audiobook FDR and the Soviet Union: The President's Battles over Foreign Policy (Modern War Studies (Hardcover)) by Mary E. Glantz in History

Review

7 of 16 people found the following review helpful. A Poor Interpretation of HistoryBy Dave SchranckStalin was as bad as Hitler; having much in common with the other dictator. In Russia; the purges of the 1930s; the collectivation of State Farms killed millions and the ruthless treatment by the NKVD on its own people was probably worse than the Gestapo in Germany. Going outside its borders; the aggressive nature of the Communist Party throughout Europe; the attack on Finland; the takeover of the Baltics; the invasion of Poland; the intimidation of Rumania; the Katyn affair; the Warsaw Uprising later in the war and the huge spy ring Stalin installed in the US to steal nuclear and industrial secrets are all terrible events that should have made FDR and Churchill; who was a staunch anti-communist; stay clear of Stalin. To make things worse; FDR not only looked the other way but tried to stop Churchill when Churchill; at least at first; tried to stop Stalin from taking over Poland and the the rest of eastern Europe.Stalin was so bad that when the Germans first crossed the border; the ethnic Russians saw them as liberators. Out of the many mistakes made; the biggest mistake FDR made was befriending; trusting and supporting Stalin and his Communist Party.I'm fully aware of the size and condition of the US Army in the late 1930s and the monumental task of bringing it to a level capable of defeating the winner of the Russo-German war but there are times when you stand on principle and don't cave in to expediency. Besides; the tremendous amount of supplies given the Soviet Union slowed our war effort and negatively impacted our logistics in late 1944- 1945 in Europe; let alone in the Pacific throughout the war. We also had no need for Russian help with Japan in August 1945; to give Stalin possible access to install Communism in Japan as he did in Northern Korea was reckless.Here is a partial list of claims by the author:FDR knew what he was doing; knew foreign affairs and was actually forging a real friendship with StalinFDR's opposition was wrong; that they didn't understand Stalin or Soviet Diplomacy and did an injustice to Mr RooseveltStalin would have given up his quest for domination of Europe if FDR had lived or if Truman continued with the current policy of appeasementAt Yalta; only FDR knew what Stalin agreed to and was willing to acceptThat it was OK for FDR to try to manipulate and change the government to suit his needsThat it was OK for FDR to promote his own national propaganda program to improve Stalin's image despite knowing Stalin's bloody rise to powerThat it was OK for FDR to keep Truman in the dark about foreign policy; just about everythingThat Truman; Harriman; Kelley and others ruined the relationship with Stalin; starting the Cold War when appeasement ended and reciprocity and honesty was asked for; to have Stalin keep his promisesAll of these claims are ridiculous; and defy reality. With FDR's privileged upbringing and limited experience in foreign diplomacy; he couldn't begin to understand the depth of Stalin's evil character and to claim he was able to deal on an equal basis with the dictator is unrealistic. To think that an aristocrat with prior distain of Communism could gain Stalin's confidence is also unrealistic. If you read this; please don't let it be your only book on the topic.While the author accurately presents some of FDR's idiosyncrasies in handling his administration and the ways he tried to deceive; deflect and neutralize his opposition in regards to supporting Stalin unabashedly; she just scratches the surface with the circumstances and clearly doesn't present a critical enough perspective or analysis in regards to the President's machinations. To get a more complete; realistic appraisal of FDR; Stalin; Washington politics and the impact FDR had on the war try reading books by Robert Nisbet; Amos Perlmutter; SM Plokhy or even Laurence Rees.15 of 28 people found the following review helpful. A Distorted View of Roosevelt and StalinBy Michael J. ManganThis book presents such a profound misreading of the historical record and such a biased and misguided view of events that it is difficult to know where to begin criticizing it. According to the author; every policy; act; and initiative taken by Franklin Roosevelt toward Stalin and the Soviet Union during his twelve years in office was politically and militarily astute. Conversely; the American Ambassadors; military attaches; State Department Russian experts; War Department representatives; and other executive department administrative personnel were all wrong-headed; prejudiced against the Soviet Union; and nothing but a hindrance to the President. It is just painful to read this book. It was as much common knowledge during the Roosevelt presidency as it is today that Joseph Stalin was one of the most loathsome creatures ever to walk the earth. With the possible exception of Mao Tse-Tung; he is the world's greatest mass murderer; responsible for somewhere between 20 and 40 million deaths. Throughout his 25-year reign in the Soviet Union; he used arrest; torture; show trial; and death to purge his political enemies and to govern by terror; he starved 5-7 million peasant farmers and their families to death during the Terror Famine of 1932-1933; and oversaw a vast system of slave labor camps; the Gulag; where conditions were so harsh that in some camps the life expectancy was in months. Stalin's regime set the standard for repression and terror. The list of Soviet horrors almost has no end. In addition; the Soviet Union's conduct of foreign affairs was that of an international outlaw. It uniformly and systematically ignored its promises in international agreements; set up an organization; the Comintern; to conduct espionage and subversion in the capitalist countries of the world; including the United States; and treated foreign diplomats in Moscow with threats; hostility and contempt. It allied itself with Nazi Germany in 1939 and viciously attacked its small and peaceful neighbors (e.g.; Poland and Finland). It methodically murdered 22;000 Polish officers and intellectuals in the infamous Katyn Forest Massacre of 1940. The list of Soviet atrocities just goes on and on. But one would not know a word of these facts from reading this book. As far as Ms. Glantz is concerned; FDR was dealing with a Churchill or Daladier. Yet as Ms. Glantz thoroughly documents in this book; this was the country that for twelve years Franklin Roosevelt aided and befriended with a zeal and enthusiasm that is troublesome to behold. And it is FDR's ardor for the Soviet Union that Ms. Glantz finds praiseworthy. When the diplomatic establishment of the US Government; which from years of study and experience knew the real character of the Soviet Union; balked at Roosevelt's pro-Soviet policies; he simply marginalized them. The entire diplomatic; military; and administrative organizations of the US Government were bypassed; ignored; and belittled by FDR and his personal band of pro-Soviet assistants. The most fundamental theme of this book; which just saturates almost every page; is that the so called "anti-Soviet" views of State Department personnel (people like Kennan; Henderson; Bohlen; and many others) were attributable to Robert Kelley's brainwashing early in their careers. It just never seems to have occurred to Ms. Glantz that those anti-Soviet views were logical conclusions that any fair minded person would reach on observing the aggressive Bolshevik ideology of worldwide revolution; the appalling atrocities inflicted on its own people; and the Soviets' constant menacing of their small and helpless neighbors. Roosevelt essentially undermined the government apparatus set up by the Constitution and statutes of the United States and created his own parallel government that was not subject to Senate approval or other oversight. Included in this group was; first and foremost; Harry Hopkins; followed by Sumner Welles; Joseph Davies; Philip Faymonville; and Edward Stettinius; all of whom Glantz admires and respects. In order to join this select company; one had to pledge complete personal fealty to FDR; to subordinate whatever independent views they may form as part of their official duties; and to show blind obedience to the Boss. The loyalty of these people was principally a personal loyalty to FDR and only secondarily to the United States. A good example of Roosevelt's vindictive behavior toward those who did not agree with his strong pro-Soviet policies is the "closing" (George Kennan called it a "liquidation") of the State Department's Division of Eastern European Affairs in June 1937. There is little doubt that this malicious step was taken at the request of Joseph Davies; the US Ambassador in Moscow and a stooge of Stalin. There is also evidence that Walter Duranty; the corrupt New York Times correspondent in Moscow who falsified reports about the 1932-1933 Terror Famine; met with both Roosevelt and the chief of the doomed division and was actively involved in this silencing of a voice of reason. The Division of Eastern European Affairs had responsibility within the State Department for the Soviet Union and was headed by a career scholar-diplomat named Robert F. Kelley. Since 1924 Kelley had supervised the Department's analysis of the Soviet Union and had assembled a vast library of materials on the Bolshevik regime. In striking the blow; Roosevelt acted through Sumner Welles; his personal agent in the State Department (FDR had contempt for the Senate-approved Secretary of State; Cordell Hull); a fellow Groton School graduate and family friend. In a single day; Welles closed the division; ordered its books sent to the Library of Congress where they would be scattered among its other holdings and lose their character as a Russian library; ordered the destruction of the "special files" on the Soviet Union; and transferred Kelley to the Ankara; Turkey embassy where he would have no voice on Soviet policy. Ms. Glantz's treatment of this disgraceful episode (p. 33); which at the height of the Purges was intended to conceal information about the Soviet Union and silence opposition; and included elements of book burning and the destruction of evidence; is distorted and incomplete. She sugar-coats the entire incident by characterizing it as a routine "reorganization" of the department and an "amalgamation" of the Eastern and Western European Divisions. She makes no mention of the destruction of the "special files." She makes no mention of Davies' role. And in the end; her only lament is that it "left untouched the lower levels of the bureaucracy; including the staff of the embassy in Moscow." It is puzzling that this author; who is identified on the book jacket as a Foreign Service Officer of the US Department of State; would cheer tactics that were intended to stifle any independent assessments by the very agency of government set up by Congress to make such assessments; and the agency for which she works. With the exception of Davies; who was an ardent admirer of Stalin; all of the US Ambassadors to the Soviet Union during FDR's presidency; each of whom; of course; was appointed by Roosevelt himself; quickly recognized the Soviet Union for what it was. How could they not? The evidence was everywhere. The Soviet Union did nothing but continue its espionage activities in the US and spit in the face of the its Lend-Lease benefactor at every opportunity; even at the height of the Lend-Lease Program when the US was pouring billions of dollars into Soviet coffers. Consider that during WWII the Soviets interned US Airmen who had been forced to land on Soviet territory; and refused to allow US planes on Lend-Lease flights to use Soviet air space. This from an "ally" to whom we were giving billions in materials! President Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins believed not only that the US should "supply the war needs of the Soviet Union" without compensation and on a no-questions-asked basis; but do so in a way to avoid asking the Soviets for information about their use of the material supplied; simple courtesies; or even some accommodation in transporting the supplies to them. As the author frankly acknowledges; from Bullitt in 1933 to Standley in 1943; the Soviet authorities engaged in a constant stream of slights; discourtesies; inconveniences; and outright obstructions to the American diplomats in Moscow. They were rude and contemptuous; and treated the Americans with disdain - all in marked contrast to the way they fell all over themselves to please the Nazis during the two years of their alliance with Hitler in the 1939-1941 period. When the US Ambassadors complained to Roosevelt; not only did he not support his own American people; but he brushed them off; chastised them or fired them. And Ms. Glantz spends almost 200 pages wagging her finger at them. The author swallows whole Roosevelt's underlying premise in establishing Soviet-American relations after the June 22; 1941 attack on the Soviet Union; namely; that without massive US aid; the Soviet Union would lack the motivation necessary to continue fighting the Germans. In a Soviet withdrawal from the fighting; so the theory goes; the US would have to defeat Germany on its own. This premise is entirely fallacious. First; the US was not a participant in the war at that time; the vast majority of our people opposed US entry into it; and FDR vociferously campaigned in 1940 that he would not commit American boys to another European war. Second; the Soviets were fighting for their very existence. They had read Mein Kampf; they knew how the Nazis regarded the Russian Slavs; and they saw firsthand the systematic death and destruction that the Nazis were meting out in their drive eastward. The Soviets had no choice but to fight to the end. And if that were not enough to completely denude this theory of validity; consider that the Soviets themselves downplayed the value of US Lend-Lease to their war effort; stating that it represented a mere 5-10% of the supplies used by the Red Army (p. 120). The Soviets needed no incentive from the despised American capitalists to resist the German war machine. They may have needed our material supplies to improve their chance of success in that effort; but they certainly did not need motivation. Consequently; there was no need to cozy up to the Soviet monsters to incur their favor; to debase ourselves to them; in supplying the Lend-Lease billions. We had what they desperately wanted and needed; and we were handing it over to them; no questions asked. Was it too much to expect simple courtesy and cooperation in return? According to President Roosevelt and Ms. Glantz; apparently so! Except for the two-year period of Davies' tenure in Moscow (1937-1938); the US Ambassadors attempted to represent the best interests of the United States. But Roosevelt would have none of it. According to Mary Glantz; Roosevelt was 100% correct and the ambassadors were mere dolts who were motivated by an unreasoning "anti-Soviet bias." The author's constant refrain throughout this book is that if anyone in the State Department or the US military did not wholeheartedly embrace FDR's unconditional support for Stalin and the Soviet Union; that person had an "anti-Soviet prejudice" and was a hindrance to the President's policies. According to Glantz; the "anti-Soviet" people in the State Department; people such as George Kennan; Loy Henderson; and Chip Bohlen; two of whom eventually were named US ambassador to the Soviet Union by President Truman; and who are revered in the US diplomatic community; poisoned the minds of FDR's ambassadors and did all they could to subvert and undermine Roosevelt's policy of "conditionless" aid and support to Stalin. As the author points out; it was Stalin himself who got Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt fired by complaining to the always sympathetic Harriman. And when Steinhardt's successor; Admiral William Standley; a former CNO; the highest ranking officer in the Navy; had the temerity to state publicly that the Soviet government was hiding from its people the vast aid that the US was providing under Lend-Lease; he likewise was unceremoniously yanked by Roosevelt and replaced by the compliant Harriman. The author attacks Admiral Standley for this "indiscretion" and asserts that he was wrong on his facts; that the Soviet "press" had carried stories about American Lend-Lease. What does she cite for this proposition? None other than the ubiquitous Joseph E. Davies; who after he left the ambassadorship in 1938 became one of FDR's closest advisors on Russian affairs. It is worth a moment to look at this man who was so influential with FDR in formulating US policy toward the Soviet Union. Joseph Davies was a personal friend and golfing buddy of FDR; having served with him in the Wilson administration. He was general counsel to one of the Post companies owned by Marjorie Merriweather Post; socialite daughter of the Post cereal fortune; one of the wealthiest people in the world; and a major contributor to FDR's 1936 campaign. After he caught Marjorie's eye in 1935; Davies divorced his wife of 33 years to become her third husband. It seems that his principal qualification for diplomatic duty was his friendship with FDR and contributions to his campaigns; and he reminds one of George W. Bush's 2003 appointment of Michael Brown as head of FEMA based on his experience as commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. Davies diary recorded that on January 5; 1937 he and Marjorie set sail from the US on their journey to the Soviet Union and that "Walter Duranty is aboard." The first thing that Davies did upon arrival in Moscow was to attend six days of one of Stalin's show trials then in progress; universally regarded even then; and this was known to Davies; as the most outrageous of shams. He sat in the first row of the proceedings along with Walter Duranty; thereby proclaiming to the world that the United States thought these political purges were just fine. He then reported to Secretary of State Cordell Hull; and later to the public in his book "Mission To Moscow;" that the trials had uncovered real conspiracies to overthrow the Soviet government for which the defendants; Stalin's political rivals; were justly punished (11 of the 16 defendants were promptly shot). It was as obvious then as it is now that the NKVD (under Nikolai Yezhov; described as "a rat in human form") had tortured confessions out of these unfortunate victims. At the show trials; the accused fell all over themselves to proclaim their participation in the most fantastic of plots; all in an effort to avoid further torture to themselves and their families. During this time; Davies became a tool of the Soviets; courting personal favors from Stalin and his henchmen; while at the same time he and Marjorie were cruising the Baltic in one of Marjorie's yachts; staffed by a crew of 50; and buying up Russian national treasures looted by the Bolsheviks in the early days of the revolution. After two years of service in the Russian capital; Marjorie had had enough of the Russian winters and so Davies quit his post in 1938. After Davies departure; FDR allowed the ambassadorship to remain vacant for 14 months; until Steinhardt arrived in Moscow in August 1939. At any rate; on Davies' return to the United States; he wrote the bestseller "Mission To Moscow" (1941); which was a loose collection of diary entries; letters; and reports to the State Department during Davies' time in Moscow. In the book and later movie; which were praised by FDR and dubbed "Submission To Moscow" by his Embassy staff; Davies found the Soviet attacks on Poland and Finland to be to be justified as self-defense and made only benign reference to Stalin's 1939 pact with Hitler; which laid the groundwork for the shameless German and Soviet attacks on Poland and the start of World War II. The book was eventually made into a movie starring Walter Huston as Davies; a copy of which was duly presented to Stalin by Davies himself in 1943 on another of the missions of FDR's personal emissaries. Davies was eventually awarded the Order of Lenin in gratitude for his unwavering support of the Soviet dictator. The award was presented by Andrei Vishinsky; the prosecutor in the show trials; and a person who is now universally regarded as a ruthless villain; the rough equivalent of Josef Goebbels; and sycophant of Stalin. This is the same Joseph Davies that Mary Glantz portrays as one of the few intelligent and level headed diplomats; who could see Roosevelt's vision and penetrate the steady stream of what she regards as misinformation and misjudgments emanating from the executive departments in Washington and the Embassy in Moscow. Why could nobody else; except Roosevelt; Hopkins; and their loyal band of assistants; see the wisdom of a policy of complete subservience to the Soviet Union? According to the author; every official who did not adopt an enthusiasm for friendship to the Soviets was wrong in their judgments and an obstruction to the President. The heroes of this book are Davies and the infamous Philip Faymonville; the Hopkins/Davies favorite who was US military attaché and Lend-Lease administrator in Moscow; and who was so pro-Soviet that the War Department itself questioned his judgment and eventually pulled him out of Moscow. Consider that; with one minor exception (Quebec I); Roosevelt excluded Secretary of State Cordell Hull from his war-time conferences with Churchill and Stalin. Consider that at the Yalta Conference; Roosevelt had Alger Hiss at his side. The flaws in this book are not limited to misinterpretations of facts and faulty judgments. The author's treatments of some topics are so incomplete and misleading as to strain credulity. Two examples of this deficiency relate to Poland - the Katyn Forest Massacre and the Warsaw Uprising. The author's short discussion of the so-called Katyn Forest massacre (p. 157) is relatively accurate as far as it goes; but in her zeal to support Franklin Roosevelt; she omits his intentional and shameful conduct with respect to this atrocity. Here in a nutshell is what happened. After the Soviet Union seized its half of Poland pursuant to the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of 1939; the Soviets arrested; briefly imprisoned; and then shot; and buried in mass pits; some 22;000 Polish officers and intellectuals. Some of these people were buried in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk. After the Germans took this territory in 1941 as part of their attack on the Soviet Union; they eventually discovered this mass grave and announced the atrocity to the world. The Soviets promptly denied it and accused the Nazis. There followed several investigations of the incident; which concluded that it was the Soviets who had committed the murders. One of the investigations in 1943 was done at FDR's request by his friend; George Earle; former governor of Pennsylvania and then an officer in the US Navy. Earle concluded that it was the Soviets who had shot the Polish officers and communicated that to Roosevelt in a written report. When Roosevelt rejected the report; Earle threatened to publish it himself; only to be specifically ordered by Roosevelt in writing; as commander of the armed forces; not to do so. Earle was then transferred to meaningless duty in a remote area of the Pacific for the remainder of the war. Finally; in a cynical act unworthy of a man in such exalted position; in January 1944 Roosevelt arranged for Kathleen Harriman; the 25-year-old daughter of US Ambassador Averell Harriman; who was then in Moscow with her father; to go to the Katyn site; then in Soviet hands; along with a Soviet team and give him her opinion. Kathleen promptly attended the staged event with her Soviet hosts; viewed the planted evidence; and reported to Roosevelt her conclusion that the Nazis; not the Soviets; had committed the murders. That was good enough for the President. But even this does not exhaust Roosevelt's perfidy to the Polish people. In accepting the Soviet version of the atrocity; FDR had to reject not only Gov. Earle's investigation but also the reports of a British investigator and two American military officers. None of Roosevelt's personal involvement in the aftermath of this atrocity can be found in this book. The second example of incomplete and misleading coverage is the version of the Warsaw Uprising of August-September 1944 (p. 158-59). The Polish Home Army; which was a resistance group in Warsaw; rose up against their Nazi tormentors on August 1; 1944. The British; Americans; and Soviets all knew that it was coming; and the Poles were led to believe that they would receive Allied help. At the time that the uprising began; the Red Army was just across the Vistula River from Warsaw; and in perfect position to support the beleaguered Poles. Stalin; however; had other ideas. The Soviets had broken off diplomatic relations with the London Polish Government in exile in 1943 when; after the discovery of the murdered Polish officers in the Katyn Forest; it demanded an impartial investigation by the International Red Cross. Stalin subsequently set up a puppet Communist regime in Lublin as his alternative to the London Poles. The Home Army was controlled by and loyal to the London Polish government. By standing by on the other side of the Vistula and watching the Nazis slaughter the Home Army; which is in fact what happened; Stalin effectively eliminated those who would have opposed the Lublin Committee in the quest for control of the post-war Polish government. The details of the slaughter are gruesome. In response to the insurgency; the Nazis were ordered to make wholesale killings of the civilian population and to destroy the city. When the last remnants of resistance surrendered in early October 1944; approximately 250;000 people; 25% of the city's population; lay dead and the city was in ruins. Soon after the fighting began; Churchill attempted to get Roosevelt's support for providing help to the Warsaw fighters. But after discovering Stalin's position; Roosevelt demurred. The British did convince FDR; however; to drop supplies and ammunition to the Poles. But the planes would have to refuel in Soviet territory after the drops and thus they needed Stalin's permission to land the planes. On August 18; Stalin issued a terse reply to Roosevelt's and Churchill's pleas for landing rights: "The Soviet Government . . . decidedly object[s] to British or American aircraft; after dropping arms in the region of Warsaw; landing on Soviet territory; since the Soviet Government do[es] not wish to associate themselves either directly or indirectly with the adventure in Warsaw." (Norman Davies; Rising '44: The Battle For Warsaw (New York; Viking Penguin; 2004); pp. 301-02). Ms. Glantz tells an entirely different story. According to her; the Red Army was "stretched to the limit after over a month of heavy fighting" and did not reach the Vistula adjacent to Warsaw until late September when it was too late to help the Poles (p. 158). She then relates how Churchill and Roosevelt sought Stalin's permission to use Soviet air bases in making the air drops; but "Stalin refused to do so until mid-September; citing the danger to the aircraft and the likelihood that the Germans would capture the supplies." (Id.) Ms. Glantz's description of the Warsaw Uprising is based on the assumption that Stalin did his best to help the Poles but that military exigencies intervened and prevented him from doing so. Admittedly; there is a flicker of life left in this meritless argument for Stalin and Ms. Glantz seized on it to present her view. But this section of the book; like the description of the Katyn Forest Massacre; reads as if it were written by a Soviet propaganda official. It is the party line and inconsistent with the plain facts. Interestingly; the author returns to the Warsaw Uprising later in her book (pp. 167-68) acknowledging that Ambassador Harriman "Like many others . . . concluded that the Red Army deliberately halted its advance at the Vistula River." All in all; this book presents a one-sided and distorted view of almost every fact and circumstance of the Soviet-American relationship during the twelve years of Franklin Roosevelt's presidency. And that one side is the side of Franklin Roosevelt; which coincided exactly with the side of the Soviets and Stalin. This author is biased in the extreme; and yet ironically throughout the book she accuses those American officials who refused to be bamboozled into a blind reverence for the Soviet Union of exactly that - bias. The really disappointing thing about this book is that; unlike the scholars who wrote about these events years ago when many of the documents were still "secret" and unavailable to the public; Ms. Glantz was writing in 2005 after most of the old archives were opened; including some of the Soviet archives; and at a time when a veritable mountain of information about these events was known. For example; there is now no doubt about whether the Soviets or the Nazis were responsible for the Katyn Forest Massacre. When the Soviet Union was collapsing in 1990; Gorbachev released the Politburo's written order for the executions; personally signed by Stalin. Ms. Glantz should have known better.0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Amazingly misleadingBy John DesmondIt's not hard to find ridiculously pro-FDR histories; but it would be hard to find one that is more biased in favor of FDR's dealing with Stalin. The big question was really only whether FDR was an idiot or a willing dupe; and I'm not sure which would be worse.