"A Fireside Chat by Jack Nimersheim" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nimersheim Jack)

"A German, eh? No, I must admit, I was not. Well, now that the legendary Aryan intellect has determined the cause, do you think you could convince a couple of your countrymen to drop whatever projects they're currently working on and begin searching for a cure?"

"I can state categorically, Herr Roosevelt, that _all_ scientific research taking place within my country is directed toward the betterment of mankind," Hitler asserted -- perhaps a little too categorically.

Whatever weariness Roosevelt had detected earlier in his guest vanished as quickly as it had surfaced. Whatever affinity had passed momentarily between the two men dissipated, or was being consciously repressed, in response to Roosevelt's innocent remark. (Why should the German leader be so defensive on this topic, Roosevelt wondered. He made a mental note to have the appropriate departments investigate the current activities of Germany's scientific community upon his return to Washington. Somehow, he sensed this knowledge would prove invaluable in the years ahead.) Hitler's next pronouncement, though delivered with nowhere near the fervor of his previous response, was no less resolute.

"Did you know, Herr Roosevelt, that you and I are very much alike?"

The quiet confidence with which Hitler posed this question surprised the American President. According to all the information he'd been given -- and the amount of this information, gathered in preparation for their current meeting, was prodigious, indeed -- he and Hitler did not at all resemble one another. They were, if anything, polar opposites. Order and chaos. Light and dark. Day and night. Hot and cold. Kind and cruel. Any contradictory image one could conjure up, he had once been told, could be applied to these two leaders. And yet, the German Chancellor had expressed his opinion with such conviction that Roosevelt felt compelled to explore the rationale behind it.

"What do you mean, Chancellor?"

Hitler leaned slightly forward and stared directly at his American host. The reflection of the fire off the little man's dark eyes only added to the intensity of his gaze.

"I have spent several months studying you. Don't look so surprised, Herr Roosevelt. My staff briefed me extensively on your personal background, just as I'm certain your own advisors provided you with no small amount of information about me, prior to our meeting. You would have been foolish to come to Geneva lacking such knowledge, as would I. Let us openly concede, therefore, that neither of us is a fool."

This time it was Roosevelt who nodded. For in spite of all the negative attributes enumerated in all the various reports he'd received on Hitler, no one dared to characterize the German Chancellor as a fool. A fanatic? Definitely. A racist? Yes. Possibly even a madman. But a fool? Never. For beyond his fanaticism, beneath his racist rhetoric, below whatever madness might motivate Hitler, there existed a cool and calculating opportunist -- one who had expertly exploited the social upheaval and political unrest that permeated post-war Germany to his own advantage. Hitler may have been many things, many of them deplorable, but he was no fool.

"In the course of reviewing your life, I discovered some very interesting facts about you. I was previously unaware, for example, that several members of an anarchist organization in your country once attempted to assassinate you. That was in 1919, if I remember correctly, while you were still an Assistant Secretary to the Navy."

"You are only partially correct, Chancellor." Roosevelt said, recalling the incident. "For while it's true that my home suffered extensive damage in the bombings to which you refer, no clear determination was ever made as to whether I or Mitchell Palmer, the Attorney General at the time, was the intended victim."

"A glorified lawyer? Hah! The men who planted those bombs would not waste their time on such an inconsequential bureaucrat. An overly intrusive legal system, after all, only increases the social chaos anarchists embrace as their political goal. But a military leader responsible for several major reforms in American naval policy? That type of man, a man dedicated to order and efficiency, would certainly warrant the attention of such zealots. Make no mistake about it, Herr Roosevelt, you were the true target of that night's violence."

The logic was hardly irrefutable. Still, Roosevelt once again nodded in agreement. At this late date, Hitler's hypothesis could neither be proved nor disproved. The point seemed too minor to warrant any other response.

"Were you aware that similarly misguided individuals in my country have made similar attempts on my life? They, too, were anarchists. They, too, had ties to Russia, as did the people responsible for the attempt on your life. It seems as though we both have, how shall I put it, attracted the attention of that country's new Bolshevik regime. And the Great Bear, it further appears, would feel much more comfortable, were he not forced to share his forest with visionaries such as you and I."

"You do me a great honor, Chancellor. But I don't see myself as a visionary. I'm merely a man who was chosen by his fellow countrymen to reflect _their_ vision of what America represents."

"Oh, come, now, Herr Roosevelt. Your modesty may be endearing, but in this instance it is misguided. All great leaders -- and I include the two of us in this category, another trait we share with one another -- are visionaries. Admitting this openly allows us to cast off the unnecessary encumbrances associated with maintaining a facade of false humility and advance our visions quickly and efficiently."

Was Hitler a "visionary" and a "great leader?" Question of this nature had been posed many times by many experts and analysts, both in and out of government. Given the ambiguous and subjective nature of those attributes, however, no one seemed willing to commit themselves to a definitive answer. Everyone did agree, however, that the Aryan leader was efficient. His meteoric rise to the top of the German power structure bore witness to this fact.





Since becoming President, Roosevelt had been kept constantly apprised of Hitler's political ascendancy. During this same period, he'd also attempted to identify and understand the man's personal demons. Hitler's own writings, most notably _Mein Kampf_, revealed much about this ambitious little man who believed that the same hands that once held a painter's palette now held forth the promise of Aryan ascendancy.

_"The nationalization of the broad masses can never be achieved by half-measures, by weakly emphasizing a so-called objective standpoint, but only by a ruthless and fanatically one-sided orientation toward the goal to be achieved."_

_"Existence compels the Jew to lie, and to lie perpetually, just as it compels the inhabitants of the northern countries to wear warm clothing."_

_"The aim of a German foreign policy today must be the preparation for the reconquest of freedom for tomorrow."_

Roosevelt vividly recalled these and a dozen other chilling passages from Hitler's crude but forceful autobiography, which the Chancellor had dictated over a five-month period following the successful 1922 Burgerbrau Putch. And they were merely words he'd read in a book. The people paid to know such things had informed him that Hitler's skills as an orator were, if anything, even more compelling. "Hypnotic," was an adjective that appeared in briefing after briefing, as did "coercive," "commanding," "aggressive," and "persuasive."

_"It's clear,"_ one of the earliest intelligence reports to cross Roosevelt's desk had posited, _"that a fusion of Hitler's blistering philosophies, his penchant for inflammatory rhetoric, and the political instability currently spreading like wildfire throughout Europe only serves to exacerbate an already explosive situation."_