Citizen Rauh: An American Liberal's Life in Law and Politics

6. New Dealer at War

chapter six NEW DEALER AT WAR Joe Rauh came in today in a uniform and looked as pleased as punch. —john mccloy to felix frankfurter Pearl Harbor On Sunday afternoon, December 7, 1941, Joe Rauh and Phil Graham stood on the corner of Virginia Avenue and Twenty-second Street waiting for a traf‹c light to change. Back in their Lend-Lease of‹ces, an un‹nished report to Congress awaited revisions. They had labored over the document with Oscar Cox all morning, but the conclusion seemed inescapable and grim. Since the passage of Lend-Lease in March, only a trickle of military equipment had reached England and the Soviet Union. The ammunition in Roosevelt’s “arsenal of democracy” remained sparse, and projections for future factory deliveries did not inspire more con‹dence. Neither man had much enthusiasm for ‹nishing the report, until Larry Fly’s car came roaring through the intersection with its radio blaring. Spotting Rauh and Graham, he slammed on the brakes, threw the car into reverse , and shouted to them: “The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor.” “Thank God!” Rauh yelled in a voice that could be heard above the whine of Fly’s engine. “Jesus, Joe, shut up!” Graham snapped. Even on the nearly deserted street, he feared the remark would be interpreted as enthusiasm for war at a time when Americans had surely died in Hawaii.1 As Fly sped off, Rauh and Graham, now revitalized to complete their report , raced back to Lend-Lease. The hard statistics that documented a lethargic past could not be altered, but after huddling with Cox, they rewrote 67 the introduction to suggest a future of boundless war production and inevitable victory. Before noon on December 7 their report told a tale of pessimism that suggested the United States could not move a sailboat into Thailand . By four in the afternoon, when the document went to the printer, Rauh and Graham had rhetorically painted the skies of the Paci‹c full of American aircraft. Rauh and Graham wanted to ‹ght Hitler with more than Lend-Lease documents, but when they attempted to enlist, their efforts generated only amusement from recruiting of‹cers in the air force, who pointed out that they were both too old, married with children, and plagued by poor eyesight. Rauh then appealed to Frankfurter to use his in›uence with Henry Stimson, Harry Hopkins, or even FDR to ‹nd him an active duty position in the real war. When Frankfurter failed to produce immediate results, Rauh’s impatience generated a caustic response from the justice, who told his former clerk, “Hold your horses . . . after all, your parents endowed you with sense in order that you may use it.” He would approach Hopkins, the justice said, but only at the right moment. “I understand your restlessness,” Frankfurter concluded. “Some of the rest of us are restless too because we spend a good deal of time on matters further removed from the war than is true of your work. So, I say, hold your horses.”2 Rauh returned the volley. After nine weeks of waiting, he did not need what he called an “outrageous” lecture on patience. Frankfurter had promised to see Hopkins immediately and now seemed prepared “to stall the whole matter further.” Rauh even threatened to take his case to Corcoran, saying, “I refuse to enter another period of agonizing pain watching others ‹ght the war for me.”3 Frankfurter returned Rauh’s letter with a blunt, handwritten note: “Dear Joe—I’m sure you will want to tear this up yourself & not have me do it. Ever yours, FF.”4 In early spring, however, armed with letters from Stimson and Frankfurter , Rauh ‹nally secured a commission on General Douglas MacArthur’s staff in Australia. “Joe Rauh came in today in a uniform and looked as pleased as punch,” McCloy reported to Frankfurter. “I am delighted that this worked out so well.”5 Before sailing for the South Paci‹c as a ‹rst lieutenant, however , he waged one ‹nal, unsuccessful battle at Lend-Lease and had his ‹rst encounter with J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Alleged to Be Af‹liated with Subversive Organizations” At a Lend-Lease staff meeting in early February 1942, Rauh learned that England had secured approval from the agency to reexport mining equip68 citizen rauh ment to Spain, where it would be used by the huge Rio...