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Letters They Wouldn't Publish
April 23, 2004
Letters to the Editor New York Times letters @nytimes.com Dear Editor: Your April 23 edition reported that according to his newly released-diaries, U.S. diplomat James G. McDonald spoke with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 about Hitler's persecution of German Jews, and Roosevelt "seemed deeply concerned and said he wanted to find a way to send a warning message to the German people over the head of Hitler." Yet he never sent such a warning. On June 16, 1933, the ambassador-designate to Berlin, William E. Dodd, Jr. met with the president and discussed, among other things, the situation of Germany's Jews. Dodd's published diary reports: "The President said, 'The German authorities are treating the Jews shamefully and the Jews in this country are greatly excited. But this is also not a governmental affair. We can do nothing except for American citizens who happen to be made victims." Roosevelt said the U.S. should use only "unofficial and personal influence" on the Germans. The idea of a sending a deterrent warning to the German people was never mentioned. Nor was James McDonald the only person to whom FDR offered empty promises on this issue. Judge Irving Lehman (brother of New York's governor) and longtime Roosevelt friend Henry Morgenthau Jr. visited the White House on September 14, 1933, and asked the president to make a public statement about the plight of Germany's Jews. Roosevelt replied that he preferred to make a statement about human rights abuses in Germany in general, without focusing on the Jews. But he did not do even that. The issue was not whether or not FDR was privately "concerned," but rather his actions in this regard. Sadly, he did not act. Cordially,
Laurel Leff
Rafael Medoff |
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