American interests in Nazi business concerns:

In October 1942, ten months after entering World War II, America was preparing its first assault against Nazi military forces. Prescott Bush was managing partner of Brown Brothers Harriman. His 18-year-old son George [H.W. Bush], the future U.S. President, had just begun training to become a naval pilot. On Oct. 20, 1942, the U.S. government ordered the seizure of Nazi German banking operations in New York City which were being conducted by Prescott Bush.

Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the government took over the Union Banking Corporation, in which Bush was a director. The U.S. Alien Property Custodian seized Union Banking Corp.'s stock shares, all of which were owned by Prescott Bush, E. Roland 'Bunny' Harriman, three Nazi executives, and two other associates of Bush.[1]

High level cabinet members recommended suspending investigations into this matter:

Since early 1941, the Justice Department had been investigating the Nazi support apparatus among U.S. firms. This probe centered on the Harriman, Rockefeller, Du Pont and related enterprises, implicating George [HW Bush]'s father Prescott [Bush], his partners and the Bushes' close family friends.

On March 5, 1942 ... the Special Committee of the U.S. Senate Investigating the National Defense Program began explosive public hearings in Washington, D.C. The subject: cartel agreements between U.S. and Nazi firms that should be hit with anti-trust actions. Pearl Harbor, the draft of American boys, and these sensational hearings were causing a popular attitude quite dangerous for the higher-level Nazi collaborators ....

But on March 20, 1942, Henry L. Stimson, U.S. Secretary of War and president of Andover prep's Board of Trustees, sent a memorandum to President Franklin Roosevelt recommending stopping the investigations of the U.S.-Nazi trusts: the resulting lawsuits would "unavoidably consume the time of executives and employees of those corporations which are engaged in war work." Stimson got Navy Secretary Frank Knox and Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold to co-sign the memo. [2]

James Forrestal, FDR's Secretary of War, would become the first U.S. 'Secretary of Defense', in the Truman Administration, and one of the architects of the 'Cold War'.

Henry A. Wallace was the son of Hencry C. Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture in the Warren Harding Administration. Henry A. Wallace was Secretary of Agriculture under Roosevelt, and then became his Vice President in Roosevelt's third term. Wallace was perceived as too liberal and passed over for nomination as Vice President in Truman's fourth term. He became Secretary of Commerce. After Roosevelt's death differences with Truman forced him to resign:

Wallace, who was Secretary of Commerce after the war, favoured co-operation with the Soviet Union. In private he disagreed with Harry S. Truman about what he considered to be an aggressive foreign policy. Wallace went public about his fears at a meeting in New York in September, 1946. After complaints from James F. Byrnes, Secretary of State, and James Forrestal, Secretary of Defence, Truman sacked Wallace as Secretary of Commerce.

Wallace was editor of the New Republic (1946-48) and helped to launch the new Progressive Party. In 1948 Wallace became the new party's candidate in the presidential election. His programme included new civil rights legislation that would give equal opportunities for black Americans in voting, employment and education, repeal of the Taft-Hartley Bill and increased spending on welfare, education, and public works. Wallace's foreign policy program was based on opposition to the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. [7]

See Henry A. Wallace's essays, "The Danger of American Fascism" (1944): [7], and "The Way To Peace: Division of World Between Russia and United States" (1946):[8] An excerpt of the latter essay:

"Getting tough" never bought anything real and lasting—whether for schoolyard bullies or businessmen or world powers. The tougher we get, the tougher the Russians will get.

Also see the second chapter - on the prospect of nuclear war with the Russians - in Lewis Mumford's "In The Name Of Sanity" (1946): [8].