Thank you very much, glenn richmonds. [applause] [inaudible conversations] welcome to booktv on cspan2 2. 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors every weekend. This weekend, the cias former Legal Counsel discusses his 30 years at the agency. Watch Ishmael Bea Sos his followup book to a long way gone and watch programs on reconstruction the relationship between the pope and mussolini. All this and more on cspan 2 this weekend. The full schedule is available at booktv. Org. Richard breitman is next on booktv. He examines the historical debate over whether president Franklin D Roosevelt was indifferent to or defender on the jews in europe during world war ii. This an hour and 15 minutes. Thank you, paul, for that generous introduction, too generous, and im grateful to the center for advanceed holocaust studies for the invitation and the preparation work done by krista and nicole. Fdr and the jews was published in march of last year, and has generated a good deal of response since then. I regret to report that not all reactions were positive. I want to start by talking about two messages sent to me by unknown readers. They were not the worst but they were certainly not the best. The reason im singling them out is that they Say Something to us that may cause you to listen to the rest of my lecture with slightly different ears. So, one person wrote all you have to do is go to the Holocaust Museum to see that youre wrong. Well, im not sure this lecture is what he has in mind. And since our book offers a mixed judgment on Franklin Roosevelt, i can only guess at what he thought was wrong, but i would guess that he thought the positive elements were wrong. The second person claimed to have very specific information that in 1943, Franklin Roosevelt was presented with aerial photographs of the areas around the extermination camps, and identification of their functions, and he simply ignored it. The person wrote i can think of no explanation other than indifference or antisemitism. Well, this one i couldnt let pass. I wrote back that, american planes could not reach the extermination camps during 1943 and could not possibly have taken such photographs. He then wrote, well, maybe it was 1944. I wrote back, all of the extermination camps, other than were shut town by 194 and we know today there were some photographs taken accidentally of the extermination camp at auschwitz berkennau by reconnaissance planes looking at the damage done to Industrial Facilities in the region. But the photo reconnaissance specialist who finally found these photos did so either in the late 1970s or the early 1980s, and he wrote an article for a historical journal on why photo analysts during world war ii had failed to identify auschwitz as an extermination camp. At this point, correspondent stopped writing. Still, lets think a bit about these two emails. Both of these people had reading thises or learned things about the holocaust. And the second critic could only explain roosevelts behavior through negative motives. This tells us perhaps that we have a problem. Call it the problem of success. There once was a time when people avoided the subject of the holocaust. That time is long past. Now we have not only a multitude of scholarly works about the holocaust in virtually every country affected, some of them geographically distant, but the holocaust has become a part of popular culture, and there are fictionalized movies, novels, some people complain that there is too much attention to the holocaust. So, people know or think they know a good deal about the holocaust. But some of those people block out the context in which it took place. The war and the climate of the times. They are harder to represent visually in museums. And in the mass media. This problem, plus an increasing tendency to emphasize moral issues, moral choices, during the holocaust, creates an unrealistic picture. This is history chosen selectively, in some case is inaccurately, too, to support a moral or a political point. How can we do this better . I can only tell you how a historian, in this case two historians, have done it. We tried to place Franklin Roosevelt in the context of his era, american politics, diplomacy and the war. Not too bury the holocaust, and not to excuse everything that roosevelt did. But if you want to understand Franklin Roosevelt, you have to go back into his world. Roosevelt did not see the holocaust the way we have come to study the holocaust. The word itself was not commonly used. For what we understand it to be today. He perceived it in blurry form, and as part of the war against evil powers. And other elements of that war influenced how he reacted. So, let me start by talking about the flow of information out of europe about the holocaust. And then let me shift to a picture of Franklin Roosevelts agenda and his world. Not his whole world. Not his private world. And not even the war in asia that he had to deal with simultaneously. But lets say the world in europe and north africa that conceivably influenced how he responded to what we call the holocaust. There were, of course, reports almost from the beginning of the holocaust, which most scholars in this country would date to sometime in 1941. There were reports from beginning of nazi killings of jews. It was impossible to keep such things secret. But there were also reports of other nazi atrocities. Widespread civilian suffering in occupied territories. And the early reports, especially in this country. Were not sufficiently numerous distinctive enough quality that it forced government officials to ponder the overall shape of nazi policy. Most government officials, including Franklin Roosevelt, were predisposed to thinking that nazi germany posed a threat to judaism and christianity. To western civilization. And they preferred to state it in those terms. Because Franklin Roosevelt had a long history of having to deal with a set of rightwing extremists who attacked him as being the puppet of American Jews. And the isolationists that he combated shortly before the war and during the early part of the war, argued that American Jews were trying to drive the u. S. Into the war into a war which was not in americas interests. So, roosevelt had political reasons as well as an intellectual predisposition not to single the jews out, and these early reports of nazi shootings simply fit into a broader picture of nazi atrocities. By the summer of 1942, there were more reports about larger numbers of jews dying or being killed. And then in august 1942, came a truly alarming message, which is now well known in the literature. Some of you probably know it well. I will review it briefly. A man named gerhart weeinger weigner, representative in switzerland of the world jewish conference, received word that hitlers headquarters was considering a plan to exterminate three and a half to four million jews by poison gas in separate facilities and the gas was the gas used at auschwitz. Wigner wanted to alert britain the United States and he wanted to alert his colleagues in the World Jewish Congress. Particularly in london and in new york. He took a telegram to the american consulate and the british consulate in geneva, and asked american and british diplomats to send it out in code with appropriate security as quickly as possible. And he wanted the message passed on to his colleagues in the World Jewish Congress. The message went to london, where Foreign Office officials looked at it and were taken aback. They didnt believe it. They didnt really want to deliver it. But the head of the british section of the World Jewish Congress was a machine named sidney silverman, who was a member of parliament. And a Foreign Office bureaucrat could get into trouble by withholding a message for an m. P. So silverman got weingers telegram. The message came to washington, where state Department Officials reacted much the same way. They didnt believe it. And they didnt think there was anything the United States could do even if it turned out to be true. So, they decided not to pass it on to rabbi steven weiss in new york, the head of the American Jewish congress. But weigner had taken the precaution of asking silverman in london to notify weiss in new york, and so with considerable delay, because it had to go through private mail in wartime, weiss got the message. He rushed down to washington, to speak to a man named sumner wells. The undersecretary of state. The number two man in the state department. Wells was not only in some ways more powerful than the secretary of state, cordle hull, he was ralphs man in the state department, which is important in this case and he was roosevelts man in the state department which is important in this case for the book because the wells papers are quite good. And they were donated and made available only in the 1990s. When we dont have direct information about Franklin Roosevelts comments and attitudes, we can use sumner wells as a kind of proxy. Wells said to weiss that he didnt believe this telegram because the nazi regime was short of labor. And why in the world would the nazis be executing millions of jews if they needed slave labor. Weiss said, can we be reassured . In other words, do you really have solid information . And wells responded, who can tell when youre dealing with that mad man. Meaning hitler. So, wells asked for time. He said he wanted to launch an investigation. He undoubtedly did not know that his own subordinates. Some of whom he was going to turn to for that investigation, had already sat on the telegram for near nearly a month, but he did launch an investigation. As part of that investigation, the american minister in switzerland met with gerhart weigner on october 22, getting the name of weigners source, powerful german industrialist, and two days later, he wrote wells about the results, tending to confirm weigners telegram. He was not the only source of information from europe. The president had or wells had asked the american envoy to the vatican to get what information it could out of the vatican and elsewhere. This man, myron taylor, returned to the United States during october, met at least briefly with wells and with roosevelt, on october 16th. Theres no record of their conversation. Taylor apparently left a set of documents that he had gathered in europe. On october 20th, he followed up writing fdr about his unsuccessful efforts to get information about what we call the holocaust, out of the vatican, and his inability to elicit a denunsation of nazi atrocities by pope pius xii. He said if roosevelt spoke out perhaps he could go back to the pope and try again. Now i will shift. What was roosevelt doing in late october 1942, or to put it better, what was roosevelt particularly concerned with at that time . On october 21st, the president met with rear admiral Henry Kent Hewitt and Major General george s. Patton, jr. , to discuss the launch of what was code named operation torch. The invasion of french algeria and morocco. This operation had the ultimate goal of controlling north africa from the atlantic to the red sea. Its most important shortterm goal was to capture tunisia, especially the port of tunis which was relatively close to sicily, and that would lead the allied forces to the possible invasion of europe. But direct landings in tunisia were judged far too risky. In fact, even landings in morocco and algeria were judged to be very, very risky. Large amphibious operation which roosevelt pushed over the resistance of the war department. The president said he wanted u. S. Ground troops in action in the theater in the calendar year 1942, and no one thought that the United States or britain was in a position to invade france. Roosevelt wanted an american operation because these areas were under the control of the french and the french might not resist the americans the way they would resist their hereditary enemy, the british. But roosevelt relented and this turned out to be a joint americanbritish operation. In midoctober 1942, winston churchill, Prime Minister of britain, said, if operation torch fails, i am done for. The commander in chief of operation torch, a familiar name, even in this museum, dwight d. Eisenhower, years later wrote that the hours he spent in gibraltar waiting for the start of the invasion were his most excruciating ones during the entire war. Worse than dday. Algeria, morocco, tune tunisia were not the only aread of concern in north africa. On the other side of the continent, on october 23, began the second battle atel al aminimum. If German Forces won, they would capture egypt, penetrate to the suez canal, and they had plans to move into palestine. It is worth reminding ourselves that at the beginning of november 1942, the axis still seemed to be winning the war. France, the colonial power in northwest africa, had a predominantly Muslim Population there, eight divisions of troops, and a substantial navy. No one knew whether they would fight or how hard they would fight against operation torch. Bihi had also enacted discriminatory laws against 330,000 jews in morocco, algeria and tunisia. If germany prevailed, worse would follow, as it already had or had started to in metropolitan france. Bishi police in coops with adolph ikemans men, had recently begun deportations of jews in france to the east. In september, the american charge deaffairs in paris made a kind of diplomatic effort to get the premiere of france, lavalle to exempt 4,000 french jewish children from the deportations. Lavae refused. The diplomat told washington, the only way to save these children was perhaps to give them visas to the United States. The state Department Proposed 1,000 visas. The president raised the number to 5,000. But undersecretary wells asked jewish organizations, please do not publicize this decision. Nonetheless, at a press conference, wells was asked directly about this rumored step. He equivocated. He said, the children were of no particular race or nationality and all of this was being done under regular immigration laws and procedures. Nonetheless, there were articles published, and the publicity enraged the french premiere, who decided he would only permit bona fide orphans to leave france. These children, their parents, had been deported to the east. Lavalle was in effect saying their parents are still alive. What happened to the children . About 500 were later smuggled out through spain and portugal against the efforts of french and german authorities. And some of them, along with some other children, in north africa, ultimately made it to the United States on those authorized visas but it was nothing like 5,000. Just before the launch of operation torch, came midterm elections. The democrats lost 47 seats in the house and nine seats in the senate. You can judge from the climate today how big a setback that was. The democrats barely held control of the house of representatives, and a coalition of republicans and rightwing democrats now held the balance of power. Which meant that the president had limited influence in congress. November 8th, the invasion was launched. After days of fighting in algeria, and substantial allied casualties, french admiral darlon, who happened to be in algiers, was recognized by the allies and called upon french troops to stop fighting. So the fighting in algeria ceased, but not elsewhere as well see. November 11th, the end of the second battle of el alamin and the fighting in egypt. General rommel had to retreat. He had to retreat in part because British Forces there had superior intelligence and superior equipment. President roosevelt had diverted 300 sherman tanks from a planned shipment to the soviet union, to British Forces in egypt, and they were better than the mark tanks that rommel had. The nazis had already set up an commando egypt, a mobile killing squad designed to be active against jews in egypt and in palestine. But the retreat of rommels forces ended that possibility. Back to northwest africa. The germans rushed 25,000 troops. Battlehardened troops, into tunisia, to prevent allied forces from reaching their objective. General eisenhower wrote, on november 18th, if we dont get to tunisia quickly, we surrender the initiative, give the axis seem to do at is pleases, encourage all of our enemies in the area, the battle is not, repeat not, won. On november 20th, premiere lavalle gave a speech in which he expressed his hope for a german victory in the war, to prevent communists and jews from gaining control of france and extinguishing french civilization. Back in washington, roosevelt had already asked congress to pass the third war powers act, which contained an interesting provision, authorizing the president to suspend laws and regulations, hampering the Free Movement of persons, property, and information, in and out of the u. S. We do not know why that provision was in there. We do know why it was taken out. The house ways and Means Committee worried that the president would use this clause to open the doors to unrestricted immigration, stripped it out. In late november in fact on thanksgiving day the president tried to persuade house and Senate Leaders to restore it, but the speaker of the house declined and roosevelt backed off. This was the climate, this was the time, two days earlier, when undersecretary wells called rabbi weiss back too back to washington and said, the state Department Investigation