“Our strategy will not change,” he said firmly.
General Marshall nodded his agreement while Admiral Ernie King showed his displeasure. King felt that America’s focus should be on the Pacific where much fighting remained to be done. In particular, the Philippines were still in Japanese hands, although plans for its liberation by MacArthur were well underway. In the meantime, the Philippine people were being brutalized and American POWs treated even worse. Reports said they were dying in large numbers from beatings, overwork, and starvation. Despite his personal feelings, King would do his best to support the policies of his President. Still, he could not help but feel that more men and more resources in the Pacific would make the task of defeating Japan that much easier and save American lives.
FDR continued. “With that monster Himmler in charge, we can assume that the atrocities in those lands under German control will continue. We can also assume that there will be peace overtures that must be dealt with. Secretary Hull has already informed me that representatives of Sweden and Switzerland wish to talk with us. About what is obvious. Herr Himmler wants a separate peace. Well, he shan’t have one.”
“Will the British hold firm, sir?” asked Marshall. “And what about the Soviets?”
Roosevelt took a deep breath. “I’ve been on the phone with Winston and he is in agreement with me. There will be opposition in his Parliament to his refusal to negotiate, but he feels he can bring it under control.”
“Are you certain, sir?” Marshall prodded. “England has suffered terribly. Food rationing has left her people malnourished and her cities have been bombed, and now they are under an ongoing barrage of V1 and V2 missiles. Her people are exhausted and her army is only a shadow of what it has been in the past, while her navy is now a distant second to ours. How long do you really think England can last?”
FDR winced. He respected General Marshall’s opinions. Would Churchill be able to hold his country together, or would there be peace negotiations with the new German regime? And if Churchill resisted too hard, might he lose his position as prime minister? Another thought chilled him. Presidential elections were coming up. What if angry and frustrated American voters decided to elect a Republican who promised to end the war? Tom Dewey, governor of New York, was the likely Republican candidate and nobody knew what his thoughts on the matter were. Or maybe Eisenhower would run? Or even MacArthur? Anything but MacArthur, Roosevelt thought and shuddered.
“And if you don’t mind my saying, sir,” Marshall persisted, “Stalin’s Russia is in even worse shape than England. The Russians are beyond exhaustion. They’ve lost millions of people and millions more may be dying of exposure and starvation. We don’t really know how many since it is such a closed society, but things have to be truly awful in the Soviet Union. They might just like a breathing space.”
Admiral King jumped in. “A breathing space would give us a chance to squash the Japs.”
“Are you aware what the Nazis are doing to the Jews and others?” Roosevelt asked quietly.
“We’ve all heard the rumors and accusations, but they are very hard to believe,” King said. “Concentration camps and prisons and people unjustly held, yes, but death camps, death factories? Assembly line mass murder of a people simply because they exist? It is beyond comprehension. We all know there are camps throughout Germany and a large complex near the town of Auschwitz, but to send people to the camps for the sole and entire purpose of killing them is both monstrous and illogical.”
Roosevelt shook his head sadly. “But I’m afraid we must believe. More and more information is arriving and a few brave souls have actually escaped from those places. We must put a stop to these exterminations.”
King shook his head angrily. “Sir, are you saying we should give priority to rescuing a few thousand European Jews who might or might not be in mortal danger, while American soldiers are languishing and being brutalized in Japanese prison camps? Sir, our first duty is to our boys, not other people. The Jews and other inmates must wait, especially if the British and the Russians decide to leave us to fight this war alone.”
“In that regard, the admiral is correct,” said Marshall. “If England and Russia leave the alliance, we cannot go it alone and, if that occurs, we must give our own people first priority.”
“It’s well more than a few thousand Jews in peril,” FDR said sadly. “The death toll will easily reach the hundreds of thousands, if not the millions.”
Both men were shaken, stunned. King found his voice first. “It’s impossible, sir, absolutely impossible. No man, no government, no civilized nation would ever even contemplate such a thing.”
Roosevelt continued. “Admiral King, I am afraid we must contemplate the fact that the Nazis are barbarians, perhaps worse. The word civilized does not apply to them.”
It was clear to the President that his logic and his decision were not totally accepted by his two senior military leaders. The idea of trading in American blood was repugnant and FDR accepted that there was no right decision, only a series of bad ones forced on them by Japan and Germany.
King and Marshall stood, gathered their papers, and departed solemnly. Roosevelt understood their logic, even agreed with a lot of it. More than ten thousand American soldiers, sailors, and marines were starving as prisoners of Japan, while millions of Philippine peoples, America’s responsibility, were held in brutal slavery. The Japanese also held thousands of American civilians in prison camps in the Philippines and elsewhere.
Yet, to negotiate a peace with Hitler’s heirs was repugnant. Himmler was a monster, the head of the SS and the Gestapo and the architect of the concentration camps. He was in charge of the mass killing of the Jews and other people deemed undesirable by the Nazis. Negotiating with him would leave the German people and much of Nazi-occupied Europe still in his control. But the idea of a breathing space was tempting. A lull in Europe would permit a fairly quick and decisive victory over the Japanese. However, breathing spaces had a way of ending, and that meant the fighting would begin anew, perhaps not a month later, or even a year. Maybe it would be more like the twenty-year lull between the First World and Second World Wars, but fighting would begin again and with renewed savagery.
So what to do? Negotiations with America’s allies was a paramount need. A shame that Secretary of State Cordell Hull was such a sick and weak reed. A fine man, but, Roosevelt thought wryly, Hull was in worse health than he.
Perhaps a weapon like the one the scientists were trying to develop in New Mexico would be the answer.
CHAPTER 5
Werner Heisenberg was forty-four but looked much older. Exhaustion had taken its toll and he appeared gaunt and strained. He was a Nobel Laureate, having won the prize for physics in 1932. He now headed the Physics Department at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. He was exasperated at having to spend his valuable time meeting with a mere colonel, even though he’d received directions to do so from his superior, Albert Speer, and the new head of the OKW, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt.
As a result of Allied bomber attacks, much of the institute’s work had been scattered about the Berlin area, a fact that further aggravated Heisenberg. However necessary, coordinating efforts from multiple locations was extremely difficult and inefficient.
“Have a seat, Colonel, and please tell me how I can satisfy you and your leaders and then get back to my work.”
Varner smiled with what he hoped was a degree of geniality. There was no reason to aggravate the obviously exhausted little man. He’d dealt with scientists and academicians before and they’d all thought that whatever they were doing was the most important thing in the history of humanity. He’d been told that, this time, Heisenberg might be right.
“Field Marshal von Rundstedt wishes an assessment of the Reich’s true military potential. I emphasize the word true, since much of what has been disseminated or reported in the past has been absolute fiction and fairy tales involving weapons that don’t work and production levels that never happened. I need the plain, unvarnished truth, Dr. Heisenberg, and I don’t care who is insulted or made uncomfortable. I have been told that you are working on a wonder weapon and need to know if this is true and if the weapon is feasible.” He smiled tightly. “Does my candor bother you, Doctor?”
“We’ll see,” Heisenberg said. There was a hint of mischief in his eyes. “What do you know about the science of physics?”
“I believe I can spell it if I had to, but not much more, Doctor.”
