Dealing with the Bomb, and an Unstable Post-War World

[After observing the friendliness of Japanese prisoners of war and noting that “practically all the people in this world like to be nice and get along with each other,” my father makes his first journal entry about the arrival of atomic bombs on the world scene. He isn’t too optimistic about the prospects for the U.S., or the world at large, to do a good job of managing this new destructive power. Nor does he expect a victorious U.S. to seriously address the inequities among nations in the post-war period, despite the emergence of a modern world that “is too small to exist as a group of jealous and sovereign states.”]

December 6, 1945 (Okinawa, Japan)

… All along the roads here on Okinawa, as we go rumbling along on our truck, we pass Okinawan men, women and kids, trudging along singly or in groups, most of them carrying bundles of junk they’ve picked up from the dumps. It just takes a wave of the hand and a smile to get a wave and a smile in return. Some of them even make the first gesture.

Up at the dump where we took our load of scrap field wire there were some Jap PWs unloading trucks, little wiry fellows, very inoffensive-looking, who work rapidly and efficiently. On the way back we passed a truck with a couple of PW’s in the back. As we drew alongside, one of them saluted me smartly and grinned. “You know, Siggie,” I said, “practically all of the people in this world like to be nice and get along with each other.”

“Sure, that’s right,” Siggie said. “They all like to be liked.”

Not all of them, of course. A lot of people are like those Canadians I was just reading about in TIME who want to get all the Jap “rats” out of Canada, even though they may have been born there. For one reason or another, people are taught to hate certain groups of other people who happen to differ from them in color, religion, race, occupation, or social standing. But who promotes these hatreds, and why? Well, it looks like one group pitting itself against another; until a whole mythology of grievances and prejudices is built up to justify the often inhumane measures which each group practices to protect its own special interests, and finally there evolves a false morality based almost solely on power. And though this development is nothing new in human society, the new technology which produces the modern implements of power has brought us to the critical points where the largest groups, or nations, are capable of annihilating each other.

Critical people generally, and TIME magazine notably, in my limited reading of recent weeks, have been pointing up the revolutionary terror which the atomic bomb has let loose in the world. They also take the average people to task for failing to wake up and do something about it. Do what? Keep it an American secret? We sense that would be fine, if it were possible, but the troublesome fact arises that the secret is really no secret at all. Russia, we are told, will be able to produce atomic bombs in two to five years.

Well, then, how about releasing everything we know to an international commission, and leave it to the commission to control atomic research for the good of the world? To some people that makes a good deal of sense, and probably a good many people who don’t believe such beneficent control possible wish that it were. And still other people see the bomb simply as the culmination of man’s age-old, ironic lust for power, – ironic in the sense that he has been feverishly searching for the instrument which will assure his own destruction. And now he’s found it. So what the hell?

I confess that at the present time I’m pretty much of a mind with this third group. And though I recognize that such an attitude must be considered cynical by people who don’t share it, I don’t consider myself cynical for holding it. I like people, and I don’t normally enjoy seeing them get hurt. I can’t derive any satisfaction from seeing the German and Japanese people suffering the starvation and misery now which they so recently imposed upon other peoples. There was a time when I believed that somehow the common suffering of this war would lead men of all nations to put into practice what is almost universally admitted in theory, – that the modern world is too small to exist as a group of jealous and sovereign states. It may be too early to be disillusioned, but then, too, it may have been too late to hope.

My aunt Eva has for several years been trying to sell me on the Bahai group, which is but one of many groups propagating the old Christian faith in the brotherhood of man and its practical realization on earth. With the faith I am in complete accord, but of its realization I remain unconvinced. Human organization, which is always as much against something as it is for something, inevitably seems to corrupt no matter how noble its original purpose. The only true brotherhood of man occurs in the earliest years of infancy. As soon as I begin to talk and understand, I’m an American, and Hans is a German. “My country, right or wrong” expresses an attitude which honest and just people may often deplore, but which only the rarest of martyrs can ever deny. Even when one’s country is flagrantly wrong, treason remains a crime universally abhorred. But millions of men can be made to look upon murder as a virtue when the victim is an enemy of one’s country. The appeal to patriotism almost always drowns out the voice of conscience. Many Americans can feel perfectly righteous about insisting on raising their own already comfortable standard of living while millions of Europeans and Asiatics are facing a winter of freezing and starvation. Yet they would be unspeakably indignant and bitter if the scales were suddenly shifted to the opposite extreme. They can’t see how they are doing any wrong now, but if they had to change places, they would certainly feel that they were being wronged.

The funny thing is that though I understand all this, I don’t intend to do much of anything about it. I, too, look forward to enjoying the comforts of American life, even though I can’t partake of whatever further pleasure there may be in the feeling of self-righteousness.

The old cry of “Let’s set our own house in order first” will soon regain sufficient strength to kill our present feeble and fumbling attempts to set in order a world house in which our own country is but one of the rooms. We’ll go ahead with a lavish job of redecorating our own room, and then won’t we be surprised when it’s ruined by the rest of the house falling in on it!

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The Case for An “Elitist” Foreign Service, and a Restrained Congress

[In this final segment of his long July 22 entry, my father shows both his idealism and his naiveté by making a case for Congress to leave the details of foreign policy to the “technicians and experts.” He knew that such a proposal would be considered “revolutionary and destructive to democratic principles” by many, but it’s hard to argue with the logic of his position. Nowadays, my father’s perspective — indeed, his overall intellect and world view — would be branded as “elitist” by many in the conservative political camp.

Were he still alive, my father would have little but disdain for the current denizens of Congress, who make their 1940’s counterparts seem like intellectual giants and world-class statesmen. It’s probably just as well that he also missed out on observing today’s “Sam Jones,” as represented by the Tea Party zealots. These deficit-obsessed and mean-spirited partisans bring a whole new meaning to  the “erratic and uninformed public opinion” that so concerned my father in 1945.]

July 22, 1945 (Ft. Jackson, S.C.), con’t.

… Well, Sam, what do you want? A steak dinner today, and a rifle for your son tomorrow? Sam will object that this is a loaded question. Just give him the steak today, and he’ll worry about tomorrow when it comes. We’ve always taken care of ourselves in the past.

Sure, that’s the good old American way. Happy-go-lucky. Binge tonight and hangover tomorrow. But it’s an irrational way, it’s a dangerous way to conduct foreign policy in one of the most powerful nations in the world. In the long run it can be a suicidal way for American government.

The only solution I can see to this problem will be called revolutionary and destructive of democratic principles by many Americans. And there, probably, it will die in a deluge of awe-inspiring words which are meaningless to the people who use them most glibly. But at least I can speak my mind, and let my suggestions stand public examination, whatever the final verdict on them may be.

In the first place, the conduct of foreign affairs, like the regulation of interstate commerce, is a job which demands the full time attention of a picked group of technicians and experts. These men should be appointed by the President on the basis of their ability to do the job, and not because they possess the means to support themselves in an underpaid and mistakenly glamorous profession. The pay should be sufficient to attract men of no private means whatsoever.

Next, Congress should vote to abolish its obsolete treaty power. As long as the Senate clings to its prerogative of the two-thirds vote for approval, it will be bypassed on every possible occasion by such devices as the executive order, whereby President Roosevelt handed over the destroyers to Britain with[out] waiting for Senate approval. Our treaties should be drawn in terms of general objectives only, and be ratified by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress in joint session. Sam Jones has no way of knowing how many shiploads of wheat the people of Greece need this winter, and consequently he shouldn’t vote yes or no on such specific measures through his elected representatives. Enough for him to say whether or not the American people should assume responsibility for keeping the Greek people from starving to death. On such a clear-cut issue as this he may be expected to know where his own interests lie.

It should be up to the technicians and experts to determine such questions as the adequate relief quotas for destitute countries. And then they, through the State department, should have the power to see that those quotas are met on time. Congressional committees should have the right to investigate such State Department activities, but they should not have the power to refuse the appropriations which make such activities possible. The State Department, like the War and Navy Departments during this war, should be granted a lump-sum appropriation, without being required to itemize its proposed expenditures. War and Navy are coming in for accusations of unforgivable extravagances these days, but their primary task was to wage a successful war, and they are accomplishing that task admirably. The State Department’s task might be called to wage a successful peace. If it made a continuous record of accomplishing this task, we should not have to worry any more about the extravagances of war. But it will never get to first base as long as its officials can be hamstrung by an erratic and uninformed public opinion.

If we leave things in their present muddled state, we can certainly expect to do no better than muddle along. The Russian government, whatever its deficiencies, has a foreign office which can act with speed and decision, can apparently make spot commitments in administrative situations with the assurance that they will be carried out. In the gigantic task of restoring Europe to law and order, we’re making a very poor showing, for the reason that our officials can’t make spot commitments, and have little confidence that even their most urgent requests will be met after running through the time-consuming mill of red tape. Thus if we’re surprised to see even the Western European democracies turning to the left, to Russia, we shouldn’t be. Either we shall soon learn to assume the responsibility for the wise exercise of our power, or we shall retire again to the sidelines and wait to be forced into another war which we could have prevented.

 

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“Irrational” Governments Doomed to Failure

 [In this excerpt, a continuation of the long journal entry he made on July 22, 1945, my father makes the case that tyrannical, nihilistic and “irrational”  governments — including Nazi Germany — must inevitably fail, though they may take decades to do so. His exposition is interesting both for its historical perspective as World War II neared its conclusion, and for its current relevance to the popular uprisings against tyrannical regimes now occurring throughout the Middle East. When he writes of the American government that “Irrational elements weaken it, and a preponderance of irrationality, long prolonged, will destroy it,” it seems a caution tailor made for our current political landscape, where right-wing rhetoric and policy — on topics ranging from climate change to the “threat” posed by public employees’ unions — long ago dispensed with hard facts and rational discourse.]

 July 22, 1945 (Ft. Jackson, S.C.), con’t.

… Thus total military victory in this war will not be a total vindication of American government. On the contrary, it will be a dearly-bought opportunity to reorganize our government in such a way that America’s undoubted power may be used to improve living conditions generally for all the inhabitants of the world. This isn’t dreamy-minded altruism, but an historical imperative of any government any time in history. A government of any description is a social organization entrusted with the maintenance of law and order which are at the foundation of any civilized society. This is a responsibility which is automatically commensurate with the government’s power. When a government shirks, or neglects, or makes a mockery of this responsibility, it that far limits its power. And despite age-old traditions, and constitutions, and armed forces, it will eventually be discarded if it continues to fail of fulfilling its primary responsibility of maintaining law and order.

I don’t speak of “law and order” in a narrow legalistic sense; the Nazi government had its law and order, but in such a form that violence was done to ineradicable aspirations of millions of human beings for economic and intellectual freedom. Tyranny and persecution are not legitimate functions of any government from the point of view of the people being governed, and the deadly opposition of tyrannized and persecuted peoples is as sure the recurrence of the seasons. Total annihilation of these slave peoples would be the only method of stilling their rebellion, and total annihilation of a continental population is not yet a perfected human technique, though the Germans did make a promising advance in that direction. My guess, however, is that the regenerative powers of the human race will continue to outrun its destructive techniques for some time to come, at least as long as will concern anyone now alive. Persons who hold a contrary point of view, of course, and hope to see the entire human game played out to a finish in the twentieth century will continue to devise political and mechanical means of implementing their nihilistic theories, whether or not they have the inspirational guidance of such a leader as Hitler. And they won’t all be Germans or Japs.

Persons, on the other hand, who believe that this nihilism is leading the world down a blind alley, and this presumably includes the great majority of the men governing our country, should be interested in means of combating this abortive trend, and of getting the world pointed towards the goals named or suggested in the United States Constitution, and other documents which are professed still to be the foundation of American government.

This is a peculiar world we have today, in the sense that the words and phrases we have used to describe the relationships of its various peoples are now often quite inadequate for that purpose. Vocabulary, of course, like all things human, shows evolutionary changes, but it is, nevertheless, just about the most conservative of our departments. Words and phrases are naturally intended to supply our minds with ideas, which are necessary as a starting point for our rational actions. (And human civilization, of course, differs from animal societies only in its rational, and irrational, elements. Beavers, for instance, have never shown a development among themselves of the principle of the division of labor, which we may call an example of human rationality, nor have they seized on certain victims among themselves, to be slowly dissected to death, which is solely a triumph of human irrationality. Beavers, like all created beings with the exception of man, are strictly non-rational; and so spend no time worrying about how to improve or degrade themselves.)

Irrationality, therefore, doesn’t indicate the absence of mind, but simply, according to civilized standards, the misuse of the mind. Naturally no civilization can tolerate an irrational government such as the Nazis attempted. Insofar as such a government succeeds in perpetuating and extending its power, chaos and bestiality are the inevitable results. The fact that civilization has historically always asserted itself over chaos, has always, in the long run, dissolved predominantly irrational governments is sufficient proof for most of us that things were meant to be that way, so we may as well cooperate to the best of our ability.

Our philosophers concluded fairly early that, according to the conclusion of social experience to date, the Nazi government was highly irrational, and consequently not long for this world. And the American people, a bit slower than their philosophers, nevertheless soon gained an understanding that Nazi aggression on human rights challenged their way of living, which respected those rights, and they inevitably joined the opposition to the Nazis. And the defeat of the Nazis was inevitable, though it might well have taken sixty years rather than six.

If we want to save ourselves a repetition of this world misery in the not so distant future, now is the time for us to remember that our government operates under the same historical laws which applied to the Nazi government. Irrational elements weaken it, and a preponderance of irrationality, long prolonged, will destroy it. We’ll not be wise to forget that we must carry a large share of the blame for the original Axis aggression because of our irrational behavior, as a nation, in the past….

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The Limits of Letting Public Opinion Drive Public Policy

 [In a long journal entry — close to 4,000 words — on July 22, 1945, my father opined about foreign policy, the imperative of the United States to engage in reconstruction, the downside of public opinion driving public policy, and a host of other topics. In this first excerpt from that entry, he notes the proclivity of the “everyman” American, Sam Jones, to worry more about a steak dinner today than a recurrence of world war 15 or 20 years into the future. My father’s comments about the need for political leaders willing to buck the pressure of uninformed public opinion seem apropos to the present day (as his journal writings often do). Another of his statements that remains true for our times: “…we easily persuaded ourselves that national good was necessarily universal good, and failed to perceive that certain of our cherished advantages were maintained directly or indirectly at the expense of other parts of the world.”]

July 22, 1945 (Ft. Jackson, S.C.)

… Basically, these war years, with their extravagant spending of men and material, have outraged the practical “business sense” of the common American who carries on the national business, be he civilian or soldier. Right now, he’s getting angry about our large scale handouts to our Allies, and President Truman, his perfect representative, is apparently telling the boys at Potsdam that from now on it’s “put up or shut up.” This attitude is generally applauded, and rightly so, if we don’t let ourselves get talked or scared into “practical” deals which end by increasing, rather than diminishing, the various frictions still existing among the nations. But that’s a big IF, and will often call for national policy which demands present sacrifices as the investment in future security. UNRRA [United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration] presents such a situation now, and we don’t seem willing to go very far beyond a profession of good intentions. Exasperated, but well-fed Americans get the preference over starving Europeans. And later many Americans will become exasperated at these Europeans for embracing Communism after we’d gone to the trouble and expense of liberating them from Fascists totalitarianism. We’ll never know how quickly the sweets of liberation can pale on an empty stomach.

As a nation we’ll make these “mistakes” simply because a steak dinner today seems more important to Sam Jones and his family than another world war fifteen or twenty years from now. That doesn’t mean that Sam Jones is a bad or irresponsible man, but it would seem to mean that he’s a poor man to entrust with the shaping of American foreign policy. Yet Sam Jones, taken by the million, is public opinion, and we are told with authoritative finality that American foreign policy between these last two wars was increasingly isolationist and appeasing because public opinion would allow nothing else. “We knew what was coming,” many of our leading statesmen have said, “but we were powerless to act because of public opinion.” Of course, one seriously questions the omniscience of most of these bleating sheep, but at the same time one must admit a measure of truth in their argument. If important information was made available to the members of Congress, information which revealed the extreme danger of our position in an Axis dominated world, and if these men, reflecting the naturally limited viewpoint of their constituents, refused to believe in the significance of this information, refused, possibly for reasons of election strategy, to pass it on to their constituents, and thus left us dismally unprepared when the strike came, then our foreign policy set-up is certainly inadequate.

There is always pressure for various changes in any governmental system, and unimportant changes in both personnel and procedure are constantly being made. Over a period of years these minor changes may add up to a real change in political philosophy. This is evolutionary development, and has been a privilege of the American people since 1789, with the exception of the Civil War. At that time the revolutionary concept of the right of secession from the Union was advanced, and it was denied only at the cost of a bloody war.

The present war has been as much a Civil War as that war between the North and the South, but because it concerns a world union of “sovereign” nations rather than a continental union of “sovereign“ states, because the apparent national differences of the peoples involved have obscured the basic philosophical issue, we, as the victor side, are likely to bungle the victor’s responsibility of directing reconstruction even worse than we did after our Civil War, when the issues were relatively clearer. The German and Japanese totalitarian governments have been a mortal challenge to our own democratic institutions. This challenge could hardly have been made with such ferocity if democratic government had seemed as fair and advantageous to the rest of the world as it seemed to us. In other words, we easily persuaded ourselves that national good was necessarily universal good, and failed to perceive that certain of our cherished advantages were maintained directly or indirectly at the expense of other parts of the world. And to bring it closer home, we may as well admit that during the thirties the democratic way of life left several million Americans out in the cold of economic privation. Had these millions become a majority, or seized political power while still a minority, Americans might possibly have found themselves attempting the desperate cure for their ills which the Germans tried under Hitler….

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Potsdam: Juggling the Fate of the World

[My father’s cynical — though realistic — side is on display in his jaded take on the Potsdam Conference, which ran from July 16 through August 2, 1945. At the conference, the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union met to decide upon the punishment for Nazi Germany, which had unconditionally surrendered on May 8, 1945 (VE Day). The victors also sought to develop peace treaties and a model for a new world order that would reduce the liklihood of yet another world war.

The Potsdam Agreement issued at the end of the conference included a long list of penalties and prescriptions for Germany, as well as for the disposition of Poland. The conference also produced the Potsdam Declaration, which proposed terms of surrender for Japan. Japan rejected the Declaration and, within a week of the conference’s conclusion, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In the entry’s last paragraph, the “eccentric character” referenced is, of course, my father, himself.]

July 17, 1945 (Ft. Jackson, S.C.)

Potsdam! Look to Potsdam, ladies and gentlemen, for the super-historical spectacle of the Big Three juggling the fate of the world like a rosy, red apple. Back and forth it goes, flipped from one to the other, twirling through the solemn air, caught at the last moment, and tossed up again. Look close, ladies and gentlemen. These three great performers have practiced their act for a long time, but no human is infallible. Will one of them make a fatal slip? Will we all end by being communists? or democrats? or imperialists? or will we get a bastard mixture, with a little of each? Forty centuries of recorded, bloody history look down on this momentous gathering, watching with the bated breath to see if the appointed time has come for that miracle of miracles, that dream of the ages, – the generation of the sweet perfume of universal peace out of the stinking cauldron of war. Forty centuries have tried this desperate alchemy time and again, and failed. But look to Potsdam, ladies and gentlemen. The curtain rises on the grandest attempt of all.

And now we take you to Potsdam for a ringside seat at this latest delivery from the pregnant womb of history. Will the nations of the world finally accept the issue, or will it, like all its predecessors, be scorned as a bastard, and left to die miserably in the next great clash of arms?

Well, it makes good newspaper copy, anyway. It provides fertile grist for the greedy minds of the columnists and commentators. And perhaps it even puts a little zest into the lives of the common people these hot summer days. Certainly something is wanting for that purpose, though a bottle of iced beer may prove to be more practical in the long run. The college debating societies, of course, go wild over this sort of thing, and the women’s clubs will be a set-up in the next few months for lectures prepared to discourse on “The Implications for America of the Potsdam Conference.” Next Christmas will be time for an enterprising correspondent to sum it all up in an authoritative volume entitled “World After Potsdam.”

As a comic sidelight to this epic page of history, we heard yesterday of an eccentric character, now serving in the Armed Forces (and better out of them, we submit), who claims that the Potsdam Conference has as little significance to go with its pomp and circumstance as a presentation of grand opera at the Metropolitan, and that the Metropolitan could perhaps improve upon its leading characters. There will be the customary situations of suspense and discord, and then the final scene of overwhelming triumph to bring the waiting cheers from the expectant audience. Afterwards, the people will return to their familiar occupations, and go on deciding through their mysterious collective force, as heedlessly and unwitting as ever, the future issues of war and peace, irrespective of the wishes or formal agreements of Harry Truman, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. This heresy, which could be dangerous coming from a man of any standing, serves in this case as an ironically humorous comment on the vagaries of an irresponsible and immature mind.

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Realpolitik versus Ideals at the U.N.’s Creation

 [In this entry my father offers a jaded critique of the politicking going on at the United Nations Conference on International Organization, more commonly known as the San Francisco Conference. The conference ran from April 25 to June 26, 1945, and culminated in the founding of the United Nations. Delegates from 46 countries attended the conference, but four men conducted the bulk of the negotiations: Edward Stettinius, U.S. Secretary of State; Anthony Eden, British Foreign Affairs Secretary; V.M. Molotov, the USSR’s Minister of Foreign Affairs; and T.V. Soong, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.

My father’s main interest here was in the realpolitik nature of the horse-trading, specifically as it related to votes for including additional U.N. members. Ultimately, four more nations were added to the U.N.’s membership by the date of its launch: Denmark, Argentina, and the Soviet Socialist Republics of Ukraine and Belarus. Poland, which my father viewed much more sympathetically than the Axis-leaning Argentina, didn’t make the initial cut, but was later admitted as the 51st founding member. Post war, of course, Argentina would become a notorious safe haven for many Nazi SS members seeking to escape prosecution.]

May 2, 1945 (Ft. Jackson, S.C.)

The world which the United States seems to be sponsoring at San Francisco has little in it either brave or new. The other day Ed Stettinius demanded that Argentina be admitted to the Conference, and Molotov countered with the proposal that the Lublin Poles be admitted. The representatives of the nations promptly voted for Argentina and against Poland. Now it’s a plain fact that during most of the course of the war Argentina has been sympathetic to the Axis cause, and, until diplomatic pressure from the US and Britain became too heavy, openly allowed, and perhaps aided, German espionage and propaganda activities. It was only last month, when German defeat was an all but accomplished fact, that Argentina made its declaration of war on the Axis. This was obviously a last minute bid to cash in on the fruits of a victory which it had officially opposed, until it appeared inevitable. And now the United Nations, with the exception of the few states under Russian influence, have been cowed by the United States into condoning this bald-faced opportunism. But Poland, which was the first country to resist German aggression in this war, and the immediate cause of bringing England to war, is refused representation at the Conference.

The ostensible reason for this anomaly, of course, is the fact that there are two Polish governments, one favored by Russia, one favored by the US and Britain, and neither side yet willing to compromise with the other. Of the several interested parties, it seems that the Poles themselves have the least to say about their predicament. Thus the issues at stake obviously transcend the wishes and interest of the Polish people, and are only incidentally concerned with the “democratic” basis of the Polish government. If this were the main consideration, there would be no insurmountable difficulty in the interested powers setting up a provisional government pledged to hold free elections within a stated period.

Apparently the major issue in British political philosophy, at least, is the European balance of power, which, in British eyes, is seriously threatened by the westward expansion of Russian political and economic influence. And the US, so far as it is able to define its own interests in Europe, feels that they will best be served by backing up Britain. Though the foreign offices of both nations must have admitted privately that Russia must eventually have her own way in Poland, they figure that they had better make a strong show of opposition at this point, both to discourage Russia from moving on further, and to raise their prestige among the Western European states which make up their own sphere of influence. But this is an old story, and there’s no assurance that whatever compromise is eventually settled on will be a real solution to the problem. The jealously-guarded sovereignty of the contesting states is the real stumbling block, insofar as each state proposes its own national solution to situations which are international in scope. Of course the various statesmen of the states are aware of this contradiction of means with ends, and San Francisco is a first attempt to remedy it. But the tenor of the discussions, as reported in the press, has not been encouraging. The impression is encouraged that decisions are being made which are advantageous to one state at the expense of another. There’s too little concentration on what might be advantageous to the people of the whole world, at a certain price, in loss of sovereignty, to every one of the states.

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Worry and Uncertainty Following FDR’s Death

[This conversational entry is interesting as a snapshot in time, given that it depicts the reaction by my father and a couple of his Army buddies upon receiving the news of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death (on April 12, 1945). The concerns they raise reflect the magnitude of FDR’s unequaled position on the national and global stage, and include even the possibility of domestic revolution. The trio also expresses what were probably widely held doubts about his successor, Harry S. Truman. Truman would go on to prove most of those doubts unwarranted.]

April 13, 1945 (Ft. Jackson, S.C.)

Cunningham and I were sitting on the ground near our tent, talking a little, and taking it easy in the afternoon heat. Pearson came down through the woods and stopped over us. “I’ve just heard some very bad news,” he said.

“What’s that,” we said, thinking, I suppose that he was going to tell us we were stuck on some special detail.

“President Roosevelt is dead,” he said.

Somehow I knew that he was speaking the truth, yet the words wouldn’t sink in, and automatically I said, “You’re kidding.”

“No,” he said, “it’s true. I’ve just been listening to it over a radio. He was at the place of his in Georgia –“

“Warm Springs,” Cunningham said.

“Yeah, I guess that’s it, the little White House. He was sitting having his portrait painted. All of a sudden he fainted, and that was all. Cerebral hemorrhage.”

“Truman!” Cunningham said. That was what had immediately flashed to my mind, too. Harry Truman was now President of the United States.

We three fellows talked together for half an hour before it was time to fall out for the evening formation. We were struggling to fit this almost incomprehensible event into our minds, and see what meaning it had for us. Some of our remarks were purely emotional; others we tried to think out.

“God!” We’ll never get out of the Army now,” Cunningham said.

But I didn’t think that the President’s death would have much effect on the actual course of the war. We agreed that it might have some immediate effect on the men at the front, but we couldn’t decide whether it would more inspire or discourage them. Also, it seemed likely that Germany and Japan would attempt to gain a psychological advantage from his death, but we weren’t really worried about their success.

Then we wondered if there was any danger of an internal revolution. “Watch and see,” Cunningham said. “The Communist[s] will really make a big bid to take over the country now.” Pearson and I didn’t think this possible, but we all began to see some danger of a military clique installing itself in power, and I thought the threat of some form of Fascism was more dangerous than that of Communism.

“Can you imagine Harry Truman sitting down with Churchill and Stalin!” Cunningham said.

“That sounds ridiculous,” I said. We all mentioned Truman many times, but had nothing kind to say about him beyond a vague hope that he might somehow rise to the occasion. We all thought that either Wallace or Dewey would have been preferable to Truman. “Maybe he’ll die of the shock,” I said.

“That would give us Stettinius,” Pearson said. But we couldn’t feel enthusiastic about the Secretary of State, either. In short, try as we might, we could think of no man now in public life sufficient to take his place. Thus we began to realize the true enormity of the risk we had taken upon ourselves by making Franklin Roosevelt almost an indispensable man in our national affairs. Once there was Willkie, at least, to stand beside him in stature, but Willkie, too, was dead now. “What’s going to happen to us now?” This thought seemed uppermost in the mind of almost everyone.

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War-Time Politics Clash with Democratic Ideals

[My father begins this entry referencing a column by Raymond Clapper, a syndicated writer at The Washington Post. In researching Clapper, I see that he died two months after my father cited this column, perishing in a military plane crash while on assignment in the Marshall Islands. This journal entry is interesting largely as a snapshot of the war-time political maneuverings going on, including the Cairo and Teheran conferences attended by the major allied leaders. My father’s comments about the challenges and calculations associated with the Middle East are interesting, of course, in light of our current ensnarement in that region. My father also expresses disappointment about the undemocratic deals being struck by the major powers (although he accepts the economic and military strategy behind some of them). His description of the U.S. as “a nice kid who got dragged into a drunken brawl,” seems apt.]

December 9, 1943 (Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo.)

Raymond Clapper said it in his column, and I’ve been trying to think just how to say it here. He said there was something disquieting about the way these Cairo and Teheran conferences were held, especially in the rotten treatment of the correspondents. Apparently they didn’t get to first base. For certain, they’ve made all kinds of formal protests themselves, and undoubtedly plenty of informal cursing, but the only news they could get sounded like the wirings of a garden party.

Clapper went on to recall a saying that part of the greatness of great men consists simply in their being there. Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and Chiang are the men who are there. And in this sense they are indispensable men. They are making decisions that will affect hundreds of millions of people for years to come. On the face of them, then, these conferences seem almost the antithesis of democracy.

But there’s this to say about the press. The correspondents did miss out on this most important news of the year. But in the nature of things, there wasn’t much of importance that could be told, anyway, so far as the military decisions are concerned.

The political decisions are another matter. There was the formal declaration guaranteeing the independence of Iran. This was built up as an application of the Atlantic Charter, but it’s main purpose was probably to reassure all of the peoples of that section of the world that the big Western brothers aren’t out to gobble them up this time. And it’s also intended to sooth the French leaders who’ve been having trouble with little Lebanon, and charging the British with a plot to remove their influence from the near East.

The great democratic ultimatum to the German people, which many hopefuls had predicted, was not forthcoming. And this is probably because Roosevelt was the only one who was ready to issue it. Stalin has used some fine democratic language lately, but Russia is yet a long way from the methods of democracy, though their racial democracy is way ahead of ours. And England may be democratic, but she still has a huge subject empire whose millions of people might think they deserved a democratic chance before the Germans.

So we got only a very general declaration of good intentions, and a determination to cooperate. There is no doubt that Poland and the Baltic states will go to Russia by graceful default. At least, Churchill and FDR probably are praying it will be graceful. Personally, I think that this arrangement is a good thing from the economic and military points of view. But whether the peoples of these countries will figure that they have tasted the read-meat promises of the Atlantic Charter is another matter. To them, it may seem much more like a Munich sellout, before the glorious days of international idealism.

Eliot Janeway, in FORTUNE, thinks that Roosevelt is on the way to pulling another Wilson, – political isolation at the very time when he most needs the support of a majority of the nation. It seems to be a question of how far he can irrevocably commit the nation without the support of Congress or the people. Thus far he hasn’t taken the bold, but sincere, chance that Wilson did with his Points. He attends Conference after Conference; each time we hear that he’s worked out with the other leaders war plans for the months ahead. But actual political decisions, from all that has been revealed, have been so thin that sometimes one sees right through them and wonders if they’re really there. Too often, our actual political management in the field speaks much louder than these declarations, and not in the same voice.

I think that many Americans feel cheated, and ashamed, because of the deals our government has made with European rightists, reactionaries, and outright Fascists in North Africa, Vichy, Spain, and Italy. I know that I feel ashamed of these deals. There’s talk now of a deal with Franco.

It may be that this is the hard realistic way that nations must work together in the world. But if it is, a lot of us Americans have been brought up wrong. We have been told that our country is the foremost champion of democracy in the world. We expected that our country would stand on democratic principles in all of its business with other nations. But now we have a feeling that the US is very much like a nice kid who got dragged into a drunken brawl. He may protest a little at what goes on, but who the hell gives a damn! Come on, kid, you’re here, so you may as well join in and have some fun!

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