franklin d. roosevelt's wartime inner circle of military intelligence and diplomatic advisers included well-known figures like george c. marshall, wild bill donovan, admiral harriman and first lady eleanor roosevelt. they were among the subjects of a panel discussion at the fdr presidential library, exploring their role and influence on the president fighting a global war. this program is two hours. >> good afternoon. and welcome to our second 2011 fall forum, fdr's inner circle. i'm the acting director of the franklin d. roosevelt presidential library and it is my pleasure to welcome our distinguished panel of speakers and our audience. those of you who are joining us today here at the henry a. wallace center and those of you

who will be participating via our simultaneous web cast. i'm also slighted that c-span is taping today's program for later broadcast. it is widely accepted that franklin roosevelt was one of the greatest leaders in american history, while much scholarship and attention has focused on the role fdr played as the leading actor in the drama of the great depression and world war ii, there is growing interest in the supporting players around fdr, a circle of close advisers, secretaries, friends, and, of course, first lady eleanor roosevelt, who provided the official and personal support necessary for a president to achieve great things. with the outbreak of war in september, 1939, the focus of the roosevelt administration turned increasingly towards international affairs. with the shift in priorities also came a shift in franklin roosevelt's inner circle. domestic advisers were often marginalized in favor of military, diplomatic, and

intelligence leaders, longtime friends became ill or died, personal staff changed. even as fdr's attention became global, his private world became smaller as a result of wartime secrecy and security. to gain greater understanding of these important behind-the-scenes figures, so integral to the roosevelt story, the fdr presidential library and museum and the roosevelt institute are proud to present fdr's inner circle. today's forum concentrates on the military and foreign policy advisers. and now, it is my great pleasure to welcome our moderator, stuart chinski. he's been executive editor of content and audience development of the poughkeepsie journal and the poughkeepsiejournal.com since december, 2006. he oversees all news operations at the newspaper, its website and magazine. in 2011, "the poughkeepsie journal" was named the best

newspaper in new york state in its circulation category by the new york associated press which honored "the journal" with its newspaper of distinction award. gannett named stu chinski as one of the top executives in the company. despite the difficult economy, "the journal's" readership continues to grow. its product now reached 87% of the adults in dutchess county, and stu has the pleasure of working in the historic "poughkeepsie journal" building in a fieldstone inspired by fdr. thank you for agreeing to be our moderator this afternoon, and i now leave it in your able hands. >> good afternoon, and thank you. and we welcome you as lynn said to the second of two programs called fdr's inner circle.

today's topic, foreign policy. we also welcome you to historic hyde park and historic dutchess county. you know, of course, the roosevelt family's deep connection and roots in hyde park, but you might not know that dutchess county has long provided a home for other luminaries, and as such has an important stake in america's history. the county also has some six degrees of separation connections to today's program. the 1944 presidential election is a case in point. a man named franklin roosevelt was on that ballot. he was seeking historic fourth term in the white house. his opponent, new york state governor thomas e. dewey, who also lived here in dutchess county. he lived in the town of pawling, which is about 30 miles east of here. this is believed to be the only time in american history that

two nominees for president lived in the same county. our dutchess county. the town of pawling has another connection to today's program, one of the protagonists you'll likely hear about, edward r. murrow, the famous broadcast journalist, lived in pawling for many years. by the way, that town was also the home of famed broadcaster lowell thomas and also the reverend norman vincent peale who as you know wrote "the power of positive thinking." it's also appropriate to note the time of today's reveevents. we'll be observing the 70th anniversary of the attack on pearl harbor. as you know, that attack is what officially brought the united states into world war ii. before that, however, the roosevelt administration was already quite engaged in the turmoil unfolding in europe. the nazis' march was on.

the world's landscape was changing. to respond, roosevelt surrounded himself with a slew of trusted a visors and emissaries. their names? some of them were wild bill donovan, avril harriman, james marshall, john gilbert winen and eleanor roosevelt, i want to thank the entire fdr staff for inviting me to participate today. i'm greatly honored to be here. i also offer my thanks to our panelists. i had wonderful conversations with each one of them as i prepared for today, and they were very generous in sharing their time and expertise. thank you. what will they share with you? you'll understand, by the time we finish in two hours, how fdr tried to stay out of world war ii and how he felt one of the

best ways to do that was to keep britain in world war ii. you'll hear why winston churchill was relieved, not happy, but relieved, when the bombs started to fall at pearl harbor. you'll learn how eleanor roosevelt became the most prominent first lady in history, and how her personal staff indeed influenced the world. and we'll introduce you to the man fdr called, and i'm quoting, my secret legs. we do have ground rules. i will introduce each speaker who will then offer about a ten-minute opening statement. we'll follow that by taking questions from the audience here in hyde park and questions via the internet. for the folks here in hyde park, we ask that you come to the microphone on my right. please provide your name and tell us where you're from. we will also be taking questions, as i mentioned, from the internet.

just visit, if you're not already there, www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu, click on the "people" button and you can submit your question. you can do that at any time during the program. we do ask that our audience members in hyde park if you have not done so, please silence your cell phones so there's no interruption to the broadcast and panelists. i will introduce the panelists as we speak, but first i will give you a quick rundown of whose expertise you'll be learning from today. on my left, lynn olson, lynn is the author of "citizens of london, the americans who stood with britain in its darkest, finest hour." douglas waller, the author of "wild bill donovan." thomas parrish, the author of "roosevelt and marshall, partners in politics and war." dr. alita black, executive

editor of the fdr for freedoms digital initiative of the roosevelt institute, and dr. david walnor, senior fellow and resident hyde park historian of the roosevelt institute. our first speaker is lynn olson. lynn olson has a distinguished resume. her work includes being a reporter around the world. she covered jimmy carter's presidential campaign. she later joined the "baltimore sun's" washington bureau and eventually left journalism to work as a freelance writer in nor fork. her latest book "citizens of london, the americans who stood with britain in its darkest and finest hour" was published in 2010 by random house. will you join me in welcoming lynn olson? >> thank you very much. i am delighted and honored to be here. i have told many people that

this really is my favorite place to do research. the staff here is absolutely spectacular, and every time i come back here, i feel like i'm coming home. the three men that i'm going to talk about this afternoon were not members of fdr's circle foreign policy advisers in washington. nonetheless, they played critical roles in one of the most important allied achievements of world war ii, the formation of the wartime partnership between the united states and great britain. that alliance has come to be known as the special relationship. it helped win the war, preserve democracy, and save the world. and as the years have gone by, its creation has seemed almost preordained. first, you had winston churchill rousing his country to stand alone against hitler, and then franklin roosevelt and the americans, coming to the rescue of churchill and the british.

but, in fact, it was far from certain that this alliance was actually going to happen. and once it did, it was a fragile and tense relationship from the moment of its birth. creating it and then keeping it alive was not an easy task to put it mildly. these three americans i mentioned played vital roles in bringing the partnership to life and then keeping it going. two of the three are very well known. and i'm going to tell you just a little tiny bit about them. the first is edwar r. murrow, who lived in pawling. the legendary cbs correspondent who became a household name in the united states when he reported from the rooftops of london during the blitz in the battle of britain. murrow was probably the best-known american correspondent during world war ii. the only other one who came close was ernie kyle. the ironic thing is that when

murrow first came to london in 1937, he had not one day of journalistic experience to his credit. he was sent over to london as cbs' european director of talks, which meant that he was a booking agent. his job was to arrange things like speeches, debates, broadcast of things like speeches and debates and concerts. but he set out to change all that. as the threat of war increased, he persuaded cbs to not only let him report but also to let him hire his own band of correspondents who came to be known as the murrow boys. murrow and these other reporters, who included some well-known names of the future like eric severeid, william schier and howard k. smith basically created broadcast journalism. listening to murrow's report with the famed "this is london"

introduction became a national habit in the united states. murrow thought very highly of the british and their courage and resolution in standing up to hitler and the german bombing attacks. and he became increasingly impatient at the hesitancy of roosevelt and america in getting into the war and coming to the aid of britain. the second man that i write about is avril harriman who was sent by roosevelt to london in march of 1941 to oversee lend/lease aid for britain. harriman was one of the wealthiest men in the united states, the son of e.h. harriman, the ed of union pacific railroad and one of the great robber barron of the late 19th and 20th century, those who have seen the classic move visit "butch cassidy and the sundance kid" will remember that name

from the movie. avril harriman was a hard-driving businessman who was desperate to get a job in the roosevelt administration, but the president at least initially was not too keen about having him. they had known each other for about 35 years. the harriman estate is, again, six degrees of separation is in the hudson valley not too far from here, and the two families had a lot of social links. but roosevelt didn't think much of harriman's father and he considered harriman basically, again, at that time as basically a dilettante and a playboy. it really was harry hopkins, fdr's closest aide, who persuaded roosevelt to take a chance on harriman, and sent him to london as the administrator of the new lend/lease program there. the third man is someone who unlike murrow and harriman has been almost totally forgotten in this country, but in many ways he was the most important.

his name is john gilbert winan, and he was the u.s. ambassador to britain from 1941 until the end of the war. he replaced the appeasement-minded joseph p. kennedy, not exactly a hard act to follow. winan was a former governor of new hampshire, a liberal and a republican. he was also a committed supporter of fdr and the new deal. in fact, he sacrificed his political career in 1936 because of that support for roosevelt and his social reforms. winan was the first head of social security program. which was created in 1935, and in 1936, the republican party, the republican presidential candidate and the party was keen to get rid of social security. they wanted to end it really before it had really begun. and winan quit his job as

director and campaigned during the -- literally campaigned during that campaign to preserve social security, and he went against his own party in doing so. and, you know, his political career was over from then on. all three of these americans were extremely important in the debate in america over whether britain should, in fact, we saved from defeat at the hands of the germans. now, in talking now about early 1941 in particular. for the previous six months, the british had been standing alone against germany. after the germans had swept through western europe, conquering, france, belgium, and the netherlands. britain was the last european society left standing. the british were in awful fate in 1931, really holding on by the skin of their teeth. they were, in fact, very close to being defeated.

german submarines were strangling british supply lines and starvation for british civilians looked more and more like a distinct possibility. german bombers had already killed tens of thousands of civilians in their raids on london and other british cities. the british armed forces lacked a quate aadequate arms and ammu and the only home for british was american aid, but that aid was very, very skimpy and continued to be so until well after pearl harbor. one reason for that was that american industry was strenuo strenuously resisting converting to wartime production. the u.s. was not at war yet. the economy was finally bouncing back after the great depression, and companies were intent, not surprisingly, on making as much in profits as they could. there was also still a lot of isolationism in america at that point, and a fair amount of anti-british feeling. many in washington had already

written britain off. the president was not one of those naysayers. he very much wanted to save england, but he was also very cautious. he didn't want to go to war if he could do anything at all to prevent that from happening. i should also point out that at this time roosevelt and churchill were highly skeptical, even suspicious, of each other. that famous friendship that developed between them later in the war was no where on the horizon then. it's conventional wisdom that the success of the anglo-american alliance was in large part due to the close collaboration of those two. and, of course, it was vitally important. but equally important was the work of many others. prominently including winan, harriman in laying the groundwork for the partnership and then keeping it alive once it was born. throughout 1940 and 1941, murrow championed the british cause in his broadcasts to the american

people. harriman and winan meanwhile who were sent to london as roosevelt's eyes and ears, made clear to the president and his administration that they thought britain would hold out and that america must do all it could to help the british and churchill. after the war, "the times of london" called winan, the glue that helped to hold the wartime alliance together. from the day he arrived in britain in march, 1941, which was the worst time of the war for the british, he made it clear that unlike joseph kennedy, he was there to stay. the first words he spoke after stepping off his plane were "there's no place i'd rather be at this time than in england." during the heaviest raids of the blitz, he would walk the streets of london while the bombs were still falling and ask everyone he met what he could do to help. the british people loved him. for many of the british people loved him.

his warmth and compassion, his determination to stand with them and share their dangers was the first tangible sign that americans did indeed care about them and their country. he showed them the best side of america. churchill knew how important wynette, harriman and merrill were to his country's survival and he pursued them as relentlessly as he pursued roosevelt. the prime minister was well aware, for example, how influential merrill and the other american journalists in london were in affecting u.s. public opinion about the british cause and he was diligent and cultivating them. merrill was the most important american reporter and because of that he was given intimate access to churchill. when british officials turned down his request, merrill's request to broadcast live during the blitz the matter was referred to churchill who

immediately approved the idea. anything that might help persuade america to come to the aid of britain had the prime minister's blessing. churchill was even closer to wynette and harriman. he made both of them part of his inner circle, giving them unprecedented access not only to himself, but to members of his government. according to one of churchill's private secretaries, john coldwell, the american embassy under winette became basically an extension to 10 downing street. it is important, he focused even more in the harley harbor days on harriman who because he was in charge of administering u.s. aid to britain was considered even more crucial to britain's survival at that point. both of these men, wye met and

harm an were in his inner circle, but he will pulled them into his life. they were members of churchill's family during the war. it is another country estate that churchill frequently visited. just to give you a brief example of how close they were all three of them ended up having wartime love affairs with members of churchill's family. harriman and merrill both were involved at different times in pamela, and wynette fell in love with churchill's daughter sarah. i raise that because it's really interesting, but also because it does show you how incredibly important churchill felt about this man and how much he needed them and they responded. all of them were die hard ang

anglophiles and did all they could to get the services out of the war. theirs services were invaluabl. the night of pearl harbor gives you some idea of their importance. weiman, and merrill was at the white house with roosevelt. as soon as they heard the news everyone knew the long fight was over and america was now in the war. and a new struggle began and all three of them played a very key role in continuing the alliance and as i said, keeping it alive. there were many, many problems with the anglo, american alliance and it progressed and the u.s. became clearly, the senior partner and it's important to remember that despite all those difficulties, that alliance did hold together until it won the war. sch a wartime bond never existed

before and it will never be duplicated again and the fact that it did exist and did sor survive was due in no small part to john gilbert. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, lynn. our next speaker is douglas waller. mr. waller has spent two decades as a washington journalist covering the pentagon, congress, the state department, the white house and the cia. mr. waller currently is a defense analyst for bloomberg government. he has served in "time" magazine's washington bureau and has worked for "newsweek" as well, the spymaster who created the us, and modern american espionage is the eighth book he authored or co-authored. please welcome mr. douglas waller.

thanks, stu. it's a delight to be back here or at hyde park. i spent two years researching the biography because there are a considerable amount of oss records in the archives and robert clark who was a chief arcivist, i made his life miserable for two weeks bugging him with questions and then he made the mistake of giving me his e-mail address and for the next two years i hit him with question after question. i want to tell you about general "wild bill "candida" donovan. he was roosevelt's top spymaster. he a former, went into the administration and a republican wall street lawyer, a hero in world war i. he had been awarded the congressional medal of honor in that war and he was a national celebrity when he joined the administration. his relationship with roosevelt

was actually very complicated which wasn't unusual. roosevelt's relationship with most of his aides and cabinet officers proved to be complicated. donovan and roosevelt went to columbia law school together and he and donovan said that was a bunch of baloney. roosevelt was from much higher straight at hyde park than donovan who was a poor irish kid from donovan, new york. 1932, donovan runs for governor of new york on the republican ticket. his goal at that point was to be the first irish catholic president of the united states and new york was the ideal stepping-stone for that. franklin roosevelt was running for his first term as president. donovan ends up during the campaign saying as many nasty things about roosevelt as he did his -- the opposing democratic candidate herbert layman. the reason i mention all of this is that it's amazing, fast forwarding to 1940-41 that

roosevelt brought donovan into his cabinet. roosevelt formed a coalition cabinet at that time and not only had donovan a rising republican star, he had frank knox who became the secretary of the navy who had run for the gop nomination to be president and henry stimp son an old line republican party. i can't imagine a modern-day president giving that many people the opposite party to head up the senior civilian national security team and in fact, people in the white house back then were very, very worried about this and they were asking questions among themeses about what are they doing running a farm team here for the republican party one day. >> july 1941, roosevelt signs an executive order setting up what was then called a coordinator of information and later be called the oss. >> there was a one-page document, very vaguely written and it said colonel donovan and

they collect information of national security importance and do other unspecified things. it was so vague other members of the cabinet scratched their head wondering what in the world is franklin doing bringing in this republican wall street lawyer to do these shady operations that i know nothing about. roosevelt, however, was a real spy buff. he liked, even from a little boy he liked espionage and sub tre fuj and covert operations. and roosevelt was a real cloak and dagger-type guy. donovan was not part of roosevelt's inner war council. the seats of that table were reserved for guys like george marshall or chief of staff of the army and chief of the navy and leahy was senior military adviser to roosevelt and harry hopkins who was senior council and served in effect as roosevelt's national security adviser during the war.

donovan was allowed during the map room that winston churchill was the one that talked him into having a map room. you see a replica of the map room in the museum here. they never let donovan into that map room. the only civilian allowed in was harry hopkins. marshall didn't want a bunch of political hacks going in there and leaking the secrets that were coming in there where roosevelt was able to monitor the war. even so, dobb van was roosevelt's idea man. he was the guy that thought out of the box for him and came up with all kinds of crazy schemes and wild ideas and one of the ideas he had was that he offered roosevelt was that he had a button at his desk that he can push at any time and be an instant contact with every radio in america and roosevelt ignored that. another idea he had was setting up an audio