FOREIGN RELATIONS: Cudahy & Hell

Old Patrick Cudahy was a Kilkenny Irishman who arrived in the U. S. at the age of six, got rich in the meat-packing business. His son and heir was John Clarence Cudahy, a ruddy chip off the old block, who supported Roosevelt before 1932 and by natural selection became a U. S. diplomat. Tall, leathery Mr. Cudahy had previously studied and practiced law, run his family’s real-estate properties in Milwaukee, hunted big game, fought gallantly in World War I, written expansive prose about his adventures. Blessed with charm, a warm heart and full pockets, Mr. Cudahy in Poland, Eire and Belgium proved a better than average amateur diplomat. His friends and superiors in the State Department never charged him with stupidity, on the other hand never credited him with great profundity.

In mid-July, along with other U. S. envoys to the invaded Low Countries, Ambassador Cudahy was invited by the Nazis to leave Belgium. He had meanwhile visited King Leopold, seen that President Roosevelt and the U. S. press got a sympathetic account of the Belgian monarch’s surrender to the Nazis. Last week Mr. Cudahy turned up in London, the guest of Ambassador Joe Kennedy.

Slam: London correspondents wanted an account of Mr. Cudahy’s recent travels through Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal. Mr. Kennedy, as the ranking ambassador, first demurred, then permitted the interview, on the understanding that Mr. Cudahy would confine himself to innocuous remarks. Ambassador Cudahy had just begun to talk when Ambassador Kennedy slammed down a window. Mr. Cudahy continued to talk. Mr. Kennedy slammed again, violently. As Mr. Cudahy continued to talk, Joe Kennedy announced that the reporters had heard enough, urgently ushered them out of the embassy. Voluble John Cudahy had:

> Talked as if he felt that invasions are not so bad if babies are not bayoneted. “Everywhere I asked the [Belgian] people if they had been ill-treated. All said no, no pillaging, no shooting of civilians. I was a soldier in the last war. and I think these Germans behaved better than United States soldiers would have done.”

> Directly disputed Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s statement that King Leopold surrendered with the least possible notice to the Allies. “. . . The Allies were informed and fully informed of his decision no fewer than three days before.”

> Cryptically suggested appeasement (when he returned to the U. S. he would “further present the reality of dealing with force as the only power”).

> Invited the British to relax their blockade, so that the U. S. could feed the population of German-occupied areas. “Their [the Belgians’] situation is very, very serious. . . . Present supplies, with severe rationing . . . will last until September 1, or at best early October. If you gentlemen think the Continent is a howling hell now, what do you think it will be this winter?”

Hell immediately popped around Mr. Cudahy. The British and U. S. press, the American Legion in the U. S., resented his comparison of U. S. and Nazi soldiers. Britons steamed at his remarks about the Belgian surrender. But what mostly got up Washington’s and London’s ire was John Cudahy’s implicit plea to Great Britain to weaken its blockade, to the U. S. to press the British to do so. Acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles had Washington correspondents in for a press conference, tucked in his chin, lit into his old friend John Cudahy in the strongest terms that diplomatic law allows:

“. . . No one will question the sincerity of the Ambassador’s sympathetic interest in the . . . Belgian people, an interest which is shared by the people of the United States. Nevertheless, the interview given was in violation of standing instructions of the Department of State . . . views expressed by the Ambassador are not . . . the views of this Government. . . . By direction of the President, Ambassador Cudahy has been requested to return . . . immediately for consultation.” Said John Cudahy, packing in London for a quick trip to Lisbon and thence to the U. S. by Clipper: “I know I am going home to be crucified, but the truth must be told.”

The Truth about Belgium, The Netherlands, Norway, occupied France was pretty much the hellish picture which John Cudahy painted. According to the U. S. Department of Agriculture, continental Europe has enough food to subsist through the winter. But the food is not where it is most needed, in war-riven Europe probably will not be evenly distributed. Result: actual or near starvation for millions. Said the British last week: “Belgium and the other occupied countries will have to make up their shortages from Germany. . . .” Said a German broadcaster: “Who in the world ever expected a victor to provide his enemies or former enemies with food? I ask you.”

Franklin Roosevelt almost certainly did not intend to ask the British to let the U. S. feed Hitler’s victims, unless U. S. public opinion forced such a step. Neither did the U. S. Red Cross, which up to last week had distributed about $8,000,000 to stricken Europe, hardly knew what to do with the balance of a $20,000,000 relief fund (except to continue helping Great Britain, perhaps send medical supplies, baby food, etc. to unoccupied France). And Washington had no doubts about what Britain would say, if she were asked to give up the blockade, her best weapon against the Nazis. Back from a secret mission to London on behalf of Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, Manhattan Lawyer William J. (“Wild Bill”) Donovan last week brought word that the British would seize and intern any U. S. ship which tried to pierce the blockade.

Great were the pressures upon the President, the State Department, Great Britain to put humanity first, the fate of the last great European democracy second. The American Friends [Quaker] Service Committee (Eleanor Roosevelt’s favorite charity), the Commission for Polish Relief, Inc., Herbert Hoover pleaded for humanity. Most influential of these voices belonged to Herbert Hoover, who during and after World War I distributed $5,234,028,208* worth of relief to Europe. Mr. Hoover announced that his European Food Distribution Commission had asked Great Britain and Germany to consent to U. S. aid. Said he: “There are 18,000,000 persons [in Belgium, The Netherlands, Poland, Norway] who are going to die unless food is gotten to them at once. There is no use mincing words.”

Agonizing, clear to the U. S. people was the dilemma. Relief to occupied Europe, even under the strict U. S. supervision which Herbert Hoover planned, would help to preserve Europe under Hitler and in effect subsidize his conquests. If Great Britain falls, the problem will only be compounded. Then Mr. Cudahy will not have to “present the reality of dealing with force as the only power.” The reality will be pictures of bloated babies, of hungry women, and of Adolf Hitler, expecting to fatten one way or another on the largess of the U. S. people.

* About $3,000,000,000 of this total was later blocked into the defaulted war debt.