FDR

by Jean Edward Smith

Roosevelt several times suggested that Hitler was mentally unbalanced and had led the German people astray. Stalin demurred. Hitler was a very able man, he thought. “Not basically intelligent, lacking in culture, and with a primitive approach to political problems, [but] only a very able man could accomplish what Hitler had done in solidifying the German people whatever we thought of the methods.”

Stalin requested the privilege of proposing one more toast—to the president and people of the United States: I want to tell you, from the Russian point of view, what the President and the United States have done to win the war. The most important thing in this war are machines. The United States has proven it can turn out 10,000 airplanes a month. Russia can turn out, at most, 3,000 airplanes a month. The United States is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines, through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war.105

The president need not have tried so hard. Stalin had bugged FDR’s suite and knew the details of every conversation. The eavesdropping was entrusted to Sergo Beria, the nineteen-year-old son of secret police head Lavrenti Beria. (Sergo and Stalin’s daughter Svetlana were the same age and as children had often played together.) “I want to entrust you with a mission that is delicate and morally reprehensible,” Stalin told the young Beria on the eve of the conference. “You are going to listen to the conversations that Roosevelt will have with Churchill, with the other British, and with his own circle. I must know everything in detail, be aware of all shades of meaning.”