Advent of the Nuclear Age

James Roosevelt (1907-1991) Enhanced Reality Portrait

James Roosevelt (December 23, 1907 – August 13, 1991) was the last surviving child of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. He was born in New York City and graduated from Harvard University in 1930. Shortly after graduating from Harvard University he joined Roosevelt's staff as presidential assistant. He was known as "the crown prince" and "assistant president."  Toward the end of his life, James Roosevelt moved to California, where he wrote books about his family, a series Affectionately, F.D.R. (1959, 1975), My parents: a differing view(1976), and his last and most intriguing book, A Family Matter, published when he was 73 years old.

A Family Matter

During the Second World War, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt held a series of discussions with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. Roosevelt's son James Roosevelt in his book A Family Matter (1980) describes their discussion at Yusupov Palace on the southern coast of Crimea in February, 1945 as follows:
 
When I look around the conference table, Stalin said, I realize that in ten years we all may be dead. Ten years is not a long time in the world. In twenty years a new generation may not understand what the war has been about. In thirty, they may have made Hitler a hero again. Our grandchildren may be the enemies of each other if we do not make the proper settlements here.

I was thinking along similar lines, FDR answered and I would like your agreement to establish and support a world organization under the blueprint I have submitted in my report to the conference (FDR speaks here about the future United Nations). In addition, after Germany has been defeated, you will be a full participant in the attack on the Japanese mainland should such attack prove necessary.

Stalin replied. To the first I say we'll have to first negotiate the arrangement of power within such a body. To the second, Russia has paid by far a greater price in lives than anyone else in this war. An attack on the Japanese, if they decide to fight to the death, is something I cannot ask the Russian people to do.

 
There was a period of silence and then Stalin asked: And what would the Russian people be offered in return for such sacrifices? You would be given the plans for the Manhattan Project weapon. FDR replied.

When first published in 1980, the James Roosevelt's narrative about his father's and Joseph Stalin's agreement on nuclear balance was so explosive, that Simon and Schuster placed on the book's cover A Novel and on the book flaps repeatedly stressed that this book is not a memoir, but a fiction.
 
Within the context of oral history, an account of something passed down by a narrative from one generation to another, Krus et al. (1998) suggest that the allegorical interpretation of events should be always considered when the narrator wants to share his or her knowledge of these events, but for personal or other reasons cannot do it directly. James Roosevelt wrote this book toward the end of his life when other people write memoirs. However, he could not write: "My father gave Stalin the atom bomb," for many obvious reasons, especially when other people were executed (Julius and Ethel Rosenberg) for being accused of the same thing. There are several points that indicate that perhaps James Roosevelt "novel" is not a novel after all:

How could the war ravaged Soviet Union explode the nuclear bomb after only a few years (1949) after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The information the Soviet Union may have received from spies was likely limited, as for security reasons, the Manhattan Project was tightly compartmentalized.

The officer in charge of the Russian Lend Lease program, Major George Jordan claims in his (1965) book "From Major Jordan's Diaries" that FDR had provided materials from the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union via the lend-lease shipments.

 At the Potsdam Conference, at July 24, 1945, President Truman told Premier Stalin that the U.S. possessed "a new weapon of unusual destructive force." Soviet Marshal Zhukov relates this event in his memoirs (1971, pp. 674-675) excerpted as follows:
 
As was later written abroad, at that moment Churchill fixed his gaze on Stalin's face, closely observing his reaction. However, Stalin did not betray his feelings and pretended that he saw nothing special in what Truman had imparted to him.

Both Churchill and many other Anglo-American authors subsequently assumed that Stalin had really failed to fathom the significance of what he had heard. In actual fact, on returning to his quarters after this meeting Stalin, in my presence, told Molotov about his conversation with Truman. The latter reacted almost immediately. "Let them. We'll have to talk it over with Kurchatov and get him to speed things up." I realized that they were talking about research on the atomic bomb.

It was clear already then that the US Government intended to use the atomic weapon for the purpose of achieving its Imperialist goals from a position of strength in "the cold war." This was amply corroborated on August 6 and 8 when the Americans dropped atomic bombs on the densely-populated Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
 
After returning from Yalta, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt publicly declared the first issue he discussed with Premier Stalin at the Yusupov Palace:
 
"The Crimean Conference ought to spell the end of a system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, the spheres of influence, the balances of power, and all the other expedients that have been tried for centuries — and have always failed. We propose to substitute for all these, a universal organization in which all peace-loving nations will finally have a chance to join."
 
It was upon his son to declare the second discussed issue that established balance of the nuclear power on the world scale, likely saved lives of millions of people, and kept a relative peace for the rest of the 20th century.
 
References
Jordan, G. R. (1965) From Major Jordan's diaries. Western Islands Publishers.
Krus, D.J, Nelsen, E.A. & Webb, J.M. (1998) Issues in oral history: elaboration of traumatic events. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 86, 928-930.
Roosevelt, J. (1959) Affectionately, F.D.R: A son's story of a lonely man. Harcourt, Brace.
Roosevelt, J. (1975) Affectionately, F. D. R: A son's story of a courageous man. Greenwood Press.
Roosevelt, J. (1976) My parents: a differing view. Playboy Press.
Roosevelt, J., & Toperoff, S. (1960) A family matter. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Zhukov, G. K. (1971) The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. New York: Delacorte Press.