[inaudible conversations] >> good morning, everyone. >> morning. >> my name is bob clark x i'm the supervisory archivist here at the franklin d. roosevelt presidential library and museum, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to the tenth annual roosevelt reading festival, we're celebrating the tenth anniversary of the henry a. wallace center which is where we're hosting from today, so we're very glad to have you. a couple of housekeeping matters, one is will you, please, all take out your cell phones, pagers, things that beep and moan and turn them off so that our presentation isn't interrupted today. the second thing is i want to thank our colleagues at c-span who are filming live from hyde park today, so thank you to them for being here and supporting the roosevelt library and our public programs. and then finally, let me just kind of go over the format of

the session. as those of you who have been here many times before know, what our speaker will do is speak for about 30 minutes, then we'll have 10 or 15 minutes for questions and answers, and i would ask that for the questions you would come up and line up and stand at the microphone, and then mr. persico will call on you for questions. and then after the question and answer period, we'll escort mr. persico out to the lobby where he will be happy to sign the books that you will all want to purchase at the new deal store. [laughter] and finally, as many of you if not all of you know, we just rededicated the library after a three-year renovation and installed all new permanent exhibits, so if you will find one of the library staff people and get one of these buttons from them, that will let you see the museum exhibits free of charge. so with that, let me introduce to you our speaker. it is always a pleasure to see joe persico here at the roosevelt library. he is one of the great gentleman in the profession.

he is a great friend not only to the library, but he's a good friend of mine. he's the author of his latest book be, "roosevelt's centurions." throughout his career he was chief speech writer for new york governor and later vice president nelson a. rockefeller. he is the author of many books including "the imperial rockefeller." his roosevelt's secret war, espionage, the 11th month, 11th day and 11th hour and franklin and lucy focus on franklin roosevelt and the era. he's living proof once you write one book about roosevelt, you will keep coming back for more. [laughter] he's been a writer and commentator on several documentaries, and two of his quotations are inscribed on the world war ii memorial in washington d.c. ladies and gentlemen, joseph persico. [applause]

>> bob, thank you for that overgenerous introduction. bob has helped guide me through at least two of my three books on fdr, so i'm very much at home here. there's a certain spell for me to come to this library, i can just feel the history oozing out of the wall, and i've enjoyed it for perhaps 20 years now that i've been speaking. my aim in writing "roosevelt's centurions" was to examine the performance of fdr in three roles as commander in chief during world war ii. the first was as the recruiter in chief, how able was fdr in his choices of the generals and admirals who were to conduct the

war. next, fdr as strategist in chief, how did the strategies that he adopted hasten or delay the victory. finally, as morale officer. how well did he inspire and motivate a people and a nation at war? today i'm going to talk about the first standard that i mentioned, fdr as recruiter in chief. his main selection was general george c. marshall as chief of staff. the nomenclature, i think, is sometimes confusing. the chief of staff of the army is not a staff officer, he is the chief of the army, and that is what george marshall became under fdr. their first serious encounter in the white house did not go all that well. the president was describing a plan that he had for increasing

the output of aircraft, and this was prior to our entering the war. ask he was very pleased with it -- and he was very pleased with it. he turned to general marshall, and he said don't you think so, george? and you could just read marshall's face. he was not at all pleased with this easy familiarity that fdr employed almost on first meeting anybody, and thereafter roosevelt picking up on this, they became throughout their association general marshall and mr. president. now, marshall, nevertheless, went on in this meeting which i've described to criticize the president's program. he thought it was an overexpansion beyond the

capacity of the army air corps at that point. roosevelt, he could be surrounded by yemen who were a dime -- yes men who were a dime a dozen, and he was very impressed by marshall's willingness to stand up to him. and marshall becomes throughout the war, essentially, fdr's stout oak. now, soon after pearl harbor george marshall brings into the war department a very promising officer of whom he has heard nothing but praise and rave reviews, and that is dwight eisenhower. he and ike develop a plan for winning the war against nazi germany. very early after pearl harbor. their plan is to conduct a massive buildup of troops in the british isles, americans and brits and other allied forces,

and then thrust across the english channel, invade nazi-occupied france and more or less drive the 500 level miles right straight through to berlin. now, marshall assures the president that this can be done in 1943, roughly about a year or so after we've entered the war. roosevelt appears to approve of that project. they have made a sale with him. he then sends george marshall with his closest confidant, harry hopkins, to london to exlain the plan to winston churchill. churchill seems to agree to it. they've made a sale with winston churchill. but to fdr, the promised invasion of 1943 still sounds very far off. we're in 1942 at this time.

"time" magazine has noted that we've been in the war for six months, and not a single inch of enemy territory has been occupied, nor have we won a victory. fdr wants to engage the germans somewhere in 1942. now, winston churchill had given lip service to his support of an invasion across the english channel, but his real objective was to save the british empire. and his conviction was that the lifeline of the british empire was the mediterranean sea. and if you wanted to control the mediterranean, you had to control north africa. now, at this time north africa was essentially controlled by the french. you had the three colonies, morocco, algeria and tunisia, all french colonies. these colonies were run by the french government, the

government that essentially surrendered to nazi germany in 1940 when france fell, and they were allowed under the terms of that armistice to hold on to their colonies in north africa. so presumably, when we invade north africa in november of 1942, we're going to be facing french troops, ironically. now, f, the r hears -- fdr hears churchill's arguments for first setting our troops against the germans if north africa, and he agrees. george marshall, when he finds out that the president has abandoned the original plan for the cross-channel invasion in 1943, is appalled. he realizes that if all of the men and material are sucked off of that campaign that's being arranged out of europe across the channel, that you'll never be ready by 1943.

and, indeed, d-day, the invasion of normandy, doesn't take place until june '44. when eisenhower learns that the president has been persuaded by churchill to abandon the cross-channel strategy, he describes it as the blackest day in history. but as the point arrives in which the continent is to be invaded, the big question is who will command the allied forces? who will be the supreme commander? now, everybody knows that this is going to be george marshall. winston churchill knows it. josef stalin knows it. "the new york times" knows it. [laughter] and mrs. marshall knows it. she's already packing accordingly. and george marshall has every reason to expect that the command will be his.

in a few minutes, i'll get down to the story of how fdr fooled them all. to run the navy, roosevelt's centurion is admiral ernest king. king is an old, crusty sea dog with a very mercurial temper. his wife described her father as the most even-tempered man that she ever i knew. he was always mad. [laughter] his philosophy was to chew his subordinates out in public and praise them in private which is not considered good personnel management policy. but fdr had seen in ernie king a real scrapper. king was so tough that fdr used to joke that he shaved himself with a blow torch. [laughter] in some respects fdr was ahead of his navy chief. in 1942 the sinkings of merchant

vessels which were keeping great britain alive were severely threatened by u-boat attacks which were sometimes sinking three and four ships in a single day. roosevelt wanted a convoy system where warships would track -- would protect the per chant vessels -- the merchant vessels. king just didn't move along fast enough on that, and roosevelt literally dragged him into the convoy system which resulted in the fact that ship sinkings started to plummet soon after the adoption of the convoy system. now, there's another naval officer that, in my judgment, would have been every bit as good as ernie king as the navy chief, and that's admiral chester them in miss. just -- nimitz. just days after pearl harbor,fbr summons him to his office and says, chet, i want you to go out to the hawaiian islands, and i don't want you to come back

until we've defeated the japanese. so admiral king ruled, essentially through fear, nimitz was a beloved and revered skipper within the navy. i think he could have conducted the leadership of the navy in the war with a great deal of less wear and tear than ernie king inflicted on his subordinates. nimitz was also a very open-minded officer. at one point a rather mid-level officer who runs the coding operation, the decoding operation in the pacific -- a chap hi by the name of joe roque further -- tells admiral nimitz that his code breakers have intercepted japanese messages, decoded them, and they can pip point where a jalapeno -- pinpoint where a japanese fleet is steaming toward the island of midway, preliminary to mounting an invasion on the hawaiian

islands. roquefort assures the admiral that he can tell where that japanese fleet is going to be and at what time at any particular moment. nimitz gambles on this intelligence, okays a raid against this fleet, and there is a rendezvous between the japanese fleet -- unintended from their standpoint -- and american bombers who within five minutes sink four of the most vaunted carriers of the japanese navy. now, after six months of doom and gloom in the pacific, the loss of wake island, the loss of guam and the utterly humiliating surprise attack that succeeds against pearl harbor, after our success at midway, the war in the pacific turns around, and we will never really look back until victory. running the air force, the

president picked general henry "hap" arnold. he's known as "hap" because through some facial anomaly, his lip is always curled in what appears to be a smile, but he's a tough guy apart from that. hap arnold went so far back in american aviation history that he was taught to fly by the wright brothers. [laughter] and yet in 40 years, which is a short span as history is mentioned, he is in charge of an air force that launches flotillas of a thousand heavy bombers against german cities including berlin. arnold's talents had been spotted by elliott roosevelt, the president's son who was a great aviation enthusiast. and arnold started out on a very high plane. at in this point -- at this

point the air force is phone as the u.s. army air corps, so it's subordinate to the army. so, in effect be, hap arnold serves under general marshall. but roosevelt gives hap arl hold in a seat on the joint chiefs of staff, that is marshall for the army, king for the navy, admiral leahy is the general staff commander of this group. so by giving hap arnold a seat on the joint chiefs of staff, he has, in effect be, elevated the air force to equal status with the other services. hap arnold describes this move where he's able to sit down on an equal level with king and with marshall as the magna carta of the u.s. air force, and it's granted by franklin roosevelt. now, these two men -- the president and hap arnold -- had rather similar free-wheeling management styles. as one aide of president

roosevelt put it, the president would give one man is six jobs to carry out, or he would give six men one job to carry out. it was something of the president's leadership style. hap arnold, similarly, would go to the airplane manufacturers, and he would say you've got to start producing more planes because my air force is training more pilots. then he would go to his training staff, and he would say you've got to turn out more pilots because the aircraft industry is producing more planes. [laughter] now we will discuss two interesting figures in the american echelon during world war ii, two men who circled each other like wary lions. that military peacock general

douglas mcarthur -- [laughter] and that political lion, fdr. shortly before becoming president while roosevelt was still governor of new york, he remarked to some of his associates that there were two dangerous men in the united states. one, he said, was the demagogic senator from louisiana, huey long. and his staff asked him, you know, who is the other dangerous figure in america if and he said douglas mcarthur. nevertheless, after the president enters office in 1933, mcarthur is then running the army as chief of staff, and his term is about to expire. but fdr keeps him on. in the middle of the '30s, mcarthur retires from active service. he goes on the inactive list, and he goes to the philippines which he's always loved. he then begins the cushiest

chapter in his military career. he is named by the philippine government as a field marshal in the philippine army. now this appointment, to me, has something of a comic opera overtone. and he very likely could have been left to sink in obscurity as a field marshal in the philippine army. but as the war appears to be approaching and the united states will be drawn in, the president puts mcarthur back on the active list, and he gives him complete command of all the troops in the philippines, americans and filipinos. soon after pearl harbor, the japanese invade the philippine islands. they sweep across and drive mcarthur and his forces out of manila down the peninsula down onto this rocky island.

the japanese are going to succeed in conquering the philippines, and mcarthur faces three fates. he could either be killed, he could kill himself, or he would wind up as a prize prisoner to be paraded in tokyo before the victorious japanese. now,izen our at this point -- eisenhower at this point is still in the war department in washington, and his view is that, yes, you should leave mcarthur there on the island. [laughter] eisenhower had worked under mcarthur and still apparently felt the sting, and his view knowing the mcarthur theatrical personality was leave him there, it would suit mcarthur's martyr complex. but the president still has great faith in mcarthur's military genius, and he wants him rescued. consequently, mcarthur is plucked from the philippines.

he goes to australia, and roosevelt gives him command of the southwest pacific area. that is roughly half of the pacific war zone. the other half goes to admiral chester nimitz who i mentioned earlier. after mcarthur leaves the philippines, he is plagued with doubt, plagued with humiliation, and he then makes his famous battle cry regarding the philippines: i sal return. i shall return. by mid 1944 there is a competition, a controversy between two forces as to how to win the war in the pacific. admiral nimitz and his forces have been conducting an island campaign. they've jumped from guadalcanal, they island hopped to saipan, eventually to iwo jima and okinawa, and it's brilliant

strategy because it leaves other well-fortified japanese bases to wither on the vine as he hop scotches across the pacific. and nimitz's point of view is that we can continue to do this, we'll eventually surround the japanese, strangle them economically which will obviate the necessity of a very bloody invasion. the contrary opinion is taken by mcarthur who says that the way to defeat japan is to let him invade the philippines, to liberate the philippines and then use that as a jumping board for the invasion of the japanese homeland. also, if he can win the president's approval for going back to the philippines, he fulfills his promise: i shall return. now, the president in the summer of 1944 he summons mcarthur to

the philippines and nimitz, and he if a sense is going to referee -- in a sense is going to referee between these two gentlemen as to which strategy is going to be adopted, island hopping or going up through the philippines. he hears both their arguments. mcarthur makes a brilliant defense of his position without a note in his hand. nimitz is piled high with books and maps and makes a very convincing argument for his case. fdr solves this dilemma in typical roosevelt fashion. he approves both approaches. [laughter] he will allow the island hopping, which he thinks is a brilliant strategy, to continue, and he also okays mcarthur's wish to invade the philippines. now, after that something happens which is brazen even by

douglas mcarthur's behavior. here we are in the midst of war, and he makes it known clear to republican leaders in the united states that he would gladly accept a draft, their nomination to run for president. this would pit him against his commander in chief in the midst of war. apparently, mcarthur the military hero fares a great deal better than mcarthur the politician because when the republicans meet that summer at their convention to pick a candidate, among 1,046 delegate votes cast, douglas mcarthur receives one. [laughter] i'd like now to talk about how fdr regarded general eisenhower. you know, after eisenhower became president he was caricatured as a man who mangled the english language, a man who

was inarticulate. and the interesting thing is this irony, that when he was first brought into the war plans department by general marshall soon after pearl harbor, ike initially made his name by the cogenesee -- cojencs, and sound papers he did many of which went before president roosevelt. so clearty the obfuscation was a smoke screen to conceal the things that he did not want to say. now, as i said earlier in my talk, everybody knows that president roosevelt would back george marshall to be the supreme commander when the time came to invade europe. it would have been the logical capstone to george marshall's career. even the president himself pointed out that every school

kid could name a civil war battlefield commander; lee, grant, sherman, stonewall jackson. but who remembered from the civil war era who would have been chief of staff of the army which was the position that marshall now held? but fdr had observed something that captured his imagination about eisenhower. he saw eisenhower as a skilled political general in the best sense of that word. now, when the time came to invade north africa, the colonies -- as i mentioned, algeria, due tease ya and morocco -- were under control of the french government. in command of north africa and its colonies at that point was a french admiral by the name of

francois darlan, a known nazi sympathizer. but eisenhower dealt with him, something of a pact with the devil, for which he was roundly criticized in the united kingdom and the united states. i mean, what was this war all about? weren't we fighting fascists and nazis? why do we have an american commander dealing with him? fdr backed eisenhower completely in his dealings with darlan in north africa. the president realized that what ike was doing was cutting a deal with the devil to reduce the resistance of french troops when we finally invaded these colonies, which was the case. the french fought for about three days, and that was it. so as a result of the deal that eisenhower cut with the admiral, many thousands of lives or were saved. eisenhower saw -- excuse me, the president saw eisenhower perform again in north africa.

the president went to the conference at cat blank ca in -- casablanca in 1943, and he met at this oint be eisenhower, and the president always had an eye for a pretty woman. and he noticed that eisenhower was chaufferred around by a very comely britisher, a witty woman, very attractive, by the name of kay sommers by. at this point in the upper levels of the allied command, the rumors are fairly rampant asking the question how close is dwight eisenhower to kay sommersby, his driver? admiral marshall is dead on any suggestion of hanky-panky of people under his command. he had a commander in the middle east, and he'd heard a rumor this commander was involved in a dalliance with his secretary. and he contacts that general and

said i want her sent back to the states pronto. fdr's utterly unconcerned with eisenhower's private life. hehe has seen in eisenhower a leader who can bring together strong-willed national leaders; churchill, de gaulle and his own president and unify them for a concerted attack during the war against nazi germany. he's able to do the same thing with very competitive generals like general montgomery, patton, his own supporters. so the president very much appreciates this absolutely critical talent. i like one of eisenhower's subordinates said best about the rumors regarding kay sommersby, he said eisenhower's bearing crushing burdens. if kay sommersby is helping to relieve some of those burdens,

i'm all for it. leave him alone. [laughter] now, who does the president she can to be the -- select to be the supreme commander? november 1943, it's getting a little late in the day, it's about time he decided who he supported to be the supreme commander for the liberation of europe. in cairo he summons george marshall to his suite, just the two of them. and as marshall described this meeting, the president beats around the bush at great length, ad nauseam, before he gets down to what he wants to sew marshall -- to see marshall about. and be he finally just says what do you think about the supreme command? now, george marshall hungers for this command, as i've said. this would mark the capstone of his career. and any general worth his salt wants to be a battlefield commander, not a paper push or. pusher. but he's also a monumentall