Expectations of Infamy: Roosevelt and Marshall Prepare for War, 1938-41
1998; Wiley; Volume: 28; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1741-5705
Autores Tópico(s)World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact
ResumoSingapore had fallen. American and Filipino troops were in bitter retreat on Bataan peninsula. whole of Southeast Asia appeared open to Japanese. Time magazine put it plainly, if melodramatically, on February 23, 1942, this was worst week of war. nation took one great trip-hammer blow after another--vast, numbing shocks. It was a worse week for U.S. than fall of France; it was worst week of century. Such a week had not come to U.S. since blackest days of Civil War.... Now, as in 1864, fate of nation was plainly in balance. Now, as in 1864, only immediate and sustained miracles of effort and speed could tip scales in nation's favor.(1) Yet less than one year later, tide had turned so surely that ultimate Allied victory could not be in doubt. Japanese advances were blunted in Pacific, allowing President Roosevelt's Europe-first strategy to be put in motion. This was not result of logistical miracles, whether immediate or sustained. pipeline for development and production of simplest weapons system is more than matter of a year. Although one cannot discount importance of Soviet forces confronting bulk of Nazi arms or British heroism in both air and desert, course of conflict had changed so irrevocably by beginning of 1943 because potential of American might was already being brought to bear. This mobilization of resources was not initiated on December 8, 1941. It resulted from close cooperation, starting in 1938, of a very small number of military and civilian leaders in Washington and timely, if calculated, willingness of president who had assembled them to follow their counsel. Foremost among them was Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall. His relationships with Harry L. Hopkins, Henry Morgenthau Jr., and, after June 1940, Henry L. Stimson were pivotal to Marshall's access to White House. Although Marshall was principal strategic architect of America's contribution to Allied victory in World War II, influence of others waned as that victory was achieved. always frail Hopkins died in 1946. After Pearl Harbor, Stimson and Morgenthau fell out, climax of their discord Morgenthau's doomed plan for a postwar Germany denuded of industry. Stimson's health also declined during war. Already seventy-two when he returned to Washington in 1940, he died in 1950. It remains a remarkable achievement that four men so dissimilar in backgrounds, temperament, and experience worked so effectively together during critical period prior to American entry into war. It seems even more remarkable if one accepts prevailing view of Franklin D. Roosevelt's peculiar administrative style. memoirs of Roosevelt's associates are replete with examples. Vice President Henry A. Wallace, even before he was dumped in 1944, noted that Roosevelt looks in one direction and rows other with utmost skill.(2) Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, who called Roosevelt the most complicated human being I ever knew, compared president to a creative artist who begins his picture without a clear idea of what he intends to paint ... and then, as he paints, his plan evolves out of material he is painting.(3) Even so circumspect an observer as Stimson wrote after nearly three years of working with Roosevelt, The President is poorest administrator I have ever worked under.... He is not a good chooser of men and does not know how to use them in coordination.(4) Roosevelt once advised Morgenthau, Never let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. As presidential speechwriter Sam Rosenman put it, Roosevelt placed everything on a personal contact basis, with few commitments on paper to anyone.(5) familiar litany stresses Roosevelt's reluctance to lay down clear lines of authority, even within his cabinet. Responsibilities overlapped, with power contested rather than consigned. …
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