Crucial Years
Neumann, William L.
Crucial Years Years of Urgency, 1938-1941: from the morgenthau diaries, by John Morton Blum. Houghton Mifflin. 443 pp. $7.50. Reviewed by William L. Neumann Political leaders find it difficult...
...The Secretary occasionally expressed his bitterness at the calculated manner in which he was used as "expendable," but found in Mrs...
...This is the first indication that a preemptive strike was contemplated instead of waiting for the Japanese to make the next move...
...He is the first to have full access to the Morgenthau papers at the Hyde Park Roosevelt Library, along with the papers which Morgenthau holds privately...
...When completed these volumes should rank with the records left by Cordell Hull, Harry Hopkins, and Henry Stimson as basic histories of the great decisions taken in the White House during the Roosevelt years...
...It was Morgenthau's aide, Harry Dexter White, who drafted a proposal for a major settlement with Japan in the interest of freeing the United States to face Hitler unhampered by Pacific tensions...
...Not only was he among those Cabinet members who were most vigorous in supporting a hard line in dealing with Germany and Japan, but since a large part of the initial American aid to Britain, France, and China involved loans and credits, his office was directly concerned...
...But even a watered-down version was dropped November 26, 1941, when the Japanese negotiators received instead a strong and uncompromising note...
...The President was weary of defending his unbalanced budget for welfare measures, and he was beginning to occupy his time with foreign affairs...
...We regret this oversight and any subsequent inconvenience to The Dial Press, the publisher...
...Morgenthau was encouraged to press for new measures of aid to Britain, France, and China and then left out in front to be shot at when his proposals proved to be too far in advance of the temper of Congress and the public...
...Morgenthau, as Secretary of the Treasury, was often more active in this latter field of operations than was the Secretary of State...
...One of these is Joseph Kennedy, ambassador to Britain, whom Morgenthau claims was being supported as a Presidential candidate in 1940 by Arthur Krock of The New York Times...
...President Roosevelt also occupies a large part of the story as he is viewed through the eyes of one of his most loyal Cabinet members...
...I am sick and tired of having a lot of long-haired people around here who want a billion dollars for schools, a billion dol lars for public health...
...This is the second volume based on the extensive papers of Henry Morgen-thau, Jr., and records the years when the Roosevelt Administration was turning from the problems of a sluggish economy and domestic poverty to Europe and Asia...
...For Roosevelt, Kennedy had become "just a pain in the neck" and an "appeaser...
...Just because a boy wants to go to college is no reason we should finance it...
...Since this is an "authorized" biography it is in no way critical of the Secretary's role, but records, with many quotations from his diaries, Morgenthau's activities in this important period...
...The history of American foreign policy in this period has now been studied by many scholars, but Professor John Morton Blum of Yale has been able to contribute much that is new...
...The speaker is not a conservative Republican Congressman complaining about President Johnson's legislation in behalf of the "Great Society," but Franklin Roosevelt complaining to his Secretary of the Treasury in 1939...
...In 1940, the dissident Kennedy's support was needed in Massachusetts, however, and a reconciliation was achieved which enabled the President to campaign in the ambassador's state and describe him as "this Boston boy, beloved by all of Boston, and a lot of other places...
...of his whippings by assuring him of his importance to the Administration...
...This proposal, which Blum says was the product of "a noble innocence," was favorably received by the Army and Navy and even by some circles in the Department of State...
...He also was the chief initiator of the program of economic warfare against Germany and Japan which preceded full-scale belligerency...
...A third volume from the Morgenthau diaries is in preparation, covering the war years...
...Reviewed by William L. Neumann Political leaders find it difficult to sustain idealistic goals against continued political criticism...
...Morgenthau then, on December 3, recorded in his diary that "the President said he is talking with the English about war plans as to when and where the U.S.A...
...The Morgenthau diaries also include interesting sidelights on other personalities of the period...
...The President knew that he could count on Morgenthau and often used him roughly...
...Roosevelt a confidante who took the sting out SORRY Inadvertently, John M. Muste's review of The American Dream by Norman Mailer appeared in the February issue, in advance of the revised publication date of March 15...
...Additional material is added to previous accounts of the events which led up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor...
...and Great Britain should strike and that is what he is waiting for...
Vol. 29 • April 1965 • No. 4
