Book Review: United States, Cordell Hull
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206502000219 |
| Author | F. H. Soward |
| Published date | 01 June 1965 |
| Date | 01 June 1965 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
262
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
CORDELL
HULL.
The
American
Secretaries
of
State
and
Their
Diplomacy,
Vols.
XII
and
XIII.
By
Julius
Pratt.
1964.
(New
York:
Cooper
Square.
xvi,
840pp.
$15.00
2
Vols.)
With
the
publication
of
these
volumes
and
of
their
predecessors
on
Secretaries
Kellogg
and
Stimson,
the
programme
of
bringing
for-
ward
from
1925
the
analysis
of
the
record
of
every
Secretary
of
State
since
John
Jay
is
in
full
swing.
The
editor
of
the
new series,
Pro-
fessor
Ferrell,
was
well
advised to
recruit for
the
survey
of Cordell
Hull's
service
a
diplomatic
historian
as
experienced
and
skilful
as
Pro-
fessor
Pratt.
He
has
produced
a
clear,
careful and
fair-minded
ap-
praisal
of
Hull's
achievements
which will
make
this
biography an
indispensable reference
for
any
study
of
American
diplomacy
in
the
period
1933-1944.
I was
filled
with
admiration
for
the
skill with
which
the
author
analyzed
the
multifarious
problems
of
foreign
policy
that
arose
during
this
period.
Judge
Hull,
as
he
was
often
called,
holds
the
record
for
length
of
service
as Secretary
of
State.
His
own
memoirs
which
ran
to
some
1,700
pages
were
a
valuable assembly
of
semi-finished
material
that
taxed
the
patience
and
endurance
of
any
reader. Naturally
they
were
basic
to
this
biography, but
they have
been
supplemented
by
Hull's per-
sonal papers,
Franklin
Roosevelt's,
and
those
of
many
members
of
the
Foreign
Service.
On
the
whole
they
do
not
add
much
that
is
new
or
startling
but
give
much
more depth
to
the
study
of
a
dedicated
public
servant,
a
tireless
worker
who
wore
himself out
in
the
service
of
his
country,
an
idealist but
cautious
to
the
point
of
exasperation
for
many
of his
colleagues.
In
later
years
Hull
became
more and more
touchy
about
his
powers
as
Secretary
of
State.
This
is
not
surprising
in
view
of
the
difficulties
created
for
him
by
his
mercurial
chief,
by
Sumner
Welles
who
had
an
"in"
with
the
president
that
Hull
never
equalled,
and
by
Henry
Morgenthau,
Secretary
of
the
Treasury, another
Roosevelt
crony,
who
had
as
Hull
complained
"a
persistent
inclination to
try
to
function
as
a
second
Secretary
of
State".
As
Pratt
puts
it
tactfully
in
describing
Hull's
complaints, "Hull lacked
the
Lincolnesque
capacity
for
overlooking
injuries."
The
record
shows
Hull
at
his
best
in
handling Latin
American
af-
fairs
in
the
'thirties,
although
he
never
got along with
the
Mexicans
and
accused
the
American
Ambassador
(Daniels)
of
taking
side
with
them
leaving
him
"to
deal
with
those
Communists
down
there
and
...
carry
out
international
law."
His
successful
advocacy
of
Reciprocal
Trade
Agreements
against
considerable
domestic opposition
was
con-
sistent
with
his lifelong
belief
in
low
tariffs.
A
true
Wilsonian
he
worked
hard
to
secure
the Charter
of
the
United
Nations and
earned
F.D.R's
tribute
on
his
retirement
that
he
was
"the
father
of
the
United
Nations."
It
is
not
surprising
that
he
found
the
prolonged
nego-
tiations
with
the
Japanese
a
severe
trial.
For
months
he
managed
"to
keep
them
guessing"
but,
by
November
1941,
his
patience
was
exhausted.
As
he
told
Stimson,
Hull
decided
"to
kick
this
whole
thing
over"
by
a
brusque
shift
of
policy.
It
was
unlikely
that
war
could
have
been
averted
in
any
event,
but
Pratt
candidly
brands
his
action
as
"a
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