Read Online The End of War - A Novel of the Race for Berlin - [World War II 02] by David L. Robbins - Free Book Online Page A

Germans in this war. Damn it, when this is over they’ve got a right to be at the head table more than we do, certainly more than England or France.”
     
    “He’s tricky, Mr. President.”
     
    “He knows what he wants, that’s all. He’s political to a fault. Ever since Stalingrad he’s gotten the idea he can kick the Germans’ ass without us if he has to. The key to Joe is to let him know you like him, you like Russia, and you want to work with them. They’ll go turtle in a minute if you let them, but we’re going to keep them in this alliance after the war, Harry. I don’t care if Winston screams bloody murder all the way to Moscow and back, we’re keeping the United Nations alive and the Reds are in it. That’s my dream, Harry. That’s my legacy. A lasting peace in the world after two world wars. No power politics. No bullies.”
     
    Roosevelt nods at his own words. He wants Harry to leave now, he’s tuckered. Hopkins spots this and rises.
     
    “I’ll have the cable for you in half an hour.”
     
    “Great. Happy hour?”
     
    “Grace has already cleared my schedule.”
     
    Hopkins departs. The Oval Office alone with Roosevelt now reverberates with the notions and actions of presidents before him who made the weightiest decisions here. Stalin, a bastard. A totalitarian. Roosevelt knows this. Ambassador Harriman and others never let him forget it. But what all the official naysayers don’t reckon on is America’s influence. With a powerful America as a partner and counterbalance, we can show the Red leadership how to make their country prosperous and modern without brutalizing their own people along the way. Russia can be tamed. Roosevelt’s mentor Wilson, who was President during the Russian Revolution, knew this. Like Wilson, Roosevelt admires the will of the Russian people, their ability to sacrifice, suffer, and survive. They boggle the imagination.
     
    Roosevelt regrets that Stalin is a tyrant. But communism is essentially an egalitarian form of government, isn’t it? Communism wants to share resources, empower all its classes from the bottom up, build a classless society. Not too different, Roosevelt thinks, from his own New Deal. History will see the similarities if some of the currently living don’t. Without the repressive tactics, you could view Stalin as another progressive liberal. A socialist. America’s full of socialists. Push the analogy a little further and you get Churchill the Republican, pledged to status quo, business as usual.
     
    So what if Uncle Joe wants to expand his reach into eastern Europe? Russia’s got a right to protect its borders, how many times have invaders waltzed in through Poland? It’s unfortunate but eastern Europe may be the meal the rest of us serve the Russian bear after the war. Small price, Roosevelt thinks, for a world at peace. The United Nations will just have to work hard to contain Russian expansionism the same way we’ll unravel British imperialism.
     
    There’s going to be a power vacuum in western Europe after the war. Germany and France are shot to hell. England’s on the ropes. If Russia fills the gap, it won’t be such a bad thing. If we can make Soviet-American cooperation a reality, we might together do a far better job running European and world affairs than the old Great Powers have done.
     
    Something big will come out of this war. A new heaven, a new earth.
     
    But Churchill just aggravates Stalin. In March of’42, just three months after the U.S. entered the war, Roosevelt had to write Churchill:
     
    i know you will not mind my being brutally frank when i tell you that i think i can personally handle stalin better than either your foreign office or my state department. stalin hates the guts of all your top people. he thinks he likes me better, and i hope he will continue to.
     
    Roosevelt met Stalin for the first time in November of ’43 at Teheran. That was the farthest from Moscow Stalin was willing to travel. It