Stimson, Henry L.

Henry L. Stimson

Born September 21, 1867

New York, New York

Died October 20, 1950

Huntington, New York

Secretary of war, diplomat

Henry L. Stimson became one of the most respected U.S. leaders during World War II (1939–45). Many considered Stimson the chief architect for Allied victory in the war by organizing the U.S. war effort, including home front mobilization. Stimson also played a major role in preparing Americans on the home front for future sacrifices. As a result, the United States had the best-equipped army in the world. Stimson was outspoken in taking a strong stand against German military expansion in Europe. He was one of the most influential policy makers of the twentieth century as the United States emerged as a great military and economic world leader. However, his inspired foreign policy was tempered by a strong racial bias. This bias was reflected by his resistance to racially integrate the armed forces during the war and to insist on the internment of Japanese Americans in the western United States.

A privileged childhood

Henry Lewis Stimson was born on September 21, 1867, in New York City, only two years after the end of the American Civil War (1861–65). His father was Lewis Atterbury Stimson, a Wall Street stockbroker. His mother was Candace Wheeler. In 1871 Lewis left the New York Stock Exchange and took the family to Europe, where he studied medicine for the next three years. Upon his completion, they returned to the United States but Henry's mother soon died. As a result, Henry was raised by his grandparents. He received an excellent education. At age thirteen Henry entered the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and from there attended Yale University. He graduated in 1888 and entered Harvard Law School, graduating in 1890 with a master's degree.

Henry Stimson returned to New York City, where he was admitted to the New York bar in 1891 and became a Wall Street lawyer. He joined the law firm of Root and Clark. Elihu Root (1845–1937), a major influence on Stimson, would become secretary of war and secretary of state between 1897 and 1909. Two years after joining the firm in 1893, Stimson married Mabel White, a girlfriend from Yale. They would have no children in their fifty-seven years of marriage.

A life of public service

While pursuing his law practice, Stimson became active in Republican politics. In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919; served 1901–09) appointed Stimson U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York. Serving for three years, Stimson pursued historic antitrust cases and became a supporter of progressive politics. Those who supported progressivism believed it was proper to use governmental powers to solve national economic and social issues. Rising quickly in politics, Stimson was selected the Republican candidate for governor of New York in 1910. However, he did not prove to be an effective campaigner. Stimson had a conservative and cold personality, and he did not relate well to voters. He could be harsh and abrupt with his peers. He lost badly in this, his only political campaign.

In 1911 President William Howard Taft (1857–1930; served 1909–13) appointed Stimson secretary of war. Stimson would serve five presidents in various capacities from 1911 to 1945. While secretary of war, he modernized the military organization, a move that would greatly help mobilization in World War I (1914–18) and World War II. With the entrance of Democrat Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; served 1913–21) into the White House in 1913, Stimson returned to his private law practice. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Stimson, at forty-nine years of age, volunteered for military service. He became an army artillery officer who saw active duty in France. Stimson attained the rank of colonel before the war's end. He once again returned to his law practice as a corporate lawyer on Wall Street. Stimson benefited from the economic boom times of the 1920s, making a substantial income.

However, public service soon came calling again. In 1927 President Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933; served 1923–29) selected Stimson for a diplomatic mission to Nicaragua to resolve a civil war. He was able to help the two sides reach a settlement though fighting lingered for a few more years. Seen as a great success, Stimson was named governor general of the Philippines in 1928. Dedicated to the economic development of the islands, he became a very popular governor for the one year he was there. In 1929 President Herbert Hoover (1874–1964; served 1929–33) appointed Stimson as secretary of state.

Secretary of war, again

When Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945; served 1933–45; see entry) took over the White House in 1933, Stimson once again returned to his law practice. From the beginning in the late 1930s, Stimson was one of the few higher U.S. statesmen who called for opposition to German expansion in Europe and for a strengthened U.S. military. Others, particularly fellow Republicans, took positions of isolationism (avoiding foreign commitments or involvement). He was a leading member of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. Roosevelt agreed with Stimson's views and in 1940 appointed the Republican Stimson secretary of war once again. Roosevelt also appointed Republican Frank Knox (1874–1944) secretary of the navy. The president was trying to build bipartisan (from both major political parties) support for the upcoming war effort. Stimson accepted with two conditions: he would not be expected to participate in home front politics and he could select his own assistants.

Stimson began work in his new position on July 10, 1940. His first action as war secretary was to seek establishment of a selective service system, the first peacetime draft (mandatory enrollment in the armed services) in U.S. history. Stimson supported Roosevelt in aiding foreign countries, first with the Destroyers for Bases program announced in September 1940 and then the Lend-Lease program that Roosevelt first announced in his December 29, 1940, "Arsenal of Democracy" speech. (Under the Lend-Lease program, Allied nations, who were quickly running out of money, could purchase military goods from the United States on credit instead of paying by cash, as they had been up until that time.) Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941. When German forces invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Stimson pressed Roosevelt to begin shipping aid to Britain. Stimson wanted Roosevelt to go to the public and prepare them for war. Roosevelt would sign the selective service bill on September 16, 1940. As a result, the army expanded to 1.4 million servicemen. Stimson also pressed Congress hard for providing businesses financial incentives to mobilize. Being a well-known Republican favoring Roosevelt's desire to send military aid to Britain and to institute a military draft, Stimson helped the Democratic president's cause for selling Congress and the public on the need to prepare for war.

To conduct the war effort, Stimson assembled a top team of experts to get U.S. industrial mobilization underway on the home front. His team included Robert Patterson (1891–1952), John J. McCloy (1895–1989), Robert A. Lovett (1895–1986), and Harvey Bundy (1888–1963). Patterson was assistant secretary in charge of army procurement of supplies. McCloy assisted in general, tackling various problems as they appeared. Lovett oversaw the air force, from home front production of warplanes to their use in combat. Bundy worked as liaison with various congressional committees and served as personal advisor to Stimson. Despite his cool mannerisms in public, Stimson was noted for his integrity and inspired loyalty and even affection from those who knew him well.

War begins

When war did break out for the United States with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, Stimson was seventy-four years of age. Pearl Harbor caught him by surprise. He knew from intelligence reports that a Japanese attack on U.S. interests was imminent, but he believed it would occur in the west Pacific, such as the Philippine Islands. He underestimated Japan's capabilities and vowed not to underestimate the Japanese again.

As a result, Stimson pushed for the internment of all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast of the United States. He received presidential approval on February 19, 1942, to evacuate 112,000 Japanese Americans to hastily constructed relocation camps in remote desert areas further inland. He steadfastly held to the belief that they posed a danger to the American home front, even though no Japanese American was ever charged with a war crime. He also believed racial integration of the military would be too disruptive during the time of war. So he decided racially segregated units would be used, with blacks serving only under white officers.

Robert Patterson

As the newly appointed secretary of war, Henry L. Stimson began war mobilization of U.S. industry in 1940. He selected Robert Patterson (1891–1952) as a top assistant. Patterson resigned a federal judge position to become assistant secretary of war. He and Stimson knew each other well. Both were Harvard graduates and Republicans. They also both served in World War I in the same army division in France. During the 1930s they formed an even closer friendship while opposing isolationism in America.

Born in Glens Falls, New York, Patterson followed his father's footsteps into the legal profession by studying law at Harvard. Following graduation, he joined a prestigious law firm headed by Elihu Root (1845–1937), who had been secretary of war and secretary of state between 1897 and 1909. Influenced by Root, Patterson was a strong supporter for national defense. Following World War I, Patterson established a successful New York law firm and did financially well through the economic boom years of the 1920s. In 1930 President Herbert Hoover (1874–1964; served 1929–33) appointed Patterson as a judge to the U.S. District Court of Southern New York. In 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945; served 1933–45) appointed Patterson to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

During World War II, Patterson rose to be undersecretary of war. From that position he oversaw the army's multibillion-dollar purchasing program, a highly important position throughout mobilization. Patterson believed military contracts should largely go to major corporations who were already prepared to launch into mass production of war materials. As a result, Patterson forged a strong relationship between the military and big business that persisted into the twenty-first century and greatly influenced American foreign policy. Like Stimson, he staunchly opposed racial segregation in the military services. Following the war, Patterson successfully pushed for all military services to be combined into one department, the newly formed Department of Defense, in 1947. That same year, Patterson resigned from public service and returned to a private law practice. Only five years later, in 1952, he was killed in a commercial airliner crash.

During the war, Stimson wanted tight security on war operations and viewed civilians (those not in the military) in government with suspicion. He was often impolite to the press and particularly to Elmer Davis (1890–1958; see entry), head of the government's Office of War Information (OWI). The OWI was in charge of disseminating information about the war to the American public. Stimson saw little value in informing the public on the home front. Stimson and Davis persisted in strong contention, with Stimson holding the upper hand. Even the facts concerning the results of the Pearl Harbor attack were not disclosed for a year. Roosevelt, however, would routinely back up Stimson when conflicts with others were raised to the president.

While his top-notch aides carried out mobilization efforts, Stimson took the lead in the Manhattan Project, the top secret project to build the atomic bomb. It was so secret, Stimson was the person to inform Harry S. Truman (1884–1972; served 1945–53) of it when Truman became president in 1945 following the sudden death of Franklin Roosevelt. Stimson played a major role in the decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japanese cities in August 1945, ending the war.

Once the war was over, Stimson resigned from his post and retired on his seventy-eighth birthday on September 21, 1945, immediately after the Japanese surrender. Truman awarded Stimson the Distinguished Service Medal that day. He returned to his estate on Long Island, where he lived for the last five years of his life. Stimson died on October 20, 1950, in Huntington, New York.

For More Information

Books

Hodgson, Godfrey. The Colonel: The Life and Wars of Henry Stimson, 1867–1950. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.

Morison, Elting E. Turmoil and Tradition: A Study of the Life and Times of Henry Stimson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960.

Schmitz, David F. Henry L. Stimson: The First Wise Man. Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 2001.

Stimson, Henry, and McGeorge Bundy. On Active Service in Peace and War. New York: Harper, 1948.

Web sites

The Henry L. Stimson Center. http://www.stimson.org (accessed on July 26, 2004).