Part 4 (1/2)
Members of the Council on Foreign Relations played a key role in getting America into World War II. They played _the_ role in creating the basic policies which this nation has followed since the end of World War II.
These policies are accomplis.h.i.+ng:
(1) the redistribution to other nations of the great United States reserve of gold which made our dollar the strongest currency in the world;
(2) the building up of the industrial capacity of other nations, at our expense, thus eliminating our pre-eminent productive superiority;
(3) the taking away of world markets from United States producers (and even much of their domestic market) until capitalistic America will no longer dominate world trade;
(4) the entwining of American affairs--economic, political, cultural, social, educational, and even religious--with those of other nations until the United States will no longer have an independent policy, either domestic or foreign: until we can not return to our traditional foreign policy of maintaining national independence, nor to free private capitalism as an economic system.
The ghastly wartime and post-war decisions (which put the Soviet Union astride the globe like a menacing colossus and placed the incomparably stronger United States in the position of appeasing and retreating) can be traced to persons who were members of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Consider a specific example: the explosive German problem.
In October, 1943, Cordell Hull (U. S. Secretary of State), Anthony Eden (Foreign Minister for Great Britain), and V. Molotov (Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs), had a conference at Moscow. Eden suggested that they create a European Advisory Commission which would decide how Germany, after defeat, would be part.i.tioned, occupied, and governed by the three victorious powers. Molotov approved. Hull did not like the idea, but agreed to it in deference to the wishes of the two others.
Philip E. Mosely, of the CFR, was Hull's special adviser at this Moscow Conference.
The next month, November, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt went to Tehran for his first conference with Stalin and Churchill. Aboard the U.
S. S. _Iowa_ en route to Tehran, Roosevelt had a conference with his Joint Chiefs of Staff. They discussed, among other things, the post-war division and occupation of Germany.
President Roosevelt predicted that Germany would collapse suddenly and that ”there would definitely be a race for Berlin” by the three great powers. The President said: ”We may have to put the United States divisions into Berlin as soon as possible, because the United States should have Berlin.”
Harry Hopkins suggested that ”we be ready to put an airborne division into Berlin two hours after the collapse of Germany.”
Roosevelt wanted the United States to occupy Berlin and northwestern Germany; the British to occupy France, Belgium, and southern Germany; and the Soviets to have eastern Germany.
At the Tehran Conference (November 27-December 2, 1943), Stalin seemed singularly indifferent to the question of which power would occupy which zones of Germany after the war. Stalin revealed intense interest in only three topics:
(1) urging the western allies to make a frontal a.s.sault, across the English Channel, on Hitler's fortress Europe;
(2) finding out, immediately, the name of the man whom the western allies would designate to command such an operation (Eisenhower had not yet been selected); and
(3) reducing the whole of Europe to virtual impotence so that the Soviet Union would be the only major power on the continent after the war.
Roosevelt approved of every proposal Stalin made.
A broad outline of the behavior and proposals of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin at Tehran can be found in the diplomatic papers published in 1961 by the State Department, in a volume ent.i.tled _Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers: The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran 1943_.
As to specific agreements on the postwar division and occupation of Germany, the Tehran papers reveal only that the European Advisory Commission would work out the details.
We know that Roosevelt and his military advisers in November, 1943, agreed that America should take and occupy Berlin. Yet, 17 months later, we did just the opposite.
In the closing days of World War II, the American Ninth Army was rolling toward Berlin, meeting little resistance, slowed down only by German civilians clogging the highways, fleeing from the Russians. German soundtrucks were circulating in the Berlin area, counseling stray troops to stop resistance and surrender to the Americans. Some twenty or thirty miles east of Berlin, the German nation had concentrated its dying strength and was fighting savagely against the Russians.
Our Ninth Army could have been in Berlin within a few hours, probably without shedding another drop of blood; but General Eisenhower suddenly halted our Army. He kept it sitting idly outside Berlin for days, while the Russians slugged their way in, killing, raping, ravaging. We gave the Russians control of the eastern portion of Berlin--and of _all_ the territory surrounding the city.