Probably the greatest blunder of all in Asia was Roosevelt�s decision to get Stalin into the war against Japan. Had he known anything of Russian history he would have known that nothing could have kept Stalin out of that war if he could get the door opened. Actually, Stalin had expressed his intention of coming in a number of times. In 1943, he told Hull in Moscow that he would join in defeating Japan. He made the promise �without any strings to it� and without being asked and he told Hull he might inform Roosevelt.158 On another occasion he told our Ambassador to Russia, Averell Harriman, that �Japan was the historic enemy of Russia and her eventual defeat was essential to Russian interests� and that �eventually she would come in.�159 On another occasion the Marshal told General Hurley that he would assist America against Japan,160 and in 1944 he again told Harriman he would come in �provided the United States would assist in building up the reserves for 60 divisions in Siberia� and, of course �provided the political aspects of Russia�s participation had been clarified.�161 Indeed, Secretary Acheron, testifying during the Mac Arthur inquiry, admitted that �Russian participation or intervention in Manchuria was something that nobody had any power to prevent.�162
Had Roosevelt known as much as his shirt-stuffers have ascribed to him, he would have known that above all things he must keep Stalin out of the Asiatic war. Stalin would wish to be in it if for no other reason than to collect his share of the victory. There were scores of men in America who knew this subject who could have told Roosevelt precisely what Russia wanted. However, if such men opened their mouths, as some did, they were promptly set upon as �Fascists.�
So intent was Stalin on insulating Roosevelt from adverse advice that he managed to get him into a secret meeting at which Russia agreed to enter the war. Roosevelt, sick, weary,
ignorant of Soviet history, was an easy mark. Stalin, on is side, knew precisely what Roosevelt wanted. There was the Silvermaster group in Washington which used Harry Dexter White, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, as one of its most important agents. There was Alger Hiss, high in the division of Political Affairs of the State Department. They knew all that was in Roosevelt�s mind. And what they knew Stalin knew. I know it is difficult for Americans to believe such things, but this is no longer a matter of mere surmise. The proof is all in.
. . . . . . .
. . . The game in Asia was a struggle between Japan and Russia for the Kwantung Peninsula and Manchuria. Russia had stolen these things from China and Japan stole them from Russia. Stalin�s� plan was to come into the war as close to the moment of Japan�s exhaustion as possible, walk into Manchuria, and steal back as much of it as he could get. Roosevelt agreed he should have Part Arthur, Dairên, the Kurile Islands, Sakhalin and control of the Manchurian Railroads. But Stalin had not the slightest intention of permitting the Chinese Nationalist government to recover Manchuria. So he arranged that, with Roosevelt�s� consent, he would have an army of 1,250,000 Soviet troops fully equipped by the United States and perched on the Manchurian border when the Japanese surrendered, ready to walk in, and take as much as they could. Did not Roosevelt realize that he would turn the rest over to the Chinese Communists? This he could do only if he could get into the Japanese war. And this, of course, he did.
At Yalta, Stalin knew precisely the condition of Japan. He was at peace with her. He had a huge embassy in Tokyo and consuls all over Japan. And we may be sure that he had plenty of secret agents there. He knew Japan was exhausted. He knew the day of reckoning was not far off. Actually on the eve of Yalta the Japanese Foreign Minister had suggested toe the Russian Ambassador in Tokyo the possibility of arranging for a settlement. Stalin did not communicate this to his allies.
George Marshall, for some reason which leads him astray whenever he moves away from the field of military organization, convinced himself that Japan would fight to the last Jpa—something no nation has ever done, though many have threatened. He insisted on preparing for a land invasion of Japan with an army of 2,000,000 million men and with an appalling number of estimated casualties. And he insisted we had to have Russia in the war to win—to fight the immense Kwantung army which Japan had in Manchuria. He apparently did not know what he should have known and what others
knew—that this army was sadly deteriorated by levies for use in other parts of the vast Pacific battleground. Admiral Limits and General Macarthur had assured Roosevelt at Hawaii just after Roosevelt�s nomination for his fourth term that as soon as they took the Philippines and the Mariana�s, Japan would be hopelessly cut off from supplies and that she would have to surrender.163 But Marshall was adamant.
Admiral Leahy says that Marshall did not seem to realize that the Navy had beaten Japan.164 Edward Stettinius said that he knew of the �immense pressure put on the President by our military leaders to bring Russia into the Far Eastern war.� He said that, as early as 1943 at Cairo, Harry Hopkins appeared with a document from the military, urging that Russia be brought in because �with Russia as an ally against Japan the war can be terminated in less time and at less expense in life and resources.� From a political view of the matter there could be no possible argument for letting Russia in. However, from a military viewpoint this was more reasonably in 1943. At Yalta, in 1945, it was preposterous. Yet Stettinius says that as soon s Roosevelt reached Yalta, General Marshall went into a secret session with him. No delegates knew anything of this. The actual agreement about Russia�s entry was made later in a secret session between Stalin and Roosevelt only. When later Secretary Stettinius asked Roosevelt about this secret meeting, Roosevelt put him off with the statement that it was a military matter and had better remain on that level.165 Thus even the Secretary of State was not let into the secret. So far as I know, only Hiss knew of it. The agreements made at Yalta were drawn up by a committee representing Britain, Russia and the United States. It was composed of Sir Gladwyn Jebb, Andrei Gromyko and Alger Hiss. Who represented us?
Admiral Leahy wrote in his memoirs:
�I was of the firm opinion that our war against Japan had progressed to the point where I was convinced that her defeat
was only a matter of time ad attrition. Therefore we did not need Stalin�s help to defeat our enemy in the Pacific. The Army did not agree with e, and Roosevelt was prepared to bargain with Stalin.�166
Admiral King, in a letter to a Senate Committee, said he �believed� Japan could and should have been defeated without an invasion of the home islands. He said, �When the president asked me about making concessions to Premier Stalin in order to get him to play ball, I replied that I would concede him only half of the island of Sakhalin, and that as a sop.� In addition, General H. H. Arnold, head of the Air Force, said in his memoirs that he sent one of his officers to Yalta to inform Roosevelt that the Japs had already been brought to their knees and that no Russian aid was needed.
A point stressed by the Marshall apologists is that at the time of Yalta no one knew whether or not the atomic bomb would work. However, General Leslie R. Groves, who was head of the atomic bomb project, informed Senator Hickenlooper (New York times, June 28, 1951) that before the Yalta conference Roosevelt had been told that the atomic bomb was a 99-per-cent certainty and that the first bomb would be ready in August 1948 and that it would be extremely powerful.
Marshall was Chief of Staff of the Army. Of course, as we now know, and shall see fully, it was the huge Communist army on the Siberian border, equipped by us at an enormous outlay, which marched into Manchuria five days before the Japanese surrendered, took Manchuria, enabled the Japanese to deliver their arms to the Chinese Communists and for the first time set them up in business as a powerful war machine. At the root of all this was the fact that in the State Department there were no political experts on Russo-Asiatic and Communist history and techniques to guide the general. Marshall was getting his briefing on that from our Red and pink-infested State Department.
Secretary Acheson denied on the witness stand that there were any men in the state Department who favored the Communists. Yet we know that up to 1947 there were over a hundred in the Department who were so bad that a loyalty board after investigating them forced them out as bad security risks. This, however, did not eliminate all of those who favored the Communists in China as against the Nationalist government. We have seen the evidence of that, and many of these men remained in the Department. On the witness stand following Acheson, General Hurley, who had been sent to China as the personal envoy of President Roosevelt, was asked about this. He answered by producing a letter he wrote to President Truman in November 1945:
�It is no secret that the American policy in China did not have the support of all the career men in the Department. The professional foreign service men sided with the Chinese Communists� armed party and the imperialist bloc of nations whose policy it was to keep China divided against herself. Our professional diplomats continuously advised the Communists that my efforts in preventing the collapse of the Nationalist government did not represent the policy of the United States. These same professionals openly advised the Communist armed party to decline unification of the Chinese Communist Army with the Nationalist Army unless the Chinese Communists were given control.�
Hurley added: �I requested the relief of the career men who were opposing he American policy in the Chinese theatre of war. These professional diplomats were returned to Washington and placed in the Far Eastern and Chinese divisions of the State Department s my supervisors. Some of these same career men who I relieved have been assigned as advisers to the Supreme Commander in Asia.�167
The men named by Hurley for return to America were George Acheson, Jr., chargé d�Affaires of the American Embassy, John P. Davies, Jr. consul and later second secretary,
Fulton Freeman and Arthur Ringwalt, secretaries, John Stewart Service, Raymond P. Ludden, Hungerford B. Howard, Edward E. Rice and Philip D. Sprouse. . . .
158. Memoirs of Cordell Hull, p. 1309.
159. The Strange Alliance by John R. Deane (N. Y., 1947), p. 226.
160. I Was Thee [Leahy], p. 147.
161. The Strange Alliance, p. 247.
162. MacArthur Inquiry, June 4, 1951.
163. I Was There, pp. 245-259.
164. Ibid.
165. Roosevelt and the Russians by Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. (N. Y., 1949), p. 90.
166. I Was There, p. 293.
167. MacArthur Inquiry, June 6, 1951
( pages 166 - 172 )