Roosevelt and Stalin: The Failed Courtship (Hardcover)

by Robert A. Nisbet (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Early in WW II, President Franklin Roosevelt shared this dangerously naive conviction with Prime Minister Churchill: "If I give Stalin everything I possibly can, and ask nothing in return, noblesse oblige , he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of peace and democracy." Ignoring the advice of ambassadors William Bullitt and Averell Harriman and Soviet experts such as George Kennan, the president acceded to nearly every demand made by the Soviet dictator at the 1943 Teheran summit, remaining firm in his belief that British imperialism posed a greater danger to democracy than the Soviet Union. Nisbet's well-argued thesis is that in his uncritical infatuation with Stalin, FDR acted out essentially the same role played by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938 at the "appeasement conference" in Munich. Further, Nisbet ( The Idea of Progress ) argues that it was at Teheran rather than at Yalta that Stalin won authorization to subjugate the Baltics, the Balkans and large parts of Poland and Eastern Europe.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description
Robert Nisbet tells the extraordinary full story of the futile pursuit of American President Franklin Roosevelt for the friendship of Russian leader Josef Stalin. The final chapter reveals the motivations which drove FDR to this peculiar quest. 3 cassettes. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 120 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Pub; Complete Numbers Starting with 1, 1st Ed edition (March 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895265583
• ISBN-13: 978-0895265586
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,263,294 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars Wilson's ghost haunted FDR's backward looking strategy, July 15, 2006

By	Earth that Was - See all my reviews

Robert Nisbet is not usually classified as a historian, he is usually placed in the pigeon hole labelled 'sociologist'. This assessment is, of course, unfair as anyone who has surveyed his 'sociological' writings will attest. Nisbet usually manages to survey sociological and political thought, linking the philosophy and biography of his subject, whether it is Rousseau, Tocqueville or Kropotkin, in his works. So Nisbet was always a "historical sociologist" if such a classification exists. This book however is straight history and Nisbet shows his strength both as a writer and historical analyst. Nisbet's writing is always crisp, clear and precise. It doesn't stray and, like most good writing, it makes for quick paced reading.

Nisbet's analysis of Roosevelt's "Failed Courtship" with Joseph Stalin relies on secondary source material, notably the "Complete Correspondence" between Roosevelt and Churchill, edited by Prof Warren Kimball of Rutgers University. He also relies on biographical and memoir material from FDR cabinet members and close advisers. So if there is any 'bias' in the selection of sources, the odds are, if anything, stacked in FDR's favour. Unfortunately for the world the picture that emerges of FDR is not the patriotic portrait or hero of liberal hagiography.

FDR had plenty of advice, not just from Churchill, but his own diplomats and foreign policy experts, Keenan for example, warning him of Stalin's ruthless ambition. FDR chose to ignore advice and advisors who contradicted his own deep seated belief that Stalin and the Soviet leadership generally, were deep down merely fellow progressives like himself. Progressives with a nasty predisposition for violence, perhaps that's a fault understandable considering the vile Old Regime and it's old world meddling imperialist friends that they needed to overthrow and outfight. Perhaps this fault might be overcome with example, solid help and understanding from fellow democrats abroad. Well that's how Roosevelt saw things anyhow.

Nisbet documents the sound advice ignored and FDR's unrequited concessions to Stalin in detail. FDR believed 'he could handle' Stalin, all that was required was just more noblesse oblige and postwar harmony would be assured. Stalin got FDR's number early, and played him like a fiddle. Eventually it should be possible, one hopes, for documentary evidence from the Russian side to be unearthed to confirm or deny Nisbet's thesis here.

Many liberals recoil at any and all criticisms of FDR's handling of the great power conferences, perhaps in reaction to McCarthyite claims and oft repeated right wing condemnations of the Yalta Conference. The usual apologia for Yalta is that the allies could not reverse what the Red Army had achieved on the ground so Yalta, rather than a betrayl, was merely the cold recognition of strategic realities. Nisbet "island hops" both these arguments, thus outflanking both the McCarthyites and liberals. He agrees with the liberal view that by the time of the Yalta Conference, Soviet domination of East Europe was a fait accompli. But he counters that it was at the earlier Tehran Conference that prior agreements for Soviet domination was granted. If a stronger stand, some negotiation, had been made there, then we would be in a better position to discern accommodation from appeasement at Yalta. George F Kennan noted the idealistic crusade sketched out by the Atlantic Charter and "Four Freedoms" essentially became obsolete once Stalin became ally. Nisbet paints a picture of FDR as the Neville Chamberlain of the Cold War. If anything this is unfair to Chamberlain. At least Chamberlain in hindsight brought the western allies more time to rearm.

Nisbet leaves his speculation on FDR's motives to the last chapter. His conclusion would disappoint FDR's McCarthyite critics. FDR's advisors included many who were ultimately correct. FDR chose to ignore them. Nor was FDR being manipulated by high placed Reds, he was captain of his own ship. He only followed advice he wanted to hear. He was a man of his times and pursued his own vision, and it was a vision shared. Like most Ivy League graduates of his era, he was a thorough going Wilsonian. FDR had in earlier decades worked on the construction of the Wilson's project only to see it collapse at home and abroad. When WW2 came, FDR was giving Wilsonism one more college try. FDR believed that by making concession after concession to Stalin he would be able to achieve post WW2, the new era Wilson dreamed of post WW1. FDR, like Wilson before him, reserved his primary suspicions, suspicions perhaps confirmed by the scavenger like behaviour of the Versailles victors, that "old world imperialism" was, in the long run, the prime enemy of progress and world peace. "The devil you know". The new devil of 'totalitarianism' did not loom as large to FDR.

Nisbet's analysis here is thus more forgiving and sympathetic than Harry Elmer Barnes's. Barnes was also a sociologist and historian, but unlike the Burkean conservative Nisbet, Barnes was a progressive, social democrat and a liberal. Barnes saw himself as an 'old liberal', among those who initially drawn to Wilson learned from the failure and who were determined not to repeat it. FDR, another old liberal, decided to redouble not revise the effort. Barnes attributes FDR's global activism from 1937 onward to the failure of the 'second New Deal' to cope with a renewed downturn, the swing back to depression conditions, despite the apparent short term successes of the early New Deal. Nisbet touches on this point but lets FDR off lightly. Barnes blames not just FDR but the whole class of 'new liberals' now addicted to the power that comes with office. With the puff disappearing from their reform agenda, war seemed preferable to a spell in opposition and the risk that any revived Republicans may reverse New Deal reforms.

We have all heard the truism that generals' plan to fight the last war. In a sense FDR was making this error in his diplomacy and grand strategy. With the world and US policy today going through another generational change following the Soviet collapse there are lessons here for modern policy makers. The Bush administration's drive (shared with the previous two incumbents) for 'global hegemony', the strategy to prevent the emergence of rival superpowers, seems old fashioned in an era of "fouth generation" warfare, non-state terrorism and globalisation. So maybe FDR's folly is being repeated by a new generation.

Nisbet's book makes the lesson clear and concise. Highly recommended.