The Jew Who Defeated Hitler Read online

  Roosevelt fired Woodring on June 19 and nominated Republicans to head the War Department and the navy, a bipartisan act unprecedented in American history. The new navy secretary was Col. Frank Knox, a former newspaper editor and a Republican vice presidential candidate who strongly favored naval expansion. The real surprise was the appointment of venerable New York statesman Henry Stimson as War secretary. Stimson had held the same position from 1911 to 1913 and had been Herbert Hoover’s secretary of state from 1929 to 1933. Most important, he was an ardent interventionist who shared Morgenthau’s hatred of the Nazis and his belief that the United States must help the Allies. Morgenthau met with him before the announcement, advising him to always remember to push the president and to “get rid of Johnson.”35 Roosevelt fired Johnson a month later, hoping to completely clean house in the military. Johnson refused to leave his office until the president made some sort of statement and “broke down and cried like a baby” when Pa Watson told him he was fired.36 In his place, Stimson brought in two lawyers from Wall Street, Robert Patterson and John J. McCloy.

  The Democratic National Convention in Chicago chose Roosevelt, as expected, as its presidential candidate on July 15, and he named as his running mate Henry Wallace, the handsome Iowan who had been Agriculture secretary. Once again, the entire Morgenthau clan fell in line behind Roosevelt. The elder Henry Morgenthau telegraphed to say: “My sincere commiserations for your having to continue your exhausting task for another four years. May God grant you the health and power it requires.”37

  France fell in early June and was partitioned into an occupied zone in the north and a nominally independent state in the south headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, a hero of World War I. General Charles de Gaulle, who had been named under secretary of national defense, refused to recognize the government in Vichy and organized the Free French Forces in London. Britain was now defended by a shrunken arsenal, the world’s strongest navy, a narrow stretch of water, and historic grit. It had no European ally, and for ammunition it counted on the United States, a neutral country on the far side of a U-boat-infested ocean.

  The “Miracle at Dunkirk” had of course been a crushing loss—especially in terms of armaments. The British had forsaken 880 field guns; 330 heavy-caliber guns; 500 light antiaircraft guns; 850 antitank guns; 6,400 antitank rifles; 11,000 machine guns; 690 tanks; 20,000 motorcycles; 5,000 cars; and 40,000 transport vehicles. It was logical to double these numbers because this matériel was now in German hands and added to their existing arsenal, all of which could be used against the desperate Brits.38

  For the past two years, every time the Germans took another country, they gained the conquest’s capacity for manufacturing weapons. For example, Germany’s annual steel-production capacity in the summer of 1938 was just over twenty-two million tons, but in the next two years she added about twenty million tons through the occupation of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, and by Italy entering the war. In the summer of 1940, Britain expected its own production of steel (including imports from the United States) would amount to about fifteen million tons, compared with more than forty-two million by greater Germany and Italy.39 That was simply the statistic for raw steel. The British were accelerating their arms program dramatically, but they knew they were outgunned by a vicious foe. “The [British] munitions baby has doubled or trebled its weight in a couple of months,” said one British cabinet report. “Yet it is still a very small infant compared to the giant that threatens to attack it.”40

  Purvis came to the corner office on May 29 asking for modern weapons already on order for the US military. The United States would benefit, he argued, because it would allow manufacturers to test their products in battle environments. His list of requests was incomplete, but he knew it would include at least 1,000 to 1,500 medium-sized tanks and 1,000 large tanks; about 1,000 each of thirty-seven-millimeter antiaircraft and antitank guns; 300 to 500 ninety-millimeter antiaircraft guns; and 1,000 three-inch antiaircraft guns. They would also need ammunition for all of this artillery and felt a pressing need for motor torpedo boats and nitrocellulose powder.41

  Morgenthau—who was now being eased out of his responsibilities as aircraft czar in favor of Knudsen—told Purvis he could not deliver motor torpedo boats because there was no way Congress would ever consider this new technology surplus. Although he sympathized with England’s plight, General George Marshall told Morgenthau his priority was the preparedness of the US Army and Navy and the defense of the Western Hemisphere. He had gone over a number of requests and decided he could offer Britain no further pursuit planes. Fewer planes would mean the training of fewer American pilots, and the military believed the preparation of its own pilots was its priority. The US military also worried about the acute shortage of bombers and specific matériel, like antiaircraft ammunitions. There was no point in shipping antiaircraft guns to the Brits without ammo. What Marshall could release to the British was about 10,000 Browning machine guns; 25,000 automatic rifles; 500,000 Enfield rifles; 500 seventy-five-millimeter field guns; and 500 mortars with 50,000 rounds of ammunition. He also said the army could spare 100 million rounds of ammunition for machine guns and rifles.42 Purvis said the British would take “the whole damned lot,” and it was all shipped to Britain as France was a lost cause. “I am delighted to have that list of surplus matériel which is ‘ready to roll,’” FDR wrote Morgenthau on June 6. “Give it an extra push every morning and every night until it is on board ship!”43

  The arms reached Great Britain in July, where the Britons’ joy turned to ambivalence. They were expecting a German invasion, so anything was welcome. However, the weapons were old, and the small arms were of a different caliber than those of the British and lacked sufficient ammunition. They were issued to the home guard. The British realized instantly they needed to harmonize their arms program with the Americans’. Since the British were further along in their development, they believed it made sense that the Yanks adapt to meet British requirements.44

  The British were worried about the shipping losses, which could cost Britain her naval advantage—a disastrous thought for an island nation that needed food imports to survive. Britain would suffer 4.5 million tons of shipping losses in 1940, far more than it could replace domestically. And the French navy was no longer fighting the Germans, having been retained by the officially neutral Vichy government. (The British would virtually destroy the French navy off of French Algeria on July 3, killing 1,297 Frenchmen and ensuring it could not fall into the hands of the Germans.) Purvis asked Morgenthau on June 5 whether Britain could have any US destroyers. The problem was Admiral Stark, the chief of naval operations, had recently testified before Congress that no destroyers could be considered surplus. However, Morgenthau told Purvis that FDR said the United States might be able to part with ten destroyers.45 Days later, Purvis gave Morgenthau a note from Churchill saying only sixty-eight British destroyers out of 133 in commission were fit for service, and one-third of them had to be kept in Britain to defend against the expected invasion. That compared with 433 British destroyers ready for action in 1918. “We must therefore ask, as a matter of life and death, to be reinforced with these destroyers,” Churchill pleaded. “We will carry on the struggle whatever the odds, but it may well be beyond our resources unless we receive every reinforcement and particularly do we need this reinforcement on the sea.”46

  Soon Roosevelt and Morgenthau were both working to deliver destroyers to the British, and their determination intensified once the Luftwaffe began its aerial assaults on shipping points like Portsmouth, on England’s south coast. The fact that the Republican presidential candidate was Wendell Willkie, who wanted to support the Allies, meant aid to Britain would not be an election issue. Morgenthau pressured Knudsen to give French aircraft orders to the British. He lobbied to send B-17 Flying Fortresses to Britain until Roosevelt told him to pipe down, lest he upset the negotiations now proceeding with Congress to deliver destroyers to the British.47 Thoug
h there was a lingering concern in Washington that arms sent to Britain would become German arms if Britain fell, Morgenthau fought on to aid the country.

  The last half of July 1940 was a seminal period in the career of Henry Morgenthau Jr. as he tackled a host of issues for the Allies. Working excessively hard, he was short-tempered and effective. He had been in cabinet longer than Stimson and Knox, so he held sway with them. His passion burned stronger than that of anyone else in the cabinet, possibly including Roosevelt. And the British air program overlapped with his official role as Treasury secretary because he had to determine how the Brits would pay for their arms.

  Sir Frederick Phillips, a ranking British treasury official, told Morgenthau that Britain and its dependencies had about $2.25 billion in gold, dollars, and US securities but expected to run a balance-of-payments deficit of about $1.55 billion with the United States alone in the next year. Morgenthau actually believed Phillips understated the British predicament and urged the British to divest more of their direct holdings.48

  Morgenthau was walking to work with Knudsen on July 18 when he took the new airplane czar to task for planning to cut back on engine orders for Britain. He was growing frustrated with the problems surrounding the arms program and asked that he and Stimson sit down with Knudsen before any changes were made. “All this defeatism around Washington is terrible and it’s just this time that you take the engines away from them [the British],” Morgenthau said. “You can't do it.” As they neared their destination, he added. “You have got to pat Purvis on the back and keep up his morale and not undermine him…. The man is on the point of a nervous breakdown and he has to have some encouragement.” Knudsen promised to do nothing without consulting Morgenthau.

  Later that day, Knudsen told the secretary he would divide the airplane orders evenly between the Americans and the British. Though he was skeptical at first, Purvis eventually was convinced it would prove “a solution to my whole problem.49

  At a dinner at the British embassy that night, Morgenthau learned that the United States was shipping aviation gasoline to the Japanese. Lothian told him the British had asked the United States to stop the shipments, and Stimson, who was also in attendance, said he had argued against such shipments for a year. Dumbfounded, Morgenthau said he would get on it immediately and decided to ask Harold Ickes, who had said he wanted to preserve the US reserves, to stop the fuel shipments.50 But Morgenthau didn't stop there. He also decided to seek embargoes on petroleum products and scrap metal, which were being used in the Japanese munitions program.

  The next day, Morgenthau explained his plan to Roosevelt ahead of a meeting with Ickes, Stimson, Knox, and Welles. The plan could ensure peace in Asia for three to six months, he said. Roosevelt proposed the embargo to the meeting, not mentioning it had come from Morgenthau. Stimson and the Treasury secretary argued strongly in favor. But Welles said it would only lead to Japan declaring war on Britain, and instead he urged that the United States work toward peace between Japan and China.

  “Mr. President,” Morgenthau objected, “only ten days ago you told me to go ahead with T. V. Soong on a China-Russia-United States deal to keep China going and I think we should keep them going.”

  The meeting ended without a decision, and Morgenthau, his passions flowing, regaled his staff back at the Treasury about the “beautiful Chamberlain talk that I listened to Sumner Welles give.” Japan would not be provoked into a war, he said, if Ickes announced the program as a means of conserving US oil supplies. “We will say no oil can leave the United States and that was the trick in this thing that pulled the main argument away from the State Department,” he concluded. “The State Department just drives me crazy.”51

  In the coming days, he persuaded Ickes that the United States should ban all oil exports for reasons of conservation and national defense. Morgenthau then had Edward Stettinius of the Commission for National Defense produce the justification for embargoes on scrap iron and scrap steel products. Morgenthau on July 22 recommended to FDR that petroleum, petroleum products, and scrap metals be added to the list of materials embargoed by the United States. Stimson told him he supported the move and encouraged him to pressure the State Department.

  “I'm putting all the pressure on the State Department that I can, and I'm going to continue to,” said Morgenthau.

  “You're dead right,” said Stimson.52

  The Battle of Britain had begun, the first military conflict in history that took place between rival air forces. The bombings of industrial areas soon spread to residential neighborhoods. When Hitler vowed on July 23 to repay the British bombing tenfold, Morgenthau did not sleep he was so upset about the shortfall in Allied aircraft. He decided the United States could no longer place a ceiling on British requests nor on its own ambitions for production.

  Morgenthau’s passions boiled over at a July 23 meeting in which Purvis and several US grandees debated what surplus material the Brits could have. Suddenly, Morgenthau halted the discussion, asked that they all hear him out, and delivered a diatribe that was breathtaking in its verbosity and power. The president, he said, had stated the United States would help the Allies. “Furthermore, I also believe it is his belief…that just as long as we can keep the English going, and they have the will and the courage to keep going with their own money to buy the stuff they need to keep up this magnificent fight—that if we want to keep out of war…that the longer we keep them going, that much longer we stay out of this war.” He repeated several times that it would be “the height of stupidity” to do anything now that would interfere with the British armament program.53

  With a precise and reasoned voice, Purvis told the Americans just how precarious the situation in London really was. “If I were to cable to London today the feeling of discouragement that I had for a moment last week, I think the effect would be very vital on the course of the war.” No one had any surpluses, he said, because all the Allies were struggling to catch up with the Axis air program. “There is no plus sign,” he said. “They are all minus signs.”

  Stimson, possibly more eloquent than Purvis, responded that the US Army had to be prepared for a national crisis and was about three thousand planes short. “I have to consider an emergency when these requirements for 1941 or 1942 seem like iridescent dreams.”

  Three thousand planes. It took the United States three months to make that many planes—half a year considering that half the US output, at least in theory, was going to the British. In half a year, who knew how many more planes the Germans would have produced? After the meeting broke up, Morgenthau calculated that the proper goal for US production should be six thousand units per month divided evenly between the British and the Americans. It would amount to thirty-six thousand planes a year for the US military—almost two and a half times the unimaginable production figure Roosevelt had proposed in the autumn of 1938.

  “You've talked about how the British would like 3,000 planes a month; say to Knudsen you're ready to order them,” he told Purvis the next day, adding not to worry about the authorization—he'd get it. “You've got to bluff,” he said. “Stick to the 3,000 planes and put it up to Knudsen as though it were an offer you had been thinking about for weeks. After all, part or all of your British production facility will be bombed—this country has got to take care of it.” Morgenthau promised to back him up.54

  Pressured by Morgenthau and Purvis, Knudsen agreed that morning to an additional three thousand planes a month for the British, with the British agreeing to finance the expansion of some plants. Stimson and Roosevelt both supported the plan. Morgenthau told his diary that the president “seems to want my advice and…follows the recommendations I make.” Lothian told Morgenthau that Purvis had said, “the most marvelous performance he'd ever seen done by anybody was done by you yesterday.” He added: “It'll make a terrific difference to the whole future.”55

  Later on July 25, Roosevelt accepted the Treasury recommendations and banned the export of scrap metal, oil, and oil produ
cts. The State Department reacted by confining the embargo to high-octane gasoline, airplane motor oil, tetraethyl lead, and No. 1 heavy melting-grade iron and steel scrap, which it said would restrict the Japanese air-force buildup without exciting the government. The department added that a total embargo would be “administratively tremendously difficult.” Morgenthau was outraged because the Japanese could still get crude oil, which they could refine into aviation fuel. If the State Department couldn't handle the full embargo, it should “give it to somebody else to do,” he said, telling Stimson and Ickes there would be a “big row” on the issue. Stimson said he would “go the limit on it,” and Ickes agreed.56

  Morgenthau attended a cabinet meeting that afternoon with a blunt letter opposing any changes to the president’s orders. “May I most respectfully suggest that if the Division of Controls of the State Department and the Administrator of Export Controls cannot administer this proclamation properly the Treasury can,” said the letter, adding it would be “comparatively easy.” Morgenthau concluded by writing: “The objections raised to the oil and scrap metal control reinforce a growing impression on my part that there is something very seriously wrong with the personnel or system in effect for administering the export control.”57

  Not only did the letter insult the competence of the State Department, it also said the Treasury could do a job the State Department couldn't. Morgenthau and Welles attacked each other as soon as the meeting began. Raising his hands in the air, Roosevelt told the two men to sort it out themselves after the meeting, and they argued harshly with each other later in the hall. Stimson and Morgenthau both considered it a partial victory. But the fact was that the State Department changes remained in force, and the Japanese still had access to most forms of scrap metal and crude oil from the United States.58 Yet the Japanese understood that the moves were slowly strangling its industry while the Allies grew stronger. The perceptive journalist Edgar Snow wrote in the Saturday Evening Post in May 1941 that a war with Japan was almost certain, largely because the Japanese knew its enemies were outpacing its military production.59 Secretary of State Cordell Hull began talks with Ambassador Kichisaburō Nomura in April 1941 to try to mend their differences, but both sides were intractable. The United States wanted Japan out of China and to renounce designs on other territories. Japan saw no difference between its colonies on mainland Asia and Britain’s colonies in Africa and India. Yet Hull and Nomura continued the talks through 1941 in a bid to avert a war.