FDR - Jean Edward Smith [329]
Roosevelt sailed to Hawaii to discuss Pacific strategy with MacArthur and Nimitz, shown here on the deck of the USS Baltimore, July 16, 1944. Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration
A beaming Churchill greets FDR at Quebec for the OCTAGON conference, September 14, 1944. It was here that Roosevelt and Churchill initially approved the Morgenthau Plan for the pastoralization of Germany. Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration
Running mate Senator Harry Truman and Roosevelt at a Rose Garden photo op, August 18, 1944. “I had no idea he was in such a feeble condition,” said Truman afterward. “He got more cream in the saucer than he did in the cup.”
To allay concerns about his health, FDR barnstormed through New York City for four hours in pouring rain and near-freezing temperatures, October 21, 1944. Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration
Roosevelt’s fourth inauguration, January 20, 1945, was held on the south portico of the White House rather than at the Capitol, and there was no parade. “Who’s going to march?” asked FDR.
Stalin and FDR confer privately at Yalta (interpreters Pavlov and Bohlen at right). At this meeting Stalin agreed to join the war against Japan three months after Germany’s defeat.
FDR and Stalin await Churchill for the formal picture-taking ceremony, February 9, 1945. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius stands behind the empty chair; General Marshall, caught with his hands in his pockets, is behind Roosevelt.
Formal portrait of the Big Three. Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, Admiral William Leahy, and General Alexei Antonov stand behind the principals. Courtesy of the Library of Congress
An exhausted Roosevelt reports to Congress on the results of the Yalta conference. This is the first time FDR remained seated when he addressed a joint session.
FDR at his writing table at Warm Springs two days before his death. The president went to Georgia to regain his health.
Lucy Rutherfurd at Warm Springs, April 11, 1945. After Missy LeHand’s stroke in 1941, Lucy and FDR resumed seeing each other, often at the White House or at Shangri La. Lucy was with the president when he died and hers was the last face he saw.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, April 11, 1945. This is the last photograph of the president.
Marshall and Stark’s recommendation made sense to Roosevelt. When the cabinet met on November 7, he asked Hull to summarize the situation in the Far East. In his meandering Tennessee vernacular, Hull spoke fifteen minutes. (“If Cordell says, ‘Oh Chwrist’ again I’m going to scream,” FDR whispered to Frances Perkins. “I can’t stand profanity with a lisp.”)72 The secretary of state’s conclusion was that the situation was critical and that Japan might attack at any time.73 Roosevelt asked each member of the cabinet for his or her opinion. All agreed that Congress would give the president a declaration of war if he asked for it, but public support would depend on the circumstances. The president turned sharply to Hull. “Do not let the talks [with Nomura] deteriorate. Let us make no more of ill will. Let us do nothing to precipitate a crisis.”74 The split was evident. Hull and the cabinet, temperamentally inclined to support China regardless of the strategic consequences, were ready for war; Roosevelt and the military, determined to avoid a diversion in the Far East, sought to minimize conflict with Japan.
In his talks with Nomura (who was joined on November 15 by Saburo Kurusu, a seasoned diplomat sent by Tokyo to impart a final urgency to the discussions*) Hull was rigid and sanctimonious. White supremacy ran deep in east Tennessee and Hull found it difficult not to be condescending. When the Japanese sought concrete answers, Hull lectured on moral principles. As one scholar wrote, the secretary of state was more “intrusive, altogether more ‘preachy,’ he flogged the tired old