Roosevelt (24 page)

Churchill was ready with a hard line on Japan, too. Following the Sunday services he proposed to Roosevelt a joint declaration to Tokyo that “any further encroachment by Japan in the Southwest Pacific” would produce a situation in which Britain and the United States “would be compelled to take counter measures even though these might lead to war” between Japan and the two nations. Churchill, under pressure from the Dutch and the Pacific Dominions to enlist American aid if Japan attacked, wanted to intertwine American and British efforts in the Pacific just as had been done in the Atlantic. Above all, Churchill feared a showdown that would leave Britain, with its weakened defenses in Southeast Asia, holding the fort alone against the Japanese. He was certain that only the stiffest warning from Washington would have any deterrent effect.

Roosevelt was more wary. Even less than Churchill did he seek a war with Japan, but while the Prime Minister thought a showdown could be avoided through firmness, the President preferred to drag things out, to parley, to stall the Japanese along, to let them save face, at least for a month or so. Hence, instead of sending off Churchill’s near-ultimatum, he proposed to inform Nomura that if Tokyo would promise to pull out of Indochina, Washington would try to settle remaining issues with Japan, but that if the
Japanese failed to respond to this proposal and continued their military expansion, the President would then have to take steps that might result in war between the United States and Japan. Churchill went along with this procedure, which left the initiative wholly with the President.

By now both men must have seen the veiled but acute differences that separated them on Japan. Churchill could gamble on a strong line, for such a line would either compel Japan to give up China and Indochina and further expansion and take the pressure off the British in the Far East, or it would produce an explosion. An explosion that propelled the United States into a Pacific war would project it into the Atlantic war, too—Churchill’s cardinal goal. The President preferred to delay any showdown until his Army and Navy were stronger, public opinion more receptive, and a two-front war more manageable. Meantime, he would follow his policy of Atlantic First.

While the two leaders agreeably negotiated and gently sparred, the military chiefs conducted almost wholly separate discussions on the
Prince of Wales.
First Sea Lord Sir Dudley Pound, Sir John Dill, and their cohorts tried to convince the Americans that increased aid and even intervention now would bring victory much sooner and more cheaply; the American Joint Chiefs tried to show the bareness of their cupboard, drained as it had been by the needs of Britain and other nations. Already in the discussions there were harbingers of future disagreement, as the British seemed bent on bombing, blockading, enveloping, and wearing out Germany, while the Americans—particularly Marshall—contended that it would be necessary for Allied ground forces to invade the Continent and close with the enemy. There were happier omens, too—especially the discovery that American and British officers could differ and occasionally clash, but also communicate, agree, and forge a closer working co-operation, each with considerable respect for the other side.

Strangely, the significance of the Argentia Conference would lie far less in strategic decisions and commitments, of which there were virtually none, than in a discussion of war aims toward which Roosevelt and Churchill had done little advance planning, but out of which came the Atlantic Charter, one of the most compelling statements of the war.

The President had discouraged open talk in the administration of specific postwar aims. It was all right to discuss lofty objectives, but debate over ways and means, he felt, might create dissension and divert attention from immediate diplomatic and military problems. Then, too, discussion of postwar matters assumed that
there would be “war” first—which in turn could reopen old wounds from the League of Nations battle. “I have not the slightest objection toward your trying your hand at an outline of the post-war picture,” he told Adolf A. Berle in June. “But for Heaven’s sake don’t ever let the columnists hear of it….”

But events in 1941 forced Roosevelt’s hand. The Russo-German war was already raising dire questions of the future of truncated Poland; the Polish government-in-exile in London had to be considered, as did the big Polish voting blocs at home. Roosevelt was concerned that London might be making secret territorial deals, as in days of yore. Hull and Welles were already pressing for nondiscriminatory postwar economic policies. And there was a large body of sentiment among both Roosevelt’s and Churchill’s constituents for an evocation of moral principles and a statement of war aims—especially as to a new League of Nations.

It was best, Roosevelt had decided, to stick to very general principles and to very realistic, functional institutions. Churchill, always eager to couple British and American policy more tightly, wanted to make more specific commitments. He and his aides produced a draft that started off with high-sounding promises and got down to business in a call for “fair and equitable distribution of essential produce” both between and within nations. Welles was disturbed by the vagueness of this economic plank. A Wilsonian himself, he could never forget that his chief back home would be acutely displeased if the way was left open for autarchy. After some sharp bargaining with Churchill, while Roosevelt looked on sympathetically, the Undersecretary gained as strong a statement as the Prime Minister felt would be acceptable to the Dominions, with their stake in imperial preference. There was no reference to trade liberalization, to Welles’s keen disappointment.

The crucial discussion of war aims came late in the morning of August 11 in the Admiral’s quarters on the
Augusta,
which served as Roosevelt’s office and mess. Bright sunlight streamed through the portholes. Roosevelt sat in a gray suit, his shirt open at the collar; Churchill was still in naval uniform; Welles and Hopkins and one or two of the British staff sat by. The meeting was somewhat strained. Churchill was still upset by Welles’s demand for free trade, and by Roosevelt’s proposal that their joint statement make clear that there had been no commitments for the future between the two governments. Commitments were precisely what Churchill wanted to bring back to his country and to hearten the occupied nations. But the President feared the isolationist reaction to “secret agreements,” and Churchill had to settle for only slightly stronger language.

It was on postwar international organization that the two leaders
had their bluntest confrontation. Churchill asked the President if the charter could explicitly endorse some kind of “effective international organization.” Roosevelt demurred; he said that he himself would not favor the creation of a new Assembly of the League of Nations, at least until after a period of time during which a British-American police force maintained security. Churchill warned that a vague plank would arouse opposition from strong internationalists. Roosevelt agreed, but he felt that he had to be politically realistic. Churchill gave in, with the understanding that he could add some language that would strengthen the plank without uttering the dread words “international organization” or invoking the ghost of Woodrow Wilson.

The final text of the Charter was agreed to on August 11. It read:

The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world.

FIRST—Their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;

SECOND—They desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;

THIRD—They respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;

FOURTH—They will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all states, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity;

FIFTH—They desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all Nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement, and social security;

SIXTH—After the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all Nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want;

SEVENTH—Such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance;

EIGHTH—They believe that all of the Nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons, must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea, or air armaments continue to be employed by Nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such Nations is essential. They will likewise aid and
encourage all other practicable measures which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments.

[Signed] FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

[Signed] WINSTON S. CHURCHILL

The
Prince of Wales
steamed out of Argentia Harbor late on the twelfth, as Roosevelt stood on the
Augusta
quarterdeck close by and the band played “Auld Lang Syne.” The two leaders parted as friends and comrades. Roosevelt had learned something of Churchill’s persuasiveness and persistence; Churchill had found how hard it was to commit the President when he refused to be cornered. Each had glimpsed the other’s political problems—Churchill, the continuing threat of American isolationism, memories of World War I and the League, fear of binding commitments; Roosevelt, the claims of the Dominions and Empire on London, the Prime Minister’s need to clear decisions with his War Cabinet within the hour, the hunger of the British for a far better postwar world than they had known. The two had amused, propagandized, flattered, annoyed, upstaged, and yielded to each other; their friendship had survived intact, deepened, and was ready for the heavier pressures to come.

The
Augusta
stood out to sea shortly after the British departed. It seemed as though history could not let go of the event. A journey that began in the company of old Scandinavian royalty and culminated in a convocation of the political and military leadership of the Atlantic world ended on the coast of Maine, with a visit from the President’s old headmaster, Endicott Peabody. And as Roosevelt left Portland by train, a young assistant to Secretary Knox, referred to in the Navy log as “Adelai Stevenson,” hurried in to see the President on an urgent strike matter.

It remained for Felix Frankfurter to take the full measure of the Atlantic meeting. The Justice was wont to write fulsome letters of praise to the President, but for once he did not rise above the occasion. Not even constant misuse could rob some phrases of their noble meaning, he wrote. Somewhere in the Atlantic, Roosevelt and Churchill
had
made history for the world.

“And like all truly great historic events, it wasn’t what was said or done that defined the scope of the achievement. It’s always the forces—the impalpable, the spiritual forces, the hopes, the purposes, the dreams and the endeavors—that are released that matter….

“It was all grandly conceived and finely executed….The deed and the spirit and the invigoration of a common human fraternity in the hearts of men will endure—and steel our will and kindle our actions toward the goal of ridding the world of this horror.”

N
EWS OF ARGENTIA BROKE
up Washington’s summer doldrums, at least for a time. Democratic leaders in Congress hailed the Atlantic Charter as a magnificent statement of war aims—indeed, as a signpost to “real and lasting peace.” Hiram Johnson and Robert Taft accused Roosevelt of making a secret alliance and planning an invasion of Europe. The New York
Times,
billing the pledge to destroy Nazi tyranny in an eight-column headline, proclaimed that this was the end of isolationism, while the New York
Journal-American
accused the President of retracing, one by one, all the steps toward war taken by Wilson. Colonel McCormick’s Chicago
Tribune,
irked by the Roosevelt-Churchill togetherness, reminded its readers that the President was “the true descendant of that James Roosevelt, his great-grandfather, who was a Tory of New York during the Revolution and took the oath of allegiance to the British King.” Both friend and foe saw the meeting as a prelude to more aggressive action.

But not Roosevelt, evidently. Having taken a dramatic step forward, he executed his usual backward hop. Aside from a lackluster message to Congress incorporating the declaration, he took little action to follow it up. At the first press conference after the meeting, on the
Potomac,
reporters found him cautious. What about actual implementation of the broad declarations, he was asked. “Interchange of views, that’s all. Nothing else.” Were we any closer to entering the war? “I should say, no.” Could he be quoted directly? “No, you can quote indirectly.”

But the meeting at sea did seem popular with the people, according to the pollsters. Seventy-five per cent of those polled had heard about the eight-point credo, and of those about half indicated full or partial approval, while only a quarter of them were cool or hostile. Many were indifferent or uninformed, however, and this number grew as time passed. Five months later most people remembered the two men meeting, but few remembered anything about the Charter itself.