Harry Hopkins: Enabling Stalin’s Terror

During the 1930s and 1940s, Harry Hopkins held posts at high levels within the United States government, mainly as an advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt. During these years, he pursued his own troubling agenda: to promote the power-hungry and ruthless expansion of Stalin’s USSR.

During the last months of World War II, it had become clear that the aggression of Soviet Socialism entailed the domination of various nations in eastern Europe. Instead of liberating these countries from Nazi oppression, the communists merely substituted their own dictatorial regimes for Hitler’s.

Harry Hopkins worked to shape U.S. foreign policy in such a way that it benefitted Josef Stalin. His actions ultimately worked against the well-being of England, France, the United States, and the nations of eastern Europe.

Historians can only guess at his motives: Why did Hopkins want to help the USSR? Why was he willing to compromise the freedom and human rights of people in other countries? This was known only to himself.

The influence of Hopkins can be seen in his communication with Stalin in early 1945, around the time of the final collapse of the Nazi government. President Roosevelt had died, and President Truman had sent Hopkins as a special envoy to Stalin.

Stalin and Hopkins discussed various topics related to postwar Europe, as historians Stan Evans and Herbert Romerstein write:

When Stalin in his usual aggressive manner said the British did not want a “Poland friendly to the Soviet Union,” Hopkins responded, also as usual, that the view of the American government was different: “that the United States would desire a Poland friendly to the Soviet Union, and in fact desired to see friendly countries all along the Soviet borders” (a formula that included, for example, Finland, the Baltic states, Rumania, and China). To which Stalin replied, “if this be so we can easily come to terms regarding Poland.” Indeed they could, as the Soviets imposed a brutal Red regime in Poland and the United States stood back and let it happen.

Acting as an official representative of the United States, Hopkins consigned millions of people in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and other countries to decades of horror. The Soviet Socialists would institute military occupational governments which imprisoned, tortured, beat, and murdered millions of citizens in these countries.

Communism in eastern Europe during the second half of the twentieth century was a human rights nightmare. Although Harry Hopkins did not cause this misery by himself, he was certainly a factor in the suffering and death.

While being partly responsible for terror imposed on eastern Europe, he was also partly responsible for causing the United States to betray its friends and faithful allies. Hopkins redirected military supplies away from England and toward the USSR. When President Roosevelt was forming foreign policy, Hopkins influenced him to distance himself from Winston Churchill’s views. Hopkins urged FDR not to resist Stalin’s aggression.

In a breath-taking act of betrayal, Hopkins shipped quantities of uranium to the Soviet Socialists. In addition, he had access to secret scientific and technological documents related to the development of the atomic bomb. He sent copies of these documents to the Soviet Socialists.

Harry Hopkins contributed materially to the USSR’s ability to develop and manufacture atomic weapons. Emboldened by the possession of these weapons, Stalin instituted the communist dictatorship in North Korea, supported communist guerillas in China, and sent subversive agents into various countries in Africa, Asia, and South America. Hopkins directly and indirectly contributed to terrorism and suffering around the globe.

Eisenhower Resists FDR’s Segregation: Ike Opposes ‘New Deal’ Racism

Although Franklin Roosevelt was happy to receive the votes cast for him by Black citizens, his presidency was singularly inactive in terms of advancing civil rights. His time in office, from March 1933 to April 1945, yielded little fruit for African-Americans.

FDR’s Department of War, and the individuals he appointed to lead it, were committed to segregation. He relegated Black soldiers to inferior roles. FDR denied them opportunities for advancement and for combat duty.

General Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower thought differently.

In December 1943, Eisenhower became the Supreme Allied Commander, overseeing the European and African theaters of combat during World War II. In this position, he had an opportunity to oppose FDR’s segregationist policies.

Ike not only believed that African-American fighting men should receive the same treatment and options as every other soldier, but he also acted on this belief, as historian David Nichols writes:

In 1944, leaders at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) obtained a confidential directive issued by Eisenhower on March 1 that made officers responsible for “scrupulous enforcement” of the principle, “Equal opportunities of service and of recreation are the right of every American soldier regardless of branch, race, color, or creed.” Eisenhower particularly pushed for authority to allow Negro soldiers, normally restricted to logical support, to volunteer for combat.

Taking these steps, Ike knew that he was contradicting FDR’s official War Department policy.

To explain his actions, Eisenhower used the phrase, “a matter of justice.” He was willing to enter into direct policy conflict with the president, as David Nichols reports:

In December 1944, at the time of the Battle of the Bulge in Europe, Ike needed all the troops he could get. General John C.H. Lee issued a directive, approved by Eisenhower, proclaiming: “The opportunity to volunteer will be extended to all soldiers without regard to color or race but preference will normally be given to individuals who have had some basic training in infantry.” The War Department declared the order contrary to policy and forced Eisenhower to withdraw it, destroy the original message, and substitute a more innocuous message.

Yet Ike persisted, and won: by January 1945, he finally overrode the War Department’s regulations, and more than 4,000 Black soldiers had volunteered for combat duty, served with distinction, and earned recognition.

Eisenhower’s perseverance opened the door for African-Americans to advance within the United State military.

Woodrow Wilson’s Racism: Progressive Hate Unleashed

The presidency of Woodrow Wilson dealt a severe blow to African-Americans and to the struggle for civil rights. Wilson was an unrepentant racist.

As president of Princeton University, he worked to keep Black students out, denying them admission. He also wrote a history textbook which defended the KKK and argued that African-Americans should not be allowed to vote.

Leaving the university and entering the field of electoral politics, Wilson mocked President Theodore Roosevelt, who had invited Booker T. Washington to dinner in the White House. Roosevelt’s meal was the first official invitation to a Black American to dine with a president.

After the meal, Woodrow Wilson used a hateful and inappropriate epithet to describe Roosevelt’s honored guest, even though Booker T. Washington was a leading Republican at the time.

Once elected president, Wilson set to work segregating federal workers. After the Civil War, federal employees had been desegregated and integrated: African-Americans and Whites working side-by-side as equals.

While Wilson was in the White House, a film titled The Birth of a Nation was released. Audiences in theaters saw, at the very beginning of the film, a quote in which Woodrow Wilson praised the KKK. The damage done by Wilson is described by historian Dinesh D’Souza:

Wilson also helped revive the Ku Klux Klan. Oddly enough this was the result of a single screening of a movie, David W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, which portrays the Ku Klux Klan as the savior of the South. Despite the crude technology of the time, the film is now recognized as a cinematic masterpiece. I regard it as one of the most powerful propaganda films ever made.

Wilson’s endorsement of the KKK, and of the movie, brought about a wave of intensified racist violence. Wilson’s Democrat Party, and his ‘progressive’ movement, did great damage to race relations in the United States.