Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941

  146. Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, pp. 119–20.

  147. Freidel, pp. 342–3.

  148. Flynn, pp. 214–15; Kennedy, pp. 456–7.

  149. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 174.

  150. Lash, p. 206.

  151. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, pp. 117, 167.

  152. Blum, p. 162.

  153. Kimball, Forged in War, pp. 53–4.

  154. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, pp. 356–7; Churchill and Roosevelt, vol. 1, C-20x, pp. 56–7.

  155. Langer and Gleason, Challenge, pp. 506–7.

  156. Ickes, pp. 270–71, 293; Langer and Gleason, Challenge, pp. 745–6.

  157. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 175–6.

  158. The Roosevelt Letters, vol. 3: [1928–1945], ed. Elliott Roosevelt, London, 1952, pp. 324–5; also printed in Langer and Gleason, Challenge, p. 745.

  159. Langer and Gleason, Challenge, pp. 747–9.

  160. Ickes, p. 283.

  161. Langer and Gleason, Challenge, pp. 749–51; Burns, pp. 177–9; Ickes, pp. 292–3.

  162. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, pp. 358–60.

  163. Langer and Gleason, Challenge, pp. 751–3.

  164. Langer and Gleason, Challenge, pp. 753–7, quotation p. 757.

  165. Langer and Gleason, Challenge, pp. 758–9; Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, pp. 360–61.

  166. Dallek, p. 245; Langer and Gleason, Challenge, pp. 760–61; Divine, Roosevelt and World War II, p. 36.

  167. Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, pp. 128–31.

  168. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, pp. 361–8; Langer and Gleason, Challenge, pp. 762–9.

  169. Langer and Gleason, Challenge, p. 769; Blum, pp. 182–3.

  170. Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, p. 131; Kennedy, p. 461.

  171. Ciano’s Diary 1939–1943, ed. Malcolm Muggeridge, London, 1947, p. 288; Langer and Gleason, Challenge, p. 775.

  172. Franz Halder, Kriegstagebuch. Tägliche Aufzeichnungen des Chefs des Generalstabes des Heeres 1939–1942, vol. 2: Von der geplanten Landung in England bis zum Beginn des Ostfeldzuges (1.7.1940–21.6.1941), ed. Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Stuttgart, 1963, p. 75 (23.8.40), p. 98 (14.9.40); Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs 1939–1945, London, 1990, p. 134; Andreas Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie. Politik und Kriegführung 1940–1941, 3rd edn., Bonn, 1993, pp. 201–3.

  173. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 24; Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, p. 132; Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, p. 87.

  174. Langer and Gleason, Challenge, pp. 770–76.

  175. Quoted in Langer and Gleason, Challenge, p. 768. When, towards the end of the year, Halifax had reluctantly accepted the position as ambassador to Washington, Churchill thanked him ‘for undertaking this heavy task’, emphasizing the vital nature of American aid: ‘If they do not help us wholeheartedly,’ he wrote, ‘there will only be miseries to share in this Island. If they give us the aid we deserve, you will have brought us inestimable blessings’ (Borthwick Institute, University of York, Diary of Lord Halifax, A.7.8.7, Churchill letter appended to entry for 22.12.40).

  176. Churchill, Great War Speeches, p. 59; Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, p. 362.

  177. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, p. 358.

  178. Langer and Gleason, Challenge, p. 765; Gloria J. Barron, Leadership in Crisis. FDR and the Path to Intervention, Port Washington, NY/London, 1973, p. 69.

  179. Langer and Gleason, Challenge, p. 776.

  180. Kennedy, p. 466; Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent, p. 35.

  181. Kennedy, p. 464; Dallek, p. 255.

  182. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 212 (also for the quotation); and see Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, pp. 102–3.

  183. Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, p. 150 (also for the quotation). Churchill had to be pressed hard by Lothian to overcome his reluctance at ‘putting all our cards on the table’ for Roosevelt (David Reynolds, In Command of History. Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War, London, 2004, p. 202).

  184. Warren F. Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act. Lend-Lease 1939–1941, Baltimore, 1969, pp. 96–7.

  185. Blum, pp. 199–200; Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act, pp. 100–101; Dallek, p. 253. U-boats accounted for 352,000 tons of shipping in October 1940, a record not subsequently matched. See Dan van der Vat, The Atlantic Campaign. The Great Struggle at Sea 1939–1945, London, 1988, p. 147.

  186. Ickes, p. 367.

  187. Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, p. 42.

  188. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 223–5; Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act, p. 99.

  189. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 221; Ickes, pp. 374–6.

  190. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 226–8 (also for the quotations); Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act, pp. 101–4; Blum, pp. 200–201.

  191. Blum, pp. 202–4; Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 229–30; Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act, pp. 106–11.

  192. Hull, vol. 1, pp. 872–3.

  193. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, p. 501. This was, even so, a belated recognition of the singular importance of the letter. Churchill had, in fact, dragged his feet over its drafting and then sending. His own emphasis had been placed on the need for American help in overcoming the growing crisis in shipping and transportation, rather than on finance, which Lothian had urged him to stress. Following Lothian’s ‘calculated indiscretion’ about the state of British finances on his return to America, it was this aspect, rather than shipping, that caught the attention of Roosevelt. See Reynolds, In Command of History, p. 202.

  194. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, pp. 493–501, quotations pp. 500–501; Churchill and Roosevelt, vol. 1, C-43x, pp. 102–9.

  195. Quoted in Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 231; see also Blum, p. 204.

  196. Blum, pp. 206–8; Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 233–5; Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act, pp. 112–15.

  197. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 223.

  198. Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act, pp. 119–20, 124.

  199. Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act, p. 115.

  200. Stimson Diaries, Reel 6, entry for 13.12.40; Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 236–7.

  201. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 223; Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act, p. 117.

  202. Blum, pp. 208–9.

  203. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 238.

  204. Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act, p. 123.

  205. Public Papers and Addresses, vol. 9 (1940), pp. 604–15; Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 239–41; Blum, p. 209; Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 223–4; Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act, pp. 121–2; Dallek, p. 255.

  206. Langer and Gleason, Challenge, p. 746; Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act, pp. 77, 123.

  207. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 224.

  208. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 241–4; Kennedy, p. 478.

  209. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 245–6.

  210. FDR’s Fireside Chats, p. 167.

  211. FDR’s Fireside Chats, pp. 164–73.

  212. Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, p. 108; Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 249–50, quoting the New York Herald Tribune, 30.12.40, the Christian Science Monitor, 30.12.40, and the New York Times, 31.12.40. For the ‘fireside chats’, reactions to them and Roosevelt’s cautious handling of public opinion, see Casey, pp. 30–37.

  213. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 253.

  214. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 254, citing New York Times, 12.1.41. Opinion in December and January did not vary greatly in its ratio of roughly 2:1 of those in favour of helping Britain even at the risk of getting into the war, and those anxious to ‘keep out of war ourselves’ (Leigh, p. 78).

  215. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 253–4; Reynolds, Fro
m Munich to Pearl Harbor, pp. 108–9.

  216. Blum, pp. 211–17; Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act, pp. 132–9.

  217. Public Opinion, pp. 409–10.

  218. Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, p. 111.

  219. Richard Norton Smith, The Colonel. The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick 1880–1955, Boston/New York, 1997, pp. 398–409.

  220. Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, pp. 110–14, and Kennedy, pp. 470–74, for brief summaries. The drafting, then progress through Congress, of the Lend-Lease bill is extensively covered in Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 254–84, and, especially, Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act, pp. 132–229.

  221. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 265–7.

  222. Public Papers and Addresses, vol. 10 (1941), pp. 61, 63.

  223. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, p. 501; Churchill, Great War Speeches, p. 101. See also Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 264. King George VI appears to have been less enamoured, while of course recognizing the importance of the new American commitment. Writing to Lord Halifax on 14 April 1941, the King said he ‘did not feel too happy about the Lease of the Bases as the Americans wanted too much written & laid down. Everything was done in their interests, no give & take in certain circumstances…I do hope that the Americans will not try & bleed us white over the dollar asset question. As it is they are collecting the remaining gold in the world, which is of no use to them, & they cannot wish to make us bankrupt. At least I hope they do not want to’ (Borthwick Institute, University of York, Halifax Papers, A2.278.26.1).

  224. Churchill, Great War Speeches, p. 105 (from his broadcast on 22.6.41).

  225. Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act, pp. 9, 241; Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent, p. 106.

  226. Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie, pp. 400–401; Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, ed. Elke Fröhlich, part I, vol. 9, Munich, 1998, p. 186 (14.3.41); Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 422.

  227. Quoted in Freidel, p. 362.

  228. Freidel, p. 323. Many others thought the same. See Wayne S. Cole, Charles A. Lindbergh and the Battle against American Intervention in World War II, New York/London, 1974, pp. 146–7.

  229. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 267–8.

  230. Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, pp. 114–16.

  231. Stimson Diaries, Reel 6, entry for 29.12.40; Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act, p. 129.

  232. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 271. And see Freidel, p. 366 for Roosevelt’s belief that victory could only follow engagement of a huge American expeditionary force with the German enemy. Roosevelt talked during the spring and summer of 1941 of organizing a 75,000-man American expeditionary force for use outside the western hemisphere (Casey, p. 15).

  233. A sign of the relative weighting attached by the administration to the dangers from across the Atlantic and in the Pacific is that, in his public addresses, Roosevelt made only four references to Japan in the eleven months before Pearl Harbor, whereas he attacked Hitler and Nazism more than 150 times over the same period (Casey, pp. 39–40).

  234. Heinrichs, Threshold of War, p. 38.

  235. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 221–2; Heinrichs, Threshold of War, p. 38.

  236. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 271–3; Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 285–9; Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, pp. 182–5; Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, pp. 117–18; Kennedy, pp. 479–82.

  237. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 270; quotation from Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 289.

  238. Quoted in Kimball, Forged in War, p. 84. See also Heinrichs, Threshold of War, p. 81; and Freidel, p. 368 for Churchill’s disappointment in Roosevelt around this time.

  239. Freidel, p. 368.

  240. Blum, p. 251.

  241. See Heinrichs, Threshold of War, p. 85 for the rising support for escorting in April and May.

  242. Roosevelt was pressing in May for action to take over the Azores, and also the Cape Verde Islands, to forestall what he imagined might be a German move into Spain and Portugal ‘at any moment’. He wanted a landing force of 50,000 men ready within a month. But when he was told of the difficulties in finding sufficient numbers of vessels for the action within such a short space of time, he ‘let himself be argued out of the thing’ (Sheffield University Library, Wolfson Microfilm 575, The Presidential Diaries of Henry Morgenthau 1938–45 [Microform], Frame 0931, 22.5.41).

  243. Freidel, pp. 369–70; Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, pp. 125–7; Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, p. 198; Heinrichs, Threshold of War, p. 46. See also Ickes, p. 466, for the reported comment by Roosevelt that ‘things are coming to a head: Germany will be making a blunder soon’, causing Ickes to infer that the President was anticipating an incident that would justify a declaration of war or, at least, escorts for convoys. Roosevelt implied around seven times in the first half of 1941 that a German retaliation in the Atlantic would be welcome in giving him justification for a more belligerent approach (Casey, pp. 14–15).

  244. See Barron, pp. 91–4.

  245. For the President, p. 512.

  246. Lash, pp. 309–10.

  247. Churchill and Roosevelt, C84x, p. 182; Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, p. 199.

  248. Ickes, pp. 512–13; Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 293.

  249. Quoted in Blum, p. 253; and see Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 455–6.

  250. Quoted in Larrabee, p. 55. Morgenthau confided to his diary on 17 May: ‘I gathered that he [Roosevelt] wanted to be pushed into the war rather than lead us into it’ (Morgenthau Diaries, Frame 0929, 17.5.41). See also Dallek, p. 265; and Divine, Roosevelt and World War II, p. 42.

  251. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 298; Larrabee, p. 56; Burns, pp. 99–101; Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, pp. 202–3. Stimson had no doubt that Hull had toned down the speech. He said he ‘felt rather depressed and tired and for that reason I was rather inclined to be disappointed with the President’s speech, which he nevertheless thought was a good one’ (Stimson Diaries, Reel 6, entries for 27–28.5.41).

  252. FDR’s Fireside Chats, pp. 184, 187; Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 296–8.

  253. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 463; Larrabee, p. 60; Burns, p. 101.

  254. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 457, 463; Ickes, pp. 526–7; Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 299.

  255. Larrabee, p. 62.

  256. Barron, p. 98, citing an interview with Benjamin V. Cohen.

  257. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 337, 342; Welles, Time for Decision, pp. 135–6.

  258. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 528; Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, p. 132; Dallek, p. 268. Stimson noted in his diary, reflecting still prevalent misinterpretations of a German ultimatum preceding war: ‘The dominating news over all is the fact that Russia and Germany are at the point of war in a negotiation in which Germany is bringing every bit of her gigantic pressure to bear on Russia to get some enormous advantages at the threat of war and at present, from all the dispatches, it seems to be nip and tuck whether Russia will fight or surrender. Of course I think the chances are that she will surrender’ (Stimson Diaries, Reel 6, 17.6.41).

  259. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 299; Ickes, p. 552; Freidel, p. 372; Lash, p. 339; Dallek, pp. 267–8; Thomas A. Bailey and Paul B. Ryan, Hitler vs. Roosevelt. The Undeclared Naval War, New York, 1979, pp. 138–43.

  260. Churchill, Great War Speeches, p. 102; Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3: The Grand Alliance, London, 1950, p. 210; Churchill and Roosevelt, p. 178.

  261. Freidel, p. 369.

  262. Heavily critical of Roosevelt, claiming–as is a commonplace revisionist argument–that he was actively seeking to take America into war, is Charles Callan Tansill, Back Door to War. The Roosevelt Foreign Policy, Chicago, 1952. A similar approach informed the argument of one
of Roosevelt’s contemporary critics, Charles A. Beard, President Roosevelt and the Coming of War 1941. A Study in Appearance and Realities, New Haven, 1948. Flynn, though his critique is largely directed at domestic policy, also claims that, while preaching peace, Roosevelt ‘had made up his mind to go into the war as early as October 1940’(p. 295)–the date of his express promise not to send American troops into a foreign war. A different line of attack, that Roosevelt ‘shut so many doors to peace’ through parochialism and simplistic idealism, is adopted, along with a highly generous view of the motives of the German and Japanese military, in Frederick W. Marks III, Wind over Sand. The Diplomacy of Franklin Roosevelt, Athens, Ga., 1988 (quotation p. 288). Bitter divides in interpretation of his foreign policy have peppered the historiography and still not wholly subsided.

  263. Van der Vat, pp. 196–201; David Stafford, Roosevelt and Churchill. Men of Secrets, paperback edn., London, 2000, p. 60. For the sharp rise in losses again in 1942, when the German navy changed the cipher, see Ronald Lewin, Ultra Goes to War. The Secret Story, paperback edn., London, 2001, pp. 209–10.

  CHAPTER 6. MOSCOW, SPRING–SUMMER 1941

  1. Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, Tak bylo [That’s How It Was], Moscow, 1999, p. 390. Also quoted in Dmitri Volkogonov, Stalin. Triumph and Tragedy, New York, 1991, p. 410, and see p. 607 n. 11. Edvard Radzinsky, Stalin, New York, 1996, p. 468, quotes a similar obscenity, derived from the unpublished memoirs of Y. Chadaev, chief administrative assistant to the Council of People’s Commissars (who was not, however, present, as Mikoyan was, when Stalin made the comment). See also Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin. The Court of the Red Tsar, London, 2003, pp. 330, 331 n. (referring to variants of the same comment); and Roy Medvedev and Zhores Medvedev, The Unknown Stalin. His Life, Death, and Legacy, Woodstock/New York, 2004, p. 242 (‘screwed up’), from Khrushchev’s memoirs (Russian version; the English version, Khrushchev Remembers, ed. Strobe Talbott, London, 1971, p. 591, sanitizes it, in the 1956 denuciation speech, to ‘All that which Lenin created we have lost forever’). Khrushchev was not there at the time, and apparently heard the comment from Beria. Sergo Beria, Beria. My Father, London, 2000, p. 70, has: ‘Lenin left us a state and we have turned it into shit.’ This account, however, has the Defence Commissar, Semion Konstantinovich Timoshenko, present, though Stalin made the comment once he and his associates had left the generals. Apart from Mikoyan, the only direct witness to the comment who left a record of it was Vyacheslav Molotov in Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics. Conversations with Felix Chuev, Chicago, 1993, p. 39 (‘we blew it’). I am grateful to the late Dr Derek Watson (University of Birmingham) for advice on the textual references to Stalin’s utterance.