Israel Matzav

FDR's anti-Semitic cocktails

Two of the remarks were made by FDR to senior Soviet officials. One was on May 29,1942, during a visit to the White House by Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. Professors Richard Breitman and Allan Lichtman, in their new book 'FDR and the Jews', report that President Roosevelt and his senior adviser Harry Hopkins "loosened up" Molotov "with liquor and with an exchange of anti-Semitic comments."They were just "using anti-Semitism as an icebreaker." (p.301) 

Leaving aside the unflattering stereotype of Russians as a bunch of drunken Cossacks, one is struck by how far Breitman and Lichtman are stretching to justify what FDR and Hopkins said during their cocktails with Molotov. 

Here's what they said. According to the minutes of the conversations, Hopkins at one point remarked that the American public’s view of Soviet Communists had been damaged by the presence in the Communist Party USA of “largely disgruntled, frustrated, in effectual, and vociferous people--including a comparatively high proportion of distinctly unsympathetic Jews.”

The translator at the meeting, Harvard University professor Samuel H. Cross, then wrote: “On this the President commented that he was far from anti-Semitic, as everyone knew, but there was a good deal in this point of view.”

Molotov, Roosevelt, and Hopkins then apparently agreed that “there were Communists and Communists,” which they compared to what they called “the distinction between ‘Jews’ and ‘Kikes’,” all of which was “something that created inevitable difficulties.”

Labels: anti-Semitism, Franklin Delano Roosevelt

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:14 PM