The Patriarch (52 page)

His response to the president was heartfelt but somewhat treacly. “Your letter made me happy—not only what you said but the whole tone of it.” As far as his “inside thoughts” were concerned, most of them had been included in his dispatches and his recent letters. “But, in the mood of your letter, I should like to add some personal observations and comments. The chief thing I have noticed in the South of France, on the part of caddies, waiters and residents, is a very strong anti-Semitic feeling. Beyond that, and a general sense of wary waiting for almost anything to happen, I can contribute nothing to an understanding of the international state of affairs.” Still, because the president had asked for his “inside thoughts about the present situation,” Kennedy seized upon the occasion to return, like a homing pigeon, to his favorite theme.

“About my position in England my only thought was to wonder whether my experience and knowledge were not being completely wasted. After all, I recognize that in this day and age an Ambassador may be hardly more than a glorified errand boy. I do get a bit discouraged for, although I have worked harder and longer hours in this job than on any job I ever held, it seems that three quarters of my efforts are wasted because of the terrific number of things to be done which seem to have no close connection with the real job at hand.” He did not want the president to think he was ungrateful for the honor granted him or that he was ready to abandon ship. “Of this one thing, though, you may be sure. Regardless of any personal inconvenience, as long as I am of any assistance to you, I shall remain for whatever time you like. . . . When I was a youngster, my father taught me two principles: gratitude and loyalty. . . . I have tried to live up to those two principles and, to you personally, I owe a debt on both counts.” Even his complaints were softened, so grateful was he that the president had taken the time to write him.
⁵⁸

—

K
ennedy leased the Domaine de Ranguin in 1939 with what was reported to be perhaps the “finest rose garden on the Riviera.” It was here that the family would spend its last summer together. Kennedy played with his younger children, had long talks with the older ones, sunbathed, rented a yacht, played golf, and as he had the year before, took in the “leg shows” on the beaches, which he admitted to Rose were so numerous “that the old variety shows have lost their novelty and their allure.” Rose, having seen those “leg shows” the summer before, had gone shopping for bathing suits for her girls in New York that June. It had been “impossible,” she noted in her diary, “to find anything at Cannes last year. Everyone wore a little brassiere, a bare tummy and an abbreviated pair of shorts. Such a costume is O.K. for the gals there but not for the Kennedys.”
⁵⁹

Marlene Dietrich was back at the Hôtel du Cap, with a slightly different and enlarged entourage. “Papa Joe,” as Dietrich referred to Kennedy to distinguish him from the other Joes in her life, offered her career advice, persuading her to accept Joe Pasternak’s offer to star in a western,
Destry Rides Again,
alongside Jimmy Stewart. To make sure she got the best deal possible, Kennedy called Arthur Houghton in Hollywood and found a new agent for her. Kennedy was happy to be of help, though by the end of the summer, Dietrich was beginning to get on his nerves. “Every time the telephone rings,” Kennedy wrote Houghton in late August, “and Dietrich wants to speak to me, I know she wants some favor.” Kennedy’s pique might have been aroused because that summer, Dietrich—whose entourage now included her husband, Erich Maria Remarque, and a new addition, her “summer of ’39 interlude,” a woman named “Jo”—had less time for him. Fortunately, Kennedy had Amy, a beautiful young French girl who, he wrote Houghton, “caddied for me every day and she was good in every respect.”

War was coming, and there was no way to escape it or ignore it. Before leaving the hotel that August, Dietrich, her daughter remembered, asked, “‘Papa Joe—what will happen if there is a war? Do I have to take everyone with me to America, or can I leave them here?’ . . . Kennedy [who had earlier helped secure her daughter’s American citizenship papers] assured her that if and when he felt the danger of war was imminent, he would evacuate his family back to England and safety and that her family would be given the same protection as his.”
⁶⁰

Twenty

“T
HIS
C
OUNTRY
I
S AT
W
AR WITH
G
ERMANY”

T
he German official telegraphic agency and the German radio system has just announced that, ‘The German and Soviet Governments have agreed to conclude a non-aggression pact,’” the American chargé d’affaires in Germany reported on August 21.
¹

Kennedy flew back to London from his villa in the South of France. With the threat that the Soviet Union would intervene to defend Poland now removed, there was no impediment to a German invasion. Prime Minister Chamberlain dispatched Ambassador Nevile Henderson to Salzburg with a letter requesting that Hitler peacefully resolve through negotiations any disputes he might have with the Polish government. He also reaffirmed Britain’s determination to come to the assistance of Poland if Germany invaded. That same day, Wednesday, August 23, President Roosevelt cabled a message to the king of Italy asking that he and his government do all they could to bring Germany and Poland to the bargaining table.

The diplomatic efforts were cosmetic. It was generally agreed that there was only one way out of the crisis. Poland would have to agree at once to turn over Danzig and at least some segment of the Polish Corridor. By sending Henderson to Hitler and then agreeing to partake in a second, secret round of negotiations with Swedish industrialist Birger Dahlerus, Goering’s personal emissary, the Chamberlain government had set in motion the same process that had led to the Munich Agreement. Hitler played his part in the charade by agreeing to talk peace while preparing for war.

In the early evening of August 23, Kennedy visited Lord Halifax, who, he cabled to Washington, believed that the Polish government was not inclined to enter negotiations with Hitler. An hour later, Kennedy met with Chamberlain. “He said the spectre of the impending catastrophe was over him all the time. He looks very bad and is terribly depressed. I said to him, ‘How does it look?’ and he said, ‘Very bad but I have done everything that I can think of and it seems as if all my work has come to naught.’ . . . I asked him if he thought the Pope could do any good and he said no. . . . Although I talked with him for almost an hour the sum and substance of it all was sheer discouragement with the picture as it stands. . . . If the President is contemplating any action for peace, it seems to me the place to work is on Beck [Józef Beck, the Polish colonel and minister for foreign affairs who had negotiated with and remained on good terms with Hitler] and to make this effective it must happen quickly. I see no other possibility.”
²

In suggesting that Roosevelt “work on Beck,” Kennedy was advising him to pressure the Polish government to peaceably cede territory to Germany, as the Czechs had. The alternative was war, which Kennedy believed had to be avoided at all costs.

At ten o’clock the following morning, Kennedy received a call from Sir Horace Wilson, one of Chamberlain’s chief advisers, who wanted to know—as did the prime minister—what the president was going to do. Kennedy promised Wilson he would be back in touch with him as soon as he heard from the White House. After lunch, Wilson called again to find out if Kennedy had reached the president. He had not, but he reported that he had an appointment to speak to the White House at eleven
P.M.

At midnight, the ambassador’s call to the president was put through and answered by Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, who was sitting with the president. Kennedy “asked Welles if he understood the import of my request for President to get in touch with Poland. [Welles] said, yes, but it could not be done the way I suggested. I said I didn’t care how it was done so long as something was done and quickly.

“All right, came the President’s voice. Something will be done tonight.”
³

The next morning, August 25, upon arriving at the embassy, Kennedy discovered that instead of following his advice and pressuring the Poles to negotiate with the Germans, the president had urged both Hitler and Ignacy Mos'cicki, the president of Poland, to refrain from hostilities and choose one of several methods to peaceably settle their differences. “Neither the president nor I,” Hull would later write in his memoirs, “felt any disposition to bring any pressure to bear on Poland.”
⁴

On August 25, Hitler made what he deemed to be his final offer to Nevile Henderson. Kennedy spent all day trying, without much luck, to find out what Hitler had proposed and how the British intended to respond. He was invited to Downing Street at ten o’clock that evening, read the dispatches from Germany, and cabled Washington at midnight. The fuehrer had insisted that the Polish question be settled at once. As soon as the provocations against Germans in Poland ceased and the problems of Danzig and the Polish Corridor were resolved, Hitler declared that he would make Great Britain a comprehensive peace offer and “limit armaments, go back to peaceful pursuits, and become an artist, which is what he wanted to be. (Aside by Kennedy, he is now, but I would not care to say what kind.)” If his terms were not accepted, Hitler had declared, “it was going to be a war worse than ’14–18.”
⁵

When he had finished reading the dispatches, Kennedy was invited to join the prime minister, the foreign secretary, Lord Cadogan, and their chief aides in the cabinet room. The prime minister asked Kennedy what he made of Hitler’s proposals and what his recommendations were for a British response. “I said I felt strongly he could not quit on Poland no matter what else happened. He would jeopardize not only the honor of Britain, but would completely break his political party. . . . I then suggested that the answer could contain a suggestion that if [Hitler] accepted a reasonable Polish settlement perhaps he could get U.S. and other countries to get together on an economic plan that certainly would be more important to Germany than what he could possibly get out of getting anything in Poland.
⁶

“‘You must pass the hat before the corpse gets cold,’ I said.

“‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Chamberlain.

“‘You have to make your solution more attractive to Germany than what she is trying now to get out of Poland. Do it this way . . . Propose a general settlement that will bring Germany economic benefits more important than the territorial annexation of Danzig. Get the United States now to say what they would be willing to do in the cause of international peace and prosperity. After all, the United States will be the largest beneficiary of such a move. To put in a billion or two now will be worth it, for if it works we will get it back and more.’”
⁷

Kennedy remained in the cabinet room “for another half hour and then I rose and as I went by the P.M.’s chair, I put my hand on the back of his shoulder and said, ‘Don’t worry, Neville, I still believe God is working with you.’ . . . When I left No. 10, I thought to myself that incident has probably been the most important thing that has ever happened to me. Here I was an American Ambassador, called into discussion with the P.M. and Foreign Secretary over probably the most important event in the history of the British Empire. I had been called in before the Cabinet and had been trusted not only for my discretion but for my intelligence. It was a moving experience.”
⁸

Kennedy’s recommendations were dismissed as soon as they were offered. He was proposing nothing less than rewarding Hitler for past aggressions and preventing future ones by settling on him an appeasement package so magnificent, it would divert him from occupying Danzig and the Polish Corridor. It defied the logic of events to believe that Hitler could be bought off with cash or credits or promises of more favorable trade agreements. It was even more preposterous to believe that the Chamberlain government, having failed in its attempt at appeasement at Munich, would try again less than a year later.

—

T
he next morning, a Saturday, Kennedy was up early as always. After his horseback ride and breakfast, he went to the embassy, where he spent the remainder of the day attempting to cajole, threaten, and beg American and European shipowners to stop at British ports and evacuate Americans. The liners that regularly serviced the British ports were already filled to capacity, having been booked weeks before to bring vacationing Americans home. Several companies, fearful that war was about to be declared, had canceled their sailings, leaving thousands stranded with no way to cross the Atlantic.

On August 28, Sir Nevile Henderson delivered to Hitler the British cabinet’s reply to his “peace offer.” The British proposed that Germany and Poland engage in direct negotiations to settle their differences, that the settlement be guaranteed by the European powers, and that once that settlement was achieved, the British would proceed with further discussions toward a comprehensive Anglo-German agreement.

“I am sitting at my desk,” Kennedy wrote Arthur Houghton on August 29, “waiting to hear what Mr. Hitler says to Sir Nevile and wondering whether it is to be peace or war. The children are all back in London, but I don’t feel I should send them home until I have the rest of the Americans out of London. Another one of those great moral gestures that the American people expect you to make; that is, get your own family killed, but be sure and get Miss Smith of Peoria on the boat.”
⁹

Both Lord Derby and J. P. “Jack” Morgan (who had decided that “whatever the result of the immediate reply from Hitler may be,” he was sailing home) had offered Kennedy use of their country estates. Kennedy chose Morgan’s Wall Hall, with its hundreds of acres of gorgeously landscaped grounds and gigantic faux Gothic castle, in large part because it was fully equipped and staffed by an army of servants, cooks, gardeners, and chauffeurs who, unlike Morgan, could not escape to America. Unable to get his children out of England yet, he moved them away from London and harm’s way.
¹⁰

At midnight on Tuesday, August 29, Kennedy cabled Hull in Washington that Hitler had agreed to “direct negotiations with Poland solely out of a desire to insure friendship with Great Britain,” but insisted that a Polish plenipotentiary with full decision-making powers appear in Berlin within twenty-four hours to receive and agree to his demands. “Ambassador Henderson remarked that this last stipulation sounded like an ultimatum. After a heated exchange of remarks Hitler and Ribbentrop assured him it was intended only to stress the urgency of the matter, at a moment when two fully mobilized armies were facing each other.”
¹¹

The next morning, the full text of Henderson’s communication arrived in London and Kennedy hurried off to Whitehall to read it. He met briefly with Halifax, who told him that he thought Hitler’s demands that the Polish representative arrive in Berlin and sign an agreement within twenty-four hours were both “impudent and impertinent.” Still, the fact that Hitler had kept open the door to negotiations made the foreign secretary a “little more optimistic” than he had been the day before.

Halifax departed for 10 Downing and Kennedy was ushered into the office of Under-Secretary Rab Butler, where he was given “the text of Hitler’s reply to Britain” and a draft of the cabinet’s reply. Butler asked him “what he thought” of the British reply. Kennedy, according to his diary entry for that day, answered that he thought it was so “tough” that Hitler might well respond, “Well, if this is the attitude the British are going to take the minute I make the slightest concession, what possibility have I got to ever work out any big political or economic scheme with them.”

Kennedy suggested that the British offer Hitler a counterproposal with “something to hang his hat on.” Butler, according to Kennedy’s diary and memoirs, was in full agreement with him and suggested that Kennedy “should see the P.M. and give him my reactions.” Both men believed that Hitler, though erratic and probably a bit of a madman, did not want to go to war with the British. Kennedy reported to Butler that when Joe Jr. had lunched last week in Berlin with Unity Mitford (who, according to Joe Jr., was “the most fervent Nazi imaginable, and is probably in love with Hitler”), Mitford said that “Hitler had really great admiration for the British—they really knew how to rule, but that he was heartbroken when Chamberlain had gone home after Munich” instead of staying behind to negotiate a comprehensive peace treaty between their two nations.
¹²

Rab Butler, hoping that Kennedy would push Chamberlain back onto the appeasement track, arranged a meeting for the ambassador and the prime minister early that evening. “At 6:30, I went to 10 Downing Street and on arriving Sir Horace [Wilson] met me with ‘How is the Stormy Petrel today?’ I said, ‘Fine’ and asked him how he felt.” (Kennedy apparently had no problem with being referred to as a “stormy petrel,” the bird sailors regarded as a harbinger of trouble.) On being ushered in to see the prime minister, Kennedy repeated what he had told Butler and then suggested that Chamberlain “put in some war regulation that will affect the whole people and give them a little taste of what is to come. They then might not be so anxious for Poland to refuse to negotiate and start a war when they saw what they would suffer themselves.” According to Kennedy, even at this very late date, Chamberlain had still not given up hope that war could be prevented. “If he only could get the Poles and Germans really negotiating something could be done. . . . The big thing was a European settlement. . . . ‘It could be done,’ said Chamberlain, ‘if I could only get the chance.’”
¹³

As Kennedy sat in his office that night, distracting himself by writing to his friends in the United States, he still held on to the belief that war might be averted. The Poles, he cabled Hull at seven
P.M.,
had agreed to negotiate, but no one knew what the Germans were going to demand of them. Still, “the mere fact that the Germans have actually formulated proposals is regarded as a slightly favorable sign. The impression given by the Foreign Office is that they are a little more hopeful than they were yesterday, but the general public seems more depressed.”
¹⁴