FDR, Stalin, and Obama
Reading up on the origins of the Cold War not long ago--Fr. Bill Miscamble's book, From Roosevelt to Truman, is simply indispensable--I came across a remarkable incident.
In 1943, preparing to travel to Teheran for a conference with British prime minister Winston Churchill and Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, President Franklin Roosevelt received a briefing from William Bullitt, who had served from 1933 to 1936 as Roosevelt's ambassador in Moscow. Sympathetic to the regime when he arrived in Moscow, Bullitt changed his mind when he experienced it, and he sought to make Roosevelt understand that Stalin was untrustworthy and dangerous. Roosevelt's reply:
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 [Hopkins, Roosevelt's confidant and personal envoy to Stalin] says he's not and that he doesn't want anything but security for his country, and I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige — he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace.
After Stalin had used famine in the Ukraine to consolidate his control, permitting millions to starve, after he had signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and after he had seized much of Poland and invaded Finland, Franklin Roosevelt remained determined to play a "hunch" that he could persuade Stalin to embrace "democracy and peace."
Two observations:
Although I've said it before, I'll say it again: Thank God for Harry Truman. If Roosevelt had lived to complete his fourth term, who knows what concessions to Stalin he might have made?
And in believing that a mere speech or two would "reset" our relations with Russia, persuade Islamists to become all but Ghandi-esque in embracing non-violence, persuade Iran to make nice, and cause peace to break out between Israel and the Palestinians, Barack Obama was working within a proud Democratic tradition: naivete.
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May '10
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
Peter, in case you'd be interested in a book specifically related to this topic, I highly recommend Dennis Dunn's Caught between Roosevelt and Stalin.
It extensively covers this conflict between the critical American diplomats such as Bullitt, and those who convinced FDR to embrace Stalin, primarily Harry Hopkins. Dunn also shows that not only did FDR believe that Stalin was a protean democrat (and a technocrat forced to take totalitarian positions simply because of the peasant 'backwardness' of the Russian people), but that the US and the Soviet Union were on merging paths toward a common governing structure (social democracy), with the US coming from the right and SU from the left.
Very troublesome ideas indeed...
Edited on Aug 12, 2011 at 9:50amJun '10
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
Pity FDR lived to complete his first term.
Edited on Aug 12, 2011 at 9:39amSep '10
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
Wasn't it Bush who gazed into Putin’s eyes and who was not the least bit restrained in his praise of this former KGB head? True Putin is not another Stalin, but it is not for a lack of trying.
Nov '10
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
Naivete, and also ideology, if ideology is defined as set beliefs that are never modified to accommodate facts or experience.
Nov '10
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
That one was pure naivete, the stubborn kind.
Oct '10
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
Mr Robinson,
You last several posts have been missing something...
ObamaCare delenda est
Aug '10
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
I pray that there's not a book in the present situation, seen and unseen.
POV- 45 miles from Independence,Missouri
May '11
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
But wasn't Harry Hopkins exposed as a Soviet spy?
Jan '11
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
Contrast the episode that Peter relays with George Bush and Iraq. The overwhelming consensus at the time was that Sadam had WMD. GW has been raked over the coals ignoring a minority opinion of the intelligence community.
And yes - GW looked like a fool when initially dealing with Putin.
May '10
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
Peter, you may remember that I always seek to be respectful to any public official, be it Michael Chertoff or a former president, but can we now acknowledge, as the narrative is slowly wrest from the hands of progressive historians, that FDR was simply, sort of, stupid?
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
Peter, for what it is worth, I think that FDR, in his dealings with Stalin, may have been a bit more clever than you suggest. I once wrote a piece on the background to Churchill's Iron-Curtain Speech, and I had occasion to consider what happened at Yalta in some detail. I have just e-mailed it to you. Others can find it at Paul A. Rahe, “The Beginning of the Cold War,” in Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” Speech Fifty Years Later, ed. James W. Muller (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1999) 49-67. The lead speaker at the conference which gave rise to this volume, which was held in Fulton, Missouri, was Margaret Thatcher.
Dec '10
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
Naiveté perhaps then, propaganda soon translated into gospel by our Department of Education operated schools now.
In plain sight, our historic first Islamic apostate president has just given us another exhibit of revisionist history, with a Soviet-like picture perfect airbrushed rendition of events, deliberately adulterating the innocent and whitewashing the guilty,
(“Obama Marks 9/11 at Ramadan Dinner: The president made no mention of the men who hijacked four planes that day, or their religious beliefs. […] Muslims, Mr. Obama said, were passengers on those planes and were at the Pentagon and working in the twin towers when they were struck. “They were cooks and waiters, but also analysts and executives,” he said. “They were taken from us much too soon.”)
His purpose consists of converting the followers of the Mohammedan faith into victims of 9/11. In schools throughout our land, in the same way red is associated with Republican when not so long ago the more culturally consistent blue was its electoral map symbol, the association, in the minds of the next generation, of 9/11 and Muslims will be of victimhood. Guess who they will taint as the cause.
Naïve, today, no they are not.
May '10
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
You're probably confusing him with Alger Hiss. Hopkins was very friendly with the Soviets, but I don't think he was ever proven guilty of espionage. He did supply them with ample information on US diplomatic strategies, although it's generally understood that this was in compliance with FDR.
Dec '10
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
It's naiveté rooted in arrogance and vanity. God help us.
Feb '11
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
Roosevelt was asking nothing in return? That is funny. How many Soviet divisions did he want to face the Germans? None if you believe the "nothing in return" response. Of course, Roosevelt wasn't asking for nothing in return. He was saying whatever was necessary to save the lives of Americans by getting Soviets to fight the Germans and bear the primary brunt of the war. And for this he was naive? And while it would be Poles, Czechs, Hungarians and other East Europeans who would pay a price of decades of occupation, exactly what was Roosevelt going to do about it since that was the route to Berlin? Now who is being naive?
May '10
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
Peter's not describing an FDR who says, "he's an SOB but he's our SOB", but one who thought he could sweet-talk Stalin into becoming a democrat.
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
At Yalta, FDR was not worried one whit that the Russians would stop fighting the Germans. Given what had already happened on Soviet territory, that was not going to happen. The Russians were not fighting because of a commitment to us. FDR was eager, however, that the Russians declare war on Japan and that they join and support the United Nations.
Churchill was for excellent reasons far more concerned with the postwar settlement in Europe, and he found FDR's posture frustrating in the extreme. FDR did extract one crucial commitment from Stalin -- that there would be free elections in all of the nations liberated from the Nazis. It was Stalin's failure to honor that pledge that in due course enabled Truman (and Churchill) to rally the American people against their erstwhile ally. I believe that FDR knew what he was doing when he pressed Stalin to agree to the Declaration on Liberated Europe. Roosevelt was unscrupulous, and he did great damage to this country. But he was not a fool.
Feb '11
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
Paul Rahe,
"At Yalta, FDR was not worried one whit that the Russians would stop fighting the Germans. Given what had already happened on Soviet territory, that was not going to happen."
Is this something that is documented or is it conjecture? If conjecture, I would merely say that this is the Stalin who signed a deal with Hitler in 1939 when virtually no one was saying communists and fascists would ever sign a treaty. Stalin was ruthless in a way FDR never was, and reversed course on a dime as he had shown in his rise to power in the 1920s. He was also enormously charming -- or could be -- and basically listened and would lead people to believe he agreed with them when nothing of the sort was necessarily true. But that is also a characteristic Stalin shared with Roosevelt.
And excellent point about Japanese. Yet more evidence that Roosevelt was anything but looking for nothing from Stalin. Of course, Stalin got lots of real estate for a pretty low price as a result.
Edited on Aug 12, 2011 at 2:05pmOct '10
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
Hang On: Paul Rahe,
"At Yalta, FDR was not worried one whit that the Russians would stop fighting the Germans. Given what had already happened on Soviet territory, that was not going to happen."
Is this something that is documented or is it conjecture? If conjecture, I would merely say that this is the Stalin who signed a deal with Hitler in 1939 when virtually no one was saying communists and fascists would ever sign a treaty. · Aug 12 at 1:55pm
Sadly, in June of 1941 the Nazi's invaded Russia. Perhaps FDR had missed that since it was 1943 in Tehran when he kissed Stalin's ... ring.
Edited on Aug 12, 2011 at 2:16pmJun '10
Re: FDR, Stalin, and Obama
Hang On: Paul Rahe,
Is this something that is documented or is it conjecture? If conjecture, I would merely say that this is the Stalin who signed a deal with Hitler in 1939 when virtually no one was saying communists and fascists would ever sign a treaty. Stalin was ruthless in a way FDR never was, and reversed course on a dime as he had shown in his rise to power in the 1920s. He was also enormously charming -- or could be -- and basically listened and would lead people to believe he agreed with them when nothing of the sort was necessarily true. But that is also a characteristic Stalin shared with Roosevelt.
This is documented in overwhelming fashion. Stalin was obsessed with the West making a separate peace with Germany. He never, in all my readings, ever hinted at trying to do that himself. He was fully committed to destroying the Nazis and removing permanently the specter of Germany, in general. Signing a treaty would have only left the threat hanging out there, leaving them vulnerable, yet again, to another betrayal.