Henry l stimson, p.17
Henry L. Stimson, page 17
The president, however, was very bitter over his defeat and distrustful of Roosevelt. The first effort at cooperation between the Hoover administration and Roosevelt went poorly when, in late November, the president-elect refused to promise his support for any actions Hoover might take concerning war debts. Roosevelt, wary of tying himself to any new actions by the administration, took the position that he could not intervene in the matter and that it was the responsibility of the men still in office to conduct policy. A second effort by Hoover in December ended on a similar note, with both Hoover and Stimson angry with Roosevelt over his unwillingness to endorse their idea of a new interlocking commission to work on debts, disarmament, and the depression. Stimson thought the plan would be a “great contribution . . . for it brings together all the elements of the problem,” and he found Roosevelt’s message of December 21 that he could not share responsibility for the creation of such a body a small act that left the administration “with nothing except to show that we have done our best.”85
With negotiations seemingly at an impasse, Stimson received a call the next day from Felix Frankfurter, who was in Albany visiting Roosevelt. He told Stimson that, in the middle of their conversation, Roosevelt “suddenly out of a clear sky said, ‘Why doesn’t Henry Stimson come up here and talk with me and settle this damn thing that nobody seems to be able to do?’ ” Frankfurter told Stimson that the president-elect “feels very badly that all cooperative efforts had been broken off,” and saw the disagreements over the war debts as “a terrible misunderstanding.” Roosevelt wanted to cooperate, and if Stimson called Roosevelt, he would invite the secretary up to meet with him at his home in Hyde Park, New York. Hoover, however, was against it “from the first,” and Stimson had to tell Frankfurter that he could not meet with Roosevelt. Stimson thought Hoover’s position was wrong, that it made no sense to “deprive the incoming President of the United States of important information about foreign affairs,” and he hoped it would not prevent a meeting later.86
Frankfurter came down to Washington on December 28 to give Stimson his impressions of Roosevelt and to extend a new invitation for a meeting between the two men. The portrait he painted of the New York governor “was a more attractive picture than we have been getting from the other side,” and it convinced Stimson that he should meet with Roosevelt. When Hoover returned to Washington after the holidays, Stimson told him that he wanted to see Roosevelt, that it was his responsibility to give him the information he sought concerning the nation’s foreign policy. Hoover said that Roosevelt was “a very dangerous and contrary man and that he would never see him alone.” He could not be trusted. Stimson responded that it was his experience that if you showed trust to someone, that person usually proved worthy of the effort. Hoover conceded that it was possible that Stimson could have some influence on Roosevelt, and the next day he agreed to let the secretary of state go to New York to meet with him.87
Stimson’s meeting with Roosevelt on January 9, 1933, in Hyde Park lasted for six hours. The two men covered all areas of American foreign policy and found themselves in substantial agreement concerning every major aspect of current policy. The first, and most important point to Stimson, was Roosevelt’s understanding and support of his Manchurian policy. Roosevelt noted that he “fully approved” of Stimson’s actions and “that his only possible criticism was that we did not begin it earlier.” Concerning Latin America, Roosevelt inquired about the stability of Cuba and Haiti and indicated his agreement with the policy of removing American forces from the region as a means of reducing tensions. On the questions of disarmaments and debts, Stimson thought that Roosevelt underestimated the problems, but that “none of the President’s forebodings” were realized. The two New Yorkers, who, oddly enough, given their connections to Theodore Roosevelt, had never met before, got along well. Roosevelt publicly endorsed the Stimson Doctrine the next week and in a follow-up meeting with Stimson in Washington remarked, “We are getting so that we do pretty good teamwork, don’t we?” Stimson agreed, and was confident from these meetings, and subsequent ones with the new secretary of state, Cordell Hull, that the nation’s foreign policy would not change under the new administration. Moreover, Stimson had established a personal relationship with Franklin Roosevelt that would grow throughout the 1930s and lead to his final service to the nation as secretary of war during World War II.88
For a number of reasons, as McGeorge Bundy recalled from conversations with the Colonel, Stimson “did not really enjoy running the State Department.” He found working with Hoover to be a trying experience. This problem was compounded by his appointment of Castle as undersecretary of state, a dour and arrogant man who always took Hoover’s position and who, Stimson believed, was at times reporting to the president behind his back. The burdens of conducting foreign policy at the outset of the Great Depression, and then the emergence of the European financial crisis and Japanese aggression, made it a difficult and unhappy four years and made being secretary of state Stimson’s least favorite job. But most troubling was the president’s unwillingness to support “any form of political action overseas.”89
In late November 1932, Stimson’s frustration with his job and the course of events got the better of him. As he recorded his own outburst: “I broke out and said that I was living in a world where all my troubles came from the same thing, not only in finance but in all matters, where we are constantly shut in by the timidity of governments making certain great decisions, for fear that some administration will be overthrown. . . . I said that the time had come when somebody has got to show some guts.”90 Stimson continued to see the policy of nonrecognition as correct, but he also knew full well that it was insufficient for upholding international agreements and deterring aggression. Moral outrage and the stands on principles were sound, and they helped begin the process of awakening public opinion, but the politics and restraints of the time would not allow Stimson to do any more.
In the final evaluation for Stimson, foreign policy did not have to be a Greek tragedy, with the outcome inevitable. He always believed that political leaders could have and should have acted with greater alacrity and force to deal with the financial crisis in Europe and to counter Japan’s aggression in Asia. It was for Stimson “a tragedy of foolish nations and inadequate statesmen.”91 The issues he faced reinforced all of his assumptions about the need for the United States to take up the role of world leader. As the crisis of the 1930s continued to grow, and as aggression spread in Europe, Africa, and Asia, Stimson would try to counter the tragedy of timidity by pointing out the dangers and calling on his nation and others to take bold action to prevent the war he saw coming long before most of his contemporaries. His stance would make Stimson the leader in the call for collective security throughout the decade and prompt Franklin Roosevelt to ask Stimson, at the age of seventy-two, to run the War Department once again. This time, his proposals and ideas would be adopted as U.S. policy during the war and into the postwar period.
Notes
1 Quoted in Schmitz, Thank God They’re on Our Side, 10.
2 Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 161.
3 Ibid., 196; Morison, Turmoil and Tradition, 257.
4 Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 164, 174.
5 Morison, Turmoil and Tradition, 256.
6 Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 188.
7 Stimson Diary, 5 June 1931, HLSD.
8 Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 204–205.
9 Stimson Memorandum, 12 June 1931, Stimson Papers, reel 126.
10 Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 204–205.
11 Ibid., 208.
12 Stimson Diary, 1 April 1931, HLSD.
13 Ibid., 8 April 1931.
14 Root, quoted in David Schmitz, The United States and Fascist Italy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 84; Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 268–70.
15 Stimson Diary, Memorandum Conversation with Grandi and Mussolini and Memorandum Conversation with Grandi, 9 July 1931, HLSD.
16 Ibid., Memorandum Conversation with Grandi, 9 July 1931; Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 268–69.
17 Stimson Diary, 26 July 1931, 27 August 1931, HLSD.
18 Stimson to Grandi, 20 August 1931; Klots to Stimson, 21 August 1931, Stimson Papers, reel 81.
19 Stimson Diary, 18 November 1931, HLSD.
20 Ibid., 11 July 1932.
21 Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 214–15.
22 Stimson Diary, 23 November 1932, 4 December 1932, HLSD.
23 Ibid., 31 January 1933.
24 Ibid., 17 April 1932.
25 Ibid., 15 September 1930.
26 Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 183.
27 Stimson, “The United States and the Other American Republics.”
28 Stimson Diary, 18 September 1930, HLSD.
29 Morison, Turmoil and Tradition, 258.
30 Stimson Diary, 7 December 1931, HLSD.
31 Thomas P. Anderson, Matanza (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971), 7.
32 Schott to Stimson, 30 March 1930, 816.00B/11, RG59.
33 Ibid., 14 August 1930, 816.00B/15.
34 Cruse, “Central America: Political,” 24 September 1931, 813.00/ 1257, RG59.
35 Stimson Diary, 4 December 1931, HLSD.
36 Anderson, Matanza, 40–63.
37 Ibid., 49–63.
38 Stimson Diary, 4 December 1931, HLSD.
39 Stimson to Curtis, 4 December 1931, 816.00Revolutions/11, RG59.
40 Ibid., 11 December 1931, 816.01/17A.
41 FRUS 1931, 2:206.
42 Ibid., 203.
43 Caffery to Stimson, 1 January 1932, 816.01Caffery Mission/14, RG59.
44 FRUS 1931, 2:210–12.
45 Stimson Diary, 8 January 1932, HLSD.
46 FRUS 1932, 5:613.
47 McCafferty to Stimson, 20 January 1932, 816.00B/44, RG59.
48 Anderson, Matanza, 134.
49 McCafferty to Stimson, 23 January 1932, 816.00Revolutions/60 and 816.00Revolutions/62, RG59.
50 FRUS 1932, 5:618–19.
51 Stimson Diary, 25 January 1932, HLSD.
52 Department of State, Press Releases, 30 January 1932; New York Times, 26 January 1932.
53 Stimson Diary, 25 January 1932, HLSD.
54 FRUS 1932, 5:574–75.
55 Ibid., 619–20.
56 Ibid., 579–80.
57 Ibid., 581, 584–86.
58 Ibid., 584–86.
59 Ibid., 593–94, 602–603.
60 Department of State, “Review of Accomplishments,” vol. 1:40, President’s Cabinet Offices, Box 49, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa (hereafter HHL).
61 Ibid., 75 (emphasis added).
62 Stimson, “Bases of American Foreign Policy During the Past Four Years,” Foreign Affairs (April 1933), 394–95.
63 Stimson Diary, 19 September 1931, HLSD.
64 Morison, Turmoil and Tradition, 308.
65 Stimson Diary, 21 September, 22 September 1931, HLSD; Stimson, The Far Eastern Crisis: Recollections and Observations (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936), 34.
66 Morison, Turmoil and Tradition, 313.
67 Stimson Diary, 8 October 1931, HLSD.
68 Ibid., 9 October, 10 October 1931.
69 Morison, Turmoil and Tradition, 307–308.
70 Stimson Diary, 13 November 1931, HLSD; Hoover, quoted in Hodgson, The Colonel, 156.
71 Stimson Diary, 7 November, 19 November 1931, HLSD.
72 Harvey Bundy, Oral History, Columbia University Oral History Project.
73 Stimson Diary, 6 December 1931, HLSD.
74 Ibid., 3 January 1932.
75 Ibid., 9 November 1931.
76 FRUS: Japan, 1931–1941, 1:76.
77 Stimson, Far Eastern Crisis, 90.
78 Stimson Diary, 7 January 1932, HLSD.
79 Klots, quoted in Morison, Turmoil and Tradition, 326; Stimson Diary, 26 January 1932, HLSD.
80 Stimson Diary, 21 February 1932, HLSD; Stimson’s letter to Borah is reprinted in Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 249–54.
81 Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 255.
82 Stimson Diary, 9 March 1932, HLSD.
83 Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 256.
84 Stimson Diary, 9 November 1932, HLSD.
85 Ibid., 17 December, 18 December, 21 December 1931.
86 Ibid., 22 December, 23 December, 24 December 1932.
87 Ibid., 28 December 1932, 3 January, 4 January 1933.
88 Ibid., 9 January 1933; Stimson, “Memorandum of Conversation with Franklin D. Roosevelt,” 9 January 1933; Stimson Diary, 19 January 1933.
89 Author’s interview with McGeorge Bundy, 16 January 1996.
90 Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 281.
91 Ibid., 280.
5
The Only Deadly Sin Is Cynicism
Leaving the State Department at the age of sixty-five, Stimson, reasonably enough, thought he was retiring from public service for good. His party had suffered a resounding defeat at the polls and he was at an age when most people hope to retire. The Colonel was looking forward to some time off, rest, traveling, and more time with his wife. He returned to New York, where he rented offices in his old law firm in order to practice his profession part-time, but kept the Woodley estate so he would have a place to live during his frequent visits to Washington. Although Stimson fully intended to continue speaking out on international issues and informally to provide advice to President Roosevelt and Secretary Hull, he could not foresee that he would return to Washington seven years later for his longest and most exacting job in government. As the former secretary of state, he was in demand for his views on foreign policy and had access to the national media. In 1934, Stimson delivered a series of lectures at Princeton University that became a book, Democracy and Nationalism, and in 1936 he published The Far Eastern Crisis about events in Manchuria and his policy concerning them. The following year, Stimson was elected president of the New York Bar Association, and in 1938 he took on the single largest law case of his career. Still, Stimson found that the law could not hold his attention or fully satisfy him, and he missed being at the center of the nation’s foreign policy.
Beginning in 1935, international affairs again began to claim much of his and the world’s attention. Crisis built upon crisis with an increasing tempo, as one event overtook the next in the rush to war. Germany’s announcement that it was rearming and Italy’s fall invasion of Ethiopia threatened war might return to Europe. These events were quickly followed in 1936 by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and the German occupation of the Rhineland. Although events seemed to stabilize in Europe the next year, Japan launched a full-scale attack on China. Nineteen thirty-eight brought the German Anschluss with Austria, followed by the crisis over the Sudetenland and the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in the wake of the Munich Conference. By 1939, American officials began their “death watch” as Germany first took the rest of Czechoslovakia and then issued demands for new territory from Poland. Great Britain and France’s guarantees to defend Poland did little to deter Germany. After the signing of the Nazi–Soviet nonaggression pact in August, war finally came on September 1, 1939, with the German attack on Poland and the British and French declarations of war two days later.
Stimson watched these events unfold with increasing horror and determination to get his nation to act. In general, he supported Roosevelt’s approach to foreign policy even if he opposed much of his domestic New Deal program. He had spoken out against the neutrality acts that Congress began to pass in 1935, which were designed to insulate the United States from war, and called for greater cooperation with Great Britain, active opposition to Germany and Japan, and military preparedness. Indeed, he was the leading national advocate of American support for Great Britain and supplying those countries opposing German and Japanese aggression. The Colonel fully appreciated the restraints on President Roosevelt, and even he did not call for direct American participation in a war. But Stimson believed that isolationist opinion could be overcome by more aggressive executive action and a clear declaration of the American stake in the fighting overseas. He was confident his views would eventually be adopted, holding to his principle that “the man who tries to work for the good, believing in its eventual victory, while he may suffer setback and even disaster, will never know defeat. The only deadly sin I know is cynicism.”1
With the outbreak of fighting in 1939, Roosevelt searched for a stance that allowed for greater American military preparedness but stopped short of open belligerency. This meant he needed someone running the War Department who was capable and trustworthy. Simultaneously, with the president’s decision to seek a third term in office, he sought to make foreign policy a less divisive issue in the campaign. This led him to the decision to form a “war cabinet” that included leading Republicans in key positions. For these reasons, Franklin Roosevelt summoned Henry Stimson to assume leadership of the effort to prepare the nation for war. Roosevelt remembered well their work together during the transition in 1933, appreciated Stimson’s support on foreign policy, and shared most of his views on international events. Moreover, he knew that Stimson would approach the office in a bipartisan manner and that his loyalty would be dedicated to carrying out the policies of the administration.
