End of Empires: who and what was responsible? (post WW2)

[jmm99]

The issues of Alger Hiss, Harry Hopkins and Yalta lead to lengthy discussions. See, e.g., J.E. Haynes, American Communism and Anticommunism, and more specifically on Venona, Hiss and the on-going arguments. On Venona, take a gander at this thread, The Rosenberg Case Resurrected. If one does not know Venona (pro & con - the intercepts are ambiguous at times), one is doomed to repeat history - making lousy assertions about "reds" and "pinks".

This post is devoted to a much narrower topic, which deals with a single comment by Patrick J. Hurley. I went to Don Lohbeck, Patrick J. Hurley (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1956) because of Dayuhan's citation of Patti's book. Since Hurley was a contemporary in China with Patti, I was interested in seeing what he might have said about Patti. He didn't say anything.

However, the book is inscribed "To Mike from Mother, Christmas 1959" - so, Steve, thank you for the memories (I mean that sincerely - her birthday was 3 May). I suppose the bottom line to her was that Hurley was an anti-communist and an anti-imperialist - a position congruent with her White (e.g., Mannerheim) Finnish background.

Of course, Hurley was an interesting guy for his earlier years alone (before becoming Hoover's Secretary of War). He was the son of a poor Irish miner and then orphaned. He owed his early book learning to Ben Smallwood, Chairman of the Choctaw Council. He cowherded with one Will Rogers and grew up with Victor "Dick" Locke (another Chairman of the Choctaw Council). He was educated at Indian University (the only Irishman of the bunch - who became more "Choc" than the "Chocs", the captain of the football team). He became national attorney for the Choctaws, and a spectacular success in oil and gas law. An "Okie from Muskogee".

While he was Pres. Roosevelt's envoy (and then ambassador) to China, he engaged in a verbal war with John S. Service, John Paton Davies, Jr., John Carter Vincent, Raymond P. Ludden. He did not "war" very much with Joseph Stilwell - both were in different ways "anti-imperialists"; but recommended Stilwell's relief. Hurley found Albert Coady Wedemeyer more acceptable.

Hurley (whom Uncle Joe Stalin considered a "a very tough baby") found the Yalta Agreement to be totally unacceptable. However, he did not blame FDR for its terms (Lohbeck, p.368):

"There is a tendency now," Ambassador Hurley wrote later, "to charge the Yalta Secret Agreement to President Roosevelt. President Roosevelt is dead, but I can say he was not guilty. He was a very sick man at Yalta, and the surrender of China to the Communists in the Secret Agreement of Yalta was engineered by the officials of the American State Department under the brilliant leadership of a young American, Alger Hiss." [19]

19. Letter from Hurley to the Atlantic Monthly, Sept. 28, 1950.

As to Yalta and HST (Harry S. Truman), Hurley:

... held out hope that after President Roosevelt's death, President Harry Truman would recognize what he regarded as the errors of Yalta and would rectify the situation, but his efforts in that direction were in vain. On November 26, 1945, he submitted a scathing letter of resignation.

"I requested the relief of the career men," he wrote, "who were opposing the American policy in the Chinese Theater of war. These professional diplomats were returned to Washington and placed in the Chinese and Far Eastern Divisions of the State Department as my supervisors. Some of these same career men whom I relieved have been assigned as supervisors to the Supreme Commander in Asia. In such positions most of them have continued to side with the Communist armed party and at times with the imperialist bloc against American policy."

(from the Wiki, which is from Lohbeck's book)

Hurley (in the above quote) is consistent as an anti-communist and an anti-imperialist.

As a sidebar, Hurley, as part of "imperialism", identified the Zionist movement as an imperialist movement. I'm somewhat lost as to the logic of that, but here's the source - again from Lohbeck, Patrick J. Hurley Meets David Ben-Gurion.

The key point from Hurley is whether FDR was mentally competent at Yalta. My gut, in my "incarnation" as an estate planning attorney, says "Big ?". The next question is when did FDR's mental slide begin ? A large stroke (which killed him) is often preceded by a series of smaller, mind-destroying strokes.

So, JMA, please consider the alternative that FDR at Yalta was "dotty as hell". It does open up some vistas.

Regards

Mike

PS: I can't give you any help as to Jimmy Carter. I've never been able to figure him out.