Roosevelt'S Influence on The Outcome of World War 2

In Joseph E. Persico’s Roosevelt’s Secret War, FDR and World War II Espionage, he details a President who is unpredictable, manipulative but yet intricately fascinating. As his early New Deal ally Rexford Tugwell observed, “He deliberately concealed the processes of his mind.” His vice president Henry Wallace also concluded that the only certainty in dealing with the man was the uncertainty of “what went on inside FDR’s head.” (Persico 39) On top of running his own personal (albeit amateur) spy rings with the help of Vincent Astor and several high-profiled socialite friends, Franklin D. Roosevelt was also the President to then evolve the Intelligence Community and establish America’s first centralized intelligence agency, the Office of Strategic Services under Bill Donovan.

Throughout the pre-war, war and post-war periods, Roosevelt continues to present these qualities in the handling of intelligence affairs. Although he had an early preference for Human Intelligence rather than Signals Intelligence. The undeniable benefits and advantages of Signals Intelligence proved to be too much to dismiss as he became increasingly conscious about the significance of intelligence collected by the Magic cipher.

As one continues to read the book, he or she would find the manipulative nature of Roosevelt. Evident as he tries to manoeuvre Americans to accepting the inevitable and eventual entrance of the United States into the war. In the beginning of the war. A Roper public opinion poll taken immediately after the war began indicated that 37.5 percent of Americans preferred to stay out of the war (Persico 72). However, to steer his country into accepting war. Roosevelt sometimes told untruths or half-truths, such as bending the truth about the Nazi U-Boat attack on the American warship, Greer (Persico 217). However, upon further analysis of the Nazi nuclear program and the success of the ballistic missile program, we can begin to realise the genius in Roosevelt’s early acceptance of an inevitable war.

During the periods before the war, the intelligence community in the United States was still in its infant stages, concerned only primarily about Open Source Intelligence through the use of “Defence Attaches in all significant world capitals.” (Persico 51) Covert, clandestine or subversive operations were practically non-existent. Furthermore, bureaucratic red tapes stifled information sharing. And inter-department rivalry plagued the community and continued even up to the final years of the war. For instance, “rivalry between American Army and Navy cryptanalysts produced a bizarre system in delivering deciphered communications. In odd-numbered months, such as January. March, and May, Roosevelt’s military aide would deliver Magic to the President, and in even-numbered months his naval aide would do so. No provision was made in this jerry rig for delivering Magic to the President in the evening or on Sundays.” (Persico 185) This was all in order to ensure that no department would gain more prestige and credit from the President over the other department.

These early failures of the Intelligence Community continued and contributed. To the disaster of the attack on Pearl Harbour, where the Americans were caught by surprise. Despite receiving many credible indications of the imminent Japanese attack. The information never made it through to the upper echelon of military commanders. Or the eyes and ears of Roosevelt, resulting in the failure to act upon the intelligence information.

Of all the failures of the Intelligence Community in the United States. Perhaps the most astounding failure can be related to whistleblowers of the modern times. In the likes of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. More dangerous than infiltration by foreign Intelligence Agents. Self-radicalized local agents can launch their own crusades within the organization. In order to thwart the plans of their own governments. In October 1939, Tyler Kent, an American code clerk believing Roosevelt’s breaches in neutrality over the war would bring harm to the United States, began stealing and leaking classified documents and communications between Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. These documents made their way from “Kent to Wolkoff to Maringliano, to the Italian foreign ministry, to Ambassador Mackensen and eventually to the Nazi foreign office.” (Persico 80) As Breckinridge Long analysed in his diary, Tyler Kent’s betrayal dealt a massive and almost catastrophic blow to the diplomatic manoeuvres of the United States by exposing their communications to their enemies.

However, in spite of the early failures of the Intelligence Community. The multiple successes during the war easily outweighed these failures. After the attack on Pearl Harbour, by the summer of 1942, American codebreakers broke the Japanese JN25 code, which “bared the movements of the Japanese fleet.” (Persico 304) This resulted in the strategic knowledge that Yamamoto’s massive naval fleet was about to attack the American naval fleet in Midway, thus allowing them to defend the island and sink the powerful Japanese fleet, crippling their entire navy. Admiral Nimitz had no doubt about the key to his epic triumph. Midway was, he said, “essentially a victory of intelligence.”

Another success of the Intelligence Community can also be attributed to the use of Double Agents, as was in the case of the German spy, Walter Koehler. In 1941, Koehler was sent by the Abwehr to conduct espionage operations on American nuclear programs. Including the locations where nuclear scientists conducted their research (Persico 403). However, when Koehler arrived in the United States, he revealed his assignment to the Federal Bureau of Investigations, who then used him as a double agent to release false information to the Nazis about their progress in the nuclear programs. This allowed the Americans to protect their research efforts from their German enemies.

Persico’s intriguing book exhumes an uncanny flair of objectivity in his analyses of the many happenings throughout the war. This extends to debunking several conspiracy theories about Pearl Harbour. The damning sacrifices of many Allied lives over the protection of a British cipher codenamed Ultra as well as the revelation of a Russian spy agent who infiltrated Roosevelt’s innermost circle at the White House. Persico’s objective approach to this historical account of the world war intelligence community. Is sure to fascinate even the most critical of history buffs.

In Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Sun Tzu very aptly details the following about the importance of intelligence in fighting a war. “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” (Sun) Undeniably, the successes and failures. Triumphs and defeats of the Intelligence Community in the United States contributed decisively to the outcome of World War II.

From a very young age, Roosevelt has always been captivated by covert and clandestine operations, and had an affinity for them. As a result of this, he had a sort of bias against technical intelligence and instead favoured human intelligence. Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbour. Roosevelt was slow to understand the importance of signal intelligence and displayed little interest in its problems. In contrast. He showed more interest in less reliable intelligence provided. By secret agents, who were mostly amateurs not trained in observation skills at that time. This lack of appreciation and underdevelopment of the signal intelligence community. Then precipitated into a larger problem when interservice rivalry. Between the army and navy resulted in extremely bizarre and inefficient system in the delivery of enemy decrypts through Magic as detailed above. From this, it may be easy to conclude that the outcome on the attack of Pearl Harbour would have been vastly different if Roosevelt were to have shown an early appreciation of signal intelligence over the intuition of his covert agents. As according to David Kahn in his book The Codebreakers, “method usually trumps intuition; plodding and careful routine provides nations sufficient security for their communications and the ability to read the messages of their rivals. The organization that can establish and replicate these methods. Are those that render the best service to the decision makers who rely on them.” (Warner)

Furthermore, this competition for prestige within the intelligence community meant. That agency leaders were careful not to reveal seemingly incredible intelligence to Roosevelt for fear of embarrassment, as in the case of Edgar Hoover, who failed to inform Roosevelt of evidence that the Axis powers showed a great interest in Pearl Harbour through a German spy, Popov. (Persico 239) As a result of these events, we can conclude that the intelligence services should be brought under a single intelligence agency. Instead of having two separate entities performing a single task. A single entity could be charged with performing that particular task. If more functions must be achieved, a separate agency can be created. However, no two agencies should perform the same functions. In this manner, there would be no rivalry among the intelligence community, since they are not fighting over the same job.

As according to Wirtz, one of the four factors that largely shape America’s Intelligence Culture is the culture of openness (Wirtz). No matter if benign of malignant, America’s culture of openness meant. That leaking classified information is common, even in modern times. Due to the strong beliefs in freedom of information and transparency in the government, Americans are not afraid to leak classified information when they have strong personal beliefs in exposing the “wrongdoings” of the government, or when leaking it helps achieve a political goal (Wirtz). As in the case of Tyler Kent, he believed that the American government was wrong in trying to steer America closer to war, which led him to go on his own personal crusade against his government and leaking classified information to the enemy. While this is extremely harmful to the intelligence community. The culture of openness meant that many Americans place the importance of transparency over protecting the mission of the intelligence community. Moreover, it is very difficult to identify potential whistleblowers. Especially because they are self-radicalized and can be anyone within the organization or even politicians themselves.

Apart from the culture of openness, another factor that shaped America’s Intelligence Culture is the intelligence paradigm. This was especially evident during the war when Bill Donovan became the Coordinator of Intelligence. According to Wirtz, “The intelligence paradigm is an effort to apply analytic methodologies and insights drawn from the social sciences to understand the fundamental nature of intelligence, to explain the history of intelligence successes and failures, to understand intelligence organizations and processes, and to assess and improve upon the craft of analysis itself” More than shady foreigners, private detectives, or cast-off intelligence operatives (Persico 196), intelligence analysis involves more intellectual research and brain power that can be more effectively drawn from academic intellectuals. Recognizing this, Bill Donovan hires professors. Scientists, philosophers, writers, journalists, lawyers, doctors, engineers, public relations experts, and actors (Persico 393). To staff his intelligence agency. The Office of Strategic Services which then became the modern-day Central Intelligence Agency. Indeed, the collection of information is only part of an intricate intelligence process. Collected information must then be analysed methodically. And discerned so that it may become useful intelligence that makes sense to commanders or policymakers. This requires more intellectual experts or academics to achieve efficiently and effectively.

In conclusion, the outcome of World War II has largely been impacted by the successes and failures of the intelligence community in America. Being the eyes and ears of military commanders. As well as policymakers, fighting the war without the intelligence community. Would be akin to fighting a boxing match blind and deaf. However, with that in mind, we must also recognize that the road to building an effective intelligence community in World War II was not all smooth. In spite of that, the failures of the community in its infancy became important lessons critical to its successes then on. While some of its failures continue to pose problems even today. It is essential that we continue to utilize a systematic and methodical approach in resolving these issues.

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