These days Cuban television is showing "The Untold History of the United States" a 10 chapter series made by American filmmaker Oliver Stone. The chapter entitled "Roosevelt, Wallace, and Truman” reminded me of the book "Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom" by Pulitzer Prize Winner, James MacGregor Burns who also received the National Book Award for History and Biography in 1971. The work of Burns is based on the testimonial book "As He Saw It," by Elliott Roosevelt, third son of the 32nd US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and his wife Eleanor.

Stone’s excellent documentary invites viewers to lament the tragedy for humanity that the death of President Roosevelt, on 12 April 1945 represented, and his replacement by the mediocre Harry Truman instead of by the popular and logical successor, Henry Wallace.

Obviously, Elliot´s testimony constitutes an idyllic interpretation –favorable to Franklin D. Roosevelt– of the U.S. president´s disagreements with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. These were in fact a reflection of the contradictions between the decadent British Empire and the ascending imperialism of the United States.

Elliot wrote that his father had told him: "When you extract riches from colonized countries without giving them things like education, decent standards of living and minimal health requirements, all you do is store up problems that would lead to war."

About the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Roosevelt told Elliot: "I talked about another kind of war. I talked about what will happen in our world if after this war we allow millions of people to return to semi-slavery! Americans would not be dying in the Pacific, had it not been for the myopia and voracity of the French, the British and the Dutch. Shall we let them get away with it again? " On January 5, 1941, according to the afore-mentioned book, Roosevelt presented to Congress an economic bill of rights based on the following principles: Equal opportunities for young people and other citizens; jobs for those who could perform them; security for those who needed it; and end of special privileges for the few; preservation of civil liberties for all; and a permanent increase of living standards with the widest enjoyment of the fruit of scientific progress.

According to the author, the first serious differences between Churchill and Roosevelt, took place in August 1941, at the meeting they held in Argentia, Newfoundland, before the US entered the war.

There were heated discussions, at Roosevelt´s insistence, on ensuring that after the conflict they would reinstate the sovereignty of the nations under the control of the colonial empires, while Churchill insisted on maintaining the oppressive colonial system.

Churchill was literally forced by Roosevelt to sign the Atlantic Charter, which espoused the principles of the freedom and economic development necessary to ensure peace "after the destruction of the Nazi tyranny. "

"Mr. President,” Churchill told Roosevelt, “I think you seek to end the British Empire. All your ideas about the postwar world prove it. But, nevertheless, we know you are our only hope. And you know that we know it. You know that without the United States, His Majesty’s empire will not stand."

At the Casablanca summit in 1943, Roosevelt made clear what he proposed for the future: "When we win the war, I will work with all my strength and determination to ensure that the United States is not brought to support or stimulate the colonial ambitions of France or the British Empire."

A few days later he told Elliott: "I tried to make Winston –and the others—see that not because we are their allies in victory, we will join the archaic medieval imperial ideas.

“Britain signed the Atlantic Charter. I hope you understand that the US government intends to enforce it," said President Roosevelt.

Churchill, however, made a comment in response that became famous, and spread throughout the English colonial system regarding about the Atlantic Charter guaranteeing a postwar right to self-determination and self-government of the British colonies: "I was not appointed His Majesty´s Prime Minister to preside over the liquidation of the empire."

And, as post-war history has proven, the US became the new imperial exploiting power, causing wars and destruction throughout the world, for the sake of US corporate greed. The others were simply subordinated .

October 28, 2015.

- Manuel E. Yepe - http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/

A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.