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Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945: With a New Afterword (Oxford Paperbacks) PDF

684 Pages·1995·46.39 MB·English
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Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945 This page intentionally left blank Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945 With a New Afterword ROBERT DALLEK OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS New York Oxford 1995 FOR MATTHEW AND REBECCA Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombay Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1995, 1979 by Oxford University Press, Inc. First published in 1979 by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1981; with an Afterword, 1995 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945 Bibliography: p. Includes index. i. United States—Foreign relations—1932-1945 2. Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, Pres. U.S., 1882-1945 I. Title. E806.D33 327.73 78-7910 ISBN 0-19-502457-5 ISBN 0-19-509732-7 pbk. 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 42 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper PREFACE THIS BOOK HAS two general purposes: to meet the need for a compre- hensive one-volume study of Franklin Roosevelt's foreign policy, and to wrestle anew with the many intriguing questions about that subject. The nineteen seventies have been a good time to reconsider FDR's direction of foreign affairs. The appearance of a large and generally ex- cellent specialized literature and the availability of almost the entire American and British record on foreign relations in the thirties and the forties allowed me to reappraise and revise significant parts of the Roosevelt story, particularly on the war years. The London Economic Conference of 1933, the Spanish Civil War, the Quarantine Address, Munich, the Welles Mission of 1940, the Atlantic Conference of 1941, American participation in the war, wartime policy toward Russia and China, the origins of the Unconditional Surrender doctrine, Trusteeships, the Morgenthau Plan, and the Atomic Bomb are some of the principal subjects on which I think Roosevelt's intentions have not been fully understood. Roosevelt's actions, as many others have observed, are not easy to ex- plain. Rexford G. Tugwell, one of his advisers and biographers, has writ- ten, "[He] deliberately concealed the processes of his mind. He would rather have posterity believe that for him everything was always plain and easy . . . than ever to admit to any agony of indecision . . . any mis- giving about mistakes." ". . . You are one of the most difficult men to work with that I have ever known," Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes once told FDR. "Because I get too hard at times?" the President asked. "No," Ickes answered, because ". . . you won't talk frankly even with people who are loyal to you. . . . You keep your cards close up against your belly. You never put them on the table." I make no claim to some special technique for deciphering Roosevelt's motives. My method has been to reconstruct as fully as possible the con- text in which he acted. Following Roosevelt in this way gives one the feel- ing of peering into a kaleidoscope in which a shifting array of pressures moved him from one position to another: his own ideas, domestic con- siderations, and foreign events, either individually or in various combina- tions, determined Roosevelt's behavior in foreign affairs. The challenge viii PREFACE in explaining FDR is to determine which of these forces influenced him at any given time. Some of my answers will undoubtedly stir debate. That would be all to the good. Roosevelt's presidency is among the most im- portant in American history and deserves continuing scrutiny. It will re- main a continuing source of interest and instruction to the nation. A number of people and institutions have aided me in my work on this book. Professor Lawrence W. Levine of the University of California, Berkeley, provided me with a detailed and challenging critique of the full manuscript. I am particularly indebted to him for persuading me to re- think several important points in my explanation of Roosevelt's actions. Professor Richard Weiss, my old friend and colleague at UCLA, also read the entire manuscript and offered penetrating suggestions for im- provement. As important, he generously listened to my ideas as I wrote and raised a number of useful points which I have incorporated into the book. Professor Warren Kimball of Rutgers University, who is preparing a definitive edition of the Churchill-Roosevelt correspondence, eased my way through these extensive materials by providing me with descriptions of the content and location of each exchange. He also read the manu- script for the period 1939-45 and raised a number of valuable questions about interpretation and made useful suggestions for additions. Professor Robert Jervis of the Political Science Department at UCLA and Professor Christopher Thorne of the University of Sussex, England, also helped clarify some of my ideas in conversations about my work. Professor William E. Leuchtenburg of Columbia University called materials in the Robert W. Bingham and James Farley papers to my attention and helped me win fellowships for released time from teaching. Professors Richard W. Leopold of Northwestern University, Ernest R. May of Harvard University and Fritz Stern of Columbia University also gener- ously supported these requests for fellowships. My thanks to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and to the National Endowment for the Humanities for providing me with fellowships which allowed me to devote two full years to research and writing. The Eleanor Roosevelt Institute of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library aided me with a generous grant for travel and reproduction of materials during one year. The UCLA Academic Senate supported me with a series of grants for such work during several other years. I am also indebted to the staff of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library for helping me work through the Library's rich holdings. To this, I wish to add a special note of thanks to Dr. William R. Emerson, the Library's Director, and to William J. Stewart, the Library's former Associate Director. They helped make my journeys to Hyde Park more valuable and interesting than they may have realized. I also wish to thank the staffs PREFACE IX of the Manuscript Divisions of the Columbia University, Harvard Uni- versity, Hoover Institution, University of California, Berkeley, University of Virginia, and Yale University Libraries and of the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and the British Public Record Office. A word of appreciation to the excellent people at the Oxford University Press, New York, is also in order. Sheldon Meyer, the Vice President, worked with me on this book from its inception and provided me with valuable encouragement and suggestions throughout the long period of research and writing. Leona Capeless, the Managing Editor, and Annabel Tyrrell, the copy editor on the book, saved me from numerous errors, for which I warmly thank them. Finally, my wife, Geradine R. Dallek, helped sustain me in this work with patience, understanding, and a thoughtful critique which has both improved the book and made it more understandable to the general reader. R.D. Los Angeles, California June 1978

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Since the original publication of this classic book in 1979, Roosevelt's foreign policy has come under attack on three main points: Was Roosevelt responsible for the confrontation with Japan that led to the attack at Pearl Harbor? Did Roosevelt "give away" Eastern Europe to Stalin and the U.S.S.R. a
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