Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage (review)

Well known to students of intelligence from his 1979 book Piercing the Reich (on Office of Strategic Services [OSS] networks within Germany), Persico has here widened his scope. Fascinated by Roosevelt's personality and by espionage, he has brought them together, with vignettes of many situations in which the president had access to secret information. Roosevelt "took almost childish delight in subterfuge. . . [he] loved being told secrets and retailing gossip" (p. xii). He received reports from many sources, especially from Arlington Hall, which deciphered Japanese codes (MAGIC), but he preferred the more imaginative reports he received from William (Wild Bill) Donovan, head of the Office of War Information [OWI] and its successor, OSS. Over the years he defended Donovan from his many attackers, even after the Vessel fiasco (false reports from the Vatican), but never brought him into his inner circle of decision makers (p. 329). Persico considers FDR's support of OSS, which paved the way to the CIA, as one of the president's greatest accomplishments—"FDR built espionage into the structure of American government when he created OSS" (p. 450).

Persico is at home in the archives, especially those at Hyde Park, used effectively in a number of passages, e.g., Admiral Oshima's deciphered reports from Germany, messages from FDR's little-known personal spymasters, Vincent Astor, John Franklin Carter, and the flamboyant George Earle. He is equally cognizant of the relevant literature, and he documents his observations with ample references to specialized studies. This is beneficial for professional historians, as Persico's analyses provide in part an overview of published materials such as, for example, those on Pearl Harbor. Incidentally, Persico shares the conclusion of reputable historians that FDR had no prior knowledge of the Japanese attack.

Persico covers almost everything that could relate to "secret war"—Soviet espionage, code-breaking, William Stephenson ("Intrepid"—British Security Coordination), the major conferences, the Manhattan Project, the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover, Lauchlin Currie's questionable contacts, insights into FDR's personality from the diaries of friend Margaret Suckley, activities of Elizabeth Bentley (one-time courier for the U.S.S.R.), counter-espionage, the Hiss case, Allen Dulles at Bern and the reports of Fritz Kolbe (of the German Foreign Office), sabotage, concentration camps, neutrality—to identify but a few. Yet there could have been more—for example, Admiral Leahy at Vichy, with direct access to the president, overseeing the espionage of Thomas Cassady. On the other hand, Persico includes items that some readers might consider marginal, like Carter's effort to make use of Putzi Hanfstaengl or the Duke of Windsor's views on the war.

Persico writes in an engaging style, his narrative enlivened with anecdotes and with provocative comments on FDR's enigmatic personality. While much of the material in this very readable book has been treated elsewhere in more detail, Roosevelt's Secret War possesses the unique virtue of bringing many tales of espionage together, and of relating them to the president—himself more indecipherable than all the coded messages of the war. Sometimes FDR acted on reports he received, but only too frequently, holding his cards close to his vest, he leaves historians mystified about his reactions.