The Allied leaders rarely spoke directly about the Holocaust in public. When Churchill and Stalin alluded to Nazi mass murder of civilians in early speeches, they said much less than they knew. Not until December 1942 did Allied governments issue a joint statement about Nazi Germany’s policy of exterminating the Jews of Europe. Roosevelt deferred his own public statement until March 1944. Why didn’t these leaders speak up sooner? Through close readings of public and private statements, Richard Breitman, an acclaimed author and distinguished emeritus professor at American University, pieces together the competing motivations that drove each leader’s response to the atrocities. Timely and incisive, A Calculated Restraint sheds new light on the relationship between World War II and the Holocaust.