FDR's ambassadors and the diplomacy of crisis : from the rise of Hitler to the end of World War II / David Mayers.

"What effect did personality and circumstance have on US foreign policy during World War II? This incisive account of US envoys residing in the major belligerent countries - Japan, Germany, Italy, China, France, Great Britain, USSR - highlights the fascinating role played by such diplomats as Joseph Grew, William Dodd, William Bullitt, Joseph Kennedy and W. Averell Harriman. Between Hitler's 1933 ascent to power and the 1945 bombing of Nagasaki, US ambassadors sculpted formal policy - occasionally deliberately, other times inadvertently - giving shape and meaning not always intended by Franklin D. Roosevelt or predicted by his principal advisors. From appeasement to the Holocaust and the onset of the Cold War, David Mayers examines the complicated interaction between policy, as conceived in Washington, and implementation on the ground in Europe and Asia. By so doing, he also sheds needed light on the fragility, ambiguities and enduring urgency of diplomacy and its crucial function in international politics"-- Provided by publisher

Print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

List of Illustrations; Acknowledgements; Selected United States Chiefs of Mission, 1933-1945; Japan; Germany; Italy; China; France; United Kingdom; Soviet Union; Introduction; Part I Axis; 1 Rising Sun; Grew and Embassy Tokyo; Peace quest; 2 Third Reich; Professor as diplomat; Among Nazis; Before Kristallnacht; After Kristallnacht; 3 New Roman Empire; Mission to Mussolini; After Abyssinia; Phillips in Rome; Axis relations; Wartime Rome; Part II Victims; 4 Middle Kingdom; Sino-Japanese War; Muddling along; Hurley and failure; 5 France Agonistes; Defeat; Bullitt and the French.

Bullitt-FDR RelationsVichy; After TORCH; Caffery and de Gaulle; Part III Victors; 6 Britannia; Appeasement; War; Alliance; European Advisory Commission; 7 Great Patriotic War; Nonaggression Pact to BARBAROSSA; Fragile alliance; Harriman; Embassy; Limited cooperation; Poland; Uncertain victory; 8 Conclusions: US Diplomacy and War; Ambassadors; Legacy of war; Notes; Introduction; Chapter 1: Rising Sun; Chapter 2: Third Reich; Chapter 3: New Roman Empire; Chapter 4: Middle Kingdom; Chapter 5: France Agonistes; Chapter 6: Britannia; Chapter 7: Great Patriotic War; Chapter 8: Conclusions.

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