The Last Progressive President

September 1946

President Avila Camacho asked H.A. to attend ceremonies marking the end of his six-year term. The two presidents were on friendly terms since H.A. visit in 1940 [see November 1944 entry -AS]. The highlight of this trip for H.A. was visiting the international experiment station founded by the Rockefeller Foundation at H.A.’s suggestion. We met Norman Borlaug and H.A. “was amazed to see corn that would go more than seventy bushels to the acre.”

On the 17^th, Truman made a speech in New York calling for a confrontational containment policy with the Soviet Union. H.A. was furious with Truman. Truman thought he had the President’s support for the speech because he had given him a foreign policy memorandum in late July (apparently several cabinet members had produced memos following a cabinet meeting focused on foreign affairs). Truman had also met with H.A. for 15 minutes earlier in the day of the speech. H.A. told me Truman’s tone of the speech was to be that the U.S. did not have a special friendship with Britain the Soviets or any nation. We want to see a peaceful world with all nations working together on an equal basis. H.A. thought Truman was on board with the administration’s foreign policy, and was quite surprised by Truman’s support of Britain’s imperialist policies and his fear of the Soviet Union.

On the 20^th, H.A. spent two hours with Truman to try to either convince him to make no further foreign policy statements or to accept the Administration’s position. Truman refused so he was fired.

August 1946

Not yet transcribed. -AS

July 1946

H.A. is fighting a segment of the military and the industries that supply the military. They want to maintain the budgets and profits of the war economy. These insidious and incestuous allies are fostering the fear of the red menace, in the form of the Soviet Union, to keep the United States on a constant war status. H.A. is fighting these efforts and is working with Congress to reduce the budget of the military to bring us into a peace economy. Fortunately, there are leaders in the military who share H.A.'s interest in turning to peace. Our efforts will be successful. Our efforts must be successful ensure world peace and the extension of the New Deal.

For example, we have prohibited additional tests of atomic bombs that were planned in the Pacific and the production of additional bombs. H.A. wants to demonstrate to the Soviets that we are not seeking global dominance as the sole holder of these horrific weapons. Testing and building more of these bombs will scare the Soviet Union - - Stalin is already paranoid - - in developing this weapon and out manufacturing us in the number of bombs. This would become a race to produce more and more bombs, which would create the capacity to destroy the world multiple times over. We must act reasonably now to prevent this arms race insanity.

Too ensure that the world understands his commitment to peace, H.A. has also stopped plans to arm Latin America with conventional weapons, the production of more B-29s, the planned production of B-36s, and efforts to secure and build air bases across the globe.

H.A. said, "We should not act as if we too felt that we were threatened in today's world. We are by far the most powerful nation in the world, the only Allied nation which came out of the war without devastation and much stronger than before the war. Any talk on our part about the need for strengthening our defenses further is bound to appear hypocritical to other nations."

June 1946

The Supreme Court has a new leader. In addition to our other challenges, H.A. had a very difficult decision in replacing Chief Justice [Harlan Fiske] Stone, whose unforeseen death occurred in April. The Court has not been a harmonious place. There are personality conflicts among the Justices and even a feud between [Hugo] Black and [Robert] Jackson, who were strongly supported by various factions for the top job at the Court. The animosity between Black and Roberts was so high that both threatened to resign if the other was appointed as Chief Justice.

H.A. decided to sidestepped this controversy by appointing someone who was not currently on the Court. [Harry] Truman was pushing for a sitting cabinet member and personal friend for the position [Fred Moore Vinson, Secretary of the Treasury], but Truman's petty comments and opposition to H.A.'s foreign policy did not put his recommendations in good standing with H.A.

There were many good names on the short list of candidates including Thurman Arnold, Jerome Frank, and Walter Huxman. All had been appointed to the Court of Appeals by FDR and were strong advocates of the New Deal. Since opposition to the New Deal was growing with the advent of the Whiskey Rebels, the Administration wanted to make sure that his appointment would promote the New Deal long after H.A.'s tenure in the White House ended. Since these candidates had been recently approved by the Senate for the Court of Appeals, we felt that the Senate would have difficulty in attempting to block an appointment.

H.A. picked Frank for his nominee. Frank worked with H.A. at the Department of Agriculture when H.A. was the Secretary. In 1935, Frank along with Alger Hiss [Communist Party member -A.S.] got into trouble when they created regulations in H.A.'s name to provide some protections for sharecroppers from their landlords in the south. This endears me greatly to Frank. Naturally, the landlords and cotton interests were enraged by this interference and put a great deal of pressure on FDR who then pressured H.A. to fire Frank and Hiss. H.A. said that, "I had no doubt that Frank and Hiss were animated by the highest motives, but their lack of agricultural background exposed them to the danger of going to absurd lengths." This was just another example of the New Deal not protecting my people. The southern Democrats were necessary to hold the New Deal coalition together and FDR folded yet again as he did in excluding agricultural and domestic workers from the Social Security Act of 1935 and other programs. At the time of Frank's firing, H.A. is reported to have had tears in his eyes and when he said, "Jerome, you've been the best fighter I've had for my ideas, but I've had to fire you... The farm people are just too strong."

However, FDR made sure that Frank's talents were not lost and quickly appointed him as Special Counsel to the Reconstruction Finance Association and later to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now H.A. has elevated Frank from the Court of Appeals to serve as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Naturally, the Whiskey Rebels are appalled that the Supreme Court is now run by a Jew, and a Communist one in their narrow view. This confirms in their minds that H.A. is part of the Jewish and Communist conspiracy to destroy America.

To me this nomination proves that H.A. is now his own man and is done trying to placate the Whiskey Rebels and their conservative Democratic and Republican allies. We are going to move the New Deal forward and leave these reactionaries in the dust.

May 1946

H.A.'s efforts in supporting the United Nations and seeking diplomatic solutions to problems with Russia was vindicated when U.N. diplomacy successfully brought about the Soviet withdrawal of troops from Iran's northern providence of Azerbaijan.

However, the Whiskey Rebels refuse to acknowledge H.A.'s success. They immediately started rumors that H.A. and the U.N. had given Stalin tremendous benefits for the withdrawal - including how to build the A-bomb. This is ridiculous, but many Americans believe it. H.A. and our allies continue to be denigrated. We are described as "reds, phonies, and parlor pinks who are a national danger." This isn't from the Whiskey Rebels, but from our Secretary of Commerce Harry Truman!

© 2013 Ron Millar

April 1946

An old man, Thomas Dixon, Jr. is dead. I'm not celebrating, but I must admit I am not unhappy. Dixon was a well respected minister, author, politician, and racist. He is best known for his book the Clansman, which became D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation. His efforts inspired the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. Although later in life he was critical of the Klan for their anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish stances, he never lost his belief in white supremacy. His brother, Amzi Clarence Dixon, helped write the Fundamentals a text that fostered fundamentalist Christianity. Both of these movements have contributed to creating the modern Whiskey Rebels, who perpetuate hatred in America.

March 1946

The anti-Soviet hysteria is growing. Winston Churchill delivered a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri calling for an anti-Soviet Anglo-American coalition – “From Stetin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of he ancient states of central and eastern Europe.” He said, Russia posed a “growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization.” This further fueled the Whiskey Rebels to take a hard-line stand against the Soviets in particular and Communists in general. “Iron curtain” immediately entered our political lexicon, and public opinion of Russia, and any movement or person who could be associated with it, plummeted. H.A., Ickes, and Eleanor Roosevelt fought back calling the speech an unnecessary attack on Moscow and the proposed Anglo-American alliance a slight to the United Nations. H.A. responded that it “would destroy the United Nations to have two of the chief members of the United Nations ganging up on a third member.” H.A. “didn’t see how these war-like words of Churchill now could have any more real influence on the Russians than this war-like attitude toward the Bolsheviks had in 1919.”

H.A. drew up a list of points to be used by members of the Administration to counter Churchill. H.A. wrote, “the American people were not willing to send American boys to fight anybody now; that certainly the Russians did not want to fight anybody now; that in all probability the situation would finally work out on a basis that would cause the Russians completely and utterly to distrust us; that it would cause the Russians to engage in a race with us in the making of atomic bombs; that while they might have be a long way behind us at the present time, they would have enough bombs to destroy us fifteen years hence; … that they would have no hesitation in continuing their fifth-column activities in all the nations of the world; that they could use these fifth-columnists effectively to destroy our form of government.”

The benefits of the New Deal will be destroyed if we have to use our limited resources to further expand our military might. Big business that creates our armaments will prosper, but the American people will suffer.

© 2013 Ron Millar