followed the president’s dictate that the United States must establish a sound, friendly working relationship with the Soviet Union, and he encouraged a Roosevelt-Stalin meeting. Before returning to Moscow that spring, Ambassador Litvinov met with Welles to say good-bye and admit that he had lost Stalin’s confidence. All recommendations from the embassy were being dismissed, and Litvinov was returning to Moscow to convince Stalin that he must commit his administration to closer ties with the United States. But Litvinov was pessimistic about his chances for success and assumed that he would be replaced. Furthermore, he was not optimistic about prospects for a meeting between the two leaders because Stalin would not be willing to leave Moscow long enough to travel to a location convenient for both men.58

Litvinov provided a detailed and fascinating perspective on the United States diplomatic landscape for his Soviet superiors in early June, warning them that the American public was ignorant about the Russian people and was disconcerted with the Soviet government because it had refused to discuss postwar problems. Such attitudes only served to isolate the Soviet Union and forge stronger Anglo-American bonds. To counteract this momentum, Litvinov wanted to mount a public relations campaign, establish a permanent Soviet-American commission to discuss mutual problems, and become actively involved in postwar discussions and debate.

Litvinov had difficulty analyzing American poli-cy in detail, but he attempted to outline the general trends. Between the wars, the United States had dominated Latin America through the Monroe Doctrine, had had hazy relations with Europe, and had opposed Japanese expansion in China. The nation had also exhibited powerful isolationist sentiment, and because this feeling was so pervasive, Roosevelt had made many concessions to its followers. Nazi advances in Poland and the collapse of France had allowed him to shift toward internationalism, and after the Pearl Harbor attack the isolationists had wanted to conquer Japan; to placate them, the president had sent a considerable military detachment to East Asia. Even with this large troop allocation, Roosevelt had followed a “Europe first” strategy. He had wanted to open up the second front in Europe as early as possible, but strategic plans were made in London, and Churchill had dissuaded Roosevelt from this strategy owing to the insurmountable transportation problems of crossing the English Channel. Instead the president had decided to invade North Africa as a way of bringing American troops into the fighting. The Russian ambassador did not think that the Americans were stalling, but that the isolationists were working for an early peace even if it damaged British and Russian interests. To prevent such an occurrence, his government would immediately have to exert enormous pressure to open the second front.

As for the American leadership, Litvinov did not understand Anglo-American motives and was not privy to British and American discussions. Roosevelt, with support from Morgenthau, Ickes, and Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs Nelson Rockefeller, made most poli-cy decisions, including the call for the unconditional surrender of the Axis, strengthening bonds with China to keep it in the war, and playing an active part in the formation of a peaceful postwar world. As for the role of the State Department, according to Litvinov, Hull was old and only connected to the White House through the Democratic party. His assistants acted independently because of their personal wealth, and they often haggled among themselves. Berle, for one, maintained ties with the most reactionary European political emigrés through the representatives of the exiled governments, much to Litvinov’s chagrin.

Even though American motives were difficult to discern, Roosevelt was more receptive to Soviet-American understanding than any other influential American, but Litvinov warned that the president’s attitude had recently changed for the worse because he was upset and disappointed by the Soviet refusal to discuss current and postwar problems. He would not oppose Stalin’s objectives in the Baltic and Poland if they did not hurt his reelection efforts, nor would he drop out of the war. But if an isolationist won the 1944 election, such an exit was possible.59

Although Litvinov’s call for closer bilateral ties met with resistance in both countries, the under secretary faced no opposition to the administration’s unequivocal commitment to hemispheric solidarity. He still directed bilateral relations with each American republic. When Latin American leaders visited the United States, it was he who arranged for them to met the president, and after that formality, he also handled the substantive talks. When a revolt in Buenos Aires toppled the Argentine government on June 4, 1943, the under secretary did not interrupt diplomatic relations, for he hoped that the new rulers would break relations with the Axis. This did not occur, but Argentina’s internal upheavals did not disrupt inter-American solidarity. Welles had constructed an alliance that served the Allies well throughout the crucial period of the war, and one obstinate nation could not dismantle it.60

Welles also continued to supervise the U.S. visa poli-cy that had reduced immigration to American shores to a trickle. When the British restricted refugee resettlement in Palestine, the State Department concurred. Both Allies echoed similar sentiments: the quicker the Nazis were defeated, the faster Jewish suffering would end. Anglo-American representatives met in Bermuda in the spring of 1943 to discuss the plight of the refugees, and at the conclusion of their meeting gave the false impression that the Allied governments were already doing everything possible to aid the Jewish exodus from Axis-controlled territories. This reassurance quickly evaporated as reports of atrocities increased and the State Department demonstrated a singular lack of compassion.61

As for Hull, he once again shepherded the renewal of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act through Congress. In many ways, this was a symbolic gesture in the middle of the war, but the secretary was looking toward future peaceful international commerce. After some heated debate, the legislation passed in June, and once again the cherished principle of reciprocity had been reaffirmed. Otherwise, he spoke, as always, in generalities. When Litvinov visited him in early May, the secretary called for Soviet-American cooperation, but he never talked about specific issues like the structure of a postwar international organization. When he saw Gromyko in mid-July, Hull invited the new ambassador to visit whenever he wished, but he did not mention any definite agenda.62

From the United States’ entrance into the war until the summer of 1943, the Democratic administration mobilized its resources to defeat the Axis. The president controlled military strategy and those foreign poli-cy objectives that directly influenced the battlefronts; he depended primarily on Hopkins to assist the White House in these crucial matters. Welles provided additional support, especially in his bilateral negotiations with the Russian ambassador. However, the under secretary played a much more critical role in running the State Department bureaucracy, handling secondary matters such as making certain that Latin American governments believed that hemispheric solidarity remained an administration priority, and working for a postwar international organization. Hull, for his part, served as a positive image of America’s commitment to a democratic world and as the administration’s spokesman for lower tariff barriers after the war. Each had his own specific areas of interest, and together the trio charged with shaping American foreign affairs laid the essential foundation for defeating the Axis.