Harry Hopkins: President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Deputy President

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For his part, Hopkins was struck by the spirit of the British people. At a dinner given by newspaper magnate and Minister of Aircraft Production Lord Beaverbrook, Hopkins addressed the press. He described the feelings he experienced while visiting Britain’s blitzed cities and spoke of the affection and admiration that Roosevelt had for Britain. Beaverbrook later wrote that Hopkins’’speech left us feeling that although America was not yet in the war, she was marching beside us, and that should we stumble she would see that the President and the men about him blazed with faith in the future of Democracy.’

Scheduled for two weeks, Hopkins’ visit ended up lasting nearly six. Staying at the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street, Hopkins met with government officials, business leaders, and many others, trying to assess what kind of assistance Britain needed. He toured industrial sites and shipyards, witnessed bomb damage firsthand, and was impressed with Britain’s resolve to fight. Churchill affectionately dubbed him ‘Lord Root of the Matter’ for his ability to quickly get to the heart of problems.

In 1941, Hopkins was not the only person making extra-official efforts on Roosevelt’s behalf. Colonel William J. Donovan met with British representatives in the Balkans and the Mediterranean area, and Wendell Willkie threw his support behind Roosevelt’s war effort during his own trip to England. Only Hopkins, however, as a reporter wrote in 1942, was privileged to sit before the fire at 10 Downing Street and ‘discuss the grave predicament of Western Civilization’ with Winston Churchill.

When Hopkins returned from London, debate was raging over Roosevelt’s ‘Lend-Lease’ plan to aid Britain. Roosevelt had introduced the plan to the public by simply saying, ‘Suppose my neighbor’s home catches fire, and I have a length of garden hose . . . .’ The bill would provide Britain–and eventually several other Allied nations–with desperately needed war matériel without requiring payment up front, thereby skirting the tenets of the 1939 Neutrality Act. Though there was vehement opposition to the Lend-Lease plan, Americans sympathized with Britain, which was waging war against enormous odds.

The House of Representatives passed the Lend-Lease Act on February 8, 1941, and the Senate followed suit a month later. Roosevelt tapped Hopkins to ‘advise and assist me in carrying out the responsibilities placed upon me’ by the passage of the bill. Such a vague job description gave Hopkins nearly free rein for the task of preparing the armed forces and private business for war production. ‘Under my new responsibilities,’ Hopkins wrote to Churchill, ‘all British purchasing requests are now routed through me.’ Hopkins still lacked an official title, but he had become, in the eyes of many journalists, the ‘Deputy President.’

Under Hopkins the administration of Lend-Lease was diffuse and controversial. It essentially bypassed the State Department, and Secretary Cordell Hull was not happy to be left out of the loop. Hopkins came to be called ‘Roosevelt’s own personal foreign office.’ The situation was quite irregular, Sherwood admitted, ‘but so was the fundamental situation in which the United States found itself at the time.’ Lend-Lease’s quasi-governmental status suited its manager’s unbureaucratic style perfectly, and Hopkins, quite simply, got things done. His trademark tool was the telephone, and he never hesitated to call and berate high-ranking military officers for failing to meet production deadlines. In 1941, for example, when a strike at the Universal Cyclops Steel Corporation stalled the delivery of propellers for navy planes, Hopkins ordered photos of the prop-less planes to be taken for publication in the newspapers.

Hopkins had brought back from his meeting with Churchill the conviction that the prime minister and Roosevelt must soon meet face to face. He was maneuvering to set up such a meeting when, in June 1941, Germany dramatically altered the world picture by invading the Soviet Union. A key factor in British defense planning–the central issue to be discussed at the impending conference–was ascertaining how long Russia would be able to hold off the Germans. ‘The question of assistance to the Soviet Union was a ticklish one,’ wrote FDR biographer Nathan Miller. ‘Public opinion was hostile, and many Americans preferred to let the twin devils of Nazism and Communism fight to the death.’ To Roosevelt and Churchill, however, aiding the Soviet Union meant help in defeating Germany, provided the Soviet Union could survive the Nazi onslaught. Hopkins volunteered to fly to Moscow to find out for himself.

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