ROOSEVELT’S ADMIRERS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 65, Issue 5527, 21 September 1942, Page 3

ROOSEVELT’S ADMIRERS

THE “INNER CABINET” ITINERANT ADVISERS AND SECOND TEAM (By Roscoe Drummond in the “Christian Science Monitor”) Who are the men most influential with President Roosevelt in the conduct of the war on both the military and domestic fronts? Washington correspondents are asked that question more frequently than any other, and it is useful to appraise events in the terms of those who make them. At the moment two national magazines are polling newspapermen to get a composite judgment of the key figures in the Government. ham not going to offer merely a personal opinion. The following list represents ?tlie consensus of half a dozen colleagues who have known the Government and its changing personalities intimately for a number of years. It also corresponds with ‘.he judgment of one high official who nimself is in his “inner cabinet.” As ;f today, then, we offer: MR HOPKINS PRE-EMINENT The ’varsity team—Harry L. Hopkins undoubtedly ranks second only to the President himself in influencing the civilian and political and strategic course of the war. He is Mr Roose\elt’s personal chief of staff, an lowa harness-maker’s son and former social service worker in New York, who, as the President’s alter ego, is an intimat of prime ministers, generals, commissars and kings. Mr Hopkins lives at the White House, eats at the White House, and works at the White House. He and Mr Roosevelt occupy adjoining rooms and spend many evenings and odd hours in consultation on virtually every major problem on which the President muit make a decision. In the conduct of the war Mr Hopkins has adjourned social reform thinking more decisively than any other high New Dealer, in the judgment of some of his closest non-New Deal associates. Mr Hopkins takes no “soft” attitude toward the war nor toward the sacrifices which every group of Americans must make in order to win the war. This viewpoint was gratifyingly apparent to his colleagues when Mr Hopkins served on the pre-W.P.B. Supply Priorities and Allocation Board and has been evident in his few conversations with correspondents. Rear-Admiral William D. Leahy, former Chief of Naval Operations, lately Ambassador to France, has now been elevated to the unprecedented post of Chief of Staff to the Com-mander-in-Chief, for which the President said he wanted a man in whom he has great confidence. Admiral Leahy, immediately an important figure, may become the most influential military man in the Government. General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, and his immediate aide, Lieutenant-General Henry H. Arnold, Chief of the Air Forces, and Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander-in-Chief of the United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, pretty -much run the armed services, subordinate only to the President. Donald M. Nelson, Director of War Production, who swam steadily to the top on wave after wave of 0.P.M., 5.P.A.8., and W.P.B. reorganisations, continues to grow in standing with the White House. Harry Hopkins has continuously supported him and he has the confidence of industrialists and New Dealers alike. His job is production and nothing else. The President leaves him alone, and Mr Nelson mixes into neither policy nor strategy outside his field. Embraced in this “inner cabinet” category but by no means decisively influential in the war are secretaries Henry L. Stimson and Frank Knox. Mr Stimson is shrewd, balanced, more experienced in his job than most civilians, and his judgment is often asked by Mr Roosevelt. Colonel Knox is a diligent, hard-working executive who has speeded the upbuilding of the Navy and its morale, but neither he nor Mr Stimson really run their departments. General Marshall and Admiral King are the Army and the Navy to-day without much interference by the civilian heads. They advise the President directly, not through the secretaries. THE VICE-PRESIDENT Outside of military matters, VicePresident Henry A. Wallace might well be considered the second most important adviser to the White House —second to Harry Hopkins. Mr Wallace eschews war strategy, although he is well informed. He is primarily engaged in post-war plans, sees eye to eye with Mr Roosevelt on the pattern of things to come, and is concerned with seeing that they do come. Secretary of State Cordell Hull remains a valued and valuable colleague, influential with the country and therefore influential with the President. Under-Secretary Sumner Welles a skilled diplomat of acute and perceptive judgment, is of great service to the President. There is no more inj formed official in the Government in the whole broad diplomatic-military world landscape. Itinerant advisers—no list of men round the President can overlook his two London representatives, Ambas-

sador John G. Winant and lend-lease expediter Averell Harriman, who rank high in Mr Roosevelt’s esteem, and who are likely to become more influential rather than less. Second team though not at the pinnacle, this second coterie of advisers comprises officials who help shape vital decisions. Its personnel will fluctuate from time to time. At the moment the “second team” would include at the very minimum Judge Samuel I. Rosenman, of New York, the last remaining member of the original Roosevelt “Brain Trust,” an administrative reorganiser and architect of many presidential executive orders: Leon Henderson, Price Administrator; Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter, confidant of the President; Archibald MacLeish, scholarly idea man and practical poet; Harold D. Smith, Director of the Budget, but more accurately the business manager of the Government, and Bernard M. Baruch, adviser to President Wilson in the first World War. the final analysis, let there be no mistake about it, Franklin D. Roosevelt is the most influential man with the President; he is his own closest adviser.