A Fireside Chat
by Jack Nimersheim

   _(First appeared in "Alternate Presidents" - Tor Books)_

A chill permeated the room. Its only source of heat was a single fireplace set against the north wall. Within this brick proscenium flames danced wildly, performing daring pirouettes and _grand jetes_ above the makeshift stage of a cast-iron grate. But the warmth generated by the four logs orchestrating that fiery ballet withered long before it reached a small alcove on the opposite side of the room.  There, a tall man sat in a straight-backed chair, staring out the window, his hands folded delicately across his lap. A thin shawl was draped with equal delicacy across the man's broad, powerful shoulders, shoulders slumped only slightly forward. The long days of arduous travel leading up to this cool September night had fatigued him much more than they should have, much more than they would have just a few years earlier.

Sitting there alone, fireplace ballerinas casting Sleeping Beauty shadows on the walls around him, the man gazed out across the Rhone River at the city's old quarter. What was the rhythm of life, he mused, over there? Was a kindly old lamplighter making his rounds, gently brushing back the evening shadows with the warm kiss of flame to wick?  Were men and women passing through the open porticoes of cafes and coffee houses, pausing as they came and went, exchanging warm greetings with friends and neighbors they had known and trusted all their lives?  Did horses still canter down the narrow, winding cobblestone streets?

This imaginary journey beyond the opposite bank recalled the distant shores of his own youth -- a New York childhood nurtured in the elegance and affluence afforded by old money. There were other images as well. The memories of long-ago Autumn evenings spent running beside the cool, clear waters of the Hudson. And of the endless hours he'd sit quietly on that river's edge, looking below its slowly rolling surface, confidently plumbing the depths of a young man's hopes, his dreams, his aspirations.

Both he and the world had changed since then.

Over here, north of the Rhone, in that city within a city the natives called St. Gervais but the rest of the world referred to as "new Geneva," businessmen and bureaucrats, the deal makers and diplomats, plied their trades. Over here, the evening shadows were shoved aside by the harsh glare of electric lights. Over here, the streets were all straight and wide and evenly spaced, their intersections surveyed to a perfect 90-degrees. Over here, the nearest thing to neighborhood was a daily crowding together of strangers in the newly built stores, hotels, embassies, and office buildings that clawed their way up from the wide roads. Roads, not streets. Roads cast in solid, unyielding concrete.  Roads lined with sidewalks filled with people walking -- no, running -- no, _scurrying_ -- to keep their next appointment. The buildings threatened to choke the sky. The strangers worked together every day and did not even know each other's names. And they rarely if ever said hello.

Pulling off his glasses, he closed his eyes and gently massaged the bridge of his nose, rubbing it slowly, up and down, between thumb and forefinger. Would the new world reflected in St. Gervais be able to reclaim the virtues of old Geneva, he wondered? And could it do so in time to survive the challenges which lay ahead?

Leaning forward and reaching down to his legs, the tall man with the powerful shoulders and tired eyes twisted a pair of metal rings, one encircling each knee, until they locked into place with a reassuring _clang_. Pushing himself unsteadily to his feet, he grabbed the two metal crutches leaning against the chair and slowly made his way to the window, three steps that seemed to take an eternity. Pausing briefly, he closed the red velvet drapes, drawing an opaque veil across his memories and the darker thoughts that accompanied them.

It was better this way, he thought: detached, isolated, separated from the serenity of Autumn evenings that lay an ocean to the west and a lifetime in the past. Here and now, on this particular September night, he could not afford to let his attentions wander. Rather, he needed to concentrate completely on the difficult and distasteful task that lay ahead.





Such opulence! Crystal chandeliers; solid oak desks, tables and wainscoting; deep, plush leather chairs; equally deep and luxurious carpeting. And gold...gold everywhere! Even the bell used to summon the idiots who reigned over this gilded palace was gold. (Or, more correctly, gold plated -- a perfect metaphor for a thin veneer of prosperity.) Nor could he help but note the colors adorning the walls and woodwork. Pastel green with a garish coral trim! No professional painter possessing a liter of common sense would place these hues within ten kilometers of one another!

It did not surprise the little man with the stern countenance, passing judgment as he passed quickly through the hotel lobby, that his American counterpart had arranged to meet in such conspicuous surroundings. After all, the Atlantic Ocean had effectively insulated that country from the full horror of the recently ended World War, a misnomer if ever there was one. For while this land, _his_ land, still bore the ugly scars etched into its hillsides by four years of bitter conflict, a large part of the world, including the so-called United States, had emerged from that conflict virtually unblemished.  Consequently, Americans visiting Europe expected to encounter the quaint beauty and old-world ambience historically associated with life on "the Continent." Lamentably, there was no shortage of individuals and institutions (most of them Jews or under Jewish control, no doubt) willing to cater to these fantasies.

He bitterly remembered how, almost the day the killing stopped, the rebuilding began. But this renaissance was not directed toward to a renewal of European resolve and spirit, as would have been the case in a logical world. Rather, it represented a vain attempt to gloss over the physical damage inflicted upon the so-called "cultural" centers of Europe -- in truth, the breeding grounds of commerce and capitalism.  All the recent reconstruction amounted to nothing more than an economic face lift, cosmetic surgery on a continental scale, designed primarily to keep a steady stream of foreign currency pouring into numbered accounts and national treasuries. But was this not to be expected? Did it not reflect the Jewish credo? Was wealth not the ultimate god of the Hebrew heathens into whose pool of resources this blood money eventually flowed?

A quick slap of his palm on the gold-plated bell sitting atop a solid oak desk produced a sharp, solitary, resonant _ding_. The concierge, a dark-haired man with a prominent nose and probing eyes, turned and smiled.

"Yes, sir. How may I help you?"

"Another _verdamdt_ Jew," the small man observed. "Probably thinks accommodating me will line his pockets with an extra mark or two. How sweetly they all smile when the scent of money is in the air."

"Please inform President Roosevelt that Reichschancellor Hitler has arrived," was all he said.      Though numerous low-level meetings had preceded this one, each leader, for his own reasons, had wanted to face his counterpart with no bureaucratic underlings around.

"And how was your trip, Herr Roosevelt? Not too tiring, I trust. Long sea voyages are never enjoyable, and the journey from America to Europe has been known to tax even the strongest of men."

"To the contrary, Chancellor, I found it to be quite pleasant.  Invigorating, actually," Roosevelt felt no obligation to reveal the extent of his fatigue, especially in light of the subtle implication in Hitler's remark that he was somehow less capable of withstanding the rigors of travel than another man might be. "The accommodations available on today's modern steamships have all but eliminated the discomfort previously associated with a trans-Atlantic crossing."

To a proverbial fly on the wall, this exchange would have seemed like nothing more than two men sitting before a fire, indulging in small talk -- the kind of polite but inconsequential discourse people pull out of a closet marked "Courtesy" whenever they have little of real import to discuss. As Roosevelt's minor deception implied, however, the conversation was mere camouflage. Beneath the surface, beyond the words, each man was probing the other. A thrust here to uncover whatever weaknesses he might possess. A parry there to discover his strengths. This verbal fencing match had been going on for several minutes.

"That being the case, maybe I should plan to visit your country someday, eh?"

"It's a beautiful land, Chancellor, one I'm sure you would enjoy."

"Oh, I'm certain I would. Yes. I'm _quite_ certain I would." Hitler nodded, raising one eyebrow as he did so. His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly before he continued. "Speaking of America, I understand that you were raised in a part of that country referred to as the Hudson Valley. It that correct?"

"Yes, it is. My family lived in Hyde Park, a small city located in the southern portion of the state we call New York."

"Hyde Park. New York. Those names also are of English origin, are they not?"

"Why, yes. I suppose they are. That's not surprising, though, given the close ties that have traditionally existed between America and its British allies."

For a moment, Roosevelt had the impression that the German Chancellor was debating whether he should pursue this topic further, perhaps to make discreet inquiries as to the current status of American/English relationships. Instead, Hitler directed the conversation back to the topic of childhood.

"Tell me, Herr Roosevelt, were you happy as a child?"

Several seconds separated query and response. Images of the sun- baked New England countryside replaced the dark and shadowy room in which they sat. For a brief moment, Roosevelt was once again young and strong and madly racing alongside the Hudson, challenging currents he knew could never be captured. Not that this had ever discouraged him.  Back then, the chase itself was all that mattered.

"If you had posed that question at the time, Chancellor, I'm quite certain I could not have given you an answer," Roosevelt replied, stepping back into the present. "To a child, after all, childhood is neither happy nor unhappy. It simply exists. He feels no compulsion to pass judgment upon it at the time. Only later, after that child has passed into adulthood and possesses the experience required to put the patterns of his life into perspective, can he make such an evaluation.  Today, upon reflection, I would have to admit that, yes, I had a very happy childhood."

Within the fireplace, the flames flared momentarily as the bottom log, weakened by heat, collapsed beneath the weight of those above it.  Sparks danced up, down, back, out, hurling themselves against chamber and screen before floating gently down to join the growing pile of spent embers and ash gathering on the hearth. The German leader, watching this fiery display, sighed and leaned back slightly in his chair. It was the first time Roosevelt had sensed weariness in his guest.

"Would that all adults could feel that way about their lives," was all Hitler said.

Charles Warner had been right, Roosevelt mused, politics does indeed make strange bedfellows. An American aristocrat and an Austrian peasant. How strange for the two of us to be sitting here discussing our youth, now that each steers the course of his respective nation.  Almost as strange, he reflected, as the chain of events that had brought him to this place, at this time.





Only the most dedicated Democrats gave James Cox a snowball's chance in Hell of winning the 1920 Presidential election. After all, the political wisdom of the time maintained, it had taken Cox an almost unprecedented 44 ballots to secure his own party's nomination, hardly a mandate designed to instill confidence in the American electorate.  Roosevelt agreed to share the ticket primarily for the exposure campaigning at the national level, even in a losing effort, would provide -- exposure he believed ultimately could be used to advance his own political ambitions.

Roosevelt's personal vision of the future collided with reality two months into the campaign. That's when Cox's opponent, fellow Ohioan Warren G. Harding, died suddenly of a stroke. Most Americans accepted the official report that Harding had succumbed to the rigors of an overly ambitious campaign. As was always the case in such circumstances, however, other voices hinted at other, more mysterious, possibilities. Probable causes notwithstanding, the effects of Harding's death were no mystery. With the Republican ticket in disarray, Cox and Roosevelt emerged triumphant in the November election.

Five weeks later, the victory celebration ended as unexpectedly as it had begun. That's when Cox himself fell victim to a madman's perception of how _true_ Americans made their political opinions known. _"Join the legion of the dead, not the League of Nations,"_ the crazed assailant had screamed -- a reference to one of the more emotional issues in the recently ended campaign -- just before he plunged a dagger into the President-elect's chest and proceeded to carve the heart out of democracy.

So it came to pass that, on Thursday, January 20, 1921, Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the 29th man to assume his nation's highest elected office. No one appreciated more than the new President the irony of his situation, given the _lack_ of choice the American public had exercised in elevating him to that august position. It was not the most auspicious of beginnings for an administration faced with the unenviable task of reuniting a country so recently and deeply divided by political turmoil, personal tragedy, and the polarizing effects of a war that, although its military outcome had been decided almost three years ago, carried with it political ramifications that were only now starting to reveal themselves.

Always the pragmatist, Roosevelt realized he had to parlay the cards destiny had dealt him into a winning hand. He succeeded brilliantly.  The new President quickly converted an American tendency to canonize its fallen leaders into widespread support for the League of Nations, one of his former running mate's favorite causes. Under increasing pressure from its constituents, Congress reversed its previous stance and voted to support U.S. participation in that international organization, thus ending forever the isolationism that, in the opinion of some, had delegated America to the role of second- rate world power for too many decades.

For a while, the new and surprisingly popular President played his hand brilliantly, drawing kings and aces seemingly from nowhere to trump any political or personal opposition he faced. Unknown to Roosevelt, however, Fate had shuffled an extra wild card to the bottom of the deck, one it turned over in the summer of his first year in office.





"Does it cause you much pain?"

Roosevelt was rubbing the upper thigh of his left leg. Reacting to the warning signs of an approaching muscle spasm had become so intuitive that he did not even realize he was doing this.

"The polio itself? No. Not any more. After three years, any discomfort associated with its initial onslaught, thankfully, is behind me." His honesty surprised him. "Every so often, however, I have to remind those muscles I possess that do still function just who rules the Roosevelt roost."

Hitler smiled, in spite of himself. His advisors had informed him of the American President's penchant for self-deprecating humor.

"Were you aware that it was a German physician, Dr. Wickman, who first confirmed the infectious nature of your illness."

"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."_

"It's equally clear," the President had quipped to his staff upon reading this passage, "that some of our own advisors possess a flair for the dramatic rivaling that of our potential rival."

Since he'd first made that comment, however, the situation in Europe had deteriorated to a point that no longer lent itself to facile wit.  And perhaps the greatest irony of all was the degree to which the rise and fall of Roosevelt's own personal and political fortunes had contributed to his German counterpart's climb to power.

It was he, after all, who had coaxed America out from behind a curtain of isolationism and into the limelight of world affairs. Then, just as America was growing comfortable with its new role in the center stage of global politics, a microscopic virus bearing an impressive name struck down her leading man.

_Poliomyelitis._ Roosevelt had never heard that word before the chief resident at the George Washington University Medical School identified it as the cause of the fever, sore throat, headaches, and vomiting that had plagued him for several days prior to Eleanor's insisting he see the White House physician. ("It's only the flu," he'd insisted just as strongly at the time. In the democracy that governed the Roosevelt family, however, his wife won all tie votes, without his even being permitted the courtesy of a recount.) That initial checkup turned out to be but the first step in an endless parade of examinations, diagnostic tests, and medical evaluations that culminated in his being admitted to George Washington one grim afternoon in the summer of 1921.  That same afternoon an equally grim- faced physician added poliomyelitis to his vocabulary, after which he proceeded to outline a treatment regimen only a sadist would have prepared...and only a masochist could adhere to.

During Roosevelt's recovery, the posture within the House, the Senate, and a dozen other power centers in Washington was pretty much that of business as usual. America, after all, had almost 150 years of political inertia to keep it rolling -- if not always with the precision of a well oiled machine, at least like one on which only a _few_ bearing were beginning to wear. Consequently, the ebb and flow of domestic politics were only slightly disrupted by the fact that the United States was now being commanded by a Commander-in-Chief _in abstentia._

Across the Atlantic, however, a radically different situation arose.  Since America's entry into the League of Nations, that organization had become overly reliant on its most prosperous and stable charter member.  While the United States was necessarily preoccupied with the task of keeping its own ship on course, therefore, the League -- and, by extension, all of Europe -- suddenly found itself set adrift in a sea of political turmoil. For awhile, the League seemed incapable of finalizing its own lunch menu, much less resolving the major issues facing a continent still recovering from the trauma of the recently ended World War.

One man sensed opportunity in the obstacles facing the League. And not being the type to let opportunity pass him by, Adolph Hitler, the newly elected President of the Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party, stepped in to commandeer the helm of a floundering continent.

Realizing that a defeated nation was a nation ripe for manipulation, Hitler wisely chose Germany as the initial target for his political and ideological assault. He and his Nazi party attacked that country's post-war leaders with constant accusations of cowardice for their refusal to repeal the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler further condemned the German government for what he perceived as collusion with "Jews, subhumans, and other bloated bourgeois capitalists" -- a collaboration whose ultimate purpose, he proclaimed to anyone who would listen, was to keep the German economy so weakened that it could not support a much-needed Aryan rearmament. Hitler's strategy over this period culminated with the Munich uprising of 1922, in which he planned and executed the now-infamous Burgerbrau, or "beer house," putch, effectively taking control of the German state of Bavaria.

By the time Roosevelt emerged from Warm Springs in the summer of 1923 to once again become America's active -- albeit, semi-paralyzed -- Chief Executive, a disgruntled German citizenry had heeded Nazism's siren call of hatred and bigotry and replaced former President Friedrich Elbert with a new leader: Adolph Hitler. Hitler's first official act was to dissolve the Weimar Republic. His second was to create and then claim the title of First Chancellor of The Third Reich of a United Germany.





"I'll let history decide whether or not I am a `great leader,' Chancellor. It seems to me that making such an assumption about one's own stature could cause a man to confuse his personal visions with a much greater destiny -- one over which, in the end, he exerts little influence."

"If you truly believe that, Herr Roosevelt, then it's possible I have misjudged you. Maybe you do have a streak of foolishness running through you, after all. Destiny is not a predetermined set of conditions one must blindly accept. Rather, it is the blank slate on we write our own future history, one in which it is the duty of visionaries like us to ensure that our visions ultimately triumph."

The condescension in Hitler's voice did not bother him. If anything, he welcomed it. The time for pretense had ended. If his struggle with polio had taught Roosevelt anything, it was that, with few exceptions, obstacles could best be overcome, problems most effectively solved, only through direct confrontation. Had he cautiously and patiently waited for the tiny virus that had invaded his body to run its course, the President had no doubt but that he would still be lying flat on his back in Warm Springs or, even worse, imprisoned within an iron lung until that mechanical monstrosity artificially drew his last breath.

"That sounds as if you perceive your destiny -- and, by extension, the destiny of your nation -- to be in conflict with the rest of the world.  Correct me if I'm wrong, Chancellor, but I was under the impression that Germany signed a peace treaty several years ago stating its intent to avoid such conflicts."

"Wrapping a piece of paper around the problems of the past does not magically transform them into a gift for the future, Herr Roosevelt.  Europe and, more specifically, Germany have a long way to go before they can truly enjoy the peace and unification supposedly consummated by the Treaty of Versailles."

"I am aware of that, Chancellor. As you yourself previously pointed out -- and despite the more recent caveat you attached to that observation -- neither of us is a fool. Like it or not, however, we both _are_ in the position of governing nations the rest of the world turns to whenever it finds itself in need of strong leadership, as is the case now. My reason for requesting that you and I meet like this was to see if we could come to some sort of an arrangement, one that would allow us to set aside whatever personal and political differences exist between us and provide that leadership in a responsible manner."

"An `arrangement,' Herr Roosevelt? It's been my experience that people generally pull out that word whenever they need a polite euphemism for compromise. Are you suggesting, therefore, that my country compromise its goals in deference to your vision of how the world should function?"

"Not necessarily, Chancellor. What I am proposing is that Germany and the United States work together to maintain what can best be described as a precarious peace. What I'm suggesting is that we become allies in a coordinated effort to eliminate the disorder and discord which currently permeates Europe, threatening to plunge that continent -- and, therefore, our respective nations -- into another World War, one beside which the recently ended conflagration would most assuredly pale by comparison."

"Germany and the United States, allies? I must admit that the idea intrigues me, Herr Roosevelt. There is, however, still the small matter of what is best for Germany. I'm sure you understand that, as Chancellor of the Third Reich, my first obligation is to my own nation.  Furthermore, I have always believed that leading the German nation into a glorious future was, if you'll forgive me a moment of arrogance, my personal destiny."

"I don't really see that as a problem, Herr Hitler," Roosevelt replied sardonically. "After all, according to your own philosophy, whatever destiny you have will ultimately be determined by your own hand.  Surely, anyone who perceives his fate as clearly as you profess to know your own won't be deterred by my proposed `arrangement,' the sole purpose of which is to guarantee that the world does not obliterate itself before your destiny can be fulfilled."

"Hah! I like you, Herr Roosevelt. And I retract my previous observation. You are no fool. Rather, you are a shrewd man. First, you half-heartedly entice me with the bland carrot of something as altruistic as world peace, then you firmly prod me with the irresistible stick of my own ambitions. I see now why your countrymen recently re-elected you to office by an overwhelming majority.

"Very well, Mr. President, we shall forge your proposed alliance.  Germany and America, working together to solve the world's problems. I only hope the world appreciates our efforts."





The flames had dwindled. The fire now provided only a small measure of light and warmth to the man sitting quietly before it. The long hours he and Hitler had spent laying down the broad brush strokes of their newly formed alliance had pushed him far beyond his previous exhaustion. Now, however, the deed was done. For better or worse, Roosevelt realized, he had just entered into a political marriage with the devil himself. All that remained was for the negotiators and nameless bureaucrats responsible for such things to fill in the details that would consummate the union.

_"I only hope the world appreciates our efforts."_ These words, spoken by Hitler earlier that evening, echoed in Roosevelt's mind. That the world would _remember,_ he had no doubt; a democracy and a dictatorship climbing into bed with one another, even in a marriage of necessity, was not the kind of coupling the world could soon forget.  That the world had been irrevocably altered by the events of this night -- of this Roosevelt was equally certain. But would the world _appreciate_ the changes he had wrought? This question Roosevelt could not answer.  Only some future history, written in some future time, would determine that.

Locking his leg braces into place, the President rose from the chair and slowly crossed the room. Standing in the alcove before the window, he reached out to once more pull back the red velvet drapes. Halfway there, his hand stopped. Suddenly, Roosevelt could no longer bring himself to look upon that small corner of a less complicated world just beyond the river's opposite shore.

Behind the tall man with the powerful shoulders and tired eyes, the embers continued to cool.

-----

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