May 12, 2005
FROM THE ARCHIVES: AND PLENTY OF FAILURES PRECEDED IT:
Roosevelt’s Failure at Yalta (Arnold Beichman, Humanitas)
[F]rom the time he took office in 1933, FDR ignored informed assessments within the State Department of the nature of Soviet diplomacy and that, consequently, the peoples of Central Europe for some four decades paid the price. [...]The fundamental continuity of Soviet foreign policy vis-à-vis the Western democracies from day one of the Bolshevik Revolution, which is luminously clear to [Loy] Henderson and his subalterns, was apparently not so clear to President Roosevelt and to those around him like Harry Hopkins, who simply did not, could not, or would not understand the meaning of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism.
A few months after his March 4, 1933, inauguration, the State Department’s Eastern European Division presented FDR with a paper on how he might proceed in the negotiations for recognition of the Soviet Union. The memorandum, dated July 27, 1933, contained this prescient paragraph:
The fundamental obstacle in the way of the establishment with Russia of the relations usual between nations in diplomatic inter-course is the world revolutionary aims and practices of the rulers of that country. . . . It would seem, therefore, that an essential pre-requisite to the establishment of harmonious and trustful relations with the Soviet Government is abandonment by the present rulers of Russia of their world revolutionary aims and the discontinuance of their activities designed to bring about the realization of such aims. More specifically and with particular regard to the United States, this prerequisite involves the abandonment by Moscow of direction, supervision, control, financing, et cetera, through every agency utilized for the purpose, of communist and other related activities in the United States.
Little attention was paid in the White House to this memorandum, which dealt with other bilateral issues as well. President Roosevelt was as determined to recognize the USSR as he was to ignore the openly avowed purposes of the Communist International, the Comintern. Even though the documents leading up to recognition contained a Soviet concession that it would refrain from subversive and propaganda activities in the United States, the document failed to mention the Comintern by name.
Within a week after the announcement of the establishment of diplomatic relations, the Daily Worker, the Comintern voice in the U.S., was boasting that any claim that “the Litvinov Pact applies to the Communist International will meet with defeat.”
It was an ominous event: the Soviet Union was flouting its agreements before even the ink was dry. In the ensuing decades, Soviet disregard of its agreements would be repeated over and over again, events which American policymakers usually shrugged off with a what-can-you-do-about-it frown, often seeking to conceal the violations from the American public.
The United States Government was fully warned, almost prophetically, by its diplomats who had studied the Soviet Union and understood what recognition entailed. As late as 1953, George Kennan wrote that the United States “should never have established de jure relations with the Soviet government.” Yet FDR, with willful ignorance, embarked on a recognition policy without even seeking an enforceable quid pro quo. American recognition of the USSR, formally announced on November 16, 1933, only strengthened that totalitarian state.
What else but this same willful ignorance would account for the foolish White House statements about Stalin during World War II? What else but a frightening opportunism could account for President Roosevelt’s silence on the Katyn Forest massacre when he knew from Winston Churchill that Stalin was responsible for this atrocity?
The repeated steps that FDR took to prop up the Soviet Union and the way in which his saving it warped world affairs for most of the rest of the century make his presidency the most problematic to assess in our history--offsetting the good he did in rallying the nation in 1932-3. Consider, for example, that the best that can be said of him is that he was a fool when it came to Communism, lest we end up assuming instead that the damage he caused was intentional.
(Originally posted: 6/19/04)
In a sense, FDR enabled all the killing that Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and the North VietNamese did.
That's not the legacy of a person some seem to feel is one of the greatest world leaders of all time.
Posted by: M.Murcek at June 19, 2004 4:12 PMRoosevelt was like Clinton, unfazed by the rough details of history, and certain that he could smooth events to his favor. Stalin was a monster for the ages, beyond Roosevelt's comprehension. Clinton's main 'opponents' (Kim Jon Il, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Khameini, even the Chinese leadership) were ignored by the press and viewed as buzzing flies by the defense/intelligence communities. A little honey set down in the corner was the best solution.
Things are not as bleak as in the 30s, but the potential for great danger at home is much higher.
Posted by: jim hamlen at June 19, 2004 10:01 PM"... those around him like Harry Hopkins, who simply did not, could not, or would not understand the meaning of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism."
Baloney! It is now reasonably clear from Verona, KGB: The Inside Story by Oleg Gordievsky, and The Sword and the Shield: the Mitrokhin Archive, that Hopkins was one of the most valuable, highly-placed Soviet agents in the U.S. government, while being a close confidant of FDR. He apparently routinely reported conversations between Roosevelt and Churchill, and persuaded Roosevelt to go to Yalta.
Posted by: jd watson at June 19, 2004 11:32 PMFDR was in poor health at Yalta, and died two months later.
Posted by: Gideon at June 20, 2004 12:50 AMOJ:
Are you sure Roosevelt wasn't more than just a fool regarding communism? Whittaker Chambers reportedly gave names of Communists in the government (including Hiss) to Adolf Berle, who then informed Roosevelt of the situation. Roosevelt reportedly told Berle to go f--- himself (Admittedly, different versions of this story have gone around: Reason magazine reports that Chambers himself gave Roosevelt the info and was rebuffed in the same manner -- scroll down about three-fourths of the way.). William Bullitt was reportedly treated the same way.
Reading about Roosevelt's behavior, I often can't shake the impression that he was purposely trying to help "Uncle Joe." Towards the end of the war, an antagonized Churchill told his aides that the Americans simply didn't grasp the malevolent nature of the Soviet Union. Perhaps it was something more than blind naivete?
Incidentally, I think we should all thank God that Roosevelt didn't die a year earlier, and thus usher Henry Wallace into the Oval Office (insert Homer Simpson shriek here).
Posted by: Matt at June 20, 2004 3:04 AMMatt:
No, I'm saying that having behaved as if he was in league with Stalin the best we can say for him is that he was too stupid to understand what he was doing. I'm willing to give him the benefit of that doubt though.
Posted by: oj at June 20, 2004 9:32 AMThe influence of "liberal" thinking regarding communism on FDR and some of his advisors had to have had an impact on his decisions. His administration was the first to have been affected by the muddle headedness which has evolved into modern "liberlism". He was no more a fool than Eleanore, Leonard Bernstein, The New York Times and the rest of the radical chic which has afflicted American politics since the 1930's.
Posted by: Tom Corcoran at June 20, 2004 12:58 PMWith the exception of a small part of Germany south of the Elbe, there wasn't any land FDR "gave" Stalin that his troops didn't occupy on their own. Unless you're OJ who thinks Patton should have been unleashed and a war begun in 1946, I don't see how Yalta actually gave Stalin anything.
The main thing FDR wanted was a promise that Stalin would help invade Japan. At Yalta, there was no evidence that the atomic bomb would work. War planners were already predicting casualties would be high in any invasion of Japan (and would dramatically increase once the results of Okinawa came in). FDR was thinking of how many American lives he would save if Russians landed in Japan so they'd die instead.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at June 20, 2004 3:45 PMChris:
Yes, what proves FDR and his supporters to be dupes is believing that Stalin ever would have sent troops.
Posted by: oj at June 20, 2004 4:30 PMWould we have wanted Soviet troops in Japan? We would have ended up with a third divided country along with the Germanys and Koreas.
Posted by: Sean Hackbarth at June 21, 2004 1:17 AMThis is getting ridiculous. Neither Roosevelt nor the Joint Chiefs was silly enough to think that the Red Army was going to wade across the Yellow Sea to Japan.
The USSR had zero amphibious capability.
What was wanted was engagement of the Japanese Army, which was mostly on the Mainland. There was no very firm reason to think that the Japanese would ever surrrender, and the westerners, for whom the lives of their own citizens were not cheap, were happy to let Russians die instead of American or Britons.
This applies to the 100,000 Russian casualties at Berlin, and would have applied in China.
It turned out that Russia's help was not needed to squelch the Japanese, but when the deal went down, it would have been a foolish bet to to have gambled otherwise.
I have studied the Pacific War for years, and it is my belief that, if the Abomb had been a failure, Operation Olympic would have been a failure, too.
The Japanese would eventually have been starved out, but at the cost of millions (more) Chinese also starved, plus virtually all the Koreans.
The US was never able to interdict sea traffic by small vessels between Japan and Korea, and the Japanese had arranged to steal all the 1945 rice crop.
By spring 1946, Korea would have been empty.
Tough choices.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at June 21, 2004 7:52 PMThe Soviets weren't coming....period. Only an FDR would be gullible enough to think they were. That effort would have been better spent destroying the Soviets anyway. With the Japanese bottled up they were through.
Posted by: oj at June 21, 2004 8:36 PMSome historian, I forget which, said that Russians believe that anywhere a Russian army has ever been is a part of Russia.
I don't know if that's right, but a Russian army marched through Paris in 1814.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at June 22, 2004 4:33 PMOJ:
With regard to destroying the Soviet Union following WWII, you don't seem at all familiar with unintended consequences.
The easiest trap to fall into in post-hoc reasoning is to bemoan all the consequences of the path taken in comparison with all the putative advantages of the path foregone.
The Left does that with respect to Iraq. I'm surprised to see someone as analytical as you fall into that same trap.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at June 22, 2004 7:49 PM