ROOSEVELT'S final year in office has been chronicled in superb detail by journalist Jim Bishop, in FDR's Last Year, Norton, New York, 1974. It reveals a lot about Roosevelt's actual health (terrible) and his affair with Lucy Rutherfurd Mercer (not very exciting). However, it is an excellent work.

The most enigmatic of all Allied leaders of World War II is Josef Stalin, whose paranoia, police state, and propaganda all ensured that an accurate biography would be unlikely to exist. Dimitri Volkogonov has tried with Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1991, but Stalin remains difficult to understand. Volkogonov is unsparing on Stalin's atrocities.

Even less easy to understand but far better chronicled is the war's other central figure alongside Churchill, that of Adolf Hitler. A good place to start is The Hitler Fact Book (A Concise Biography of Adolf Hitler), by Thomas Fuchs, Berkley, New York, 1990. A series of mini-essays on various aspects of the Fuhrer's character, behavior, and activities, it fills in many of the details that make up Hitler's portrait.

The earliest biography of Hitler to appear was Alan Bullock's Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, Harper, New York, 1953. Yorkshireman Bullock argued that Hitler was a self-serving thug whose only interest was gaining power, and his theories were merely tools to achieve his ends. After that, Bullock modified that view to suggest that Hitler had firm beliefs, all centered around destruction. Despite its age, Bullock's book is still a good read.

John Toland tried to explain Hitler in a lengthy biography named Adolf Hitler, Doubleday, New York, 1976, which relied on interviews with his cronies as well as the written record. Toland's views here are less controversial than his later work on Pearl Harbor, and he regards Hitler as having formed misogynistic views early in life that became the basis of his management of the Third Reich. Toland seems to see the days in Vienna as more critical than the experience in the trenches.

Since then, Joachim Fest, David Irving, and Ian Kershaw have all taken their swats at the plate against Der Fuhrer, and I have not read any of the above.

Wulf Schwarzwaller weighs in with the interesting The Unknown Hitler, Berkley, 1989, which discusses some of the lesser-known aspects of his life: his early days in Vienna and Munich, his family relationships, his connections to occult societies in the 1920s, and his financial affairs. It describes how he made himself wealthy at Germany's expense. I consider his financial greed an important factor in the Third Reich's modus operandi, both as a nation-state and as a racket based on kleptomania and murder.

David Waite's Hitler: The Psychopathic God, Basic Books, 1977, puts Der Fuhrer on the psychiatrist's couch, dissecting his personality. It devotes a lot of time and space to whether or not Hitler has one testicle or an abnormal sex life, and whether those experiences defined him. I don't accept that argument, but the book has a lot of value on Hitler's personality: his sense of humor, his reading matter, and behavior.

Hitler gets his own say in the eerie Hitler's Secret Conversations, introduced by H.R. Trevor-Roper, Farrar, Straus, and Young, New York, 1953. These are some of the few surviving transcripts of Hitler's nightly post-prandial monologues, and they were kept on the orders of Hitler aide Martin Bormann. Rambling, disorganized, and shallow, these mini-diatribes reveal Hitler's "know-it-all" nature and rigid pre-conceived notions. He holds forth on everything from the best color for political posters to the organization of the judiciary to the nature of Christianity. Albert Speer says that Bormann edited the text to make himself look good, but they are otherwise authentic.

The historians all get hauled into the dock by John Lukacs' The Hitler of History, Vintage, New York, 1997, which analyzes the visions of Hitler given in the various biographies and tries to make sense out of this barely comprehensible man.

Hitler's key ally, Benito Mussolini, has been well-served by biographers. Christopher Hibbert's Mussolini, Longmans, London, 1962, is the first modern biography of Il Duce, covering his rise to power and fall from it with detail and energy. Richard Collier's Duce, Viking, New York, 1971, uses a more fast-paced journalistic style, leaping from subject area to subject area, and then yanking the reader back through the area just hopped over. Collier digs into Mussolini the man, discussing his love affairs, indecisiveness, and pomposity, managing to keep both his farcical nature and savagery in view at the same time.

On the other hand, Dennis Mack Smith's Mussolini, Vintage Books, New York, 1983, is more effective in describing and analyzing Mussolini as a statesman and politician. All three writers show how the myths of Mussolini the superman and Mussolini the buffoon were created.

Japan's Emperor Hirohito remains as baffling today as he was in 1945. His defenders claim he had little knowledge of the war. His detractors claim he was a prime mover in the drive towards empire and atrocity. I believe that he knew more than his apologists admit about Japan's war effort, but disagree with arguments that he was a major Japanese hawk. He seems to have risen well to the moment in August 1945, when faced with the decision to surrender.

Leonard Mosley's Hirohito: Emperor of Japan, Avon Books, New York, 1966, is a good attempt at fathoming this man, despite its age.

Hideki Tojo, on the other hand, is far less mysterious. Unfortunately, he's somewhat dull: a career military man, detail-obsessed and oriented, he does not come off as very intelligent or particularly interesting. Nevertheless, Tojo: The Last Banzai, by Courtney Browne, Holt, New York, 1967, defines this unlikely dictator.

The top political leaders of World War II were served at the top by a galaxy of advisors, generals, and admirals, and they all became biography subjects in their own right.

Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke's diaries were edited by Arthur Bryant in two volumes (Turn of the Tide, Doubleday, New York, 1957 and Triumph in the West, Doubleday, New York, 1959). Brooke was a capable soldier and served Churchill well in the political debates with the Americans. He thought more highly of Montgomery than Eisenhower, and his diaries reflect that.

The Memoirs of Field Marshal Ismay by Churchill's personal military advisor, Viking, New York, 1960, are somewhat less controversial. He was more of a diplomat, and able to handle Churchill's mercurial temper.

Cunningham: A Sailor's Odyssey, by Oliver Warner, John Murray, London, 1967, is more of a memoir of the admiral than a full-dress biography of Britain's greatest fighting sailor since Nelson, but it conveys why the admiral was held in such high esteem.

The president who followed Franklin D. Roosevelt into the White House has gained in stature over the past four decades, partially based on his colorful demeanor and partially on his "plain speaking." Harry S. Truman is now seen as refreshing and almost anachronistic in an age when the electric hair dryer, bonded teeth, and the 30-second sound byte are the essentials of national leadership.

Truman's life has been well-documented in recent years. The first major biography of him, Harry S. Truman, William Morrow, New York, 1972, came from his daughter, Margaret Truman. Admiring in tone but not overly reverential, it is clearly a daughter's well-researched tribute to her father. She followed up with Bess W. Truman, MacMillan, New York, 1986, which gives a different perspective on the dynamics of the Truman family.

Much of today's admiration for Harry Truman dates back to Merle Miller's Plain Speaking, Putnam, New York, 1973, an oral biography of the president based on interviews in 1961. While they give good color and a sense of Truman's views, their accuracy has been questioned and castigated as being at times the distorted memories of an old man (who has had more than a few bourbons) seeking to justify himself, and the adulation of his interviewer.

The better and more recent alternatives are David McCullough's brilliant Truman, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1992, and Alonzo Hamby's Truman: Man of the People, Oxford University Press, 1995. Both are sympathetic to their subjects, but not worshipful. McCullough reveals Truman's human weaknesses, while Hamby analyzes his politics.

Truman's first term as president is well-covered in William S. Donovan's Conflict and Crisis, Norton, New York, 1977. A tighter focus on Truman's first months in office comes in Mr. Truman's War, J. Robert Moskin, Random House, New York, 1996. Truman faced awesome decisions and crises in his first term, and rose dramatically to the occasion. This book also discusses some lesser-known issues, such as the French attempts to seize portions of Italy.

One of Truman's top aides, Ken Hechler, a future historian and Congressman, describes his life in the White House in Working With Truman, Putnam, New York, 1982. William S. Rigdon, a US Navy officer assigned to both Roosevelt and Truman's personal staff, gives another perspective in White House Sailor, Doubleday, New York, 1962. Rigdon was a Navy officer assigned to as to the White House as assistant naval aide, so he was on hand and behind the scenes at Yalta and many other important events.

Finally, Truman got his turn with his memoirs. Only the first volume was necessary for this project: Year of Decisions: Memoirs of Harry S. Truman, Doubleday, New York, 1957. Truman's ghostwriters, who came from his political campaigns' advertising agency, played a major role in this work, and watered down much of his views. They are somewhat at odds with later works. However, the book remains interesting and insightful reading.

General of the Army, by Ed Cray, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1990, is the first one-volume life of George C. Marshall, and it fills the gap left by Marshall's failure to write his memoirs. It reveals the intelligence and honesty of the man, as well as the toll high command took upon him.

Hitler's top leaders have their biographers, and a few left behind their own versions of events. I have not read Doenitz's and Raeder's works, but am given to understand that the former skips over Spandau and the latter is fraught with errors. I would have rather seen the memoirs of their subordinates: Lutjens, Bey, and Langsdorff, for example.

Basic to any study of the inner workings of the Third Reich is Albert Speer's Inside the Third Reich, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1970. He wrote this insightful, revealing, yet highly self-serving memoir while imprisoned in Spandau for 20 years, and they give the nearest thing we may ever have to an intelligent and objective view of the Hitler court in existence. As one would expect, he carefully avoids linking himself directly to the Holocaust, and even the ghastly conditions under which slave laborers lived and worked. Speer's record of his imprisonment, Spandau: The Secret Diaries, MacMillan, New York, 1976, gives some more insight on his experiences, and conveys his sense of despair over having given his life to Hitler.

Speer's life is best chronicled by Gitta Sereny in Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1995, which not only dissects its subject, but the leadership of the Reich as a whole. It also discusses how Speer deliberately avoided facing the immoral and illegal activities of Germany in doing his job and living his life, and how he tried to cope, spiritually and emotionally, with that burden after the war.

A more cynical and contemporary first-person view of events in Nazi Germany comes from the acidic pen of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, in three books: 1939-41 Diaries, Hamish Hamilton, 1982; 1942-1944 Diaries, Doubelday, New York, 1948; and Final Entries 1945, Avon, New York, 1978.

For sheer cynicism, hypocrisy, and psychophantic loyalty to Hitler, the diaries are unequalled. Goebbels will denounce a German ally on one page, then hail him on the next. He assails Churchill for a misstatement on one day and lauds his staff for pushing out their own lies the next. They reveal the self-serving and brutal nature of the German leadership.

Goebbels himself is coldly analyzed in Ralf Georg Ruth's Goebbels, Harcourt, New York, 1997.

Somewhat more honest but equally cynical are the dairies of Mussolini's son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano, Diaries, Doubleday, New York, 1946. Ciano served as Italy's Foreign Minister, and his cynicism is brutal and raw, revealing the tawdry nature of the Fascist state and its drive for empire at the expense of others. The diaries were intended as Ciano's blackmail weapon when he was arrested for helping to overthrow Mussolini, but they did not save his life. Instead they stand as a testament to the aggressive and incompetent leadership of the Fascist regime.

Reich Marshal Hermann Goering also cut a massive figure in the Third Reich, and is usually seen as a semi-competent, jolly fat man. However, while Goering was an amateur strategist and a lazy sybarite, he was ruthless in political action and nobody's fool. His life is well covered in Leonard Mosley's The Reich Marshal, Doubleday, New York, 1974. Another good view of "The Iron Man" comes in Heinrich Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel's Goering, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1962. This book includes his famous discussion with German insurance agencies on how to avoid paying out on policies to Jewish victims of Nazi brutality. It reveals Goering at his most manipulative and vicious.

Another good memoir-biography of the Hitler inner circle is Last Witnesses In the Bunker, Pierre Galante and Eugene Silianoff, Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1989. They are a mix of interviews with three members of Hitler's immediate staff: personal pilot Hans Baur, SS valet Otto Guensche, and secretary Traudl Junge. All three were in the Hitler entourage from the middle of the war until its end in the Berlin Bunker, and were present for events like Stalingrad, the July 20 Bomb Plot, and the final macabre days in the Bunker. Their denials of knowledge about the Holocaust should be winced at, however. They may not have known the day-to-day workings at Auschwitz, but they transmitted Hitler's orders to eliminate the world's Jews to his top staff.

An overall view of the Nazi high command comes from one of its top surviving staff officers, Gen. Walter Warlimont's Inside Hitler's Headquarters, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1964. It was reprinted by Presidio Press. Part memoir and part organizational history, it details the inner workings and weaknesses of the Oberkommando Wehrmacht.

The supreme commanders all had stories to tell, and Dwight D. Eisenhower's life is well recounted in several books.

Ike himself gave his view of his command in Crusade in Europe, Doubleday, New York, 1948. In this memoir, he sought to avoid giving offense to any of his wartime subordinates, and the book comes off blander than its subject matter.

Eisenhower provided more color to his life and career in the later At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, Doubleday, New York, 1967. More than a book of humorous recollections, this work gives insight and reflection on Ike's background and military career, as well as more candid views of his colleagues and subordinates. It is very much a personal book.

Ike the Soldier by Merle Miller, Putnam, New York, 1987, is an interesting work, as Miller was initially not a fan of Eisenhower, as seen in his work in Plain Speaking. But in studying the general, Miller moved away from his earlier dislike and towards respect and admiration. He attacks the myths he helped create about Ike's infidelities and gives a much rounder picture of the man. However, Miller is harsh on Montgomery.

Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life by Carlo D'Este, is a highly readable and detailed study of the general's life up to July 1945. D'Este focuses more on the general's development as a general and strategist, and steers a more middle course on the Ike-Montgomery relationship.

Eisenhower: Citizen/Soldier, the first volume of two by Stephen Ambrose, Simon and Schuster, 1983, is an admiring and highly detailed account of the general's life and the development of his military thinking.

A devoted grandson offers another view of Ike's leadership in Eisenhower at War: 1943-1945, by David S. Eisenhower, Random House, New York, 1987. David Eisenhower argues that Montgomery was backing away from Market-Garden before launching it and was more or less forced into a trap of his own making.

An insider's view of Ike comes from Harry Butcher's My Three Years with Eisenhower, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1946, which is a reprinting of his diary as Ike's press chief. Revealing and occasionally snippy and sarcastic in tone, it is generally respectful of Butcher's chief. However, Ike was not happy with the revelations of his headquarters' confidences and inner workings.

I have read General Douglas MacArthur's memoirs, which are as self-serving as one would expect, and instead relied upon William Manchester's American Caesar, Little, Brown, Boston, 1978, for a better picture of this "thundering paradox" of a man. Difficult to understand and very skilled at making himself hated, the Supreme Commander in the Pacific remains a controversial figure.

I also relied on Geoffrey Perret's Old Soldiers Never Die, but lost my copy in New Zealand. Perret's main strength is his research on the fatal indecisions on December 8, 1941, in Manila, when MacArthur froze and left his air force open to attack, hours after Pearl Harbor. Perret's argument is that Maj. Gen. Lewis Brereton, the air chief, a lazy alcoholic, is more to blame than MacArthur. There is merit in that, but MacArthur was Brereton's boss, and it was MacArthur's job to motivate Brereton.

The press called Joseph Stilwell "Vinegar Joe," but he was called "Uncle Joe" and "Pappy" by his troops. However, The Stilwell Papers, edited by Theodore S. White, William Sloane Associates, 1948, do reflect his vinegar and fighting spirit. White edited the diaries and material after Stilwell's death, so the general had no opportunity to modify or add to his tone or material. He may have made them harsher or more diplomatic. As they stand, they show his frustration in and with the China Theater.

Sand Against the Wind: Stilwell and the American Experience in China, Barbara Tuchman, MacMillan, New York, 1971, is a more thorough biography of the embattled general, and it gives a great deal of background and material on the enormous difficulties under which Stilwell labored. It also shows how Stilwell's background led him to the appointment. It is ironic that a man skilled in many Chinese languages and working with his Chinese troops could not pass the most critical test for survival in the China-Burma-India Theater: the ability to practice diplomacy. Tuchman's work is not to be missed.

Britain's most familiar military figure in World War II is Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, and he has generated more controversy in print than in his battles.

Montgomery's officially sanctioned biography is a three-volume work, by Nigel Hamilton, and it is well-researched and footnoted. As one would expect, it defends Montgomery's conduct of the war, but does assail him for the personal character traits that alienated him from the Americans.

The three volumes are as follows: Monty: The Making of the General, Hamish Hamilton, 1981; Monty: Master of the Battlefield, Hamish Hamilton, 1983; and Monty: The Last Years of the Field Marshal, Hamish Hamilton, 1986. The works not only define Montgomery's character, but they also show his theory and philosophy of war and teaching. One can see from the start that his ascetic preacher-schoolmaster demeanor and mind-set made him anathema to Americans. Hamilton is harsh on Montgomery's tactlessness and bullying.

Montgomery in Europe, Richard Lamb, Franklin Watts, 1984, analyzes his two years at the head of the 21st Army Group.

Monty himself gets his say in the controversial Memoirs of Field Marshal Montgomery, Collins, London, 1958. He wrote every word in pencil in his own hand, and managed to infuriate everyone but his old soldiers. Field Marshal Auchinleck threatened a libel suit, and President Eisenhower broke off all contact with Montgomery. The memoirs are useful, but exceptionally self-serving.

Monty is also viewed by his staff in Monty at Close Quarters, edited by T.E.B. Howarth, Leo Cooper, London, 1986. These are essays by Monty's inner staff, giving their take on the Field Marshal. Monty's brother Brian also weighs in with A Field Marshal in the Family, Constable, London, 1973, which shows the family man behind the mask as well as the family's lengthy history.

One of Monty's leading British antagonists, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, takes his shots at Montgomery in his cleverly-titled memoir, With Prejudice, Cassell, London, 1966. Tedder was one of the key men who tried to sack Montgomery, and this colorful airman was determined to call 'em as he saw 'em. Tedder's more jaundiced views should be weighed against those of others.

Monty's rival in army group command in Northwest Europe, General Omar Bradley, turned out his memoirs, A Soldier's Story, Holt, New York, in 1951. He disliked Montgomery and Patton intensely, but his dislike of the latter is not shown as harshly. His later book, published posthumously, A General's Life, with Clay Blair, in 1999, is more scathing. Much of its harsher material may have come from Blair, without Bradley's approval.

However, Bradley's first book is as plain-spoken as the man is remembered, and gives a clear view of how he fought and saw the war.

Patton was killed before he could write his memoirs, and pieces of them were assembled into War As I Knew It, which is very much a watered-down version of this colorful general's thoughts. Ladislas Farago's official biography, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph, omits many of his weaknesses and failings, including the entire disastrous Hammelburg raid.

Consequently, for Patton's life, I have relied on two works: Patton: A Genius For War by Carlo D'Este, Harper Collins, 1995, and Patton: A Soldier's Life, by Joseph Hirshhorn, Harper Collins, New York, 2002. Both cover the same ground in a very different manner. D'Este focuses tightly on Patton the warrior, studying his pre-World War II years, the development of his military thinking, while Hirshhorn's focus is more on the development of Patton's personal values. Both show how these affected his military judgment. Hirshhorn is more critical than D'Este, believing that Patton's bloodthirsty lectures encouraged and abetted American massacres of POWs in Sicily, to which he turned a blind eye. D'Este is critical of Patton's racism and anti-Semitism. Both are harsh with their subjects over the "slapping incidents" and the failure to de-Nazify post-war Germany.

However, both have considerable admiration and understanding for Patton's enormous abilities as an operational leader. They also display the enormous contradictions in Patton's character, and consider them as exemplars of America itself and its own contradictions. They should be read together.

Somewhat less useful but entertaining is Charles Codman's Drive, Little, Brown, Boston, 1957, which is his diary of service as Patton's chief aide. Codman worshipped his boss, which is understandable. It contains a number of factual errors.

The other top commanders had their tales told, as well. Lord Louis Mountbatten's official biographer, Philip Ziegler, reportedly had to place a sign on his desk, "Remember that he was a great man," while writing Mountbatten, Collins, London, 1985. He is harsh on Mountbatten's desire for self-publicity and his sillier ideas. However, he gives Mountbatten high marks for his leadership of his destroyer, Combined Operations, and Southeast Asia.

The number two man in Southeast Asia, Field Marshal Viscount Slim, wrote a superb autobiography, Defeat Into Victory, Cassell, London, 1956, which stands up well over time.

On the Japanese side, few of the top commanders have left behind memoirs or biographies, an astonishing fact, considering their importance to the war. Many of them did not survive the war or their subsequent trials, however. The only senior Japanese officer who is chronicled in detail is Isoroku Yamamoto, who led the Combined Fleet to victory at Pearl Harbor and defeat at Midway.

The earliest biography, which still holds up is John Deane Potter's Yamamoto: The Man Who Menaced America, Viking, 1965, which includes some of his haiku.

The Reluctant Admiral, by Hiroyuki Agawa, Kokdansha International, 1989, is probably the best work on this complex man, and analyzes many aspects of his personality. Translated from Japanese, it is heavy reading. Edwin P. Hoyt's Yamamoto, McGraw-Hill, 1996, adds a great deal of recent research to the admiral's life. Both should be read together.

General Mark W. Clark told his colorful story in Calculated Risk, George Harrap, London, 1951, and it should be read with care. Clark was obsessed with self-publicity, and his massive ambition in the drive on Rome may have cost the Allies a massive victory.

Somewhat less self-serving and of fair importance is General Robert Eichelberger's Jungle Road to Tokyo, Odhams, London, 1951. Eichelberger led US troops to victory in New Guinea and the Philippines, but his work was obscured by his jealous and dominating superior, Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

Another one of MacArthur's top subordinates who had to work around his domineering boss to tell his story was Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, who defended the Philippines and spent three years in captivity. General Wainwright's Story, Doubleday, New York, 1946, was a ghostwritten production of Hearst writer Bob Considine, but the emotional ordeal of Wainwright seeps through the taut text. However, Wainwright let his ghost preserve some apocryphal stories that are debunked in Hero of Bataan, by Duane Schultz, St. Martin's Press, 1981. Schultz's Wainwright actually appears as a more admirable character, with his entire life story given, creating a more rounded picture of this extremely brave man.

Another victim of Japanese onslaughts gets his biography in Percival and the Tragedy of Singapore, by Brig. Sir John Smyth, VC, McDonald, London, 1971. Smyth led British troops in Burma against the Japanese, and was a close friend of the loser at Singapore. Smyth's book is essentially a defense of this oft-maligned general, pointing up that Archibald Percival was in charge of a hopeless situation, and acquitted himself well and honorably, both in command and in captivity.

It's a solid answer to many of the attacks on Percival, but I am not completely sold. There was much Percival could not change, and much he was burdened with. But his leadership in Malaya was not strong. However, I do agree that his honorable behavior in captivity and his postwar work as the leading advocate for his fellow returned Far Eastern POWs deserves more respect than has been given.

A more obscure senior officer, Elwood "Pete" Quesada, finally gets deserved full-dress treatment in Over Lord, by Thomas Alex Hughes, Free Press, 1991. Quesada commanded the American tactical air forces in France and the drive into Germany, and was a pioneer and exponent of close air support. Over Lord is a fascinating study of both the colorful man and the development of this critical form of warfare.

The inventor of armored warfare tells how he did it in Panzer Leader, by Gen. Heinz Guderian, Ballantine Books, New York, 1958. When he explains the rise of Blitzkrieg warfare, he is on firm ground. When discussing the Soviet drive into Germany, he is less so.