TWENTY-FIVE

D-DAY

Almighty God: Our sons this day have set upon a mighty endeavor. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, JUNE 6, 1944

ROOSEVELT’S FLIGHT TO CASABLANCA marked the first time an American president had flown while in office—and FDR had mixed feelings. He much preferred travel by ship, where the slow pace, the roll of the sea, and the fresh air afforded time to rejuvenate. To minimize the distance over open water on the return leg, the president puddle-jumped from Marrakech to Gambia to Liberia; crossed the South Atlantic to Recife, Brazil; then flew north to Trinidad and Miami, where he boarded a train to Washington. “What do you know,” he cabled Eleanor en route. “Will be back in the United States Saturday evening [January 30, 1943—FDR’s sixty-first birthday]. We should get to Washington by 8 p.m. on Sunday.”¹

ER was not at home when Franklin arrived. She had departed the White House Friday for the weekend in New York. But she penned a note: “Welcome home! I can’t be here Sunday night as months ago I agreed to open a series of lectures at Cooper Union but I’ll be home for dinner Monday night.… I have to be gone again for the day Tuesday but will be back Wednesday a.m. I’m terribly sorry not to be home.… Much love and I am so glad you are back.”²

Roosevelt had been away from Washington three weeks. A new Congress (the Seventy-eighth) was in session and already making mischief. Numerous administration supporters had gone down to defeat in the 1942 off-year elections, and for the first time since FDR had become president the Democrats commanded only a slender (218–208) majority in the House. Republicans had picked up eight seats in Ohio, five in Connecticut, four in Missouri, and three each in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Washington, and West Virginia. That left Roosevelt more dependent than ever on white supremacist votes from the Solid South.

On the home front the alphabet soup of wartime agencies created by FDR had soured and urgently needed attention. The War Manpower Commission (WMC), charged with allotting workers between military and civilian needs, competed with the Selective Service System (SSS) and the National War Labor Board (NWLB), both of which enjoyed independent statutory authority. The Office of Price Administration (OPA), responsible for controlling inflation, shared overlapping authority with the Office of Economic Stabilization (OES). And the War Production Board (WPB), denied power over both labor and prices, floundered under the erratic leadership of Donald Nelson, a former Sears, Roebuck sales executive congenitally incapable of making tough decisions. “It took Lincoln three years to discover Grant,” Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote FDR when Nelson was appointed, “and you may not have hit on your production Grant first crack out of the box.”³

But it was the military situation that was most pressing. The Battle of the Atlantic hung in the balance. In October 1942 German submarines sank 101 Allied merchant ships. In November the total rose to 134. Heavy losses continued through the winter. In January, as Churchill and Roosevelt met at Casablanca, submarines off West Africa demolished a tanker convoy carrying much-needed fuel to Eisenhower’s forces. Seven of the nine vessels were sunk in one of the most devastating attacks of the war.

In February and March 1943 merchant sinkings approached an all-time high. The Germans had 212 operational U-boats in the Atlantic (compared to 91 a year earlier) and were adding 17 each month. By contrast, Allied shipping tonnage—despite impressive American production figures—had declined by almost a million tons since the outbreak of war. “The Germans never came so near to disrupting communication between the New World and the Old as in the first twenty days of March, 1943,” said the Admiralty in retrospect.⁴

A modest breakthrough occurred in December 1942, when British intelligence officers at Bletchley Park outside London cracked the German naval code, allowing them to read U-boat message traffic. But the German decryption service had previously broken the British convoy cipher, so in effect both sides were reading each other’s mail.

The key to control of the Atlantic was airpower. Submarines of World War II vintage were unable to remain submerged for long periods of time, and when surfaced they were extremely vulnerable to air attack. In early 1943 small escort carriers began to arrive from American shipyards. These “baby flattops” carried up to twenty planes and provided some convoys their own air cover. But a vast midocean gap remained in which German U-boats operated with impunity. “Sinkings in the North Atlantic of 17 ships in two days are a final proof that our escorts are stretched too thin,” Churchill cabled FDR on March 18. The prime minister recommended the immediate cessation of all convoys to Russia so that aircraft and escort vessels could be shifted to the Atlantic.⁵

“We share your distress over recent sinkings,” Roosevelt replied. But he was reluctant to curtail convoys to Russia. Instead, the president suggested that additional long-range aircraft be assigned to the Atlantic theater. “I will provide as many as can be made available and I hope you can augment the number,” he told Churchill.⁶

As he had done when he ordered the invasion of North Africa contrary to the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Roosevelt assumed personal responsibility. The Navy had an abundance of long-range aircraft, but Admiral King had sent most of them to Nimitz in Hawaii. Roosevelt gave King a direct order: transfer sixty very-long-range B-24 Liberator bombers from the Pacific to the Atlantic immediately.⁷

Results followed almost overnight. The B-24s, equipped with radar, powerful searchlights, machine guns, and depth charges, could stay aloft eighteen hours and, in the words of military historian John Keegan, “were flying death to a U-boat caught on the surface.”⁸ In the last week of March the Allies sank eight U-boats; in April, thirty-one; in May, forty-three. Faced with the inevitable destruction of his submarine fleet, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz called it quits. On May 24, 1943, he ordered German U-boats out of the North Atlantic. In the next four months, sixty-two convoys comprising 3,546 merchant vessels crossed the Atlantic without the loss of a single ship.⁹ Churchill gave the good news to the House of Commons on September 21. “This is altogether unprecedented in the whole history of the U-boat struggle, either in this war or in the last.”¹⁰

With the sea-lanes to Britain secure, American industrial production tipped the balance in favor of the Allies. Roosevelt’s 1942 production goals appeared puny once the economy converted to war. The figures are staggering. Between 1941 and 1945 the United States produced 300,000 military aircraft. In the peak year of 1944 American factories built 96,318 planes—more than the yearly total of Germany, Japan, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union combined. Henry Ford’s enormous Willow Run plant produced a B-24 every sixty-three minutes. By war’s end the United States had manufactured 2.4 million trucks, 635,000 jeeps, 88,400 tanks, 5,800 ships, and 40 billion rounds of ammunition.

Quantity was the all-important goal of the war effort. American industry thrived on high-volume output performed on an assembly-line basis. No other industrialized nation had mastered the art of mass production so efficiently. In a sense the United States made a virtue of necessity. With a workforce composed disproportionately of unskilled labor, assembly-line techniques fit American industry like a glove. And they matched the needs of war perfectly. The Germans and Japanese, by contrast, with their highly trained labor pools (at least in the early stages of the war), chose qualitative superiority over mass production and depended on precision-made, flawlessly performing, high-standard weapons for their margin of victory.¹¹ But as the war dragged on they simply could not produce enough of them. “We never did develop a top tank during the war,” said General Lucius D. Clay. “We did all right because we made so many of them. That offset some of their weaknesses. But we never had a tank that equaled the German tank.”^12*

Roosevelt, who had handled the Navy’s contracting responsibilities in World War I, was well served by the procurement team Stimson assembled at the War Department. Undersecretary Robert Patterson, General Brehon Somervell, who commanded the supply services, and Clay presided over the greatest military buildup the world has ever known within a time frame few considered possible. Between Pearl Harbor and VJ Day the armed services let contracts that ultimately exceeded $200 billion ($2 trillion currently) with scarcely a breath of scandal. “We were not against industry making a profit,” said Clay, “but we were damned sure they were not going to make an excess profit.” For the first and only time in American history the military employed a process of mandatory contract renegotiation. Whenever a supplier reaped an excessive profit or the Army no longer needed what it had contracted for, the War Department renegotiated the contract and recaptured the government’s money. “I think it was the greatest job we did during the whole war,” said Clay years later. “You haven’t heard any criticism of excess profits from World War II, and no one else has.”^13*

The conflict in North Africa continued longer than Roosevelt anticipated. The Germans and Italians resisted stiffly in Tunisia, and fighting did not end until May 13. The Allies took upward of 250,000 prisoners—a victory roughly equivalent to the Russian success at Stalingrad, with the added benefit of clearing Africa of Axis forces.

At the time of surrender Churchill was en route to Washington on the Cunard liner Queen Mary for another conference with FDR. The giant 80,000-ton vessel and her sister ship, the Queen Elizabeth, had been converted to troop transports each capable of carrying 15,000 men, the major part of a division. Their speed, almost thirty knots, provided a margin of safety, and no submarine ever managed to intercept them on their many wartime crossings. With Churchill, in addition to a large staff, were five thousand German prisoners of war destined for American internment camps.

Dubbed TRIDENT by Churchill, the Washington conference of May 1943 wrestled with the problem of what to do after the battle for Sicily. Churchill and the British chiefs sought to press on in the Mediterranean, drive Italy out of the war, and hit Germany from Europe’s “soft underbelly.” Roosevelt and the American chiefs of staff wanted to go at Hitler directly with a quick cross-Channel attack and minimize efforts in the Mediterranean—which they continued to see as diversionary. After two weeks of sometimes acrimonious staff debate, Roosevelt and Churchill reached a compromise. The British agreed to set the invasion of France (code name OVERLORD) for May 1, 1944. The initial assault would be mounted by nine U.S., British, and Canadian divisions, with twenty additional divisions ready to move in once the beachhead was secure. The United States, for its part, agreed to move against Italy provided it be done with forces already committed to the Mediterranean. The buildup in Britain for the cross-Channel attack was to be accelerated, and after Sicily had been conquered seven divisions (four American and three British) were to be withdrawn from the Mediterranean to fight in France.

Halfway through the TRIDENT conference, FDR invited Churchill for a quiet weekend at the president’s wooded retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains. As the presidential party motored through Frederick, Churchill (who had visited the Gettysburg battlefield years before) inquired about the house that had belonged to Barbara Frietschie, the elderly woman whose courage in mounting an American flag in her attic window as the Confederate army marched by inspired John Greenleaf Whittier’s 1864 poem “Barbara Frietchie.” The prime minister’s inquiry prompted Roosevelt to quote Whittier’s famous lines:

“Shoot if you must this old grey head,

But spare your country’s flag,” she said.

Churchill waited a moment, and when it became clear that no one in the presidential party was going to finish the quotation he began reciting the poem from memory:

Up from the meadows rich with corn,

Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand,

Green walled by the hills of Maryland.

Churchill sailed on, word for word, through the entire poem—which he had not read for at least thirty years—and then proceeded to entertain his listeners with a review of Confederate and Union tactics at Gettysburg.^14*

Roosevelt told Churchill he was looking forward to a few hours with his stamp collection. “I watched him with much interest and in silence for perhaps half an hour as he stuck them in, each in its proper place, and so forgot the cares of State,” Churchill wrote later. “My friendship for the President was vastly stimulated. We could not have been on easier terms.”¹⁵

Sunday morning FDR took Churchill fishing in a nearby stream. The president “was placed with great care by the side of a pool and sought to entice the nimble and wily fish,” Churchill remembered. “I tried for some time myself in other spots. No fish were caught, but he seemed to enjoy it very much, and was in great spirits for the rest of the day.”¹⁶

Eleanor evidently had her fill of Churchill and left the men to themselves. “Mrs. Roosevelt was away practically all of the time,” Winston wrote his wife, Clementine. “[The President] does not tell her the secrets because she is always making speeches and writing articles and he is afraid she might forget what was secret and what was not. No one could have been more friendly than she was during the two or three nights she turned up.”¹⁷

It was during the TRIDENT conference that Roosevelt recognized he could not conduct the war and manage the home front at the same time. As soon as the conference ended and Churchill returned to England, FDR announced the establishment of the Office of War Mobilization with Supreme Court justice James F. Byrnes as director. Byrnes was a consummate Washington insider. A former congressman and senator from South Carolina—and one of the few southerners who consistently supported the New Deal—he stepped down from the Court at Roosevelt’s behest to head the mobilization effort. With an office in the east wing of the White House adjacent to Admiral Leahy’s, Byrnes became the final arbiter of home-front decision making. “Your decision is my decision,” FDR told Byrnes, “and there is no appeal. For all practical purposes you will be assistant President.”¹⁸

On July 10, 1943, Allied forces invaded Sicily in the largest amphibious operation of the war.^* Because of the shaky performance of the U.S. II Corps in North Africa, the principal task was assigned to General Montgomery’s veteran Eighth Army, which was to attack northward along Sicily’s east coast and seal the island exit across the Strait of Messina to the Italian mainland. Patton’s Seventh Army would cover Montgomery’s left flank. But when Montgomery bogged down sixty miles short of Messina, Patton seized the initiative, sliced through western Sicily, and captured the city of Palermo on July 22. The Seventh Army then wheeled east along Sicily’s north coast and after heavy fighting arrived at Messina August 17, shortly before Montgomery. The Seventh Army’s relentless offensive resolved whatever doubts military planners had about the combat-worthiness of American troops. But it arrived too late in Messina to prevent the Germans and Italians from evacuating some one hundred thousand troops, together with most of their vehicles and equipment.

Three days after Patton took Palermo, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy triggered a coup in Rome, dismissed Mussolini as prime minister, and ordered him into custody. To replace Il Duce the King appointed Marshal Pietro Badoglio, the ranking member of the Italian armed forces, a Darlan-like figure fully prepared to fight or parley, whichever course seemed more advantageous. While assuring Hitler that Italy remained loyal to the Axis, Badoglio opened secret negotiations with the Allies in Lisbon.

Roosevelt paid lip service to unconditional surrender. “Our terms to Italy are still the same,” he told the nation in a fireside chat on July 28, 1943. “We will have no truck with Fascism in any way, in any shape or manner.”¹⁹ Privately he told Churchill, “we should come as close to unconditional surrender as we can, followed by good treatment of the Italian populace.”²⁰

Like Victor Emmanuel and Badoglio, Roosevelt was ready to cut a deal. He not only wished to end the fighting but recognized the need to accommodate the nation’s large Italian-American community. Asked at his press conference on July 30 whether the United States would negotiate with Italy’s new government, the president ignored his previous insistence on unconditional surrender. “I don’t care who we deal with in Italy so long as it isn’t a definite member of the Fascist government, so long as they get them to lay down their arms, and so long as we don’t have anarchy. Now his name may be a King, or a present prime minister, or a Mayor of a town or a village.”

Q: Mr. President, you wouldn’t consider General Badoglio as a Fascist, then?

FDR: I am not discussing personalities.²¹

Churchill was equally eager to negotiate. Separating Italy from Germany had been a goal of British diplomacy for at least a decade, and Winston had no qualms. “I will deal with any Italian authority which can deliver the goods,” he cabled Roosevelt. “I am not in the least afraid of seeming to recognize the House of Savoy [Victor Emmanuel] or Badoglio, providing they are the ones who can make the Italians do what we need for our war purposes. Those purposes would certainly be hindered by chaos, bolshevism, or civil war.”²² In effect, Roosevelt and Churchill were ready to conclude a separate peace with Italy, the doctrine of unconditional surrender notwithstanding.

Badoglio prolonged negotiations until an Allied ultimatum at the end of August forced his hand. Italy surrendered on September 3, 1943, switched sides, and declared war against Germany. Hitler responded by rushing sixteen battle-tested divisions down the boot of Italy. Rome was occupied, the Italian Army disarmed, and Mussolini restored to office.^* When American and British forces landed near Salerno in early September, they were met by well-positioned German forces determined to contest every kilometer of Italian soil. So much for Europe’s “soft underbelly.”

Roosevelt and Churchill met for their fourth wartime conference (QUADRANT) at Quebec City on August 17, 1943. Once again Churchill traveled on the Queen Mary, this time bringing Clementine and their daughter Mary. The British party arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a week early, and Churchill took advantage of the interval to spend time privately with FDR at Hyde Park. “You know,” he told Eleanor, “one works better when one has a chance to enjoy a little leisure now and then. The old proverb all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy holds good for all of us.”²³Churchill wore a ten-gallon Stetson to protect his head from the sun, sipped Scotch chilled in a wine cooler, and downed the obligatory hot dogs at a picnic hosted by ER at Val-Kill. Cousin Daisy Suckley, a guest for the weekend, believed Churchill “adored the president, loves him, looks up to him, defers to him, leans on him.” In Churchill’s presence FDR was “relaxed and cheerful in the midst of the deepest problems.”²⁴

During the weekend Churchill proposed that the command of OVERLORD, the cross-Channel invasion, be entrusted to an American. Churchill and FDR had previously agreed that whichever country furnished the preponderance of forces should command the operation, and it was becoming increasingly clear that the United States would do so. Both Churchill and Roosevelt assumed General Marshall would be tapped for the assignment.²⁵

The Quebec conference focused on the projected Normandy landing, particularly the logistics of crossing the Channel—landing craft, temporary harbors, fuel pipelines, and the mountains of equipment that would have to be off-loaded. Roosevelt and Churchill were absorbed in the details. “I’m nearly dead,” the president confided to Frances Perkins. “I have to talk to the P.M. all night, and he gets bright ideas in the middle of the night and comes pattering down to my bedroom. They are probably good ideas, but I have to have my sleep.”²⁶

Roosevelt raised the question of Germany’s surrender. Had the military staffs prepared for Hitler’s sudden collapse? According to General Marshall, the president “recognized the importance of capturing Berlin as both a political and psychological factor. He felt that it was a question of prestige and ability to carry out the reorganization of Europe on an equal status with the Soviet Union.” General Alan Brooke, the British chief of staff, assured FDR that plans were in place for a prompt Allied entry into German-occupied territory should the opportunity arise.²⁷

Churchill and the president also discussed the atomic bomb. Following receipt of a letter from Albert Einstein in October 1939, Roosevelt had authorized preliminary research on a nuclear bomb.^* Einstein and FDR shared a long history. When the scientist arrived in the United States in 1933, the president invited him and his wife to spend a night at the White House. They dined with the Roosevelts and conversed at length in German, which Einstein later recalled FDR spoke very well.²⁸ It is likely that no other physicist could have captured the president’s attention, and when Einstein warned of the potential destructive capacity of nuclear fission, Roosevelt listened. When he said evidence suggested the Germans were already at work on a nuclear weapon, the president took action. At FDR’s direction an Advisory Committee on Uranium was established to explore a weapons program. The uranium committee was annexed by the National Defense Research Council and then in May 1941 melded into the Office of Scientific Research and Development, headed by Vannevar Bush. But its initial work was unpromising. The expense of isotope separation plus the uncertainty of whether a controlled chain reaction was even possible appeared to rule out a bomb-making program.

Meanwhile, British scientists, working independently, concluded that a deliverable bomb could be constructed using as little as twenty-five pounds of fissionable material and that if sufficient resources were devoted to the project the first weapon could be ready by the end of 1943.²⁹Churchill gave the go-ahead at the end of August 1941, and on September 3 the British chiefs of staff concurred. “Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives,” wrote Churchill, “I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.”³⁰

After reviewing the British findings, Vannevar Bush recommended to Roosevelt that the United States expedite its research for an atomic bomb. That was October 9, 1941. The project, Bush warned, would require a vast industrial plant “costing many times as much as a major oil refinery”—an estimate woefully short of what the project would ultimately entail.³¹ The president pigeonholed Bush’s recommendation. Then came Pearl Harbor. On January 19, 1942, he returned the memo to Bush with a terse reply handwritten on White House stationery:

V.B.

OK—returned—I think you had best keep this in your own safe.

—FDR³²

Roosevelt’s “OK” galvanized American efforts. Secretary of War Stimson went to Capitol Hill for the money—“I don’t want to know why,” said Sam Rayburn, who arranged with Appropriations Committee chairman Clarence Cannon to conceal the funds in the War Department budget.³³Robert Oppenheimer of the University of California assembled physicists to work on bomb design; General Leslie R. Groves of the Corps of Engineers, fresh from building the Pentagon, assumed direction of the “Manhattan Project,” named for a mythical Manhattan engineering district; and in December 1942 Enrico Fermi, an Italian Nobel laureate who had fled to the United States with his Jewish wife after Italy enacted Nazi-like racial laws, attained a sustained chain reaction in his Chicago laboratory, establishing the reality of what until then had been merely a theoretical prospect. Curiously, while the United States and Britain were moving ahead, Germany dropped out of the race. In the autumn of 1942 Albert Speer, the Third Reich’s armaments minister, after conferring with scientists Otto Hahn and Werner Heisenberg, decided the construction of an atomic bomb was too uncertain and too expensive. “It would have meant giving up all other projects.” The decision to cancel the effort came easily for Speer. Hitler was uninterested in an atomic weapon and disparaged nuclear science as “Jewish physics.”^34* Japan also discontinued its efforts in 1943, scientists telling the government that neither the United States nor Germany could possibly develop a weapon that would be usable in the current war.³⁵

From the beginning Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to cooperate. In October 1941, shortly after their meeting off Newfoundland, FDR wrote Churchill suggesting that American and British nuclear efforts be coordinated “or even jointly conducted.”³⁶ Churchill followed up during his visit to Hyde Park in June 1942. At the prime minister’s suggestion it was agreed that the programs be combined and that future research and development be conducted in the United States. Churchill believed continued German air attacks made it unwise to locate the massive facilities needed to construct a bomb in Great Britain.³⁷ This momentous decision to share the development of an atomic weapon was made on the spot by Roosevelt and Churchill. Neither had his scientific advisers with him at Hyde Park—although Hopkins was sitting in a corner when the deal was struck—and there was no written record of the agreement. The president and Churchill felt sufficiently self-confident to plunge ahead on their own.³⁸

As work on the atomic bomb progressed, American officials charged with the bomb’s development grew reluctant to share secrets with the British. Churchill raised the matter with FDR at the TRIDENT conference in May 1943, and Roosevelt once more agreed that the enterprise was a joint one “to which both countries would contribute their best endeavors.”³⁹ The president instructed Vannevar Bush to be fully forthcoming with the British, but evidently there was sand in the gearbox. British scientists continued to believe the Americans were holding back. To resolve the problem, Churchill asked FDR for a written commitment, to which the president quickly agreed. The final version, typed out on stationery from the Quebec Citadel, where both were staying, promised to share the results of the Manhattan Project, keep it secret, and not use the weapon against each other, or against anyone else without mutual consent.⁴⁰

On the day before they signed the atomic accord, Roosevelt and Churchill cabled Stalin a joint invitation for a personal meeting sometime later in Alaska, where they could “survey the whole scene in common” at this “crucial point in the war.”⁴¹ Roosevelt had not met Stalin and was eager to negotiate postwar matters, preferably one on one, but with Churchill if necessary. Stalin sidestepped the invitation—he neither accepted nor rejected it—and suggested that the foreign ministers of the three nations meet to discuss matters. FDR and Churchill embraced the idea, and on September 4, 1943—the day after Italy surrendered—the president again wrote Stalin to suggest they get together, perhaps in Cairo. Four days later, with U.S. and British troops pouring ashore in Italy, Stalin agreed. The Soviet leader said that because of his command responsibilities he could not travel as far as North Africa, but he recommended Teheran sometime in November or December. As a preliminary, Stalin suggested the foreign ministers meet in Moscow in October. FDR agreed. “I really feel that the three of us are making real headway,” he told Stalin. Churchill was equally pleased. “On this meeting may depend not only the best and shortest method for finishing the war, but also those good arrangements for the future of the world which will enable the British and American and Russian nations to render a lasting service to humanity.”⁴²

It was during the Quebec conference that the feud between Cordell Hull and Sumner Welles at the State Department reached a climax. Hull had chafed for years that FDR often dealt directly with Welles; that he bypassed Hull and excluded him from major foreign policy decisions. It was Welles, not Hull, who attended wartime conferences with Churchill, who carried the mail for the president on special missions abroad, and with whom foreign ambassadors preferred to deal after paying routine courtesy calls on the secretary. Yet Hull knew Welles was vulnerable. His homosexual advances to Pullman car porters at the time of Speaker William Bankhead’s Alabama funeral in 1940 were a matter of record.

Roosevelt chose to ignore the incident, believing it was a momentary lapse triggered by alcohol and fatigue, and felt confident the episode would soon be forgotten.⁴³ Hull was less forgiving and over the years amassed evidence pertaining to the encounter. When J. Edgar Hoover and the Department of Justice declined to provide Hull access to Welles’s file, he sought out FDR’s former confidant William Bullitt, who had been the original source of the information. With Bullitt’s aid Hull leaked the story to Maine’s Republican junior senator, Owen Brewster (who later made headlines pursuing Howard Hughes).^* When Brewster threatened a Senate probe, Hull had what he wanted. Lunching with FDR on August 15, 1943, he demanded Welles’s scalp. Either Welles went or he would resign, said Hull.⁴⁴

Roosevelt had no choice. A Senate investigation of the incident, particularly as to why the president had kept Welles on the job for almost three years afterward, would deal a blow to Democratic chances in 1944. Of more immediate concern, Roosevelt needed Hull to ensure continued support in Congress—where his majority (at least in the House) was paper thin. Many Southern Democrats idolized Hull, and Roosevelt could not afford to cut him loose. Shortly after meeting with Hull on August 15, FDR sent for Welles and requested his resignation. To soften the blow, he offered Welles a roving ambassadorship to Latin America, which Welles refused. Roosevelt may have hoped he could find a way to retain Welles, because he did not announce his resignation until September 25. The press suggested that differences with Hull were the cause. No mention was made of Welles’s sexual preference.

Roosevelt took the loss bitterly. When Bullitt called at the White House soon afterward and asked to be appointed undersecretary in Welles’s place, the president exploded. “I remember coming back to the White House one day and finding Franklin shaking with anger,” said Eleanor. “He was white with wrath.” According to ER, the president told Bullitt:

Bill, if I were St. Peter and you and Sumner came before me, I would say to Sumner, “No matter what you have done, you have hurt no one but yourself. I recognize human frailties. Come in.” But to you I would say, “You have not only hurt another human being, you have deprived your country of the services of a good citizen; and for that you can go straight to Hell.”⁴⁵

FDR was bitter not only at Bullitt. After Welles’s departure the State Department found itself shunted into diplomatic limbo. Hull attended the Moscow conference of foreign ministers in October, but after that the diplomats were relegated to the sidelines. Except for providing interpreters and note takers, no one from Hull’s State Department attended a major wartime conference, and the correspondence that passed between FDR and Churchill and Stalin was rarely seen in Foggy Bottom.

With the tide of battle shifting in favor of the Allies, Roosevelt turned briefly to the domestic scene. Mobilization brought unprecedented prosperity to America, and FDR looked to the future. Speaking to the nation in a fireside chat in late summer, the president addressed the problem of reconversion. “While concentrating on military victory,” said Roosevelt, we must not neglect planning for things to come, particularly “the return to civilian life of our gallant men and women in the armed forces. They must not be demobilized into an environment of inflation and unemployment, to a place on a bread line, or on a corner selling apples.”⁴⁶

That autumn, in a domestic initiative such as the United States had not seen since the hundred days, Roosevelt asked Congress for a massive program of education and training for returning servicemen—soon to be known as the G.I. Bill of Rights. Ever since his early visits to Warm Springs, Georgia, in the 1920s, FDR had been disturbed by the poor quality of education in many parts of the country. As Sam Rosenman noted, “he often made it clear in private conversation that he felt strongly that there was no reason why a child born in some county too poor to sustain a good school system should have to start life in competition with children from sections of the country that had fine schools.”⁴⁷ Roosevelt saw the returning veterans as a way to level the playing field—a means of introducing a federal aid to education that was politically irresistible.

The president’s message to Congress requested federal support for college and vocational training for every returning veteran for up to four years, with increased stipends for those who were married and had dependents. “Lack of money,” said Roosevelt, “should not prevent any veteran of this war from equipping himself for the most useful employment for which his aptitudes and willingness qualify him.… I believe the Nation is morally obligated to provide this training and education and the necessary financial assistance by which they can be secured.”⁴⁸

In the months that followed Roosevelt tapped into the support of veterans’ and patriotic organizations to expand benefits for returning servicemen: generous unemployment insurance, job counseling, and enhanced medical care, as well as guaranteed low-cost loans for buying homes and farms and covering business costs. Despite the anti–New Deal complexion of the Seventy-eighth Congress, the G.I. Bill of Rights passed both Houses unanimously. Roosevelt signed it into law June 22, 1944. “While further study and experience may suggest some changes and improvements, Congress is to be congratulated on the prompt action it has taken.”⁴⁹

The G.I. Bill changed the face of America. Not only did it make colleges and universities accessible, it overturned the states’ rights taboo against federal funding for education. Until World War II, less than 5 percent of the nation’s college-age population attended universities. The cost of a year in college was roughly equal to the average annual wage, and there were few scholarships. Higher education was a privileged enclave for the children of the well-to-do. Under the G.I. Bill more than a million former servicemen and women attended universities at government expense in the immediate postwar years.⁵⁰ In the peak year of 1947, veterans accounted for 49 percent of total college enrollment. And of the 15 million who served in the armed forces during World War II, more than half took advantage of the schooling opportunities provided by the G.I. Bill.⁵¹ The educational level of the nation rose dramatically. So did the country’s self-esteem. As Stanford historian David Kennedy observed, FDR’s veterans legislation “aimed not at restructuring the economy but at empowering individuals. It roared on after 1945 as a kind of afterburner to the engines of social change and upward mobility that the war had ignited, propelling an entire generation along an ascending curve of achievement and affluence that their parents could not have dreamed.”⁵²

On the evening of Armistice Day, Saturday, November 11, 1943, Roosevelt and his immediate White House staff—Hopkins, Admiral Leahy, Doc McIntire, and Pa Watson—drove to the Marine Base at Quantico, Virginia, where they boarded the presidential yacht Potomac on the first leg of the journey to Teheran. The departure was nothing out of the ordinary—another weekend fishing trip like so many in the past. Sunday morning, just off Cherry Point, Virginia, at the confluence of the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay, the presidential craft pulled alongside the USS Iowa,the latest of a new class of battleships, for the long ocean crossing.⁵³ “Everything is very comfortable,” Franklin wrote Eleanor. “Weather good and warm enough to sit with only a sweater over an old pair of trousers and a fishing shirt.… It is a relief to have no newspapers.”⁵⁴

In addition to Hopkins and the president’s personal staff, the Iowa’s passengers included General Marshall, Admiral King, General Arnold, and a full complement of military planners. Notably absent was any senior official from the State Department. The long voyage across the Atlantic allowed Roosevelt time to discuss major strategic issues with his military advisers before meeting Churchill and Stalin. The subject of postwar Europe was considered in detail. When General Marshall asked about zones of occupation, FDR reached for a National Geographic Society map of Germany and penciled in demarcation lines. “There is going to be a race for Berlin,” said the president, “and the United States should have Berlin.”⁵⁵

In Roosevelt’s sketch the American and Russian occupation zones met at Berlin. The large American Zone comprised northwest Germany, including the ports of Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Lübeck, and Rostock; the Russians would hold a smaller zone in the East, and the British were relegated to Bavaria and the Black Forest. The president told Marshall that perhaps a million U.S. troops would remain in Germany “for at least one year and possibly two.”⁵⁶ General Marshall assumed the occupation of Germany was a military problem. The commander in chief had provided definitive guidance, and insofar as Marshall was concerned the matter was closed. Roosevelt’s map was filed away, and the meeting adjourned.^57*

Steaming at twenty-five knots and Condition of Readiness Three, which required one third of her crew at battle stations at all times, the Iowa arrived at the port city of Oran in French Algeria the morning of November 20, eight days after leaving Chesapeake Bay. Waiting for Roosevelt when he came ashore were General Eisenhower and the president’s sons Elliott and Franklin, Jr., who were stationed nearby. “The sea voyage had done father good,” Elliott recalled. “He looked fit and he was filled with excited anticipation of the days ahead.”⁵⁸ The president inspected the ruins at Carthage and that evening dined with Ike, Kay Summersby, Admiral Leahy, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, Elliott, and Franklin, Jr., at Eisenhower’s villa overlooking the Gulf of Tunis.⁵⁹

From Tunis Roosevelt flew to Cairo, where he met with Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek. Churchill insisted on meeting the president before they saw Stalin, but FDR was reluctant to appear to be caucusing. He agreed to the meeting only if China were invited and spent much of his time in Cairo with Chiang and his wife. Roosevelt was concerned about China’s postwar role in the Pacific. “I really feel that it is a triumph to have got the four hundred and twenty-five million Chinese in on the Allied side,” he wrote. “This will be very useful 25 or 50 years hence, even though China cannot contribute much military or naval support for the moment.”⁶⁰ Churchill took a more jaundiced view. “Our talks,” he said, “were sadly distracted by the Chinese story, which was lengthy, complicated, and minor.”⁶¹

The high point of the four days in Cairo was Thanksgiving dinner at the residence of the American minister on November 25. “Let’s make it a family affair,” said FDR as he carved two enormous turkeys for the nineteen British and American guests. “This took a long time,” Churchill remembered, “and those of us who were helped first had finished before the President had cut anything for himself. As I watched the huge platefuls he distributed I feared that he might be left with nothing at all. But he had calculated to a nicety, and I was relieved when at last the two skeletons were removed to see him set about his own share.”⁶²

After dinner Hopkins unearthed an ancient gramophone and began to play dance music. Churchill’s actress daughter Sarah was the only woman present and was in great demand. Never one to be outdone, the prime minister asked Pa Watson, the president’s big, jovial military aide to dance, much to the amusement of FDR, who roared with laughter as the two fox-trotted to the tunes of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, and Harry James. “For a couple of hours we cast care aside,” wrote Churchill. “I had never seen the President more gay.”⁶³

Roosevelt landed in Teheran Saturday afternoon, November 27, 1943, following a six-and-a-half-hour, 1,300-mile flight from Cairo. Initially the president planned to stay at the American legation, but the distance between the legation and the British and Soviet embassies was such that after one night he accepted Marshal Stalin’s invitation to stay at the guest house in the Russian compound. Driving through the narrow, crowded streets of Teheran posed a security risk for each of the Big Three, and by staying close to one another the need to do so was eliminated.

Roosevelt was eager to meet Stalin. The president had come to Teheran determined to strike up a working relationship with the Soviet leader, and as Hopkins told Lord Moran, “he is not going to allow anything to interfere with that purpose. After all,” said Hopkins, “he has spent his life managing men, and Stalin at bottom could not be so very different from other people.” To FDR, Stalin was “Uncle Joe” (“U.J.” in his cables to Churchill), and he was confident that even if he could not convert him into a good democrat, he could at least establish a personal bond.⁶⁴

Nevertheless, Roosevelt did not know quite what to expect. Churchill told him that Stalin was remarkably astute, with a startling capacity for “swift and complete mastery of a problem hitherto novel to him.”⁶⁵ Averell Harriman, FDR’s ambassador in Moscow, considered the Soviet dictator “the most inscrutable and contradictory character I have ever known—a baffling man of high intelligence and fantastic grasp of detail.” Later Harriman wrote that Stalin was “better informed than Roosevelt, more realistic than Churchill, and in some ways the most effective of the war leaders. At the same time he was, of course, a murderous tyrant.”⁶⁶ Hopkins warned Stalin was strictly business. “He does not repeat himself. There is no waste of word, gesture, or mannerism.… He’s built close to the ground, like a football coach’s dream of a tackle. His hands are huge, as hard as his mind. His voice is harsh [Stalin, like Roosevelt, was a chain-smoker], but ever under control. What he says is all the accent and inflection his words need.”⁶⁷

Roosevelt was not burdened at Teheran by briefing books and position papers. The issues he wanted to discuss with Stalin were political, and the president steered his own course. “He did not like any rules or regulations to bind him,” remembered Charles Bohlen, who as a young foreign service officer served as FDR’s interpreter.^* “He preferred to act by improvisation rather than by plan.”⁶⁸

Scarcely had the president settled into his quarters in the Soviet compound than Marshal Stalin walked over to meet him. “Stalin sort of ambled across the room toward Roosevelt grinning,” Mike Reilly of the Secret Service recalled.⁶⁹ He wore a simple khaki tunic with the star of the Order of Lenin on his chest. As Roosevelt and Stalin shook hands, the president said, “I am glad to see you. I have tried for a long time to bring this about.” Stalin, after expressing his pleasure, accepted blame for the delay because he had been “very occupied with military matters.”⁷⁰ The two chatted informally for almost an hour—half an hour, actually, because of the translation required. When Roosevelt spoke, Bohlen translated; when Stalin spoke, the duty fell to Vladimir Pavlov. To ease translation, each spoke for short periods, allowing the interpreter to intervene before continuing. According to Bohlen, Roosevelt and Stalin were very good at this. “Churchill was much too carried away by his own eloquence to pay much attention.”⁷¹ Each of the Big Three spoke through his own interpreter. Presumably that person would better understand what his leader was trying to say and would be more familiar with the country’s idiom.

The first formal conference of the Big Three convened at 4 P.M. Sunday in the conference room of the Soviet Embassy, which had been especially fitted with a large round table to preempt any question of who would sit at the head. Each country had four seats. Ambassador Harriman sat to FDR’s right, Bohlen at his left, and Hopkins next to Bohlen. With Stalin were Molotov, Pavlov, and Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, an old sidekick of Stalin’s from the Revolution. Churchill brought Anthony Eden, Lord Ismay, and his interpreter, Major Arthur Birse. Soviet secret police stood guard. As the only head of state, Roosevelt was asked to preside at the first session, and at FDR’s insistence there was no formal agenda. In fact, there was no agenda for any of the plenary sessions.⁷²

Informality prevailed. “Everything was so relaxed it did not seem possible that the three most powerful men in the world were about to make decisions involving the lives and fortunes of millions of people,” said Bohlen.⁷³ Roosevelt opened on a light note: as the youngest member present, he wished to welcome his elders. Churchill pointed out that they held the future of mankind in their hands. Stalin, as host, welcomed his guests. “History,” he said, “has given us a great opportunity. Now let us get down to business.”⁷⁴

After a tour d’horizon the discussion turned to Germany. During the plenary session and at dinner that evening, conversation focused on the postwar period. Roosevelt several times suggested that Hitler was mentally unbalanced and had led the German people astray. Stalin demurred. Hitler was a very able man, he thought. “Not basically intelligent, lacking in culture, and with a primitive approach to political problems, [but] only a very able man could accomplish what Hitler had done in solidifying the German people whatever we thought of the methods.”⁷⁵

Stalin believed Germany should be dismembered. The Germans, he said, were a very talented people and could easily revive within fifteen or twenty years. Disarmament was insufficient. Furniture and watch factories could make airplanes and shell fuses. He preferred dismemberment—“as Richelieu had done three hundred years ago.”⁷⁶

Churchill said he was primarily interested in seeing Prussia—“the evil core of German militarism”—separated from the rest of Germany.⁷⁷ Roosevelt proposed the division of Germany into five parts, plus two regions, Hamburg and the Ruhr, placed under international control. Stalin said he preferred the president’s plan to Mr. Churchill’s, but “if Germany is to be dismembered, it should really be dismembered.”

“Germany had been less dangerous to civilization when divided into 107 provinces,” Roosevelt responded.

“I would have hoped for larger units,” said Churchill.⁷⁸

At one point Stalin wryly suggested that 50,000 officers of the German general staff should be summarily executed at the end of the war. Bohlen saw that Stalin was smiling sardonically as he spoke, and so did FDR. “Not fifty thousand, but perhaps forty-nine thousand,” the president shot back. Churchill was not amused. He did not perceive that Stalin was goading him and rose to the bait. Britain would never tolerate such an outrage, he passionately responded. “I would rather be taken out in the garden here and be shot myself rather than sully my own and my country’s honor by such infamy.”⁷⁹

Dinner the first evening was hosted by Roosevelt. As during “children’s hour” at the White House, the president commenced proceedings by mixing martinis for his guests. Over the years FDR’s martinis had become increasingly heavy on the vermouth, often both sweet and dry. Stalin accepted a glass and drank without comment until Roosevelt asked him how he liked it. “Well, all right, but it is cold on the stomach.”⁸⁰ Bohlen noted that Stalin was not a heavy drinker. He took vodka sparingly and much preferred wines from his native Georgia. Roosevelt was much impressed. Stalin is a very interesting man, he told Frances Perkins. “They say he is a peasant from one of the least progressive parts of Russia. But let me tell you he had an elegance of manner that none of the rest of us had.”⁸¹

After dinner Churchill raised the question of Poland. “It would be very valuable if here at Teheran the representatives of the three governments could work out some agreed understanding on the question of Polish frontiers.” Stalin said he did not feel any necessity to discuss the Polish question just yet but was curious what the prime minister had in mind. Churchill said that Great Britain had gone to war with Germany in 1939 because Poland had been invaded. The British government was committed to the reestablishment of a strong Polish state—“an instrument needed in the orchestra of Europe”—but was not attached to any specific frontiers. He suggested moving Poland west. The Soviet Union would retain what it took in 1939, and Poland would be compensated by shifting its border westward to the Oder, taking the German provinces East Prussia, Silesia, and Pomerania. To illustrate his point, Churchill placed three matchsticks representing Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union on the table. He then moved them east to west “like soldiers at drill executing ‘two steps left, close.’ ”⁸²

Roosevelt, who had retired earlier, took no part in the discussion. Later he met privately with Stalin to discuss the Polish issue. He said he did not object to moving the Polish border westward to the Oder, but for political reasons he could not yet endorse it. A presidential election was coming up in 1944, and although he did not wish to run again, he might have to if the war was still going on. “There are from six to seven million Americans of Polish extraction in the United States and as a practical man I do not wish to lose their vote.”⁸³ Having alienated many Italian-American voters with his stab-in-the-back speech in 1940, FDR did not want to antagonize the Poles as well.

Stalin replied that he now understood the president’s dilemma and would not complicate the problem for him. Later he told Churchill that he earnestly wanted Roosevelt reelected and believed it would be much to the world’s advantage if he were.⁸⁴ FDR’s mention of the 1944 election to Stalin at Teheran is the first indication the president gave that he might seek a fourth term.

Roosevelt also alluded to the Baltic states. There were a number of people in the United States of Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian origin. The United States was not going to war with the Soviet Union to protect the independence of the three Baltic states, he joked, but he hoped Stalin would permit some type of plebiscite to express the will of the people. The right of self-determination was a moral issue for most Americans. Stalin said there would be abundant opportunity under the Soviet constitution for the Baltic people to express themselves. Roosevelt replied that it would be very helpful to him personally if some public declaration of future elections could be made.⁸⁵

The principal issue at Teheran was the second front. At the first plenary session of the Big Three, Stalin, in an almost matter-of-fact tone, confirmed that Russia would join the war against Japan once Germany was defeated. Soviet forces in Siberia would be reinforced and then take the offensive.⁸⁶ This was a significant Russian commitment and drastically reduced the importance of China to the Pacific war effort.⁸⁷ But the Soviet Union expected a quid pro quo. When were the Allies going to land in France?

Roosevelt believed that at Quebec he had received Churchill’s absolute assurance for a cross-Channel invasion no later than May 1, 1944. But Churchill evidently had reservations. Employing his vast reservoir of rhetoric, the prime minister dissembled. He spoke at length about the virtues of alternative approaches—Italy, Turkey, the island of Rhodes, the Balkans—and the shortage of landing craft for an invasion of France.

Stalin replied bluntly. From the Russian point of view Turkey, Rhodes, Yugoslavia, and even the capture of Rome were irrelevant. “If we are here to discuss military matters, Russia is only interested in OVERLORD.”⁸⁸ Roosevelt came down hard on Stalin’s side. “We are all agreed that OVERLORD is the dominating operation, and that any operation which might delay OVERLORD cannot be considered by us.”⁸⁹ The president said he favored sticking to the original date set at Quebec, namely the first part of May.⁹⁰

For all practical purposes the issue was settled. As Hopkins recalled, Stalin looked at Churchill as if to say, “Well, what about that?”⁹¹ He then pressed on: “I do not care if it is the 1st of May, or the 15th, or the 20th. But a definite date is important.”

He turned to Roosevelt. “Who will command OVERLORD?” The president was caught off guard.^* It was widely assumed that General Marshall would be named, but FDR apparently had second thoughts. He told Stalin no decision had been made. “Then nothing will come out of these operations,” said Stalin. The Soviet Union had learned that in military matters decisions could not be made by committee. “One man must be responsible and one man must make decisions.”⁹²

Churchill fought a rearguard action. The Mediterranean ought not be neglected. Once again he argued the case from every conceivable angle. Stalin allowed that such operations might have value but were diversions. “Do the British really believe in OVERLORD or are they only saying so to make us feel better?”⁹³

Churchill glowered, chomped on his cigar, and suggested that his Mediterranean proposals be considered by the military staffs. “Why do that?” asked Stalin. “We are the chiefs of government. We know what we want to do. Why turn the matter over to subordinates to advise us?”⁹⁴

With the mood at the table turning testy, Roosevelt adjourned the meeting for dinner. That evening Hopkins called on Churchill at the British Embassy. Whether FDR sent him is unclear. Hopkins told Churchill he was fighting a losing battle. Roosevelt was determined to hold to the May date for the cross-Channel attack, and the Russian view was equally firm. Hopkins told Churchill there was little he could do to prevent it, and he advised the prime minister to yield gracefully.⁹⁵

The effect of Hopkins’s visit cannot be measured for certain. But the next day the British announced their agreement to OVERLORD. The Combined Chiefs set the invasion date for May 1944 in conjunction with supporting landings in southern France (ANVIL). Stalin pledged a simultaneous Soviet offensive to pin the Germans down and prevent the transfer of any divisions to the West. Churchill suggested they needed a cover plan to confuse and deceive the enemy. “The truth,” he said, “deserves a bodyguard of lies.”⁹⁶

“I thank the Lord Stalin was there,” wrote Stimson when he learned of the discussion at Teheran. “He saved the day. He was direct and strong and he brushed away the diversionary attempts of the Prime Minister with a vigor which rejoiced my soul.”⁹⁷

November 30, 1943, the third day of the conference, was Churchill’s sixty-ninth birthday, and dinner that evening at the British Embassy was a gala celebration. “This was a memorable occasion in my life,” wrote Churchill. “On my right sat the President of the United States, and on my left the master of Russia. Together we controlled practically all the naval and three-quarters of all the air forces in the world, and could direct armies of nearly twenty millions of men, engaged in the most terrible of wars that had yet occurred in human history.”⁹⁸

Bohlen reports that the table was set with British elegance. The crystal and silver sparkled in the candlelight.⁹⁹ “The speeches started directly we sat down and continued without interruption until we got up,” Lord Ismay recalled.¹⁰⁰ Churchill praised Roosevelt, whose courage and foresight had “prevented a revolution in the United States in 1933,” and followed with a toast to Stalin, “who would be ranked with the great heroes of Russian history.”

Stalin responded that the honors heaped upon him belonged to the Russian people. “The Red Army has fought heroically, but the Russian people would have tolerated nothing less. Persons of medium courage and even cowards become heroes in Russia. Those who do not are shot. It is dangerous to be a coward in Russia.”¹⁰¹

The conviviality continued all evening. “I felt that there was a greater sense of solidarity and good-comradeship than we had ever reached before,” wrote Churchill.¹⁰² “Uncle Joe enjoyed himself as much as anybody,” said the prime minister’s secretary, John Martin.¹⁰³

At one point Churchill remarked, “England is getting pinker.”

“It is a sign of good health,” Stalin responded.

“I drink to the proletarian masses,” said Churchill.

“I drink to the Conservative Party,” replied Stalin.

“I believe that God is on our side,” said Churchill. “At least I have done my best to make him a faithful ally.”

“And the devil is on my side,” Stalin, a former seminary student, rejoined. “Everyone knows the devil is a Communist—and God, no doubt, is a good Conservative.”¹⁰⁴

As Churchill raised his glass for the concluding toast, Stalin requested the privilege of proposing one more toast—to the president and people of the United States:

I want to tell you, from the Russian point of view, what the President and the United States have done to win the war. The most important thing in this war are machines. The United States has proven it can turn out 10,000 airplanes a month. Russia can turn out, at most, 3,000 airplanes a month. The United States is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines, through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war.¹⁰⁵

Stalin’s generous and unexpected tribute to American aid prompted Roosevelt to request the last word. He compared the Grand Alliance to a rainbow of many colors, “each individualistic, but blending into one glorious whole. Thus with our nations, we have differing customs and philosophies and ways of life. But we have proved here at Teheran that the varying ideas of our nations can come together in a harmonious whole, moving unitedly for the common good of ourselves and of the world.”¹⁰⁶

Roosevelt had been concerned at Teheran to break through to Stalin. “For the first three days I made absolutely no progress,” he told Frances Perkins. On the final day

I began to tease Churchill about his Britishness. [FDR had forewarned the PM.] It began to register on Stalin. Winston got red and scowled, and the more he did so the more Stalin smiled. Finally Stalin broke into a deep, hearty guffaw, and for the first time in three days I saw light. I kept it up until Stalin was laughing with me, and it was then I called him “Uncle Joe.” He would have thought me fresh the day before, but that day he laughed and came over and shook my hand. The ice was broken and we talked like men and brothers.¹⁰⁷

The president need not have tried so hard. Stalin had bugged FDR’s suite and knew the details of every conversation. The eavesdropping was entrusted to Sergo Beria, the nineteen-year-old son of secret police head Lavrenti Beria. (Sergo and Stalin’s daughter Svetlana were the same age and as children had often played together.) “I want to entrust you with a mission that is delicate and morally reprehensible,” Stalin told the young Beria on the eve of the conference. “You are going to listen to the conversations that Roosevelt will have with Churchill, with the other British, and with his own circle. I must know everything in detail, be aware of all shades of meaning.”

“I have never done anything with such enthusiasm,” Sergo confessed. He briefed Stalin at eight every morning. “It’s bizarre,” said the Soviet dictator. “They say everything in the fullest detail. Do you think they know we are listening to them?” Beria doubted it. The microphones were so well hidden that his own team could not spot them. “I was able to establish from my eavesdropping that Roosevelt felt great respect and sympathy for Stalin. Admiral Leahy tried several times to persuade him to be firmer with the Soviet leader. Every time he received the reply: ‘That doesn’t matter. Do you think you can see further than I can? I am pursuing this policy because I think it is more advantageous. We are not going to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the British.’ ”^108*

Roosevelt departed Teheran for Cairo in the early-morning hours of Thursday, December 2, 1943. The president had promised Stalin and Churchill to name a commander for OVERLORD within a week but had not reached a decision. Originally Roosevelt had planned to name Marshall. “I want George to have the big Command,” he told Eisenhower in Tunis. “He is entitled to establish his place in history as a great general.”¹⁰⁹ Hopkins and Stimson backed the choice of Marshall vigorously, and both Churchill and Stalin believed he would get the nod. Marshall may have assumed so as well. Although he refused to express any views on the appointment, Mrs. Marshall had quietly begun moving the family’s personal belongings out of Quarters One at Fort Myer to Lexington, Virginia, and there were stories that Marshall had crated his large Pentagon desk that once belonged to General Philip Sheridan for shipment to London.¹¹⁰

Yet there was good reason for Roosevelt to hesitate. General John J. Pershing, who knew both Marshall and Eisenhower, wrote the president from his bed at Walter Reed Hospital to caution against transferring Marshall to Europe. Both the command structure in Washington and the command structure in Europe were working well, said Pershing. “It would be a fundamental and very grave error in our military policy to break up working relationships at both levels.”¹¹¹

Marshall’s colleagues on the Joint Chiefs also voiced concern. Leahy, King, and Arnold believed it essential to retain Marshall as a member of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, where he could fight for American concepts of Allied strategy.¹¹² “None of us, least of all myself, wanted to deny Marshall the thing he wanted most,” wrote Leahy. “On the other hand, he was a tower of strength to Roosevelt and to the high command.”¹¹³

Roosevelt was also concerned about the carping of the conservative press in the United States, some of which saw Marshall’s transfer to Europe as a left-wing plot to elevate General Brehon Somervell or Eisenhower to chief of staff. That could make them possible running mates if FDR sought a fourth term. Somervell, who headed the WPA in New York under Hopkins, was considered an ardent New Dealer (which surely would have astonished Somervell), and Eisenhower was believed to be a closet Democrat. Above all, however, there was the problem of dealing with the fractious Seventy-eighth Congress. As far as most members of Congress were concerned, George Marshall could do no wrong, and Roosevelt wondered if a new chief of staff would enjoy similar credibility.

On the other side of the ledger, Roosevelt had taken Eisenhower’s measure during the two days he spent in Tunis and liked what he saw. Ike had proved his ability to command large multinational coalitions in battle, had defeated the Germans in North Africa and Sicily, and had successful working relationships with Montgomery, Bradley, and Patton, who would likely command the forces on the ground in France. He worked well with the British high command—General Sir Harold Alexander, Air Marshal Tedder, and Admiral Cunningham were unanimous in their praise—and he had demonstrated a unique ability to underplay American special interests for the benefit of the common cause—an essential ability that George Marshall may not have possessed, or that may have been substantially eroded after two years of making the case for the United States on the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Said differently, Roosevelt had come to believe that Eisenhower might actually be a better fit to head the cross-Channel attack, although the job was Marshall’s if he wanted it.

In Cairo, Roosevelt delegated Hopkins to determine what Marshall preferred. “I shall accept any decision the President would make,” said Marshall.¹¹⁴ The chief of staff realized that FDR was wavering. The following day, Sunday, December 5, the president sent for Marshall shortly before lunch. “I was determined,” Marshall said later, “that I should not embarrass the President one way or the other—that he must be able to deal in this matter with a perfectly free hand in whatever he felt was the best interests of the country.”¹¹⁵

As Marshall recalled, Roosevelt beat around the bush for a while “and then asked what I wanted to do. Evidently it was left up to me.” Again Marshall replied that it was the president’s decision to make. His own feelings did not matter. “I would cheerfully go whatever way he wanted me to go and I didn’t express any desire one way or the other.”

“Then it will be Eisenhower,” said Roosevelt. “I don’t think I could sleep at night if you were out of Washington.”¹¹⁶ The president dictated to Marshall a message for Stalin:

The immediate appointment of General Eisenhower to command of OVERLORD operation has been decided upon.

—Roosevelt^117*

The selection of Eisenhower as supreme commander in Europe was the last major military decision Roosevelt was required to make. FDR did not second-guess or micromanage the military. More than any president before or since, he was uniquely able to select outstanding military leaders and give them sufficient discretion to do their jobs. Leahy, Marshall, King, and Arnold made a cohesive team at the highest level, and they handled their individual service responsibilities superbly. In the Pacific, Roosevelt turned to MacArthur over War Department objections, and he named Nimitz to command the fleet despite the lukewarm enthusiasm of more senior admirals. Eisenhower ranked 252nd on the Army list when Marshall chose him to head the North African invasion, and he was still well down when FDR tapped him as supreme commander.

Roosevelt’s stance toward the military differed substantially from his approach to domestic matters. Unlike the professional accomplishment he sought from the admirals and generals, his civilian appointments reflected the demands of politics. Hull, Ickes, Wallace, and Frances Perkins spoke for particular constituencies whose support the president needed. They symbolized his political coalition, but they were not free to set policy in their individual bailiwicks. Roosevelt did not hesitate to dip down to resolve departmental issues, often structured competing lines of authority, and had no hesitation in second-guessing decisions his subordinates had made. Cabinet officers were kept on a short leash; the military were free to roam the reservation.

Like FDR’s other military choices, Eisenhower rose to the occasion. The planning for D-Day, inter-Allied cooperation, and the logistical backup left little to be desired. At the crucial moment, with a brief break in the weather, Eisenhower made the decision to land on June 6, 1944, entirely on his own authority. Washington and London were informed but not consulted. The bravery, conditioning, and discipline of the troops who hit the beaches carried the day against determined German resistance. Three million men organized into thirty-nine divisions—twenty American, fourteen British, three Canadian, one Polish, and one French—constituted the invasion force. They were supported by 12,000 aircraft and the largest naval armada ever assembled. At the last moment Churchill decided he wanted to participate. Eisenhower could not dissuade him. George VI finally intervened. If his prime minister was going to take part in the landing, so would he. Except for the air raids on London, said the King, he had not been under fire since the Battle of Jutland, and he eagerly welcomed the prospect of renewing the experiences of his youth.¹¹⁸ At that point Churchill saw the problem: Britain could not risk losing the King or a prime minister. He yielded to Eisenhower’s wishes.

^* When Field Marshal von Rundstedt launched his counterattack in the Ardennes in December 1944, his ten panzer divisions possessed a total of 1,241 tanks. By contrast, Eisenhower’s order of battle included 7,079 medium tanks alone. As the commander of a German 88 mm gun unit remarked, “The Americans kept sending tanks down the road. We kept knocking them out. Every time they sent a tank we knocked it out. Finally we ran out of ammunition and they didn’t run out of tanks.” John Ellis, Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War 335, 421 (New York: Viking, 1990).

^* Mandatory contract renegotiation and the recapture of excess profits faced repeated court challenges, but in the end the Supreme Court upheld the Army’s authority. Said Justice Harold Burton for the Court, “The constitutionality of the conscription of manpower for military service is beyond question. The constitutional power of Congress to support the armed forces with equipment and supplies is no less clear and sweeping. The mandatory renegotiation of contracts is valid, a fortiori.” Lichter v. United States, 334 U.S. 742 (1948).

^* Churchill repeated the performance in 1959 as he was riding with President Eisenhower to his farm in Gettysburg. Ike recited the famous “Shoot if you must” lines as they drove through Frederick, and Churchill again quoted the entire poem from memory. New York Herald Tribune, May 11, 1959.

^* Eight divisions (four British, three American, and one Canadian), a total of 175,000 men, hit the beaches the first day. Within two days 478,000 troops were ashore. At Normandy, by contrast, and despite earlier projections, the Allies landed only five divisions plus three British armored brigades, a total of 150,000 men, on D-Day. B. H. Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War 440 (London: Cassell, 1970); Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, A War to Be Won 420 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000).

^* Under German tutelage Mussolini proclaimed the “Italian Socialist Republic” with its headquarters at Salò on the banks of Lake Garda in northern Italy. Badoglio and King Victor Emmanuel fled safely to the Adriatic resort city of Brindisi, where they were protected by British forces. The Italian Navy, including four battleships, sailed to Malta, where it ceremoniously surrendered to the British.

^* Einstein’s letter, dated August 2, 1939, was drafted initially by the Hungarian émigré physicist Leo Szilard and delivered personally to FDR by New Deal businessman Alexander Sachs, then with Lehman Brothers and an old friend of the president. Sachs recounted to Roosevelt Napoleon’s error when he rejected Robert Fulton and Robert R. Livingston’s offer to build a fleet of steamships and suggested that Einstein’s letter represented a similar technological breakthrough. According to Sachs, Roosevelt’s interest was piqued and he ordered an authentic bottle of Napoleon brandy to be brought out—a Roosevelt family heirloom. FDR poured two glasses, gave one to Sachs, and sat back to listen as Sachs summarized Einstein’s presentation. Roosevelt comprehended its import instantly. “Alex, what you are after is to see that the Nazis don’t blow us up.” “Precisely,” Sachs replied. Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb 313–314 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985). For the text of Einstein’s 1939 letter, see Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times 556–557 (New York: World Publishing, 1971).

^* “If I had known that the Germans would not succeed in constructing the atom bomb, I would have never lifted a finger,” said Einstein years later. Quoted in Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust War 263 (New York: Basic Books, 1977).

^* When Republicans regained control of Congress in 1947, Brewster became chairman of the Special Senate Committee Investigating the National Defense Program—the old “Truman Committee.” Brewster’s first target was Howard Hughes, whose Hughes Aircraft Company had been awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to develop an enormous transport plane made of plywood (the “spruce goose”). Critics charged that Brewster—“the kept senator of Pan American Airways”—was pursuing Hughes because TWA, which Hughes owned, was challenging Pan Am’s dominance of transatlantic travel. After five days of hilarious hearings in the Senate Caucus Room, Hughes demolished Brewster and made the committee look foolish. When Hughes successfully flew the plane during a test in November 1947, the committee abruptly closed the investigation. (One of the highlights of my life as a teenager growing up in Washington, D.C., was to attend the hearings and witness Hughes’s aplomb before the committee.) The Hughes flying boat remains the largest plane ever built, with a wingspan of 320 feet (compared to the Boeing 747’s 195 feet) and a weight of 400,000 pounds (versus 378,000.) Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Empire: The Life, Legend and Madness of Howard Hughes 145–160 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979).

^* It is unfortunate that no one from the State Department attended FDR’s meeting with the military chiefs on the Iowa or was privy to his views on zonal boundaries. The Teheran conference placed the matter in the hands of a newly created European Advisory Commission based in London. The United States was represented by Ambassador John G. Winant and his deputy, George Kennan, but neither was familiar with Roosevelt’s wishes and the commission quickly adopted a proposal framed by the British cabinet that established the demarcation between east and west more or less on the Elbe River, with Berlin located 110 miles inside the Russian zone.

The fumbled decision on zonal boundaries in Germany plagued the Western powers throughout the Cold War and can be attributed in no small measure to FDR’s exclusion of the State Department from administration planning following Welles’s resignation. The War Department’s failure to inform State of the president’s position is equally inexcusable. Of course, if Hull had not vindictively pursued Welles and forced his resignation, the problem would not have arisen. Had Winant and Kennan been familiar with Roosevelt’s design, it is certainly conceivable that different demarcation lines would have been drawn.

^* Harvard professor Samuel Cross, who served as interpreter when Roosevelt met Molotov, did an excellent job, but he blotted his copybook by entertaining dinner parties in Cambridge with stories of what Molotov had said to the president and what the president had said in reply. When he heard of it, Roosevelt was furious and instructed Hopkins to find someone in government service who could keep his mouth shut. After an extensive search Hopkins chose Bohlen. Charles E. Bohlen, Witness to History 132–133 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973).

^* Admiral Leahy, who was sitting next to FDR at the meeting, said the president leaned over and whispered, “That old Bolshevik is trying to force me to give him the name of our Supreme Commander. I just can’t tell him because I haven’t made up my mind.” Admiral William D. Leahy, I Was There 208 (New York: Whittlesey House, 1950).

^* “Nobody thanked me for my services,” wrote Beria. “I was rewarded solely with a Swiss watch. According to my father, Stalin was satisfied with the results of the conference and considered he had won the game. I am sure my summaries must survive somewhere in the archives. Perhaps the recordings too have been preserved.” Sergo Beria, Beria, My Father 94 (London: Duckworth, 2001).

^* The message was handwritten by Marshall and signed by Roosevelt. Afterward Marshall passed it along to Eisenhower with the message: “Dear Eisenhower: I thought you would like to have this memento. It was written very hurriedly by me … the President signing it immediately. G.C.M.” Reproduced in Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe229 (New York: Doubleday, 1948).