VIII. "Unconditional Surrender" - to Stalin

VIII "UnconditionalSurrender" -to Stalin IN LoNDON on the night of April 14, five days after the abandoned American and Filipino forces on the Bataan Penin sula had been overwhelmed by the Japanese, and three weeks before the defenders of Corregidor were to meet the same fate, the decision was made to aid Communist Russia by invading Germany through France. Appeals from the American people to rescue the American garrison in the Philippines were re jected as impractical and reckless, but the Roosevelt admin istration was prepared to tak~ any risk, at whatever cost in American lives, to save the Soviet Union. General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, and Harry Hopkins, personal representative of President Roose velt, won a great victory for the Soviet Union, which was clamorously demanding an invasion of western Europe to open a second front against Hitler. Winston Churchill and other members of the British War Cabinet agreed with extreme re luctance, protesting that Japan was threatening India and might effect a junction with the Germans in the Middle East.

Robert E. Sherwood, in Roosevelt and Hopkins, notes the "contradictory circumstance of the American representatives constantly sticking to the main topic of the war against Ger many, while the British representatives were repeatedly bring ing up reminders of the war against Japan." It was "contradictory" indeed, but it was consonant with a policy that dominated American military and political deci sions throughout the war-decisions that insured victory for communism. Militarily, the policy called for the total defeat and destruction of Germany as a European power. Politically, "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER"-TO STALIN 115 it called for support of the Soviet Union on all European and Far Eastern questions. Hopkins and Marshall persuaded Roose velt that, to keep Stalin in the war against Germany and later bring him into·the war against Japan, it was necessary to give him everything he wanted. Hopkins persuaded Roosevelt that he could prudently do this because Stalin would cooperate· for peace after the war. William C. Rullitt, former ambassador to Moscow, protested to Roosevelt that his Russian policy would fail because Stalin could not be trusted. As quoted by Bullitt in Life magazine, Aug. 23, 1948, Roosevelt said: "Bill, I don't dispute your facts. They are accurate. I don't dispute the logic of your reasoning. I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of man. Harry says he's not, and that he doesn't want anything but security for his country. And I think that if I give him anything I can and ask nothing from him in return, no blesse oblige, he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of peace and democracy."

There can be no doubt that Hopkins and Marshall expected Russia to dominate Europe after the destruction of Germany. An astounding document which Hopkins took with him to the Quebec conference in August, 1943, headed "Russia's Posi tion," is quoted in Sherwood's book. It was part of "a very high level United States military strategic estimate," which means that Marshall was familiar with it if he did not write it. Sherwood quotes the following: "Russia's postwar position in Europe will be a dominant one. With Germany crushed, there is no power in Europe to oppose her tremendous military forces. "The conclusions from the foregoing are obvious. Since Russia is the decisive factor in the war, she must be given every assistance and every effort must be made to obtain her friendship. Likewise, since without question she will dominate Europe on the defeat of the Axis, it is even more essential to develop and maintain the most friendly relations with Russia.

"Finally, the most important factor the United States has to consider in relation to Russia is the prosecution of the war in the Pacific. With Russia as an ally in the war against Japan, 116 THE TWENTY-YEAR REVOLUTION the war can be terminated in less time and at less expense in life and resources than if the reverse were the case. Should the war in the Pacific have to be carried on with an unfriendly or negative attitude on the part of Russia, the difficulties will be immeasurably increased and operations might become abor tive." The decision to fight a land war against Germany was the first of a long series of tragic mistakes in the prosecution of the war. Hanson Baldwin, military critic of the New York Times, declares in his book, Great Mistakes of the War: "There is no doubt whatsoever that it would have been to the interest of Britain, the United States, and the world to have allowed and indeed to have encouraged-the world's two great dictator ships to fight each other to a frazzle."

Russia, in a death struggle with Germany, could not have won without our help. Stalin could not have made a separate peace with Hitler without giving up Russian territory-the Ukraine and the Caucasus-which would have imperiled his own regime. Yet, as Baldwin remarks, the United States put itself "in the role-at times a disgraceful role-of fearful sup pliant and propitiating ally, anxious at nearly any cost to keep Russia fighting." Charitably, he adds: "In retrospect, how stupid!" The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, headed by Franklin D'Olier, former president of the Prudential Life In surance Company, and staffed by hundreds of technical ex perts, made an extensive evaluation of the effects of the air war against Germany. It reported: "By the beginning of 1945, before the invasion of the homeland itself, Germany was reach ing a state of helplessness. Her armament production was fall ing irretrievably, orderliness in effort was disappearing, and total disruption and disintegration were well along. Her armies were still in the field. But with the impending collapse of the supporting economy, the indications are convincing that they would have had to cease fighting-any effective fighting-with in a few months. Germany was mortally wounded."

This conclusion is supported by the testimony of General "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER"-TO STALIN 117 Heinz Guderian, Germany's great commander of armored forces and master of the blitzkrieg technique. In his book, Panzer Leader, General Guderian writes: "The Allied air of fensive had brought ever increasing devastation to Germany during the last few months. The armament industry had suf fered heavily. The destruction of the synthetic oil plants (in January, 1945) was a particularly severe blow, since our fuel supplies were mainly based on those installations. . . . The de struction of the greater part of our synthetic fuel industry meant that the German command now had to make do with such supplies as came from the wells at Zistersdorf in Austria, and from around Lake Balaton in Hungary." Certainly the air offensive, the sea blockade, and Russia's successes on the eastern front would have wrecked the Ger man economy and power of resistance to such an extent that Hitler's regime would have been overthrown and satisfactory peace terms could have been irriposed upon his successors.

However, Roosevelt, Hopkins and Marshall were dedicated to the destruction of Germany and were opposed to a negoti ated peace even with an anti-Nazi regime in that country. A secret report headed "Joint Board Estimate of United States Overall Production Requirements," signed by Marshall and Admiral Stark and submitted to Roosevelt on Sept. 11, 1941, said: "It is believed that the overthrow of the Nazi regime by action of the people of Germany is unlikely in the near future, and will not occur until Germany is upon the point of military defeat. Even were a new regime to be established, it is not at all certain that such a regime would agree to peace terms acceptable to the United States. . . . It should be recognized as an almost invariable rule that only land armies can finally win wars."l This report purported to be a purely military estimate of the situation, but in his letter of July 9, 1941, directing War Secretary Stimson to take the initiative in its preparation, Roosevelt· said: "I am asking Mr. Hopkins to join with you in these conferences."

1. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins.

118 THE TWENTY-YEAR REVOLUTION It is unlikely that historians ever will be able to determine the proportionate share of responsibility which must be at tributed collectively to Roosevelt, Hopkins and Marshall for the disasters they brought upon the American people and a large part of the world. Roosevelt had the. power, but he was influenced by Hopkins and Marshall. Hopkins also ~nfluenced Marshall, and therefore was the dominant member of the tri- . umvirate. Of the three, Marshall's record is the most tragic and incomprehensible. Throughout World War II and the postwar years, down to 1951, when he was largely responsible for the removal of General MacArthur from command in the Far East and for the strategy of appeasement which resulted in our de feat in the Korean war, he seemed to be under a spell, the mental captive of invisible and sinister forces. The record of his service to the communist cause, however innocent, is ap palling, and hardly could have been worse if he had con sciously acted on instructions from the Kremlin.

Marshall's reputation as a military "genius" was one of the many myths propagated by the New Dealers. He did have an exceptional memory for detailed figures and facts about the army, such as its strength, organization, equipment, state of training, deployment and finances, and by reciting such infor mation hour after hour without reference to notes he greatly impressed committees of Congress. For that reason it was all the more remarkable when he said he could not remember where he was on the night before the Pearl Harbor attack. He knew little more about the science of warfare than Roosevelt knew about economics or Hopkins about religion. I once heard him express an "expert" military opinion which astonished non military observers at the time, and which in retrospect seems incredible. He was testifying before a Senate committee in the summer of 1940, after the German break-through in France.

A senator asked him whether the army knew how to stop tanks. Marshall said he believed the jeep was the answer to the tank. To the flabbergasted senators, he explained: "As I conceive it, hundreds of jeeps will swarm over the battlefield, each of them towing a 37 millimeter anti-tank gun. That way we will put "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" -TO STALIN 119 the tanks out of business." As it turned out, the 37 millimeter anti-tank guns Marshall was talking about wouldn't stop a light tank at close range, but that was beside the point. What the ;German tiger and panther tanks might have done to a fleet of jeeps racing out on a battlefield would have been a spectacle. As a colonel in the early years of the Roosevelt administra tion, Marshall ingratiated himself with the New Dealers by his efforts in behalf of Civilian Conservation Corps camps under his command. At· Fort Screven, he had under his command the CCC activities of Georgia and northern Florida. Later at Fort Moultrie he directed the CCC in South Carolina. His ac tivities in charge of these camps attracted the attention of the New Dealers who were interested in the CCC, including Mrs.

Roosevelt, Hopkins, and Aubrey Williams, head of the Na tional Youth Administration. 2 In 1936, Marshall became a brigadier general and in 1938 Roosevelt made him Chief of Staff, jumping him over the heads of twenty major generals and fourteen senior brigadier generals. Sherwood reports that Hopkins "strongly recommended" Marshall's appointment as Chief of Staff. According to Stimson's book, On Active Service in Peace and War, the plan for an invasion of Europe across the Eng lish channel "was the brain child of the United States army." General Eisenhower, a Marshall protege, who was in charge of the War Department's War Plans (later Operations) Divi sion, takes full responsibility, or rather credit, for the European invasion project and says it was enthusiastically supported by his subordinates. The evidence is conclusive, however, that if Eisenhower's ideas had not been in full accord with those con ceived before the war by Marshall and Hopkins, the planning assignment, the supreme command of the allied expeditionary forces, and the five stars that adorned his shoulders would have gone to some other general.

The officersin the War Plans Divisionwere thinkingabout the purely military question of defeating Germany as quickly as possible. They were not concerned about the postwar world 2. America's Retreat from Victory, by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

120 THE TWENTY-YEAR REVOLUTION or other political questions. Churchill, however, strongly op posed the cross channel invasion both on military and political grounds. He was thinking about the 3,190,235 British empire casualties in World War I, which irreparably weakened his country. He was thinking about the future of Europe and the world, with Germany destroyed and triumphant communism dominating the Eurasian heartland. Churchill's exemplary prudence only provoked suspicion in the minds of the American "Russia First" strategists. "A major factor in all American thinking of that time," writes General Eisenhower, "was a lively suspicion that the British contem plated the agreed-upon cross-channel concept with distaste and with considerable mental reservations. . . ." Hopkins told Churchill in London in April, 1942, that "the disposition of the United States was to take great risks to re lieve the Russian front," according to Sherwood. Marshall spoke of the possibility of launching an emergency operation on the French coast as early as the fall of 1942, and said Presi dent Roosevelt would favor taking this "great risk" using Amer ican troops to the fullest extent possible, if it should be required by developments on the Russian front. Eisenhower was afraid of becoming involved in the Middle East or northwest Africa so deeply that the cross-channel invasion would be postponed indefinitely. Accordingly he told Marshall that he favored a limited operation on the northwest coast of France in the fall of 1942 to capture an area which later would serve as a bridge head for a large-scale invasion.3 He was prepared to take that risk, although he states that in June, 1942, "the great bulk of the fighting equipment, naval, air and ground, needed for the invasion did not exist." Hanson Baldwin declares: "It is ob vious that our concept of invading western Europe in 1942 was fantastic; our deficiencies in North Africa, which was a much needed training school, proved that."

The projected 1942 operation in France was abandoned in favor of the invasion of North Africa, which Churchill favored and Roosevelt demanded because of his determination to do 3. Crusade in Europe, by Dwight D. Eisenhower.

"UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER"-TO STALIN 121 something for the Russians in 1942. The major cross-channel invasion, originally planned for the spring of 1943, was post poned until the fall, then May 1, 1944, and finally June 6, 1944, as the British repeatedly sought to prevent it by extend ingoperations in North Africa to Sicily and Italy. Churchill hoped that the campaign in Italy would lead to an invasion across the Adriatic Sea through Yugoslavia and into central and southeastern Europe before Stalin could get there. Church ill was defeated, however, when Roosevelt supported Stalin at the Teheran conference in late November, 1943. According to Sherwood, Roosevelt said he was opposed to any secondary operation which would delay the cross-channel invasion but acknowledged that he had been talking to Church ill about future operations in the Adriatic and Aegean Seas and in the Balkans, from bases in Turkey, if the Turks could be brought into the war.

This suggestion annoyed Stalin, but not more so than Hop kins. Sherwood reports that Hopkins scribbled a note to Ad miral King, Chief of Naval Operations, demanding: "Who's promoting that Adriatic business that the President continually returns to?" Hopkins was virtually accusing the Commander in Chief of insubordination. Admiral King could not enlighten him. Elliott Roosevelt, in his book As He Saw It, reports an ex traordinary conversation he had with his father about the· dis agreement between Churchill and Stalin. The President said it was obvious that both Churchill and Stalin were motivated by political considerations. When Elliott suggested that Churchill might possibly be right, Roosevelt told him the "one great big invasion" plan had been favored from the beginning by the war plans division and the chiefs of staff.. And he added: "It makes sense to me. It makes sense to Uncle Joe.... Trouble is, the P. M. [Churchill] is thinking too much of the postwar, and whereEnglandwill be. He's scaredof lettingthe Russians get too strong.... "

The next display of madness in the conduct of the war was the "unconditional surrender" policy, jauntily proclaimed by 122 THE TWENTY-YEAR REVOLUTION Roosevelt at a press conference in Casablanca, January 24, 1943, after a ten-day parley with the British on war plans. According to Elliott Roosevelt, his father first used the phrase at a luncheon on January 23, attended only by the President, Elliott, Churchill, and Hopkins. Elliott reports: "For what it was worth it can be recorded that it was father's phrase, that Harry took an immediate and strong liking to it, and that Churchill, while he slowly munched a mouthful of food, thought, frowned, thought, finally grinned, and at length announced, 'Perfect! And I can just see how Goebbels and the rest of 'em'll squeal!' " Elliott attributes this comment to his father: "Of course, it's just the thing for the Russians. They couldn't want anything better. Unconditional surrender! Uncle Joe might have made it up himself."

In a statement to the British House of Commons on Nov. 17, 1949, Churchill substantially confirmed Elliott's account of the birth of the policy. He said the phrase "just popped into Roosevelt's mind." As Hanson Baldwin remarks, however, the notion that the policy was a sudden inspiration is wholly er roneous. It was deeply embedded in the war philosophy of Roosevelt, Hopkins, and Marshall,. and had been implicitly ex pressed in the secret report of the Army and Navy Joint Board of Sept~ 11, 1941. General Grant, in 1862, won great popu larity when he used the phrase "unconditional surrender" in response to a request from General Buckner for terms for the capitulation of Fort Donelson. It is a reasonable conjecture that Roosevelt believed the phrase would be equally popular as a slogan for his program to destroy Germany. How Church ill failed to perceive the vast differences between surrendering a fort and·a country is incomprehensible.

The disastrous consequences of the unconditional surrender policy soon became evident. Captain Harry Butcher, Eisen hower's naval aide, noted in his diary on April 14, 1944: "Any military person knows that there are conditions to every surrender. . . . Goebbels has made great capital with it to strengthen the morale of the German army and people. Our "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER"-TO STALIN 123 psychological experts believe we would be wiser if we created a mood of acceptance of surrender in the German army which would make possible a collapse of resistance. . . ." Captain Liddell Hart, who interviewed the leading German generals after the war, declares in his book, The German Gen erals Talk: "All to whom I talked dwelt on the effect of the Allies' 'unconditional surrender' policy in prolonging the war. They told me that but for this they and their troops-the factor that was more important-would have been ready to surrender sooner, separately or collectively. 'Black-listening' to the Al lies' radio service was widespread. But .the Allied propaganda never said anything positive about the peace conditions in the way of encouraging them to give up the struggle. Its silence on the subject was so marked that it tended to confirm what Nazi propaganda told them as to the dire fate in store for them if they surrendered."

Roosevelt and his war strategists not only adhered to the unconditional surrender policy to the bitter end but refused to cooperate in any way with Germany's extensive underground. Allen W. Dulles, brother of State Secretary Dulles and head of the Central Intelligence Agency, has told the story of the amazing anti-Nazi resistance movement in his book, Germany's Underground. With any encouragement from Washington, par ticularly a promise that the unconditional surrender policy would be modified, the strength of the underground would have been vastly increased by recruits from the army, and Hitler's regime would have ended much sooner than it did. Even with out such encouragement, the underground almost succeeded on July 20, 1944, when Hitler was injured by a bomb explosion in his headquarters on the eastern front. Closely allied to the unconditional surrender atrocity was the infamous Morgenthau plan for the destruction of Ger many. As we have seen, the plan was drafted by a member of the Soviet conspiracy, Harry Dexter White, Assistant Sec retaryof the Treasury. Like the unconditional surrender pol icy, however, the plan was in full accord with Roosevelt's war philosophy dating back to the report of the Army and Navy 124 THE TWENTY-YEAR REVOLUTION Joint Board on September 11, 1941. Roosevelt wholly agreed with the spirit of the Morgenthau plan. James F. Byrnes, who was Roosevelt's war mobilization director, reports in Speaking Frankly that Roosevelt discussed the kind of peace he wanted for Germany at the White House in late August, 1944. The President said the German people, for a long time, "should have only soup for breakfast, soup for lunch and soup for din ner."

On August 25, 1944, Roosevelt appointed a Cabinet Com mittee consisting of State Secretary Hull, War Secretary Stim son, Treasury Secretary Morgenthau, and Harry Hopkins to formulate a policy for Germany. According to his diary, Stim son dined with Morgenthau and White on the night of Septem ber 4, 1944, and learned that he could expect trouble. His fears were confirmed the next day at the first meeting of th~ Cabinet Committee. Although Hull later turned against the Morgenthau plan, Stimson wrote in his diary, after the first meeting, that "Hull was as bitter as Morgenthau against the Germans. . . . He and Morgenthau wished to wreck completely the immense Ruhr-Saar area of Germany and turn it into second rate agri cultural land regardless of all that area meant not only to Ger many but to the welfare of the entire European continent." Sherwood tries to absolve his hero, Hopkins, from any re sponsibility for the Morgenthau plan, even insisting that he strongly opposed it. Stimson, however, wrote the following in his diary: "Hopkins went with them (Hull and Morgenthau) so far as to wish to prevent the manufacture of steel in the area, a prohibition which would pretty well sabotage every thing else. I found myself in a minority of one."

Members of the Cabinet Committee presented their conflict ing views to Roosevelt on September 6 and again on September 9 but no decision was reached until the Quebec conference, which began on September 11. Although Hull and Stimson were not invited to the conference, Morgenthau was. Hull re ports that groups interested in the destruction of Germany in duced the President to invite Morgenthau. On October 15, 1944, Roosevelt and Churchill initialed an agreement provid ..

"UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER"-TO STALIN 125 ing that the industries in the Ruhr and the Saar would be "put out of action and closed down." The two areas were to be put under some international organization which would·"supervise the dismantling of these industries." The program looked for ward "to converting Germany into a country primarily agricul tural and pastoral in its character." According .to Stimson's book, Morgenthau reported that Churchill at first strongly opposed the Carthaginian program for Germany but was converted by the argument that the elimi.. nation of German competition would create new markets for Britain. United Nations economic reports subsequently con firmed the validity of this argument with figures showing that Britain had grabbed up virtually all of the European markets lost by Germany. In addition to the trade argument, Churchill was prompted. to approve the Morgenthau plan by the hope of getting billions of dollars of postwar American aid. Morgen thau relates that tears came to Churchill's eyes as he pleaded with Roosevelt for a continuation of lend-lease or a huge loan after the war. In what Morgenthau describes as "a marvelous ..

and touching gesture of impatience," Churchill asked Roose.. velt: "What do you want me to do? Get on my hind legs and beg like Falla?" When Roosevelt returned to Washington from the Quebec conference he became alarmed over the unfavorable press re action to reports about the Morgentbau plan that had leaked out to a newspaper columnist. He sent a memorandum to Hull, dated September 29, declaring that someone was putting out untrue statements and adding: "I wish you would catch and chastise him." On October 3 Roosevelt told Stimson he had no intention of turning Germany into an agrarian state. Stim son, according to his diary, then read the language of the agree ment to the President,who was "frankly staggered," and said he must have initialed the document "without much thought." The Morgenthau agreement made a mockery of the so-called Atlantic Charter, proclaimed by Roosevelt and Churchill on August 14, 1941, which pledged the joint efforts of the two governments "to further the enjoyment by all states, great or 126 THE TWENTY-YEAR REVOLUTION 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."

The plan was considerably modified by the Cabinet Com mittee before it was put into effect but its essential spirit was retained in the subsequent Yalta and Potsdam agreements and in "J. C. S. 1067," the policy directive sent to General Eisen hower for the occupation of Germany. This directive ordered the military governor to "take no steps (a) looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany or (b) designed to main tain or strengthen the German economy." At the Yalta con ference Roosevelt accepted, as a basis for future discussions, Stalin's proposal for reparations of twenty billion dollars from Germany, half of which would go to the Soviet Union. At the Potsdam conference this proposal was abandoned, but it was agreed that reparations without limit, both out of current pro duction and in the form of capital assets, could be taken by the Russians in their own occupation zone, and that twenty-five per cent of all capital equipment removed from the western zones would be turned over to the Russians, fifteen per cent of it in exchange for food and ten per cent of it without payment.

This was the "dismantling" program advocated by Morgen thau. The territorial concessions which gave the Soviet Union mastery of eastern Europe and eastern Asia were made at the Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam conferences. Tacit agreements reached at Teheran, where Roosevelt first met Stalin, resulted eventually in the betrayal of Poland and China, the dismember ment of Germany, and a further repudiation of earlier pledges by Roosevelt and Churchill. In the Atlantic Charter declara tion, they had opposed "territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned." In the so-called United Nations declaration of January 1, 1942, they had given a pledge "to .cooperate with the governments signatory hereto," which included Poland and China. And in the Cairo declaration of November 22, 1943, they had agreed that Manchuria should be restored to China.

"UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER"-TO STALIN 127 At the Teheran conference, Roosevelt and Churchill ex pressed no objection when Stalin announced that the western frontier of Poland should extend to the Oder River in Ger many. According to Sherwood's report, which is based on the official records, Roosevelt himself first suggested that the Rus sians should have access to the port of Dairen, in Manchuria. When Stalin expressed the opinion that the Chinese would object, Roosevelt said he thought they would agree if Dairen were made a free port under an "international guarantee." Sherwood notes that this proposal was made by Roosevelt at Teheran, and not fourteen months later at Yalta, when "ac cording to legend he was so enfeebled as to be non compos mentis." According to Byrnes, who was present and took shorthand notes at the Yalta conference, Roosevelt first proposed that Poland's eastern frontier should follow the· so-called Curzon line. This gave Stalin that half of Poland which he occupied under his deal with Hitler in 1939. Roosevelt said it would be "desirable" to adjust the southern end of the line so that the city of Lwow and at least part of the oil fields should be inside Polish territory. Stalin demanded extension of Poland's west ern frontier to the Oder and Neisse rivers in Germany. Church ill said, "It would be a pity to stuff the Polish goose so full of German food that he will die of indigestion." Chl;lrchill also estimated that acceptance of the Oder-Neisse line would re quire the transfer of about 9,000,000 Germans to the remainder of Germany, which would lose twenty-five per cent of the arable land it had in 1937. Stalin, however, said he would prefer to continue the war if necessary to get what he wanted.

The conference approved an ambiguous statement saying the eastern frontier should follow the Curzon line "with digres sions from it in some regions of five to eight kilometers in favor of Poland," that Poland should receive "substantial accessions of territory in the north and west,"and that "the final delimita tion of the western frontier of Poland should thereafter await the peace conference." The last stipulation was reaffirmed at Potsdam, although the Russians meanwhile had turned over 128 THE TWENTY-YEAR REVOLUTION the administration of Germany east of the Oder-Neisse line to their Polish puppet government. Having agreed to give Stalin the eastern half of Poland and Poland a large slice of Germany, Roosevelt and Churchill next proceeded at the Yalta conference to sell out the exiled Polish government, a faithful ally whose air, land, and sea forces were giving an excellent account of themselves in the war against Hitler. Stalin supported the so-called Polish Committee of Na tional Liberation, the communist regime at Lublin. Roosevelt thereupon proposed reorganization of the Lublin regime "to represent all the political parties." The conferees finally agreed that the Lublin government should be reorganized "on a broad er democratic basis with the inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland itself and from Poles abroad," and should be called the "Polish Provisional Government of National Unity."

It remained provisional just long enough for the Communists to kick out the nori-Communists who were provisionally taken in. In his book De/eat in Victory, Jan Ciechanowski, former Polish ambassador to Washington, understandably protests: "... an illegal act had been committed, by virtue of which, contrary to .international law and· justice, the sovereignty of the Polish nation, vested in its legal government, had been ap propriated by the Big Three powers, without giving the Polish people or their legal representatives the chance of having any say in the matter . . . in violation of the principles of self determination and of all the .traditions for which the United States had always stood in the past." Stalin sugar-coated the appeasement pill for Roosevelt and Churchill by accepting a declaration that the three govern ments would act jointly, if in their judgment such action should be required, to form "broadly representative" interim govern ments and facilitate the holding of elections in the liberated states and former axis satellites. This declaration was so mean ingless on its face that Stalin accepted it without objection.

The Yalta agreement on the Far East, which profoundly changed the history of the world, was reached in private dis cussions between Roosevelt and Stalin, according to accounts "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER"-TO STALIN 129 by Sherwood and others. Churchill was not present, although he signed the secret Far East protocol, which was dated Febru ary 11, 1945, but not released for publication until February 12, 1946. Alger Hiss, the State Department traitor, was a mem ber of the American delegation and one of Roosevelt's advisers. Whether he was present at Roosevelt's private discussions with Stalin has never been disclosed. The secret protocol provided that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan "in two or three months after Germany has surrendered" on the following conditions: .1. The status quo of Outer Mongolia, which the Russians had detached from China, would be pre served. 2. The southern part of Sakhalin and all adjacent islands would be returned to the Soviet Union. 3. The com mercial port of Dairen would be "internationalized," while safeguarding "the preeminent interests of the Soviet Union"

in the port, and the former lease of Port Arthur as a naval base would be restored to Russia. 4. The Chinese Eastern and the South Manchurian railroads would be jointly operated by Rus sia and China, "it being understood that the preeminent inter ests of the Soviet Union shall be safeguarded and that China shall retain full sovereignty in Manchuria." 5. The Kurile Is lands would be "handed over" to the Soviet Union. Roosevelt agreed to "take measures" in order to obtain Chiang Kai-shek's concurrence in these capitulations to Stalin. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed "that these claims of the Soviet Union shall be unquestionably fulfilled after Japan has been defeated." This agreement was made without consulting Chiang. The recognition of the Soviet Union's "preeminent interests" in Manchuria gave the Communists the base from which they conquered China with a population of 460,000,000. Although Chiang regarded the deal as a betrayal of his country, he sub mitted to it under American pressure. He was dependent upon Americanassistancein his war with the Communists.

Sherwood, Sumner Welles, and other New Dealers defend Roosevelt's concessions to Stalin on the ground that they in volved the .restoration of possessions and privileges taken by 130 THE TWENTY-YEAR REVOLUTION the Japanese from the Russians in the war of 1904. These rights and possessions were acquired, however, by imperial Russia in its aggressions against China. The argument that the United States fought a world war to restore to Russia the fruits of its aggressions in China hardly would commend itself to the American people. Moreover, the Kuriles had been Japa nese from remote antiquity, and Russia had agreed in a treaty signed in 1875 to abandon its aggressions in the northern part of the islands in return for Japan's withdrawal from southern Sakhalin. Japan got back southern Sakhalin in the war of 1904. Stalin had agreed at the Moscow conference in October, 1943, attended by Secretary Hull, to enter the war against Ja pan after the defeat of Germany. Elliott Roosevelt, reporting on the Teheran conference, quotes his father as saying Stalin agreed at that meeting to declare war against Japan within six months after the defeat of Hitler. Actually the important ques tion, as the war with Japan neared its end, was not how to bring the Russians in but how to keep them out.

The military judgment of General Marshall was the decisive factor in the Yalta betrayal. Stimson wrote that "much of the policy of the United States toward Russia, from Teheran to Potsdam, was dominated by the eagerness of the Americans to secure a firm Russian commitment to enter the Pacific war." The late Edward Stettinius, who attended the Yalta conference as Secretary of State, wrote: "President Roosevelt had just been told by his military advisers that the surrender of Japan might not occur until 1947, and some predicted even later. The President was told that without Russia it might cost the United States a million casualties to conquer Japan." Roosevelt's principal military adviser at Yalta was Mar shall, and Marshall was virtually alone among the top com manders of the army, navy, and air forces in his opinion that Russia should be brought into the Pacific war. Admiral Leahy, . Roosevelt's Chief of Staff, and Admiral King, Chief of Naval Operations, were there, but Admiral Leahy opposed bringing Russia into the war and Admiral King merely went along with Marshall. Leahy reports in his book I Was There that as early "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER"-TO STALIN 131 as July, 1944, when Roosevelt conferred at Honolulu with Gen eral MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz, Commander of the Pa cific fleet, he was told that Japan could be defeated without an invasion.

Leahy writes: "MacArthur and Nimitz were now in agree ment that the Philippines should be recovered with ground and air powerthen availablein the westernPacific and that Japan could be forced to accept our terms of surrender by the use of sea and .air power without an invasion of the Japanese home land." Reporting on the Yalta conference, Leahy declares: "1 per sonally ... did not feel that Russian participation in the Japa nese war was necessary. The army did. Roosevelt sided with the army." Major General Courtney Whitney, who was a member of MacArthur's staff, told the writer that MacArthur never fa vored bringing the Russians into the war with Japan. He said MacArthur was "constantly sending strategic estimates" to Washington, in which he "consistently took the position that once the Philippines were conquered, Japan's position would be hopeless." Roosevelt received word of the liberation of Ma nila during the Yalta conference.

Having surrendered eastern Europe to Stalin at the Teheran and Yalta conferences, the military and political strategists of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations gave him control of central Europe by failing to capture Berlin, Prague, and Vienna and by agreeing to a Soviet occupation zone in which Berlin was an island with no access corridor for the American, British, and French sectors of that city. The plan for the occupation zones was drafted by the Euro pean Advisory Commission and was .approved at the Yalta conference. The late John G. Winant, United States representa tive on the EAC, is generally blamed for failing to insist on a corridorconnectingBerlinwith the westernzones. Winantwas . a victim of the prevailing delusion that nothing should be done that would indicate a lack of faith in the Russians. However, he was an agent, not a policymaker, and all agreements reached 132 THE TWENTY-YEAR REVOLUTION in the EAC were subject to confirmation by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of State, and the President. In all the negotiations on the occupation zones, Marshall was the only member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was directly concerned, because the War Department was to have responsibility for the occupation of Germany.

Eisenhower maintains in his book that it would have been "stupid" for his armies to drive for Berlin before the Russians could take the city, but that judgment has been repudiated by the Berlin blockade and by more recent events in Germany. Churchill strongly disagreed with Eisenhower during the war. In a message to Roosevelt he insisted that troop maneuvers had a political significance, and that Berlin should be occupied. However, Roosevelt and Marshall supported Eisenhower, who declared in a message to Marshall that "Berlin itself is no longer a particularly important objective."4 As Hanson Baldwin points out, the Americans had a bridge head across the Elbe by April 12 and the Russians did not reach that river until April 25. While the American forces re mained static on the Elbe, the Russian battle for Berlin was not won until early May. Edgar Ansel Mowrer, in his book The Nightmare of Ameri can Foreign Policy, reports that he was personally told by the White House that "the Joint Chiefs of Staff advised Truman to let the Russians take Berlin." This, of course, meant that Marshall so advised Truman.

Marshall's· next great service to the communist cause was the suppression of a proposed surrender warning to Japan, identical with the declaration later issued at Potsdam, which might have ended the war with Japan two months earlier, be fore Russia could come in. If this declaration had been issued at the end of May, when Marshall shelved it, thousands of American lives might have been saved, for the bloody battle of Okinawa did not end until June 21. Marshall had been warned by an intelligence report, signed by fifty of his own officers, all with the rank of colonel or 4. Crusade in Europe.

"UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER"-TO STALIN 133 above, on April 12, 1945, that the entry of Russia into the Asiatic war would result in a Soviet China and would destroy America's position in Asia "quite as effectively as our position is now destroyed in Europe east of the Elbe and beyond. the Adriatic." The intelligence officers expostulated that "to pay the Soviet Union to destroy China" would be "an act of treach ery that would make the Atlantic Charter and our hopes for world peace a tragic farce."5 The Yalta deal had been made when Marshall received this report, although he must have been acquainted with the views of the intelligence officers who· prepared it when he went to Yalta. At all events, there was time enough when he received it to bring the war to an end before the Russians could come in. In late May, 1945, Acting State Secretary JosephC. Grew called in Eugene H. Dooman, chairman of the Far Eastern Division of the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (SWINK) and instructed him to draw up a declaration setting forth the policies·that would be followed by the United States if Japan would surrender. The facts of this amazing and little known episode were given to the Senate Internal Security Sub committee on September 14, 1951, by Dooman, who drafted the surrender ultimatum. The key provisions of the document stated that there was no intention to enslave the Japanese peo ple and that they would· be free, if they wished, to retain "a constitutional monarchy under the present dynasty." The alter native, said the declaration, was "prompt and utter destruction."

Acting Secretary Grew approved the declaration and pre sented it to the State Department's policy committee, consisting of the legal adviser and the assistant secretaries. There was no dissent when Grew read the document until he came to the provision relating to the retention of the emperor. At this point, Dean Acheson and Archibald MacLeish, assistant secretaries, vehemently objected. Acheson and MacLeish were supporters of Owen Lattimore, who was energetically working to prolong the war until Russia could come in. Lattimore, described in 5. America's Retreat from Victory, by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

134 THE TWENTY-YEAR REVOLUTION the Senate subcommittee's report as "a conscious, articulate instrument of the soviet conspiracy," was especially working to depose the Japanese emperor. In a radio round table dis cussion sponsored by the University of Chicago on July 8, 1945, Lattimore called for a period of "good old chaos" in Japan. Despite the objections by Acheson and MacLeish, Grew took the document to President Truman on May 28, 1945. The President read it and said he would approve it if it was acceptable to the armed services. On May 29, Grew and Doo man took the document to a meeting in War Secretary Stim son's office, attended by Stimson, Navy Secretary Forrestal, Assistant War Secretary McCloy, Marshall, Elmer Davis, di rector of the Office of War Information, and a ·dozen or more high ranking army and navy officers. Dooman testified that Stimson, Forrestal, and McCloy approved the declaration, but that Davis "reacted violently" against it. He said Davis ob jected to anything that might be construed "as forming a basis for a negotiated surrender."