Roosevelt (111 page)

Roosevelt with the United States delegation to the United Nations founding conference at San Francisco: Rep. Sol Bloom, of New York; Virginia Gildersleeve, Dean of Barnard College; Sen. Tom Connally, of Texas; Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Jr.; Harold Stassen; Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg, of Michigan, and Rep. Charles Eaton, of New Jersey, at the White House, March 1945

Franklin D. Roosevelt Library

Franklin D. Roosevelt Library

The caisson bearing President Roosevelt’s coffin approaching the Capitol on the way from Union Station to the White House, April 14, 1945

T
HIS SECOND VOLUME ON
Franklin D. Roosevelt, like my first, has had to be an exercise in collective scholarship because of the enormous scope and complexity of both the materials and the problems analyzed. I thank warmly the following, who served as my research associates and who labored with me, and without me, for long days in the records, and made major substantive contributions: Mrs. John W. Baer, of Annapolis, who worked in the Washington, D.C. collections and had an appreciative eye for significant data; Douglas D. Rose, who conducted research primarily at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, discussed major research and substantive problems with me, worked out significant theoretical approaches to several questions, wrote drafts of several sections of chapters (as indicated in the chapter bibliographies), criticized drafts of my own chapters, and did all this with style, wit, wisdom, and a dash of iconoclasm; and Stewart Burns, who did research and writing on scientific and other aspects of war mobilization, drafted sections on these aspects, as noted elsewhere, and, despite his keen aversion to all things military, brought detachment as well as insight to the questions he studied. Sally Burns also assisted on research, especially on data relating to Roosevelt’s health; and Kate Rose helped on research and brought pungency and good humor to her reviews of my manuscript.

From his broad and penetrating knowledge of American diplomatic history, Russell H. Bastert, of Williams College, made criticisms of my manuscript, as did John Morton Blum, of Yale, from his masterly studies of the Roosevelt and earlier presidencies. Robert C. L. Scott, of Williams College, brought to bear on my draft his versatility and fine judgment on history. Forrest Pogue, writer of authoritative studies of World War II generalship, made numerous suggestions for improving the manuscript. I am grateful to these busy men for sharing their knowledge and judgment so generously.

A. A. Foursenko, Institute of History, Leningrad; Martin Gilbert, Merton College, Oxford; Kurt Tauber, Williams College; and Gordon Wright, Stanford University (formerly Cultural Attaché, American Embassy, Paris), assisted me in arranging interviews with historians and others in the Soviet Union, Great Britain, Germany, and France, respectively. With these four scholars, too, I enjoyed substantive discussions of World War II historiography.

Mrs. Anna Roosevelt Halsted assisted me in gaining access to important materials bearing on her father’s presidency. Paula Levine (Mrs. Richard
Lewis Gaines) helped me locate data at the Williams College and other libraries. Paul W. Streicker conducted research at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, concentrating on tabulating and interpreting public-opinion data. Professor Benedict J. Duffy, Jr., M.D., of the Tufts University School of Medicine, and Dr. James A. Halsted advised me on the interpretation of data bearing on Roosevelt’s health.

Pamela L. Buck made special translations from the Russian, and Gisela C. Dittmer from the German.

My editor at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, William B. Goodman, was knowledgeable, demanding, and compassionate; Roberta Leighton edited the manuscript with her usual grace and skill.

All these people I thank; I thank, above all, my most beloved and constructive critic, Joan Simpson Burns.

R
ESEARCH ON
F
RANKLIN
D. R
OOSEVELT’S
first two presidential terms, and on his earlier years, must be undertaken largely at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL). Research on the war years requires, as well, the use of a great many other libraries and archives, though FDRL still remains primary. The difficulty in consulting records on a man and presidency of such enormous scope was matched only by the unvarying helpfulness of archivists and librarians, whether American, British, or Russian. Of great help, too, were the bibliographies of the period, of which I will mention only two here: Louis Morton, “Sources for the History of World War II,”
World Politics,
Vol. XIII, April 1961, pp. 435-453; and William J. Stewart, compiler and editor,
The Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt
(Hyde Park, N.Y.: The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, 1967), especially pp. 960-1278, an extensive bibliography of periodical and dissertation literature.

At the Roosevelt Library, the collections of which I described briefly in
Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox,
pp. 490-491, I have used many of the sets of papers that were useful for the first volume: President’s Personal File (PPF), Official File (OF), President’s Secretary’s File (PSF), Press Conferences (PC), the Harry L. Hopkins Papers (HHP). For this volume, the Hopkins Papers have continued to be indispensable, as have the following: President’s Map Room Papers (PMRP), PSF Safe File, Oscar Cox Diary, Harold Smith Diary, and many others that are noted in the chapter bibliographies. The major files are subdivided into numerous separate files, organized by name or subject.

Other major collections or archives I have used are:

1. The Manuscript Division, Library of Congress: papers of Henry H. Arnold, Raymond Clapper, Joseph E. Davies, Felix frankfurter, Cordell Hull, Frank Knox, Henrietta Nesbitt, George W. Norris, Robert Patterson, Francis B. Sayre, Laurence A. Steinhardt, William Allen White, Wendell L. Willkie; and diaries of Clapper, Mrs. Nesbitt, and William D. Leahy.

2. Transcripts of interviews, Oral History Project, Columbia University: Harvey H. Bundy, John Carmody, Thomas C. Hart, Gardner Jackson, Arthur Krock, Herbert Lehman, William Phillips, Norman Thomas, and others.

3. National Archives, especially the records of the State Department and of the Army. The State Department records are a useful supplement to, and check on, the invaluable compilation
Foreign Relations of the United States.
The Army records are too vast and variegated even to be
summarized here; they are referred to in the chapter bibliographies, as are the State Department records.

4. Henry L. Stimson Diary and Papers, Yale University Library: these two sets of documents are rich in factual material, Stimson’s day-to-day observations, and more formal records; they are indispensable to a study of the war administration.

5. Other important sources: Harry S. Truman Library; Princeton University Library (Forrestal Papers); Brandeis University (David Niles Papers, through the courtesy of A. L. Sachar); Widener Library; in Great Britain: the British Museum, the Foreign Office Library, the Imperial War Museum; in the Soviet Union: the Moscow State Library. I thank the personnel of all these institutions for their unfailing courtesy.

In conversations that were not so much formal interviews as attempts to look back at the period through the eyes of participants, I have had the benefit of the views of: Lord Avon (Anthony Eden), V. Berezhkov, Adolf A. Berle, David Bruce, Randolph Churchill, Ernest Cuneo, Jonathan Daniels, Thomas E. Dewey, Morris Ernst, Anna Roosevelt Halsted, Mrs. Harold L. Ickes, Archibald MacLeish, Ivan Maisky, Samuel I. Rosenman, Grace Tully.

Writing of so international a figure as Roosevelt during his leadership of a world coalition imposes on the historian a special responsibility to understand the perspectives of historians in other countries. I greatly appreciated the opportunity to discuss aspects of the war period, especially of grand strategy, with the following persons:

In Britain: H. C. Allen and his colleagues at the Institute of United States Studies; D. N. Dilks, London School of Economics; John Ehrman; Michael Howard, then of the University of London; Arnold Toynbee, Chatham House; D. C. Watt, Chatham House.

In France: Jean Baptiste Duroselle; André Fontaine.

In Germany: Waldemar Besson, University of Konstanz; Ossip Flechtheim, Free University of Berlin; Andreas Hillgruber, University of Freiburg; Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Bonn University; Jurgen Röhwer, Library for Contemporary History, Stuttgart; and Hermann Graml, Lothar Gruchmann, and Thilo Vogelsang, Institute for Contemporary History, Munich.

In the Soviet Union: Youri L. Kouznets, Leningrad University; Georgi A. Arbatov, A. A. Gromyko, N. N. Yakovlev, and their colleagues at the Institute of the United States of America; V. Berezhkov (Stalin’s interpreter),
New Times;
historians at the Institute for Soviet-American Relations; Professor Silachov and his colleagues at the History Department, Moscow State University; G. Deborin, Marx-Lenin Institute. I also benefited immeasurably from lengthy exchanges of views that I had with members of the Institute of History, Soviet Academy of Sciences, in both Leningrad and Moscow, when I lectured there in 1963. I thank all the above scholars for their hospitality and courtesies.

Ernest Cuneo, Morris Ernst, and Samuel I. Rosenman not only counseled me at length on aspects of the war period, but also supplied me with personal documents. The late Hadley Cantril, of Princeton, generously
lent me his extensive notebooks, consisting of the results both of the polls he conducted and of other polls, and of his correspondence with the many persons through whom the results and conclusions were channeled to the President. The Roper Public Opinion Research Center at Williams College assisted me in obtaining and interpreting public-opinion data. The staff of the Williams College Library was, as always, helpful and obliging.

T
HE FOLLOWING ABBREVIATIONS ARE
used in citations in the chapter bibliographies:

AR     Army Records, National Archives

FDRL  Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York

FRUS
Foreign Relations of the United States,
Washington, D.C., cited by year and volume except for special-subject volumes, which are cited by title

HHP    Harry Hopkins Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library

HSTL Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri

LC     Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

NA     National Archives, Washington, D.C.

NYT   The New York
Times

OF     Official Files, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library

OHP   Oral History Project, Columbia University

PC      Press Conferences, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library

PHA   
Pearl Harbor Attack,
see Basic Book List

PL     Elliott Roosevelt (ed.),
F.D.R.: His Personal Letters
(New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), Vol. II

PMRP President’s Map Room Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library

PPA   Samuel I. Rosenman (ed.),
The Public Papers and Addresses
o
f Franklin D. Roosevelt,
Volumes 1941-1944-5 (4 vols., New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950). Cited by year volume covers

PPF    President’s Personal File, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library

PSF     President’s Secretary’s File, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library

SD     State Department

Books cited in the chapter bibliographies were published in New York City unless otherwise noted. When the author’s last name alone is used, the full citation will be found either in the Basic Book List, if that author has been cited in more than one chapter, or in the chapter bibliography. Thus the Basic Book List contains names of only those works cited in more than one chapter. An author’s name with a superior number (Pogue
¹
) is used when the Basic Book List contains more than one book by that author; the list provides the key to the particular book. In most cases where documents have been faithfully reproduced in published secondary sources I have cited the latter for the sake of readier accessibility to the reader.