LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (04/30/00)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

More observations on FDR's legacy

Dear Editor:

In his critique of my views on the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jaroslav Sawka (April 9) has described them as propaganda. He then departed into indignation - to berate FDR for spies who stole atomic bomb secrets, and to voice outrage at pressures felt by ethnic Americans and their organizations (including the UNA) from government misconduct during World War II. He also struck a bizarre note by intimating that Soviet spies were a major factor in Germany's defeat.

I can only say that FDR's place in history is determined by his accomplishments for the United States, not for Ukraine or Zambia. Some Ukrainians in diaspora seem to entertain an illusion that foreign leaders are under moral obligation to be well-disposed to our cause, and that their goals are not sensible when they clash with our perception of what they ought to be. It is worthwhile to heed the axiom (attributed to Disraeli) that countries have no friends, only interests.

The linchpin of FDR's war strategy was his resolve that Britain and Russia must not fall to German onslaught - so that America would not remain alone facing the Axis powers. Coincidentally, or not, this also meant the survival of Slavs (including Ukrainians) from the peril of Hitler's design to wipe them out in his quest of Lebensraum for Germany. In retrospect, this determination in itself outweighed the flip side of the equation.

It is no mystery that the U.S. government went overboard in trying to please its Soviet ally. As seen from Washington and London, the Soviet war effort provided a tremendous boost to Allied prospects of victory. It took much of the heat off Britain and, in the long haul, saved millions of lives of American and British soldiers. It was the Soviets who took the brunt of casualties and broke the back of the Wehrmacht. That much is indisputable. Even the conservative British press went ecstatic, and for a good reason: the Brits would not have to bleed like they did in the first world war in France. The same was clear as a day for the Americans.

Ruffling the sensitivities of some ethnics in America was a minor nuisance by comparison. Sulking over this now is a waste of energy and dissipation of the scarce capacity to think. Of course, I take exception to the internment of the Japanese Americans - and place it under the heading of traditional racism, revisited and catered.

Relative to the Soviet conquest of Eastern Europe, Mr. Sawka writes that "when Western powers told Stalin that he overstepped the deal by taking Austria and Greece he quickly backed off," the implication being, I suppose, that Stalin could have been scared away from Eastern Europe by a pantomime of browbeating. Not likely.

Actually, there wasn't any "taking" of Austria and Greece. Austria, like Germany, was divided into four zones of occupation, but all foreign troops were withdrawn with the signing of the peace treaty with Austria a few years after the war.

As for Greece, the Soviet troops never went there. Stalin tried indirectly to support the Communist uprising in Athens in 1945, which was put down by the British. Greece was considered a British backyard since the Lord Byron era. Its geography favored the pre-eminence of the Anglo-American sea power that could easily bottle up the Soviet fleet, causing a huge loss of face for Stalin. A chap with practical sense, he knew when to dodge.

Mr. Sawka's remark that the refugees from the Soviet Union were lucky that FDR died when he did - because supposedly it saved them from forced repatriation - is not very fortunate. Perhaps unknown to him, it was Eleanor Roosevelt, the former first lady, who was among the first to raise the flag on behalf of Soviet refugees and make the Truman administration quickly change its tune. It is more likely that, had FDR been alive at the end of the war in Europe, the repatriation issue would have become moot sooner than it did.

The penchant for sending refugees back was more evident in anti-Communist warrior Richard Nixon who handed the defecting Lithuanian sailor Simas Kudirka over to the Soviets, and then Ronald Reagan, of Star Wars fame, who did the same to Ukrainian sailor Myroslav Medvid.

Boris Danik
North Caldwell, N.J.

Census materials available in Ukrainian

Dear Editor:

I have seen several articles in The Ukrainian Weekly about the 2000 Census in the United States. However, your readers should be aware of the fact that the Census Bureau provides some of the material in the Ukrainian language.

I learned of this when a U.S. Census Bureau employee mailed Russian-language material to St. Michael's Ukrainian Orthodox Church in San Francisco. Upon reading information about the 2000 Census, I discovered that Ukrainian also was listed among the languages in which the Census material was being provided. After I tracked down the appropriate office in Sacramento, the available material in Ukrainian was mailed to our church.

Such material in Ukrainian is particularly useful to new arrivals to the United States from Ukraine who are at present only learning the English language.

Nadia M. Derkach
San Francisco

Editor's note: That information was underlined in our editorial of April 2. Nonetheless, a reminder is welcome.

The Ukrainian Weekly welcomes letters to the editor and commentaries on a variety of topics of concern to the Ukrainian American and Ukrainian Canadian communities. Opinions expressed by columnists, commentators and letter-writers are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of either The Weekly editorial staff or its publisher, the Ukrainian National Association.

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