1. In his tireless and unending efforts to placate, favor, win the approval of homicidal maniac Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt offered up the lives of 150,000 American soldiers in said endeavor.
Lend lease was a mistake in that it prioritized materials for Russia that were sorely needed by American troops.
Allowing Stalin to determine the location of a 'second front' over the objections of American generals, and of Winston Churchill, was a mistake.
But the worst blunderwas bowing to Stalin's demands that Germany be pulverized, reduced to ashes, rather than be allowed to surrender.....the doctrine of 'unconditional surrender'....was the very worst.
2. Franklin Roosevelt was known to fabricate all sorts of things...that he wrote Haiti's constitution, that his cabinet would be made to swear to a balanced budget, that he came up with the idea of 'Lend Lease,'....none of which are true.
He also put out the idea that 'unconditional surrender' of Germany originated with him.
Robert Sherwood, Harry Hopkins official biographer, quotes Roosevelt as saying "The thought popped into my mind...and the next thing I knew I had said it."
Sherwood, "The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins; Vol II," p. 693
Actually, the policy was first mentioned in January of 1943, at the Casablanca Conference.
a. The State Department Casablanca Conference records explains that this controversial surrender policy came from a meeting of a State Department and Council on Foreign Relations panel.
BTW....that was the same panel with "...working alongside him in the Council was Alger Hiss, a newly elected member sympathetic to the left wing of the Democratic Party,..."
The group functioned via this mantra: "Cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union is as essential as almost anything in the world today, and unless and until it becomes entirely evident that the U.S.S.R. is not interested in achieving cooperation, we must redouble, not abandon, our efforts, when the task proves difficult." http://www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/first_transformation.html
Since the group briefed Roosevelt prior to January 1943, clearly the idea of 'unconditional surrender did not originate with Roosevelt.
Churchill knew nothing of the plan.
3. Actually, the very first use of the phrase 'unconditional surrender" at Casablanca was by Harry Hopkins. One day earlier, January 23, before the President announced it, Hopkins told the grand vizier of Morocco, "The war will be pursued until Germany, Italy, and Japan agree to unconditional surrender."
"Harry Hopkins: Ally of the Poor and Defender of Democracy," by George McJimsey, p.277
and FRUS: Washington and Casablanca, p. 703.
4. When, on January 24, 1943, Roosevelt read several pages of notes discussing the doctrine to reporters, according to Sherwood, "carefully prepared in advance,"...one might ask who regularly prepared and edited said notes.
a. Harry Hopkins,- FDR's alter ego, co-president, or Rasputin, "...the closest and most influential adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II, was a Soviet agent." and “the most important of all Soviet wartime agents in the United States.”The Treachery Of Harry Hopkins
The Treachery Of Harry Hopkins
b. Life magazine ran a spread on Hopkins on September 22, 1941, calling his a one-man cabinet to Roosevelt. In fact, he lived at the White House, in the Lincoln Bedroom, from May 1940 to December 1943.
LIFE - Google Books, p. 93.
c. Elliott [Roosevelt, FDR's son] attributes this comment to his father: "Of course, it's just the thing for the Russians. They couldn't want anything better. Unconditional surrender! Uncle Joe might have made it up himself."
Manly, "The Twenty Year Revolution," p.122
And so was born Allied doctrine.
And the policy that ensured Soviet domination over half of Europe....at the cost of American lives and treasure....
Any guess as to where the policy actually originated?
Lend lease was a mistake in that it prioritized materials for Russia that were sorely needed by American troops.
Allowing Stalin to determine the location of a 'second front' over the objections of American generals, and of Winston Churchill, was a mistake.
But the worst blunderwas bowing to Stalin's demands that Germany be pulverized, reduced to ashes, rather than be allowed to surrender.....the doctrine of 'unconditional surrender'....was the very worst.
2. Franklin Roosevelt was known to fabricate all sorts of things...that he wrote Haiti's constitution, that his cabinet would be made to swear to a balanced budget, that he came up with the idea of 'Lend Lease,'....none of which are true.
He also put out the idea that 'unconditional surrender' of Germany originated with him.
Robert Sherwood, Harry Hopkins official biographer, quotes Roosevelt as saying "The thought popped into my mind...and the next thing I knew I had said it."
Sherwood, "The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins; Vol II," p. 693
Actually, the policy was first mentioned in January of 1943, at the Casablanca Conference.
a. The State Department Casablanca Conference records explains that this controversial surrender policy came from a meeting of a State Department and Council on Foreign Relations panel.
BTW....that was the same panel with "...working alongside him in the Council was Alger Hiss, a newly elected member sympathetic to the left wing of the Democratic Party,..."
The group functioned via this mantra: "Cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union is as essential as almost anything in the world today, and unless and until it becomes entirely evident that the U.S.S.R. is not interested in achieving cooperation, we must redouble, not abandon, our efforts, when the task proves difficult." http://www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/first_transformation.html
Since the group briefed Roosevelt prior to January 1943, clearly the idea of 'unconditional surrender did not originate with Roosevelt.
Churchill knew nothing of the plan.
3. Actually, the very first use of the phrase 'unconditional surrender" at Casablanca was by Harry Hopkins. One day earlier, January 23, before the President announced it, Hopkins told the grand vizier of Morocco, "The war will be pursued until Germany, Italy, and Japan agree to unconditional surrender."
"Harry Hopkins: Ally of the Poor and Defender of Democracy," by George McJimsey, p.277
and FRUS: Washington and Casablanca, p. 703.
4. When, on January 24, 1943, Roosevelt read several pages of notes discussing the doctrine to reporters, according to Sherwood, "carefully prepared in advance,"...one might ask who regularly prepared and edited said notes.
a. Harry Hopkins,- FDR's alter ego, co-president, or Rasputin, "...the closest and most influential adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II, was a Soviet agent." and “the most important of all Soviet wartime agents in the United States.”The Treachery Of Harry Hopkins
The Treachery Of Harry Hopkins
b. Life magazine ran a spread on Hopkins on September 22, 1941, calling his a one-man cabinet to Roosevelt. In fact, he lived at the White House, in the Lincoln Bedroom, from May 1940 to December 1943.
LIFE - Google Books, p. 93.
c. Elliott [Roosevelt, FDR's son] attributes this comment to his father: "Of course, it's just the thing for the Russians. They couldn't want anything better. Unconditional surrender! Uncle Joe might have made it up himself."
Manly, "The Twenty Year Revolution," p.122
And so was born Allied doctrine.
And the policy that ensured Soviet domination over half of Europe....at the cost of American lives and treasure....
Any guess as to where the policy actually originated?
