Christopher D. OSullivan - Harry Hopkins: FDRs Envoy to Churchill and Stalin

Harry Hopkins

Biographies

IN AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

Joseph A. Fry, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Series Editor

The Biographies in American Foreign Policy Series employs the enduring medium of biography to examine the major episodes and themes in the history of U.S. foreign relations. By viewing policy formation and implementation from the perspective of influential participants, the series humanizes and makes more accessible those decisions and events that sometimes appear abstract or distant. Particular attention is devoted to those aspects of the subjects background, personality, and intellect that most influenced his or her approach to U.S. foreign policy, and each individuals role is placed in a context that takes into account domestic affairs, national interests and policies, and international and strategic considerations.

Volumes Published

Lawrence S. Kaplan, Thomas Jefferson: Westward the Course of Empire

Richard H. Immerman, John Foster Dulles: Piety, Pragmatism, and Power in U.S. Foreign Policy

Thomas W. Zeiler, Dean Rusk: Defending the American Mission Abroad

Edward P. Crapol, James G. Blaine: Architect of Empire

David F. Schmitz, Henry L. Stimson: The First Wise Man

Thomas M. Leonard, James K. Polk: A Clear and Unquestionable Destiny

James E. Lewis, Jr., John Quincy Adams: Policymaker for the Union

Catherine Forslund, Anna Chennault: Informal Diplomacy and Asian Relations

Lawrence S. Kaplan, Alexander Hamilton: Ambivalent Anglophile

Andrew J. DeRoche, Andrew Young: Civil Rights Ambassador

Jeffrey J. Matthews, Alanson B. Houghton: Ambassador of the New Era

Clarence E. Wunderlin, Jr., Robert A. Taft: Ideas, Tradition, and Party in U.S. Foreign Policy

Howard Jablon, David M. Shoup: A Warrior against War

Jeff Woods, Richard B. Russell: Southern Nationalism and American Foreign Policy

Russell D. Buhite, Douglas MacArthur: Statecraft and Stagecraft in Americas East Asian Policy

Christopher D. OSullivan, Colin Powell: American Power and Intervention from Vietnam to Iraq

David F. Schmitz, Brent Scowcroft: Internationalism and PostVietnam War American Foreign Policy

Christopher D. OSullivan, Harry Hopkins: FDRs Envoy to Churchill and Stalin

Harry Hopkins

FDRs Envoy to Churchill and Stalin

Christopher D. OSullivan

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

OSullivan, Christopher D.

Harry Hopkins : FDRs envoy to Churchill and Stalin / Christopher D. OSullivan.

pages cm. (Biographies in American foreign policy series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4422-2220-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4422-2222-9 (electronic : alk. paper) 1. Hopkins, Harry L. (Harry Lloyd), 18901946. 2. StatesmenUnited StatesBiography. 3. World War, 19391945Diplomatic history. 4. United StatesForeign relations19331945. I. Title.

E748.H67O88 2014

327.730092dc23

[B] 2014027161

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Chronology

1890

August 17: Birth, Sioux City, Iowa

1912

Graduates Grinnell College

1913

Marries fellow social worker Ethel Gross

1931

June: Marries Barbara Duncan

Appointed head of Governor Franklin Roosevelts Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA)

1932

November 8: Roosevelt elected president

1933

March: Beginning of the Hundred Days

May 22: Appointed to head Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)

November 8: Civil Works Administration (CWA)

1935

May 6: Works Progress Administration (WPA)

1936

Hopkins tours nation promoting New Deal and WPA

1937

October 7: Death of Barbara Duncan Hopkins

NovemberDecember: Harry Hopkinss first health crisis

1938

April: Hopkins arrives in Warm Springs to push for stimulus

Hopkins seeks 1940 Democratic presidential nomination

December 24: Appointed Secretary of Commerce

1939

Harry Hopkins health relapse

September 1: Germany invades Poland

1940

May 10: Hopkins begins residing in the White House

July 1518: Democratic National Convention

July 18: Hopkins engineers Roosevelts third term nomination

July: Hopkins engineers vice presidential nomination for Henry Wallace

August: Hopkins manages Henry Wallaces Guru Letters scandal

August 22: Resigns as Commerce Secretary

November 5: Roosevelt elected to third term

1941

JanuaryFebruary: Hopkinss mission to London

March 11: Lend-Lease passage

July: Hopkins returns to London

July 3031: Mission to Moscow to meet with Stalin

August 912: Hopkins arrives at Atlantic Conference with Churchill

December 7: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

1942

April 717: Mission to London with General George Marshall

May 29 to June 1: Molotov Mission to Washington

July 1827: Mission to London with Marshall and Admiral King

July 27: Hopkins marries Louise Macy

November 8: Operation Torch

1943

January 1424: Casablanca Conference

October 23: Harriman appointment as ambassador to Moscow

November 2326: Cairo I: Hopkins meets Chiang Kai-shek

November 28 to December 1: Teheran Conference

December 46: Cairo II: Eisenhower

1944

February 1: Stephen Hopkins killed in action

June 6: Operation Overlord landing in Normandy, France

October 919: Moscow Tolstoy Conference between Churchill and Stalin

November 7: Roosevelt reelected to a fourth term

November 8: Hopkins launches reorganization of State Department

December 1: Edward Stettinius appointed Secretary of State

December: British intervention in Greece

1945

January: Hopkins travels to London to meet with Churchill

January: Hopkins travels to Paris, confers with de Gaulle

February 411: Yalta Conference

April 12: Death of President Roosevelt

April 25: UN Conference opens in San Francisco

May 8: Victory in Europe Day

May 26 to June 7: Hopkinss last mission to Moscow

June 7: Hopkins visits the ruins of Berlin

July: Hopkins receives Distinguished Service Medal at White House ceremony

August 14: Japan accepts Allied terms of surrender

September 2: Victory in Japan Day

1946

January 29: Harry Hopkins dies in New York City

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the many scholars who have written about Harry Hopkins and FDR, far too numerous to mention here, but I am particularly indebted to the editor of the Biographies in American Foreign Policy series, Joseph Andy Fry, for his skilled and dedicated stewardship of every book in his series. I am also grateful for the assistance of the fine people at Rowman & Littlefield, particularly Elaine McGarraugh, Jon Sisk, Benjamin Verdi, and Desiree Reid. A number of research organizations assisted with the project, starting with the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, where I was supported by several people, starting with their dynamic new director, Lynn Bassanese, and their multitalented chief archivist, Bob Clark, and his helpful team, including Matt Hanson, Virginia Lewick, Kirsten Strigel Carter, and Sarah Malcolm. I was also aided by the archivists at the Special Collections Research Center at the Lauinger Library, Georgetown University, but particularly Scott Taylor. At the Virginia Military Institute, Paul Barron assisted with the George C. Marshall Papers, and Claryn Spies aided with access to the Henry L. Stimson Papers at Yale University Library. Also helpful were the many archivists, too numerous to name, at the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress, the Houghton Library at Harvard, the Winston Churchill Collection at Cambridge University, the British National Archives at Kew, and the Mudd Library at Princeton. I would also like to thank Manaf Damluji, Ken Moody, Carol Grant Gould, Elizabeth Moorhatch, Kelly Hallisy, Elizabeth Klein, Sarah Reinheimer, Conor Reilly, Harrison B. Robbs, Natalie Kamajian, Steve Schulz, Charles Morone, Vince Dougherty, Halley Farrell, Kaylin Andres, Mirabai Collamore, Kendis Camacho, and, for his services as a muse, Alonzo OSullivan. And with respect to the august John Steinbeck, my deepest gratitude to my father, the redoubtable General Curtis H. OSullivan, who lived it, and my deepest love and admiration for my extraordinary wife, Maeve, who willed it.