12 “I desperately loved”: Martha to Bassett, Feb. 19, 1976, Box 8, Martha Dodd Papers.
13 It was bad enough: Ibid.
14 “show some nervousness”: Ibid.
15 She acknowledged later: Martha to Bassett, Nov. 1, 1976, Box 8, Martha Dodd Papers.
16 “That was IT for me”: Ibid.
17 “flirting”: Ibid.
18 “I love you past telling”: Carl Sandburg to Martha, n.d., Box 63, W. E. Dodd Papers.
19 “I was busy”: Martha to Bassett, Nov. 1, 1971, Box 8, Martha Dodd Papers. The greeting on this letter is “My dear Ex.”
20 “Do you know really”: Martha to Bassett, Feb. 19, 1976, Box 8, Martha Dodd Papers.
21 “I had to choose”: Ibid.
1 Roosevelt, smiling and cheerful: Dodd,
2 “But our people are entitled”: Ibid., 5.
3 For Roosevelt, this was treacherous ground: Breitman and Kraut, 18, 92; Wise,
4 Even America’s Jews: Urofsky, 256; Wise,
5 “If he refuse [sic] to see me”: Wise,
6 On the other side: Chernow, 372–73; Leo Wormser to Dodd, Oct. 30, 1933, Box 43, W. E. Dodd Papers.
7 As Ron Chernow wrote: Chernow, 373.
8 In early June 1933: Quoted in Breitman and Kraut, 227.
9 a
10 Within the Roosevelt administration: Ibid., 12–15.
11 “my little Jewish friend”: Phillips, Diary, April 20, 1935.
12 “The place is infested with Jews”: Phillips, Diary, Aug. 10, 1936; Breitman and Kraut, 36–37.
Breitman and Kraut are rather direct in their description of Phillips. They write on page 36: “Phillips hated Jews.”
13 “kikes”: Gellman, 37.
14 “They are filthy Un-American”: Breitman and Kraut, 32.
15 “dust, smoke, dirt, Jews”: Gellman, 37.
16 “In all our day’s journey”: Carr, Diary, Feb. 22, 1934, Carr Papers.
17 “How different from the Jewish atmosphere”: Ibid., Feb. 23, 1934.
18 “an anti-Semite and a trickster”: Breitman and Kraut, 36.
19 “likely to become a public charge”: Wilbur Carr offers a detailed, bloodless discussion of the “LPC clause” and other immigration rules in his memorandum “The Problem of Aliens Seeking Relief from Persecution in Germany,” dated April 20, 1933, Carr Papers.
20 “It seems quite preposterous”: Wolff, 89.
21 Jewish activists charged: Breitman and Kraut, 15.
22 “an almost insuperable obstacle”: Proskauer to Phillips, July 18, 1933, vol. 17, p. 35,
23 “The consul,” Phillips replied: Phillips to Proskauer, Aug. 5, 1933, vol. 17, p. 40,
The exchange of letters between Phillips and Proskauer, pages 32–46, makes compelling reading, for both what is said and what is not said. On the one side, deploying statistics and dispassionate prose, is Phillips, who, as we have seen, disliked Jews. On the other was Proskauer, a judge, whose careful prose seems clearly to be masking a scream of anguish.
24 One result, according to Proskauer: Dippel, 114; Proskauer to Phillips, July 18, 1933, vol. 17, p. 36,
Proskauer tells Phillips, “The well-known fact that only a negligible number of U.S. quota visas have been issued in recent years, and are believed to be likely to be issued, other than to relatives of U.S. citizens, has prevented applications being made by German Jews, believed in advance to be futile.…”
25 It was an argument: Breitman and Kraut, 14.
26 “The German authorities”: Dodd,
27 Dodd insisted: Ibid.
28 “You are quite right”: Ibid.
29 Here at the State Department: Dallek, 191; Stiller, 33, 36–37; Kershaw,
30 “Forty-Page George”: Stiller, 5.
Jay Pierrepont Moffat, Western European affairs chief, left the following entry in his diary for Oct. 6 and 7, 1934: “Saturday afternoon being cold and rainy, I was sitting home reading through Messersmith’s four last personal letters (that does not sound like an afternoon’s job but it took nearly two hours).…”
31 “has probably ever existed”: Messersmith to Hull, May 12, 1933, Messersmith Papers.
32 “Responsibility has already changed”: Ibid., 15. See also Messersmith to Hull, June 19, 1933, Messersmith Papers.
In his June 19 dispatch, Messersmith wrote, “The primary leaders have under the sobering influence of responsibility become steadily more moderate in practically all of their views and have in many ways endeavored to translate this moderation into action.”
33 “I have tried to point out”: Messersmith to Phillips, June 26, 1933, Messersmith Papers.
34 “Pleasing, interesting person”: Diary, June 15, 1933, Carr Papers.
35 distaste for Jews: Weil, 41.
36 “He is extremely sure of his opinion”: Moffat, Diary, June 15, 1933.
37 Undersecretary Phillips grew up: Phillips, “Reminiscences,” 3, 50, 65, 66, 99; Phillips,
In “Reminiscences,” the transcription of an oral history interview, Phillips (on pages 2–3) stated, “The Boston that I grew up in was limited to friends who lived on the Hill and in the Back Bay district. The community was self-centered—we lived surrounded by cousins, uncles and aunts and there was no incentive to discuss national or world affairs.… I must say it was a very pleasant place in which to grow up, but it was a very easy and indulgent life. We saw no signs of poverty.… We were in fact on a sort of island of well-being.…”
38 “They have all felt that they belonged”: Weil, 47.
39 “I am sorry”: Dodd to John D. Dodd, June 12, 1933, Box 2, Martha Dodd Papers.
40 “this great honor from D.C.”: John D. Dodd to Dodd, June 15, 1933, Box 2, Martha Dodd Papers.
41 “A rather sorrowful day”: Dodd,
42 Dodd feared: Dallek, 194; Floyd Blair to Jay Pierrepont Moffat, June 28, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers.
43 A letter from a prominent Jewish relief activist: George Gordon Battle to Dodd, July 1, 1933, Box 40, W. E. Dodd Papers. See also telegram, Battle to Dodd, July 1, 1933, Box 40.
44 “There was much talk”: Dodd,
45 “For an hour and a half”: Ibid.
46 During this meeting: Chernow, 374–75, 388.
47 “I insisted that the government”: Dodd,
