XIV. Quebec II

ChapterXIV QUEBEC II WE KNOW NOW that Mr. Hull, the Secretary of State, and Mr. Stimson, the Secretary of War, were horrified by what happened at the OCTAGON Conference in Quebec in September, 1944 At that time, their "stupefaction" (to use Hull's own word) was made a White House secret, and it was quickly deemed expedi ent to let the conference go down in history as one of the minor decision points of the war. Actually, it was the scene of one of the most damning blunders of Franklin D. Roosevelt's career a blunder inspired by a Svengali-like figure in the administration who was later to be identified by the F.B.1. as a key member of the Washington Communist spy ring. Although Roosevelt par tially extricated himself from the blunder, thanks to the frantic rescue work of Hull and Stimson, his Quebec decision almost delivered postwar Germany entirely to Communism. Nine months had passed since Teheran. Events had moved with dizzy speed. At Quebec, the Big Two sat down together in the realization that the war was won. OVERLORD had been a stupendous success,and the Anglo-American armies were poised at the Siegfried Line. Russia had pushed the German invaders off Russian soil, and its battle-flushed armies were now at the Vistula in Poland. It was no longer a question of victory. It had 228 QUEBEC II 2~ become a questionof what.the so-calledAllies would do with their victory.

I'll this intoxicating clitnate, some of Roosevelt's most intimate advisors began to losetheir heads. One of these was Henry Mar.. genthau, the long-time Secretary of the Treasury and the Presi dent's Dutchess County neighbor. From the beginning, Henry Morgenthau had looked upon World War II as a punitive expe dition to punish Hitler and the Germans for persecuting the Jews. He was close to those powerful circles, largely centered in New York City, which were demanding a Carthaginian peace. Since Roosevelt was in the middle of his fourth-term campaigp, running against Thomas E. Dewey, the governor of New York, and since New York was a pivotal state in the com.. ing election, the moment was politically propitious for Mr. Roosevelt to evidence a special regard for the opinions of Henry Morgenthau. So when the leaders of these "groups," as Hull calls them, caught the President's ear and asked him to invite Morgenthau to the Quebec Conference, he was "induced." To the country's surprise, the Secretary of the Treasury was called to Quebec.

Morgenthau, never considered a strong figure and lightlyre.. garded in the administration, even by Roosevelt, had come un.. der the influence of a Treasury economist named Harry Dexter White (his parents were Jacob and Sarah Weit when they emi... grated to America from Russia). White had an indefatigable drive and a facile brain. After teaching at Harvard University and Lawrence College, he had entered the Treasury Department in an obscure role in 1934. Moving up the departmental ladder, he had won Morgenthau's confidence early in the war period and was entrusted with a series of important missions. He be.. came Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, which, under a figure .. head such as Morgenthau, was a post from which he could wield influence throughout the Washington bureaucracy. On the eve 230 WASTEBASKET ROAD of Quebec, he was in full charge of all operations of the Treasury Department pertaining to foreign affairs. With his astute mind, he had easily established intellectual mastery over his chief, and when, on the night of September 4, 1944,a week before the can..

ference began, Morgenthau dined with Secretary of War Stirn.. son to propound his plan for .postwar -Germany, he brought Harry Dexter White, who had drafted it, to dinner with him.1 Stimson immediately saw trouble ahead. Indeed, this was the beginning of the most violent single interdepartmental struggle of Stimson's career. The successstory of Harry Dexter White is, of course, one of the bizarre phenomena of the Rooseveltian dispensation. This vulpine character, whose signature placed many men in the gov... ernment and brought fat promotions to others, was a traitor. On November 8 and December 4,.1945,only a little more than a year after the OCTAGON Conference, the F.B.I. transmitted mem... oranda to the WhiteHouse identifying him as a Soviet inform... ant. The F.B.l. reported that he was part of the Silvermaster ring. For years he had been supplying Russia with confidential information.

2 Later, White was publicly named by both Eliza... beth Bentley and Whittaker Chambers, former Soviet spy cour... iers, as one of their Washington contacts. While his case was being probed, he died under mysterious circumstances. Subse quent revelations verified his treachery, which is no longer an Issue. This was the man who sold Henry Morgenthau the so..called Morgenthau Plan for the pastoralization of Germany, which was to be the crowning achievement of the second Quebec Con ference. That the President of the United States fell into this transparent Communist trap demonstrates the wild irresponsi bility with which he was conducting American foreign policy in these final months of the war. The supple sycophants who write obeisant biographies of Rooseveltnimbly shun the episode, QUEBEC II 231 hoping to expunge it by silence. Sherwood, compelled at least to mention it, makes an offhand allusion to the "notorious" Mor genthau Plan, but he charitably refrains from telling his readers what it was.

Morgenthau presented his plan to President Roosevelt on September 6 at a meeting attended by Hull and Stimson. The three met again with Mr. Roosevelt on the ninth. On the elev enth, the conference was to begin in Quebec. These last few days saw a vigorous battle between Hull and Stimson on the one hand, and Morgenthau on the other, for the President's decision. Both Hull and Stimson considered Morgenthau's pro posal barbaric and disastrous, and they warned the President against it in strongly worded memoranda. The· Morgenthau Plan, in brief, was to strip, pillage, and so destroy Germany that it would be permanently converted into "a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in character." Speaking of the Ruhr "and surrounding industrial areas" to a total of over thirty thousand square miles, Morgenthau (or, in reality, Harry Dexter White) had written: "This area should not only be stripped of all presently existing industries but so weak ened and controlled that it cannot .in the foreseeable future be come an industrialized area.... All industrial plants and equip ment not destroyed by military action shall either be completely dismantled or removed from .the area or completely destroyed, all equipment shall be removed from the mines and the mines shall be thoroughly wrecked."3 But that was not all. Even more diabolical punishment was prescribed for the German people and their children and grand children. First, a list was to be made of Germans who were to be shot at oncetipon apprehension and identification. Second, the entire German population was to be held down to a standard of living no higher than bare subsistence.

To Hull, this was "blind vengeance." It was blind because "it 232 WASTEBASKET ROAD wasstriking at all of Europe.... The Treasury recommendation that the German mines be ruined was almostbreath-taking in its implications £ora11 Europe, because various other countries relied upon German coal for their industries."4 As for turning Germany into a pasture, Hull argued: "Seventy million Ger... mans could not live on the land within Germany. They would either starve Qr become a charge upon other nations. This was a scheme that would arouse the eternal resentment· of the Ger mans. It would punish all of them and future generations too for the crimes of a portion of them. It would punish not only Germany but also most of Europe." Stimson was horrified at the idea of turning "the center of one of the most industrialized continents in the world" into a nonproductive "ghost territory." "1 cannot conceive," he told the President, "of turning such a gift of nature into a dust heap."5 The proposal to hold the ·German population to a bare subsist ence level seemed downright immoral to him. "This would mean," he argued, "condemning the German people to a condi tion of servitude in which, no matter how hard or effectivelya man worked, he could not materially increase his economic condition in the world."

How a plot of such pre-medieval vindictiveness could be seri ously considered by supposedly "liberal" twentieth-century statesmen is not easy to understand. Even the passions of war could not, in a civilized age, rescue itfrom the charge of deprav ity. Harry Dexter White, of course, along with his Sovietpromp ters, wanted the Morgenthau Plan because it would wreck the economy of western Europe. This was part of the program of nlilitant Communism .. There was another Machiavellian twist to the proposal. By inducing the Americans and the.British to father this "cataclys mic plan for Germany," as Cordell Hull described it, these con... spirators could turn the hate of the German people against the QUEBEC 'II 233 Westerndemocraciesfor years to come. Moscowforesawa turn of the German masses to Communism, with the Soviet Union looming in their eyes as the lesser of two evils. From any angle, the Morgenthau Plan could bring nothing but loss to the United States.

Athis meetingswith Morgenthau, Hull, and Stimson before going to Quebec, President Roosevelt was noncommittal, al· though his remark that "Germany could live happily and peace fully on soup from soup kitchens" evinced to Stimson the shal· lowness of his attitude. Actually, Roosevelt was not a well man. Sherwood, who saw him in the White House just after the Quebec Conference after having not seen him for severalmonths, writes: "I was shocked by his appearance. I had heard that he had lost a lot of weight, but I was unprepared for the almost ravaged appearance of his face."6 Secretary Stimson was worried about the President's state of body and mind. He wrote in his diary on September II, the day the conference began: "I have been much troubled by the President's physical condition.... I rather fear for the effects of this hard conference upon him. I am par ticularly troubled ... that he is going up there without any real preparation for the solution of the ... problem of how to treat Germany. So far as he has evidenced it in his talks with us, he has had absolutely no study or training in the very difficult prob lem which we have to decide."7 This entry in Secretary Stimson's diary-it is not extravagant to say-may be the most trenchant observation penned during the entire war period. He knew, as did any person informed on the ethnography and the economy of Continental Europe, that the German question would be as vital after the war as it was before, if not more so, and that to treat it either casually or emo tionally would prove an expensive folly. Roosevelt was now go ing forth to deal with this question. And here we have a mem ber of the Cabinet, fresh from intimate White House talks, 234 WASTEBASKET ROAD writing sorrowfully in his private diary that the President was going to Quebec "without any real preparation" and that he had "absolutely no study or training" in the problem.

Harry Dexter White was thoroughly prepared. Through the red network of treachery, he had received his orders from Jacob Golos, a high Rusian officialin America who directed a number of Communist cells in the American government and was one of the ghostly manipulators of two espionage .. rings which encircled the White House. The Communist apparatus knew, of course, that Henry Morgenthau was the weak reed who could be used for their purpose and that White, his "assist ant," was the perfect agent for the job. Neither Hull nor Stimson was at Quebec. Generals .and ad mirals were in abundance, but the ball had long since passed to the statesmen. It was they who could lengthen the war and fumble the peace. Germany was on the verge of collapse, and as for Japan, Admiral Leahy, who was with the President at Que bec, writes: "By the beginning of September, Japan was almost defeated through a practically complete sea and air blockade."8 At a propitious moment, Henry Morgenthau put before Mr.

Roosevelt a paper containing the main features of the Morgen thau Plan. The President took his pen and wrote at the bottom: "O.K.-F.D.R." At·first, Prime Minister Churchill was violently opposed, but Morgenthau was armed with two weapons. One was an argu ment and the other was a bribe. The argument was the kind the British always find hard to resist. Britain, said Morgenthau, would inherit Germany's Ruhr business,her iron and steel mar kets, and would be rid of acorn petitor forever. The bribe, or quid pro quo) as Hull chooses to call it, was an offer of credits to Britain totaling six and one-half billion dollars. Both Hull and Stimson give this explanation of Morgenthau's coup in inducing Churchill to initial the Plan, too; and in his QUEBEC II 235 memoirs, Churchill himself declares he did so only because "the President, with Mr. Morgenthau-from whom we had much to ask-were so insistent." He then proceeds to wash his hands of the plan. Plainly, he initialed it at Quebec with his fingers crossed,never expecting as monstrous a program as the "pastor alizing" of Germany to be carried out. But he did want-and he did get-the six and one-half billion dollars for his country.

The same two men had signed a very different document three years before. It was the Atlantic Charter, which had pronounced that the United Statesand the United Kingdom would endeavor "to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity." Both being opportunists, Roosevelt and Churchill were not ones to be hedged in by solemn words, even their own. The Atlantic Charter had been the expedient of its hour. Now they paid no more heed to it than they did to the rainfall in Afghanistan. Returning to Washington after the conference, Henry "the Morgue," as the·President playfully called him, came rushing to Stimson and Hull to gloat. He was, writes Hull, "wildly enthu siastic over what he had accomplished." Harry Dexter White was at his side. Hull was furious. "This whole development at Quebec, I believe, angered me as much as anything that had happened during my career as Secretary of State." He went to the White House and told the President bluntly that Morgen~ thau's plan would wipe out everything in Germany except the land and that this meant that only 60 per cent of the German population could support themselves on German land and that the other 40 per cent would die. He added that he was satisfied the British had acquiesced at Quebec only to get Morgenthau's help in obtaining the six and one-half billion dollars Morgen thau had dangled before them.

9 WASTEBASKET ROAD Mr. Roosevelt,skilled tightrope-walker that he was, said little during this conversation, but he pricked up his ears when HuH hinted that it would injure him politically, in the middle of the election campaign, if it became known to the country as a whole that he espoused such a plan. His refuge was to play dumb. He told Hull that he had not actually committed himself to Mor genthau's proposals. "In fact," Hull records, "he did not seem to realize the devastating nature of the memorandum of Sep tember IS to which he had put his 'O.K.-F.D.R.' 'no Hull's conclusion was that Roosevelt"had not understood the meaning of what he had agreed to at Quebec." This is doubtful, andChurchilrs account fails to bear it out. The document they initialed was short, simple, and clear. Hull had taken Roose velt'sremarks to him at face value, a mistake which the trusting Secretary of State made frequently. Dismayed by the President's insouciance, Hull saw an immediate danger. His memoirs ex plain his worry: "If the Morgenthau plan leaked out, as it inev itably would-and shortly did-it might well mean a bitter-end German resistance that could cause the loss of thousands of American lives."11 Mysteriously, the press got wind of what had happened. The reaction was hostile, with·many newspapers violently attacking Morgenthau and the President for reportedly backing him. Only .the Communist organ, the Daily Worker, leaped to praise them. Mr. Roosevelt,reaching the conclusion that he had made a false step, kept the actual document, with its "O..K.-F.D.R.,"

out of the hands of the press. Excitedly, he telephoned Secretary Stimson (who had, "to preserve his self-respect," as he put it, sent the President a strong message of protest) and began to backtrack. He told Stimson that he "didn't really intend to try to make Germany a purely agricultural country" but that Eng land was "broke" and he wanted to get her "more business"

QUEBEC II 237 after the war.12 Naturally, this did not mollify Stimson, who could read plain English. Stimson lunched with Mr. Roosevelt on October 3 and brought the subject up again. The President "grinned and looked naughty and said 'Henry Morgenthau pulled a boner.' " He then rambled on about Germany in a way which he evi dently thought would be pleasing to Stimson. To the latter, he appeared "very tired and unwell," and he seemed not to know, or was pretending not to know, the import of the paper he had initialed at Quebec. Finally, Stimson, in exasperation, read to him verbatim from the document itself: "This programme . is looking forward to converting Germany into a country pri... marily agricultural and pastoral in its character." Right after these words came the sentence "The Prime Minister and the President were in agreement upon this programme." Roosevelt and Churchill had taken their pens and placed their initials within an inch of this affirmation of their accord. Nothing could have been clearer or more serious.

Although Roosevelt had been over the same ground with Secretary Hull a few days before, he feigned surprise when Stimson finished reading and looked up. Stimson's diary de scribes this incredible performance thus: He was frankly staggered by this and said he had no idea how he could have initialed this; that he had evidently done it without much thought. 13 This was the man who fancied himself indispensable to repre sent his country at international conferences at this critical mo ment in history and who was running for a fourth term as Presi dent. As a result of the entreaties by Hull and Stimson, the Mor genthau Plan was temporarily shelved. The President did not 238 WASTEBASKET ROAD publicly repudiate it, just as he had never publicly announced it, but on October 20, he privately ordered that detailed planning for the treatment of Germany be halted. Careful to give no af front to Morgenthau and the latter's political confederates, in his campaign speecheshe did not commit himself beyond prom ising that the German people were "not going to be enslaved."

"Enslaved" was a word one could take as one chose. As Hull feared, the leakage to the press was disastrous, for nothing could have been more ill timed, in its psychological im pact upon the German people, than Morgenthau's devilish coup at Quebec in September of 1944. Up until then, there was a fair chance, supported by intelligence reports, that Germany might discontinue its resistance to the Americans and British while holding the Russians at bay in the east in order to avoid the frightful fate of a Russian occupation. This could have shortened the war by months and could have averted the spawning of a malignant Communist East Germany that was to plague Europe for years into the future. Once the Anglo-Americans allowed themselves to be cast as destroyers more vengeful than the Russians, however, this hope went glimmering. As Eisenhower's troops lunged at the Sieg fried Line, Herr Goebbels used the Morgenthau Plan as a rally ing cry to the German people to put up a last-ditch resistance.

This they did, ·for seven more months of horror-months in which American airmen flattened and burned hundreds of German plants and factories, cities and towns, which American taxpayers would one day be called upon to help rebuild in order to correct the imbalance in Europe which, by a monumental miscalculation, their "victory" had achieved. Morgenthau persisted, and in 1945, he wrote a book, with White's aid, expounding the Plan. White earned new laurels, and power, by playing the leading role in the Bretton Woods Conference, which set up the International Monetary Fund, and QUEBEC II 239 he was slated to be the first executive director of the Fund when the F.B.I. revelations wrote finis to his career. As events transpired, the fetid breath of the Morgenthau Plan polluted the air of central Europe for about three years of abor tive, partial implementation, which proved to be as costly as it was absurd. Harry Dexter White's triumph in the capture of Roosevelt's mind was by no means short lived, for the spirit of Quebec prevailed at Yalta, too. And the momentum of hate and destruction was hard to stop.

By 1948, the U.S. Military Government reported that 767 fac tories in the British, French, and American zones of Germany had been dismantled and sent away to the victorious countries, mostly to Russia, some to Britain and France, and none to the United States.14 During this time, the United States was spend ing six billion dollars on food, clothing, shelter, and care for destitute, conquered people and the uprooted hordes who had fled westward in the path of the Red Army. With one hand we were destroying central Europe's means of subsistence; with the other we were supporting it at the expense of the American taxpayer. This farce stemmed back through Roosevelt to Mor genthau and Harry Dexter White. The Truman administration eventually gathered the courage to confess that it was suicidal, and the dismantling ground to a halt in 1949.15 Not only was Germany helped to rise from the rubble, but the time was soon to come when. she would be implored to rearm and American weapons would be pressed into German hands.

This was the sequel, ironic though it was. If excusesare looked for, they are hard to find, for there is nothing of the fortuitous, the incalculable, in this chain of happenings. The concatenation of events was grounded in the attitudes which· dominated the White House until the day Franklin D. Roosevelt died and which spilled over, as an inescapable legacy, into the early days of his successor'sadministration. Yet in the fall of 1944, Roose240 WASTEBASKET ROAD velt would have excoriated any reporter who might have had the temerity to ask him at a press conference if he thought it possible that within a decade we would be laying the foundations for a new German army to help save western Europe from the threat of conquest by Russia. Hitler had already predicted this more than once, and each time, Roosevelt had fumed with anger. "A prudent man foreseeth the evil," says the Bible. Franklin D. Roosevelt was preoccupied looking for something pleasant in his crystal ball. He saw it. It was his own re..election. No other President had had a third term, much less a fourth. He was lucky, in that his young opponent in this campaign, Thomas E. Dewey, fatuously hoped to coast into the Presidency on the slogan "It's time for a change!" and hardly attacked him at all.

While frustration and a feeling of disfranchisement gripped mil lions in the electorate, the seasoned old trouper, his physical deterioration concealed and his long seriesof diplomatic blunders magnanimously spared from public debate, managed to win again in November. Thus he came to the last lap on his road to Russia.