Regardless, Watson went full speed ahead with plans for the 1939 International Chamber of Commerce Congress. Originally scheduled for Tokyo, Watson had relocated the conference to Copenhagen after a troubled Japan withdrew. In Copenhagen, Watson planned to make his most strenuous appeal yet for raw materials to be handed over to Germany. As usual, Watson sought political cover for his activities. He wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 9, 1939, for the usual open letter of support. This time, Watson was more careful. “We should like very much to have a message from you to be read at our opening session on June 26… [as] in our last Congress in Berlin in 1937, and if it’s still consistent with your policy.”24
The world had changed dramatically since 1937. Germany was a prominent participant of the Watson-dominated ICC Congress. Diplomatic relations with the Reich had been sorely strained since Kristallnacht and the various invasions. War was around the corner. Washington did not want to act as though it was business as usual for Nazi Germany in international par-leys. Unsure White House staffers shunted the letter to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, asking him to prepare Roosevelt’s comment “if you approve the sending of such a message.”25
In Copenhagen, at the ICC Congress, Watson’s pro-Axis proposal exceeded anything the State Department could have expected. He championed a resolution whereby private businessmen from the three Axis and three Allied nations would actually supercede their governments and negotiate a radical new international trade policy designed to satisfy Axis demands for raw materials coveted from other nations. The businessmen would then lobby their respective governments’ official economic advisors to adopt their appeasement proposals for the sake of averting war. Ironically, the raw materials were needed by Axis powers solely for the sake of waging war.26
On June 28, under Watson’s leadership, the ICC passed a resolution again calling for “a fair distribution of raw materials, food stuffs and other products… [to] render unnecessary the movements of armies across frontiers.” To this end, the ICC asked “the governments of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States… each collaborate with their own leading businessmen… with respect to national needs… [and therefore] give all countries of the world a fair opportunity to share in the resources of the world.”27
Even as Watson angled for Germany to be ceded more raw materials, Germany was openly raping invaded territories. Just days before, on June 2, the New York Times carried a prominent story headlined “Terrors of Nazis Related by Benes,” based on an international radio broadcast pleading for anti-Nazi resistance. In the article, purged Czechoslovakian President Eduard Benes detailed the Reich’s methodical theft of Czech resources since the March 15, 1939, invasion. “Dr. Benes told of a nation of 10 million persons,” the New York Times related, “until a few months ago proud and free, being systematically enslaved, degraded and robbed of its material and cultural possessions.” The article indicated that Germany “has robbed and transported to Germany more than 35 billion crowns… [$1.22 billion] of Czecho-Slovak property.”28
Benes declared, “You all must have heard how the German dictatorship is devastating the beauty that was Czecho-Slovakia, how splendid forests are being destroyed and the lumber carted away to Germany, how public buildings… are being divested of their window frames, of their glass windows, of all materials… all supplies have been taken and transported to Germany…. Factories are being ruined and industry crippled as machinery is carried away for war purposes.”29
He added, “Czech families spend nights in the woods, not daring to sleep in their own beds for fear of Nazi pogroms. And German peasants, excited by the Nazis who have come from Germany for that purpose, bran-dish scythes and cry, ‘The bloody night is coming.’”30
No wonder the German delegate to the ICC enthusiastically lauded Watson’s proposal, which only sought to legitimize by private consultation what the Third Reich was undertaking by force. In his final speech of the Congress, Watson himself summed up the misery and devastation in the world as a mere “difference of opinion.” His solution of businessmen conferring to divvy up other nations’ resources to avoid further aggression was offered with these words: “We regret that there are unsatisfactory economic and political conditions in the world today, with a great difference of opinion existing among many countries. But differences of opinion, freely discussed and fairly disposed of, result in mutual benefit and increased happiness to all concerned.”31
But so enthusiastic was Watson that he quickly wrote to President Roosevelt, attaching transcripts from the conference and explaining that the concept of a private survey by businessmen to resolve and rewrite trade barriers was his invention. “You will note that this resolution does not suggest a political conference,” Watson pointed out to the President, stressing the non-governmental procedure. But, he added, once the private recommendations were tendered, the six nations might then call for an international meeting to ratify the suggestions. Watson concluded his letter indicating that he had a “great deal of background” on the topic “which I prefer to present to you in person.” He added a tantalizing triviality: “I also have a very interesting personal message to deliver to you from [the Danish monarch] His Majesty, King Christian X.”32
Watson’s embarrassing correspondence asking to brief Roosevelt began bouncing around the State Department, Division of European Affairs, Advisor on Political Relations, Division of Trade Agreements, Department of Protocol, Division of International Conferences, Office of the Advisor on International Economic Affairs, and Cordell Hull personally. One protocol chief wrote, “it is not a matter for us… Mr. Watson being an American, we would have nothing to do with making an appointment for him to see the President.” Another offered a hairsplitting technicality: Watson was the outgoing president of the ICC. His July 5 letter to Roosevelt was written a few days after being succeeded at the ICC. Therefore, “It does not appear that it is necessary to comment… inasmuch as Mr. Watson is no longer President of the International Chamber and the resolution does not come to us officially from that body.”33
Finally, an innocuous three-sentence say-nothing reply was cobbled together for the President’s review after being initialed by no fewer than ten Department officials. It read: “My Dear Mr. Watson: I have received and read with interest your letter of July 5, 1939, in regard to the meeting of the Tenth Congress of the International Chamber of Commerce. I note that you desire to discuss some of the background of this meeting with me in person and to deliver to me a personal message from His Majesty King Christian X. I shall look forward to seeing you after you return to this country.”34
In explaining so unresponsive a reply to Watson’s elaborate letter, a key State Department official, John Hickerson, caustically wrote, “It seems to me that the attached draft letter for the President to Mr. Watson says about as much as the President could appropriately say. I do not see how the President could well comment on the resolution discussed in this letter re commending that the Governments of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States appoint economic representatives of their respective governments to work with businessmen in regard to ‘their own needs and what they are able to contribute to the needs of other countries.’”35
Watson sent Hull a letter almost identical to the one he sent to Roosevelt. The same State Department group that formulated Roosevelt’s response proffered a similar reply for the Secretary of State, amounting to little more than a simple and non-committal thanks to Watson for “your letter regarding the activities of the Congress.”36