Eleanor Roosevelt to Vincent Burns

[? December 1946]

I have your letter of the 20th.

I have condemned the American communists many times both in writing and in speaking. Communism is not a menace to us here in the United States unless we do not make democracy work for all of the people.

I do not remember condemning the 28 seditionists you mention.⁵ I have no hate for Pastor Neimoeller or for anyone else for that matter. After the First World War we allowed ourselves to be lulled into a false security by believing that the German people were not to blame, that the Kaiser forced them into war, and I do not want to see us make the same mistake again. The German people were to blame for the Hitler government and a man like Pastor N. speaking to American audiences can possibly make us forget that.

It just so happens that my son, Elliott, did not say any of the things he is alleged to have said.⁶

TLd AERP, FDRL

1. See Document 27, Document 29, and Document 164 for ER's position on Niemöller.

2. In the case of U.S. v. McWilliams (1944), the government invoked the Smith Act of 1940 and charged twenty-nine individuals with "unlawfully, willfully, feloniously and knowingly" conspiring with "each other and with officials of the government of the German Reich" to cause mutiny in the military. The alleged conspirators—German-American Bundists, German propagandists, and far-right critics of the US government—agreed on little more than the belief that "Communists, international Jews and plutocrats" dominated both of the major political parties in the United States and conspired to involve the nation in World War II against the will of the American people. The government's failed attempt to convict these twenty-nine defendants as Nazi conspirators marked the culmination of state involvement in a public fight against "Fascism" in the 1930s and 1940s ("U.S. Indicts 30, Alleging Nazi Plot to Incite Mutiny and Revolution," NYT, 4 January 1944, 1; Ribuffo, 178-224).

3. Burns is probably referencing the September 12 rally at Madison Square Garden where Wallace and others criticized Truman's approach to Soviet-US relations. See Document 146.

4. November 2, 1946, Elliott Roosevelt and his wife Faye flew to Russia for a six-week tour of the country during which he reportedly made statements critical of US foreign policy at a reception held at the US Embassy. Citing an anonymous source, the press reprinted the source's recitation of Elliott Roosevelt's declaration that "the Soviet Union had never broken its word. While the United States and Britain repeatedly violated their pledges at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam, the Soviets faithfully observed theirs." The source also claimed that Elliott then challenged his audience to "name one instance in which the United States acted to further the cause of peace." When a reporter answered that American support of the UN was an example of the nation's goodwill, Elliott allegedly replied, "You know as well as I do that the United States is supporting the U.N. for purely selfish and imperialistic reasons" ("E. Roosevelt Leaves," NYT, 3 November 1946, 27; "Pro-Russian Speech Reported Made by Elliott Roosevelt," WP, 27 November 1946, 1).

5. ER did not address the McWilliams defendants in My Day or in any public speeches, despite her involvement in the public campaign against Fascism. ER's opposition to loyalty oaths, the Dies committee, and the Smith Act began in the late 1930s. As she told New York Herald Tribune pub-lisher Helen Reid, she had severe misgivings about "the constant battle going on between those who would have us fear the communists and those who would have us fear the fascists." When one is "thrown into the arms of one or the other in order to defeat the opposite trend of ideas" nothing is accomplished. "It is difficult to win a negative battle. Why are we in this country not stressing a constructive campaign for democracy?" June 3, 1940, she told the reporters at her press conference that although the nation did need protection from "Fifth column" activities, she urged "people to keep their feet on the ground," avoid hysteria, and, "emphasized that any steps taken should be under existing law." By the late 1940s, ER would lend her name to the effort to abolish the Smith Act and pardon those convicted under it (Lash, Eleanor, 592; "Seeks Air Inquiry on Browder Speech," NYT, 4 June 1940, 25; IYAM, May 1956).

6. Elliott Roosevelt released a statement admitting he had divulged his private views in a personal ("off the record") conversation and insisting that only when taken out of context could his statements be perceived as anti-American. When asked to clarify his position by providing the proper context, Elliott responded, "I refuse to divulge the conversation of others at a private party just as I expect others to respect my conversation." Public criticism of Elliott reached its pinnacle when Representative Lawrence H. Smith (R-WI) demanded Elliott Roosevelt's passport be revoked for "openly court[ing] Soviet favor at the expense of our standing and prestige abroad."

ER defended her son in her January 17 column:

I don't think it has ever occurred to any of my sons to be pro-Communist, any more than it has ever occurred to me. And yet, in the course of my career, I have at times been severely criticized for what were called pro-Communist leanings, until I have learned to take what I read in the newspapers with a grain of salt.

For instance, when I read in the papers that my son Elliott was supposed to have said some utterly ridiculous things in Moscow, particularly as regards the United States' activities within the United Nations, I knew without even asking any questions that the whole story was false. I took it for granted that some conversation had occurred, and that someone—not too anxious to avoid trouble for the Roosevelt family—had 'quoted' a few things which were pure imagination and others which were only half-truths. Taken out of the conversation as a whole, these conveyed a wrong impression ("Elliott Charges U.S. Embassy Tricked Him into Statements," WP, 30 November 1946, 1; "Demand Inquiries on Moscow Talk," NYT, 1 December 1946, 26; MD, 17 January 1947).

On Franco and Stalin

Catherine Gallagher wrote ER a six-page handwritten letter December 11, 1946, to say that after reading "Elliott's book I had to take F.D.R.'s picture down from where it had hung since 1930, in my boys' room," to say that she was "voting Republican for the first time in [her] life," and to object to the My Day she had just finished reading.¹ Gallagher took particular exception to ER's December 10 description of a breakfast conversation she had with servicemen in New York's Central Presbyterian Church.

One young man asked me about our stand on Franco and how it was possible to expect a nation under Franco to cooperate with the Allies or to increase the chances of peace in the world, since it was obvious that Franco was pro-Fascist and seemed to have had no change of heart. The soldier was all for recognizing the government-in-exile.

I don't wonder that these young soldiers find it hard to understand how we can tolerate and try to work with men who are quite obviously in opposition to the things for which we fought the war. I explained that one finds oneself in difficult positions now and then. The horns of this dilemma are our policy against outside interference in a domestic question and the possibility of making life even harder for the people of Spain!²

Gallagher strongly disagreed. "Can you honestly say that he is more a threat to World Peace and more a dictator than Stalin and his puppet dictators who have forcibly captured governments and now rule by terror?… At least Franco seems to confine his dictating to his own country—he doesn't foment trouble in the four corners of the World." What would her reaction have been, Gallagher asked, "if American airmen had been shot down over Spain and if Franco had treated out protestations with the indifference and contempt that Tito treated us when that happened in Jugo-slavia?" Labeling the United Nations "the Tower of Babel of our times," Gallagher concluded:

Why don't you have the courage to lead the American group and to face Molotov squarely and ask him point blank what Franco has done that he isn't equally guilty of?

If our representatives do not ask that they are either downright cowardly or plainly dishonest!

… I do not want to see [my two sons] go to war as my brothers had to do. Their Daddy and I do not want to go through the tortures my parents experienced during the war years … My mother's health has been ruined, I fear she will never be well again.

I look to the U.N. for a chance to convince myself their worry and hardship was not in vain, that the world is now on the road to being a better place, but I cannot honestly see where any major issue has been successfully handled to a peaceful solution … Perhaps if Mothers of the next war's soldiers could be permitted a voice in the future welfare of our country at the U.N. things would be improved …

History teaches us that appeasement never works. A savage, un-trained animal invariably bites the hand that feeds him.

Do something! Time Flies!³

ER addressed these and other concerns in her dictated reply.