Winds of War (92 page)

The President flipped through more papers as though they were butcher and grocer bills. “Oh yes, Selective Service.
This
is bad. From Stimson. The authorizing bill will run out in a few months. We have to start new legislation rolling now. But after the Lend-Lease battle, Congress will be in no mood to extend the draft. And if they don’t we’ll be militarily helpless. –Morgenthau. Treasury is bedeviling me to freeze all the funds of Germany and Italy here, but State says no, we’ve got four times as much invested in those countries as they’ve got with us. –Morgenthau again. The British agreed to sell all their investments here to give us their remaining dollars, and Morgenthau told Congress they would, and now the British are dragging their feet. There’s ever so much more. That’s part of one day’s basketful, old chap. I mean, a historian would certainly find a cross section like that interesting, wouldn’t he? I had a check made on the papers of Wilson and Lincoln. Nothing like it ever turned up. I am definitely going to do it one day.”

Roosevelt coughed long and hard, closing his eyes, wincing, and putting a hand to his back. The gesture threw him off balance in the swaying train, and the large body began to topple over like a tipped barrel. Victor Henry jumped to steady his shoulder, but the President’s long powerful arm had caught an edge of the bed. “Thanks, Pug. This train isn’t supposed to go more than thirty-five miles an hour. They’re shading it up there.” He rubbed his back. “I get a stabbing pain when I cough, but Doc McIntyre assures me it’s a pulled muscle. Just so it isn’t pleurisy! I really can’t afford pleurisy right now. I’d better have more of that cough medicine. Would you hand me that spoon and that bottle with the red stuff? Thank you, old fellow.” The President took a spoonful of the medicine, making a face. Tilting his large head to one side in the way all the nightclub clowns imitated, Roosevelt fixed the Navy captain with a sharp look from bloodshot eyes. “Pug, the U-boats keep working westward with this new wolf-pack tactic. The sinkings are outrunning the combined capacity of our yards plus the British yards to build new bottoms. You’re aware of that.”

“I’ve been hearing plenty about it at our conferences, sir.”

“You accept the British figures of sinkings?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. President.”

“So do I. The minute Lend-Lease passes, we’ll be sending out a vast shipment of stuff. Now, none of that stuff must land on the ocean floor instead of in England. That’s terribly important.”

Roosevelt’s offhand remark about Lend-Lease surprised Victor Henry, who was deeply worried, as the British were, about the violent debate in the Senate. “You think Lend-Lease will pass, sir?”

“Oh, the bill will pass,” said the President absently. “But then what? Seventy ships are standing by now to be loaded. This shipment simply cannot be scattered and sunk by the U-boats, Pug. The British need the stuff. They need even more the morale boost of seeing it arrive. The problem is getting it through as far as Iceland. From there the British can simply convoy them, but not from here to Iceland. They’re simply stretched to the breaking point. Well? What do we do?

Victor Henry said uncomfortably, under the President’s questioning gaze, “Convoy, sir?”

The President heavily shook his head. “You know the answer on that, Pug, as of this moment.”

In the Lend-Lease fight, the issue of convoying was red-hot. The Lacouture group was screaming that if Lend-Lease passed, the warmongers would next demand to convoy the ships that carried the supplies and that convoy meant immediate war with Germany. The President was publicly insisting that American policy would not change in the Atlantic: “neutrality patrol,”
not
convoy.

Roosevelt’s grim flushed face creased in the sly mischievous look that was becoming familiar to Pug. “I’ve been thinking, however. Suppose a squadron of destroyers went out on an exercise? Not convoying, you understand. Not convoying at all. Just practicing convoy
procedures
. Just professional drill, you might say. The Navy is always drilling, isn’t it? That’s your job. Well, suppose they chose to travel with these vessels - strictly for drill purposes, you understand - just this once? And to avoid difficulties and complications, suppose all this were done highly informally, with no written orders or records? Don’t suppose the U-boats might be a bit discouraged to see sixteen or so Benson-class United States destroyers out there screening those ships?”

“Discouraged, yes. Still, what happens will depend their instructions, Mr. President.”

“They’ve got instructions not to tangle with our warships,” Roosevelt said, sounding and looking very hard. “That’s obvious.”

Victor Henry’s pulse was quickening. “They’ve never encountered our destroyers in a convoy screen, sir. Suppose a U-boat closes and fires a torpedo?”

“I don’t believe it will happen,” Roosevelt said shortly. “The ships may never even be sighted by the Germans before the British take over the convoy. The North Atlantic weather’s atrocious now. And most of the U-boat action is still on the other side of Iceland.” He was fitting a cigarette in his holder as he spoke. Victor Henry swiftly snapped his lighter and offered a flame. “Thanks. This is against doctor’s orders, but I need a smoke. Pug, I want this thing done, and I’m thinking you might handle it and go out with the destroyers.”

Captain Henry swallowed his astonishment and said, “Aye aye, sir.”

“It’s very much like that airplane transfer, which you handled so well. Everything depends on doing it in the calmest, quietest, most unobtrusive way. The point is to make no records, and above all no history, but simply to get those ships silent and safe as far as Iceland. Can it be done?”

The Navy captain sat hunched for perhaps a minute, looking at the President. “Yes, sir.”

“With an absolute minimum of people in the know? I haven’t even discussed this thing with Harry Hopkins.”

“Admiral Stark and Admiral King would have to know, of course, sir. And Commander, Support Force, and the officer in tactical command of the screen. Everybody else in the exercise will just obey orders.”

Roosevelt laughed and puffed at his cigarette. “Well! If you can keep it down to three admirals and one other officer, that will be swell. But a lot of personnel will take part in this exercise. There’ll be talk.”

Victor Henry said stonily, “Not very much.” Franklin Roosevelt raised his bushy eyebrows. “Mr. President, what do we do if a U-boat does attack? I agree it’s unlikely. But suppose it happens?”

Roosevelt regarded him through wreathing cigarette smoke. “This is gamble that it won’t happen.”

“I know that sir.”

“You understand that a combat incident destroys the whole purpose,” the President said, “and you know the other implications.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now tell me,” said the President, in a much milder manner, “What do you honestly think of the idea? It’s my own. If you think it’s bad, say so, but tell me why.”

Sitting forward hunched, elbows on his knees, ticking off points with an index finger against his other hand, Victor Henry said, “Well, sir – to begin with, those U-boat fellows may never see us, as you say. If they do, they’ll be surprised. They’ll radio for instructions. We may run into a trigger-happy type, but I doubt it. I know those German submariners. They’re excellent professional officers. This is a policy decision that will have to go up to Hitler. That’ll take time. I think the ships will get through without incident, Mr. President.”

“Grand!”

“But it’ll only work once. It’s a policy surprise. It’s too risky to repeat.”

Roosevelt sighed and nodded. “That’s it. The whole situation is terrible, and some kind of risk has to be taken. The British say that before the next big convoy goes, they’ll have many damaged destroyers back in action. We’re also giving the Canadians some coast guard cutters – in confidence, Pug – to help close this gap to Iceland. It’s this first Lend-Lease shipment that is crucial.” The President gathered up the papers stacked around on his blanket. “Would you put these in that case?”

As Victor Henry was closing the dispatch case the President said through a yawn, using both arms to ease himself down into the bed, “How have those conferences with the British been going?”

“Excellently, on the whole, Mr. President.”

The President yawned again. “It was so important to start this pattern of joint staff work. I’m very happy about it.” He snapped off his bed lamp, leaving the room dimly lit by recessed lights in the walls. “They’ve been giving you some trouble about Singapore, haven’t they?

“Actually we just put that issue aside, sir. There was no resolving it.”

“You can turn out the lights, Pug. The button’s by the door.”

“Yes, sir.”

One blue light, and the President’s cigarette end, still glowed in the darkness. His voice came weary and muffled from the bed. “We’ll run into that time and again. They want to hold onto their empire, naturally. But the job is to beat Hitler. Those are different undertakings. They’ll insist to the end that they’re one and the same. Well – we’ll chat again about that
exercise
in the morning, Pug.” The President used his trick word with sardonic relish.

“Aye aye, sir.”

“And when you come back from that little sea jaunt – which you ought to enjoy, for a change, - I want you and your wife and family to come to dinner with us. Just a little quiet dinner. Mrs. Roosevelt often speaks of you .”

“Thank you, Mr. President. I’m very honored.”

“Good-night, old top.”

The red cigarette end went out in an ashtray. As Victor Henry put his hand on the doorknob, the President suddenly said, “Pug, the best men I have around me keep urging me to declare war. They say it’s inevitable, and that it’s the only way to unite the people and get them to put their backs into the war effort. I suppose you agree with them?”

The Navy captain said after a pause, looking at the bulky shadow in blue light, “Yes, Mr. President, I do.”

“It’s a bad thing to go to war,” said the President. “A very bad thing. If the moment is coming, it isn’t here. Meantime I shall just have to go on being called a warmonger, a coward, and a shillyshallyer, all rolled in one. That’s how I earn my salary. Get a good rest, Pug.”

* * *

Chapter 41 - The Negative Front

(from WORLD EMPIRE LOST)

Provocation in the Atlantic

As our U-boat campaign in 1941 began to show better results, Franklin Roosevelt stepped up his countermoves. Each month brought a new story, undramatic to the newspaper reader but ominous to our staff, of bolder and bolder moves by Roosevelt to deny us freedom of the seas. He occupied Greenland, putting the United States Navy astride the convoy routes in the gap between Canadian escorting and British escorting, just where our U-boats were making their best scores. The American admiral, King, arrogantly declared that the “Western hemisphere began at the twenty-sixth line of western longitude.” This line took in all the best hunting grounds of the U-boats, including the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and the Azores. The American Navy, in addition to its “neutrality patrol,” did some surreptitious convoying, relying on German forbearance and congressional ignorance to get away with such flagrant acts of war. Finally in May the President proclaimed “an unlimited national emergency,” coming out with sly hints that if things kept going so badly, his countrymen might actually have to shed a little blood. This was his public justification for the ever increasing interference on the side of England.

But long before that, in January, full-scale military staff conferences of the British and United States forces, exceeding in scope anything between Germany and Italy, had already take place in Washington, in great secrecy. There it was agreed that when global war broke out, “Germany first” would be the policy. Such was American neutrality in 1941, and such was Roosevelt’s candor with his countrymen. All would not have to fight, if only England received enough help. Churchill abetted this deception with the famous speech ending, “Give us the tools, and we will finish the job,” a completely empty and fatuous boast, as he well knew. The American President’s worst interference at this time, however, was in the Balkans. The Balkan campaign of 1941 need never have occurred. Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt fanned a manageable political problem into a cruel armed conflict.

Yugoslavia’s Treachery: The Donovan Mission

It is well known that Roosevelt often used informal emissaries to bypass established diplomatic channels and regular government structures. In this way he could perform machinations without responsibility if they miscarried, and without leaving a trail of records. He could also make probes and inquiries without committing himself. The most celebrated of these emissaries was, of course, Harry Hopkins, who helped to form the fateful policy of all-out aid to the Bolsheviks. Lesser known was Colonel William Donovan, who later in the war created the notorious OSS spy ring. In March 1941, Donovan paid a visit to Yugoslavia that brought disaster to that country. For an American President to meddle in Balkan politics when war was flaming in Greece, in order to pull other countries into the conflict against Germany, was nothing but a war crime. Yet that was Donovan’s mission, and it was successful.

The war in Greece was not of our doing; it was a miscarried adventure of our cardboard ally, Benito Mussolini. During the summer of 1940, Mussolini had ordered his Libyan troops to invade Egypt, for England was fighting for her life at home, and he thought Italy could grab off her Mediterranean empire cheaply. In October he had also laid on an invasion of Greece, and with typical theatricality he scheduled it for a day when he met with Adolf Hitler in Florence. He told Hitler nothing about this in advance. Mussolini itched to show the Führer that he was not just a hanger-on, but another daring military conqueror.

Unfortunately for him, within a few weeks the small Greek army routed the Italians, chased them in to Albania, and captured their army base at Port Edda. With the politico-military disaster, Hitler’s fellow dictator stood exposed as an incompetent loudmouthed fool. The English in Egypt took heart and also fought back, and at the first hint of British pluck, Mussolini’s “indomitable legions” either ran away with unbelievable speed, or surrendered in the finest of holiday spirits. It was a disgraceful display seldom seen in modern warfare. The Italian army plainly had no heart for the war and counted for nothing. Most of the Italian navy had already been knocked out at anchor in Taranto, back in November. (This fine surprise attack by torpedo planes from the British aircraft carriers was successfully imitated later by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor.) Our southern flank therefore stood exposed.