[For context: A handbook listing positively draconian measures be taken against a defeated Nazi Germany, one which was unpopular even within the U.S. government and which was never ratified or supposed to be released, was somehow leaked to the public. It caused public outrage and fueled Nazi wartime propaganda. It didn’t help (in Germany) that the proponent and principal designer of this handbook was the United State’s Secretary of Treasury, who was Jewish. There were a number of public figures actively fighting against this document behind the scene, most notably the United States Secretary of War.]
After the roller-coaster of the past month, Stimson [Secretary of War] found the President “very friendly.” Stimson still felt “a very real friendship for him.” So eager was Roosevelt to cement their relationship that he did not talk business until the end of the meal.
[…]
Plunging a dagger into Morgenthau {Treasury Secretary], Stimson icily told Roosevelt that if the Treasury Secretary had “seen fit” to discuss the Handbook directly with him and McCloy, “corrections could easily have been made” and “there would have been no hubbub.”
As Stimson noted, Roosevelt “grinned and looked naughty,” Shirking all responsibility, the President cried, “Henry Morgenthau pulled a boner!”
Source:
Beschloss, Michael R. “A Hell of a Hubbub.” The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman, and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2007. 148. Print.
Further Reading:
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