October 16, 1938
His own countrymen thought of Winston Churchill as a has-been. At sixty-four, he was consigned to a seat in the House of Commons. He had little power as a parliamentarian, no government position, no stronghold but the one provided by his own defiance and sense of purpose. Yet he boldly decided to broadcast a rousing message to a US audience. His target: Great Britain’s prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, and his policy of appeasement of Hitler, reflected in the newly signed Munich Pact. His audience: the American people, especially their leader in the White House. His tone: that of a preacher. His office called the style of his speech “psalm form”—phrases rising and falling in a melodic series of verses, each forceful and emotionally charged. Churchill always wrote his own speeches, as he did this one. He found power in words, both written and spoken.
After the Munich Pact was signed, Churchill knew that many of his countrymen were relieved that war had been avoided. He had watched Chamberlain’s victorious return to London, with cheering crowds welcoming him home as he promised “peace for our time.” But Churchill knew that appeasing Hitler was not the road to peace. Rather, it was a weakening of resolve that would in time exact an even higher price. Indeed, the following year, Hitler would break the pact, invading the whole of Czechoslovakia.
Churchill’s initial response to the Munich Pact and Chamberlain’s victory lap was a fiery speech in Parliament:
Never will you have friendship with the present German Government. You must have diplomatic and correct relations, but there can never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi power, that power which spurns Christian ethics, which cheers its onward course by a barbarous paganism, which vaunts the spirit of aggression and conquest, which derives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution, and uses, as we have seen, with pitiless brutality the threat of murderous force. That power cannot ever be the trusted friend of the British democracy.
The speech produced carping from his colleagues, who rolled their eyes at the melodramatic Churchill spewing fire in his customary manner. Now he turned to the people of the United States, making clear, as he would do many times, that Hitler posed a global threat:
Far away, happily protected by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, you, the people of the United States, to whom I now have the chance to speak, are the spectators, and I may add the increasingly involved spectators of these tragedies and crimes. We are left in no doubt where American conviction and sympathies lie; but will you wait until British freedom and independence have succumbed, and then take up the cause when it is three-quarters ruined, yourselves alone? I hear that they are saying in the United States that because England and France have failed to do their duty therefore the American people can wash their hands of the whole business. This may be the passing mood of many people, but there is no sense in it. If things have got much worse, all the more must we try to cope with them. . . .
We must arm. Britain must arm. America must arm. . . .
But arms . . . are not sufficient by themselves. We must add to them the power of ideas. People say we ought not to allow ourselves to be drawn into a theoretical antagonism between Nazidom and democracy; but the antagonism is here now. It is the very conflict of spiritual and moral ideas which gives the free countries a great part of their strength.
That was Churchill throwing down the gauntlet, but it was an early volley when he was in his weakest position at home. That did not concern him. He would make his case as a citizen of the world and await his chance to do more. He would have that chance, but not yet.
Like FDR, Churchill was a man of notable flaws. He was stubborn and emotional, a reckless romantic with an explosive temper. He was high spirited but subject to dark moods, which could send aides scurrying for cover. He was quick to berate his long-suffering wife, Clementine, for her perceived failings, although she was his main source of stability and comfort. He was a heavy smoker and drinker who was often accused of giving speeches when he’d imbibed too much. His physical presence was like a battering ram—his bulky frame pressing forward restlessly, eyes slicing through his opponents, a fat cigar permanently affixed to the side of his mouth. He didn’t walk, he stomped, spearing the ground with his walking stick. Also like FDR, he was the product of the aristocracy, somewhat pompous and entitled. Because his mother was American, he thought he had a window into the American soul. The consensus among his peers was that he should think about retirement. Churchill barreled on.
Churchill had a very high opinion of himself and didn’t try to hide his self-importance. “We are all worms,” he once said. “But I do believe that I am a glow worm.” Indeed, he would shine a bright light on Hitler’s true nature and intentions long before others could bring themselves to do so.
He set his sights on FDR, seeking to bring him and his nation to the fight he was determined to make against Hitler. Two men with such big personalities and great ambitions were not natural collaborators, but one thing Churchill understood, and FDR eventually came to realize, was that they would need each other.
Churchill was not naive about the scope of the challenge in engaging American hearts and minds. Throughout the 1930s, the forces of isolationism had gained an upper hand in the United States. Feeling burned by the losses suffered in the Great War and crushed by the economic calamities of the Great Depression, Americans were in no mood to give more of their lives and treasure to conflicts abroad. The United States was not yet fully out of the Depression, but the economy was starting to stabilize. An overseas fight was the last thing anyone wanted. Hitler was Europe’s problem to deal with. Churchill believed that view was shortsighted. He could not know Roosevelt’s heart, but he thought the president didn’t fully appreciate the troubles ahead.
With the progress of the New Deal plateauing in Congress and his own party resisting his vision on the home front, FDR began turning his attention to the international crisis. Like Prime Minister Chamberlain, FDR still considered the threat posed by Hitler as something that could be managed and negotiated. He had “a tigerish devotion to his conviction that negotiations, however protracted, were preferable to warfare,” Grace Tully wrote. In September, shortly before the Munich Pact was signed, FDR had sent a telegram to Hitler, urging him to find a way to negotiate peacefully with Czechoslovakia. His telegram arrived even as Chamberlain and Daladier were caving in to Hitler’s demands.
Hitler’s telegram in response essentially discounted FDR’s position:
TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, MR. FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT, WASHINGTON.
IN YOUR TELEGRAM RECEIVED BY ME ON SEPTEMBER 26 YOUR EXCELLENCY ADDRESSED AN APPEAL TO ME IN THE NAME OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, IN THE INTEREST OF THE MAINTENANCE OF PEACE, NOT TO BREAK OFF NEGOTIATIONS IN THE DISPUTE WHICH HAS ARISEN IN EUROPE, AND TO STRIVE FOR A PEACEFUL, HONORABLE, AND CONSTRUCTIVE SETTLEMENT OF THIS QUESTION. BE ASSURED THAT I CAN FULLY APPRECIATE THE LOFTY INTENTION ON WHICH YOUR REMARKS ARE BASED AND THAT I SHARE IN EVERY RESPECT YOUR OPINION REGARDING THE UNFORESEEABLE CONSEQUENCES OF A EUROPEAN WAR. PRECISELY FOR THIS REASON, HOWEVER, I CAN AND MUST DECLINE ALL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE AND THEIR LEADERS, IF THE FURTHER DEVELOPMENT, CONTRARY TO ALL MY EFFORTS UP TO THE PRESENT, SHOULD ACTUALLY LEAD TO THE OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES.
IT IS MY CONVICTION THAT YOU, MR. PRESIDENT, WHEN YOU REALIZE THE WHOLE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SUDETEN GERMAN PROBLEM FROM ITS INCEPTION TO THE PRESENT DAY, WILL RECOGNIZE THAT THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT HAVE TRULY NOT BEEN LACKING EITHER IN PATIENCE OR IN A SINCERE DESIRE FOR A PEACEFUL UNDERSTANDING. IT IS NOT GERMANY WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THE FACT THAT THERE IS A SUDETEN GERMAN PROBLEM AT ALL AND THAT THE PRESENT UNTENABLE CONDITIONS HAVE ARISEN FROM IT. THE TERRIBLE FATE OF THE PEOPLE AFFECTED BY THE PROBLEM NO LONGER ADMITS OF A FURTHER POSTPONEMENT OF ITS SOLUTION. THE POSSIBILITIES OF ARRIVING AT A JUST SETTLEMENT BY AGREEMENT ARE THEREFORE EXHAUSTED WITH THE PROPOSALS OF THE GERMAN MEMORANDUM. IT NOW RESTS, NOT WITH THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT, BUT WITH THE CZECHOSLOVAK GOVERNMENT ALONE, TO DECIDE IF THEY WANT PEACE OR WAR.
Hitler was a master at characterizing aggression as righteousness and adept at adopting the victim’s complaint that he had been forced into it by circumstances. He presented himself as a man of peace who was threatened by unreasonable foes. That so many people bought the narrative is a testament to his oratorical skill. It’s very possible that had the United States been present at the meeting in Munich, it would have joined the Munich Pact along with France and Great Britain. Churchill seemed to be the lone voice urging otherwise.
Unlike Churchill, FDR was tiptoeing into the discussion, cautiously testing the language. In a January speech, he posed the conflict as a tripart issue: religion, at the source, with its foundation of dignity and respect for others; democracy, a covenant among free people to respect the rights and liberties of their fellows; and international good faith, the will of civilized nations to respect the rights and liberties of others. Hitler’s aggression failed each of those tests. FDR thought that Hitler, along with his ally Mussolini, could be pressured into compliance.
He spoke often of what the nation could do “short of war,” but there was little clarity. One possibility was a repeal of the arms embargo, which prevented the United States from contributing any arms or materials to foreign belligerents, but isolationists in Congress had no interest in changing any elements of the neutrality laws that had been passed in the mid-1930s, which had directed the United States to stay on the sidelines in any future wars.
FDR was trying to find a path forward. In April, he teased an idea to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, who had become one of his closest advisers. “The President told me that he had an idea which he would like to do if the State Department would only let him,” Morgenthau wrote, “namely, he’d like to write a letter to Hitler and Mussolini suggesting that they give sacred guarantees that they would not absorb any other countries in Europe and that if they were willing to give some guarantees that he in turn would be willing to meet with them at the Azores and sit around a table and discuss (1) disarmament and (2) world trade.” FDR’s thinking was that if they rejected that good-faith offer, it would strengthen his position.
On April 14, 1939, FDR went ahead with the plan, sending a seven-page telegram to Hitler and Mussolini. In part, it read:
YOU REALIZE I AM SURE THAT THROUGHOUT THE WORLD HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF HUMAN BEINGS ARE LIVING TODAY IN CONSTANT FEAR OF A NEW WAR OR EVEN A SERIES OF WARS.
THE EXISTENCE OF THIS FEAR—AND THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH A CONFLICT—IS OF DEFINITE CONCERN TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES FOR WHOM I SPEAK, AS IT MUST ALSO BE TO THE PEOPLES OF THE OTHER NATIONS OF THE ENTIRE WESTERN HEMISPHERE. ALL OF THEM KNOW THAT ANY MAJOR WAR, EVEN IF IT WERE TO BE CONFINED TO OTHER CONTINENTS, MUST BEAR HEAVILY ON THEM DURING ITS CONTINUANCE AND ALSO FOR GENERATIONS TO COME. . . .
ARE YOU WILLING TO GIVE ASSURANCE THAT YOUR ARMED FORCES WILL NOT ATTACK OR INVADE THE TERRITORY OR POSSESSIONS OF THE FOLLOWING INDEPENDENT NATIONS: FINLAND, ESTONIA, LATVIA, LITHUANIA, SWEDEN, NORWAY, DENMARK, THE NETHERLANDS, BELGIUM, GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, FRANCE, PORTUGAL, SPAIN, SWITZERLAND, LIECHTENSTEIN, LUXEMBOURG, POLAND, HUNGARY, RUMANIA, YUGOSLAVIA, RUSSIA, BULGARIA, GREECE, TURKEY, IRAQ, THE ARABIAS, SYRIA, PALESTINE, EGYPT AND IRAN. . . .
IF SUCH ASSURANCE IS GIVEN BY YOUR GOVERNMENT, I SHALL IMMEDIATELY TRANSMIT IT TO THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE NATIONS I HAVE NAMED AND I SHALL SIMULTANEOUSLY INQUIRE WHETHER, AS I AM REASONABLY SURE, EACH OF THE NATIONS ENUMERATED WILL IN TURN GIVE LIKE ASSURANCE FOR TRANSMISSION TO YOU.
RECIPROCAL ASSURANCES SUCH AS I HAVE OUTLINED WILL BRING TO THE WORLD AN IMMEDIATE MEASURE OF RELIEF.
I PROPOSE THAT IF IT IS GIVEN, TWO ESSENTIAL PROBLEMS SHALL PROMPTLY BE DISCUSSED IN THE RESULTING PEACEFUL SURROUNDINGS, AND IN THOSE DISCUSSIONS THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES WILL GLADLY TAKE PART.
This time there was no polite reply from Hitler. Instead, in an April 28 speech to the Reichstag, he gave a lengthy harangue, tearing into each of FDR’s points, mocking the president’s words. He addressed Roosevelt directly, as if he were speaking to him, blasting the United States’ arrogance and wealth and essentially telling the president to stay on his own turf and not meddle in the affairs of foreign governments, which had their own priorities.
Hitler’s aggression in the world was the major concern, but the total depravity of Nazism, especially its treatment of the Jews, was alarming. Jews had been suffering under the Nazis for years, but the world had mostly turned a blind eye until an event had occurred that made ignorance impossible. On November 9, 1938, the world had been shocked by the brutality against Jews in a tragedy known as Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass.” In retaliation for the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris by a Jewish teenager of Polish descent, Nazis rioted across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland, destroying synagogues, smashing and burning Jewish stores, and assaulting Jews in the streets. The Gestapo instructed police and firefighters to stand by and do nothing. More than seven thousand Jewish businesses, homes, and schools were destroyed, and nearly one hundred Jews were murdered. Blaming the Jews for the riots, authorities arrested thirty thousand Jewish men and sent them to concentration camps. The terror ramped up calls for the United States and other friendly nations to increase efforts to help Jewish refugees find safe passage to other countries.
In June 1939, Morgenthau appealed to FDR to accept more Jewish refugees. Roosevelt seemed not to fully grasp the scope of the problem. He began to talk about raising funds and getting other countries to accept refugees, but he was talking in the low thousands.
“Mr. President,” Morgenthau said, frustrated, “before you talk about money, you have to have a plan first.” The plan was something Morgenthau was passionate about helping devise. FDR wasn’t there yet—far from it—but Morgenthau hoped he could bring him around. In retrospect, FDR’s record on helping the Jews would be mixed. Later, when the full scope of the Final Solution was revealed, FDR was harshly criticized for not doing enough early on when it might have made a difference.
He was making a calculated bet. He was convinced that Americans would not fight a war to save the Jews. So although he advanced projects to help resettle Jewish refugees, he didn’t fight too hard for them, and his secretary of state, Cordell Hull, was mostly uninterested in the refugee problem. FDR failed to say much publicly about the plight of the Jews, fearing he would lose what support he had for any involvement in the war effort. As Richard Breitman and Allan Lichtman wrote in FDR and the Jews, “Like a triage physician, FDR gave urgent attention to some priorities at times in his presidency, while putting others aside.” This was hardly an excuse, although the authors acknowledged that FDR “was a far better president for Jews than any of his political adversaries would have been.” He was always calculating. Later, when the United States was in the war, he believed that the best way to save the Jews was to defeat Hitler.
It wasn’t lost on FDR that among the appeasers were those who blamed the Jews for the conflict. One of them was Joseph Kennedy, the ambassador to Great Britain. Kennedy openly criticized the “Jew media” in the United States, which, he said, was conspiring to “set a match to the fuse of the world.”
FDR didn’t trust Joe Kennedy. “Joe always has been an appeaser and always will be an appeaser,” he told Morgenthau. “If Germany or Italy made a good peace offer tomorrow, Joe would start working on the King, and his friend the Queen, and from there on down, to get everybody to accept it—and he’s just a pain in the neck.”
Kennedy could be an embarrassment to the administration, freelancing in efforts to make his own deal with Hitler, who he thought could be brought to the negotiating table with the promise of cash. Kennedy’s reports home did their best to paint a picture of Churchill as a reckless drunk and elevate Chamberlain as a man of peace. Overall, Kennedy thought Great Britain didn’t have a chance against Hitler, and he wasn’t shy about making his feelings known.
But the appeaser who got the most attention was Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh, whose solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927 had thrilled the masses, was a beloved American hero. People paid attention to him. A staunch isolationist with pro-Nazi sympathies, he said, “The British and the Jewish races, for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war. Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.” In 1938, Lindbergh had accepted a medal from Hermann Göring, the commander of the German air force. Lindbergh insisted that Nazism was not a threat to the United States.
Radio correspondent William Shirer, who was stationed in Berlin, kept a low profile as he collected information about the Nazi state. He was dismissive of Lindbergh’s claims. “The Lindberghs and their friends laugh at the idea of Germany ever being able to attack the United States,” he wrote. “The Germans welcome their laughter and hope more Americans will laugh.”
Increasingly, Harry Hopkins was becoming FDR’s closest aide—the new Howe. Describing the similarities between Howe and Hopkins, Rosenman observed, “Each of these men could sift the good from the bad, the sound from the unsound, before any matter was submitted to the President. . . . Roosevelt, both as Governor and as President, liked to . . . have one man with whom he could exchange ideas at any time of day, whose judgment and loyalty he trusted, and whose disinterestedness he knew would make the advice impartial. In Louis and Harry he found such people.”
When Howe died, he’d left a hole in FDR’s life, and FDR missed having an aide for whom he had complete trust. Hopkins fit that role. He had something else in common with Howe, a chronic illness. Diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1939, Hopkins had most of his stomach removed, which severely compromised his ability to digest food. He was often ill, yet he managed to take on enormous responsibilities. Roosevelt came to rely on him as his most trusted adviser—and Churchill would as well, nicknaming him “Lord Root of the Matter.” He became so indispensable that FDR would move him and his family into the White House in 1940.
Having Hopkins nearby not only was useful, it was a comfort. “He liked to keep people around him,” White House stenographer Dorothy Jones Brady wrote of the president. “And he also was a very lonely man.” The first lady operated mostly in her own orbit, and she was often away. Brady described how Missy LeHand used to go out of her way to organize dinner companions for the president so he wouldn’t be alone.
A ROYAL CANADIAN PACIFIC train, painted royal blue and silver and carrying King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom, pulled into Union Station in Washington, DC, on June 8 to the cheer of crowds. It had traveled down from Canada, passing Niagara Falls and heading south, arriving to a festive welcoming party. There to greet the special visitors were the president and first lady. Seeing the president, the king’s face lit up. He offered his hand, and Roosevelt shook it vigorously. “Well, at last I greet you!” Roosevelt said, grinning broadly.
The idea of the visit, the first of its kind by British monarchs, had been in the works for months. FDR had extended the invitation after learning that the royal couple was planning a trip to Canada. In a letter to the king on September 17, 1938, he wrote, “I think it would be an excellent thing for Anglo-American relations if you could visit the United States. . . . It occurs to me that a Canadian trip would be crowded with formalities and that you both might like three or four days of very simple country life at Hyde Park, with no formal entertainments and an opportunity to get a bit of rest and relaxation.” In his reply, accepting the offer, the king wrote, “I can assure you that the pleasure, which it would in any case give to us personally, would be greatly enhanced by the thought that it was contributing in any way to the cordiality of the relations between our two countries.”
Chained by neutrality, Roosevelt was trying to reach out in a largely symbolic gesture—to publicize to the world his support of the king, whose nation seemed on the brink of war. He wanted to demonstrate the kinship of the two nations, even though he was legally prevented from going further.
Though many observers hailed the visit as the social event of the season, behind the scenes Roosevelt and the king were engaged in deep discussions. The president showed himself to be well aware of the dangers being faced by Great Britain, and he discussed naval strategy, doing his best to reassure the king of his support, even though he could make no promises.
The king was grateful for the frank discussion. He wrote in his diary, “Why don’t my ministers talk to me as the president did tonight. I feel exactly as though a father were giving me his most careful and wise advice.”
In a deeply human way, FDR also wanted to provide the royal couple with a taste of American pleasures, so he invited them to Hyde Park for an all-American picnic.
Sara’s house was in a commotion of activity, and Sara demanded perfection. Lizzie McDuffie, on loan from the White House, was summoned by Sara right before the royals were due to arrive. “When everything was set and waiting for them Mrs. Delano Roosevelt called me and said that the carpet on the porch and steps was dusty. ‘Can you get someone to sweep it again, Lizzie?’ she asked. I took a broom and went over it myself . . . and in a little while King George and Queen Elizabeth were walking on my carpet!”
Soon Sara came upon FDR setting out cocktail glasses and a shaker of gin in the library. She was disapproving and told her son that surely the king and queen would prefer tea after their journey.
When the king entered the library, FDR told him, “My mother thinks you would prefer tea.”
The king, whose mother, Queen Mary, was a force of nature as well, replied, “That’s what my mother would say too,” and he eagerly accepted a martini.
FDR was pleased with the friendly, relaxed mood of the Hyde Park visit, and so were the royals. “They are such a charming and united family,” the queen wrote to her mother-in-law, “and living so like English people when they come to their country house.”
The high point of the visit was the country picnic held outdoors at the cottage FDR had built on the property. Hot dogs and beer were on the menu, a plan that scandalized many people, including the proper Sara, who was nominally the hostess of the affair. The criticism provoked ribbing from Eleanor: “Oh dear, oh dear, so many people are worried that the dignity of our country will be imperiled by inviting royalty to a hot dog picnic!” Sitting on the porch, the king and queen were eager to try hot dogs (“these delicacies,” the king called them) for the first time. According to New York Times reporter Felix Belair, Jr., who was on the scene, the king and queen were served their hot dogs on a silver tray but ate them off paper plates. They were a hit. The Times headline the following day read, “King Tries Hot Dog and Asks for More.” The subhead read, “And He Drinks Beer with Them—Uses Own Camera to Snap Guests Photographing Him.”
When it was time for them to leave on the train for Quebec, FDR felt gripped by emotion, knowing they would soon return home to much difficulty. “Good luck to you . . . all the luck in the world,” he said sincerely, his eyes watering. The crowd spontaneously began to sing “Auld Lang Syne.” Eleanor was moved. “There was something incredibly moving about the scene—the river in the evening light, the voices of many people singing this old song, and the train slowly pulling out with the young couple waving good-by. One thought of the clouds that hung over them and the worries they were going to face, and turned away and left the scene with a heavy heart.”
The royal visit had a sobering impact on the Roosevelts. Now the king and queen were like friends. Until the visit, relations with the British had been chilly, since FDR and Chamberlain did not have a friendly relationship. FDR privately sided with Churchill’s distaste for Chamberlain’s soft touch with Hitler. Meeting the royals brought the fear felt in Great Britain home and made it real. Eleanor was struck by their courage and also by the fact that they had two small daughters at home, Elizabeth and Margaret, whose future was in jeopardy.
War was a looming threat but not yet a reality. Great Britain was desperate for allies, but none appeared. The United States was willing only to offer friendly, but distant support. Then, on August 23, 1939, Great Britain was dealt a severe blow when Germany and the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact, an agreement that further isolated Great Britain. Nonaggression was not the same as an alliance. It only meant that Stalin would not fight against Hitler, not that he would join Hitler’s fight. His position, for the time being, was neutrality, but it was hard to imagine that the powerful dictator in the east would sit on the sidelines if war was declared. After the war, Stalin’s minister of foreign affairs, Vyacheslav Molotov, who had orchestrated the pact, admitted that it was designed as a delaying tactic. Stalin was certain Hitler would eventually attack the Soviet Union. “We did everything to postpone the [inevitable] war,” Molotov said. “And we succeeded—for a year and ten months.”
Stalin, who had exercised absolute power over the Soviet Union since his rise after the end of Vladimir Lenin’s life in 1924, was largely a mystery to the West. Whereas Roosevelt and Churchill had been born to privilege, Stalin was a child of poverty. He was born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili on December 18, 1878 (although he would later order a different date, December 21, 1879, to be used in his official biography), in the small town of Gori, Georgia. His father, Besarion, was a cobbler, a tough man, given to drunken violence. Although Soso (as his mother, Ekaterine, nicknamed him) was their third child, he was raised as an only child—both his older brothers had died in infancy. His mother dreamed that he would become an Orthodox priest one day, an idea that infuriated his father, who expected his son to become a cobbler like himself. Stalin’s childhood was difficult and often brutal; his father eventually abandoned the family, leaving Ekaterine to raise Iosif alone. She doted on her bright son and found a way to get him admitted to seminary. But Iosif was distracted and rebellious, in spite of his good grades, and became obsessed with the vision of Karl Marx for a revolution against the monarchy. When he was expelled from the seminary for bad behavior, he never looked back, disappointing his mother. Before her death in 1936, as Stalin began the Great Purge of his enemies, she wistfully said to him, “What a pity you never became a priest.”
An acolyte of Lenin, Iosif rose quickly through the ranks, fending off rivals such as Leon Trotsky. He skillfully re-created his personal biography, destroying records of his early life so he could present himself in a stronger and more romantic light. He changed his name to Stalin, meaning “man of steel.” Although Lenin himself grew disillusioned with Stalin at the end of his life, he was not able to stop Stalin’s power grab.
Stalin’s iron rule was puzzling to many, since the egalitarian vision of Marxism was of a people’s revolution that would lead to a “withering away” of the state. Stalin justified his tight control by arguing that before the state could wither it must first prepare conditions, weed out objections, cull the herd of rebels and malingerers. Only then could it reach the Marxist ideal.
To this end, peasants were forced into collectives at the point of a gun. Farmers could no longer sell grain on the open market. All capitalist practices were forbidden. A deadly famine in 1932–1933 that killed an estimated five million people, most of them in Ukraine, was a direct outgrowth of collectivization. In Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine, the journalist Anne Applebaum suggested that it was also a deliberate land grab and genocide of ethnic Ukrainians. Stalin was able to crush the resistance, thanks to a 1934 law allowing him to eliminate anyone he deemed to be an enemy of the state. That provision was as broad as he wanted it to be: If a plant did not meet production goals, it was due to saboteurs; if hungry farmers held back grain, they were robbing the people. Disloyalty to the state was punishable by death. Nearly one million people were murdered in the Great Purge between 1936 and 1938. Millions more were killed or sent to labor camps during his reign.
Stalin, whom his biographer Philip Boobbyer called “a kind of evil genius,” survived, propped up by the grand fiction of his supremacy and the worshipful propaganda of his state. Numbed by the dangerous consequences of dissent, the masses were without avenues for rebellion. It was easier to just believe the myth.
As the French novelist and Communist Henri Barbusse wrote in his 1935 biography of Stalin:
That man is the centre, the heart of everything that radiates from Moscow on the surrounding world. His portrait, either in the form of a sculpture or as a drawing, or as a photograph, is to be found everywhere throughout the Soviet continent, like Lenin and beside that of Lenin. There is hardly a corner of any factory, military barracks, office or shop window in which it does not appear on a red background, between a list of striking socialist statistics . . . and the emblem of the crossed hammer and sickle.
Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana, who would defect to the United States after Stalin’s death, wrote of her father’s thirst for power:
Human feelings in him were replaced by political considerations. He knew and sensed the political game, its shades, its nuances. He was completely absorbed by it. And since, for many years, his sole concern had been to seize hold and strengthen his power in the Party—and in the country—everything else in him had given away to this one aim.
Her admission was made with sadness. As a young girl, Svetlana had been an adoring daughter to a man who could be loving and playful. He was closer to her than to his two sons, Yakov, by his first marriage, and Vasily. But life in their home turned darker after Svetlana’s mother, Stalin’s second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, shot herself in 1932 in a despairing act of suicide. “He had always considered my mother his closest and most faithful friend,” Svetlana wrote. “He viewed her death as a betrayal and a stab in the back.” Unable to comprehend any reality except through his own prism, Stalin grew even more embittered and remote. He never remarried.
Having safely consigned the Soviets to nonaggression, Hitler showed his hand. Deep in the night of September 1, Germany invaded Poland, with a million and a half troops fanning out along its borders. The invasion was the natural progression of Hitler’s policy of Lebensraum—seizing more “living space” for the superior Germans. Having annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia with barely a response from other nations, perhaps he expected the conquest of Poland to be greeted with the same inertia. But this time he had overreached. The day after the invasion, Great Britain and France informed Hitler that he must withdraw from Poland by September 3 or face grave consequences. Hitler did not respond. The evening of September 3, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany.
At 3:00 in the morning on September 3, 1939, FDR was woken from sleep with the news. The war was on. In a speech from the White House, he spoke to the American people, in a fireside chat:
You must master at the outset a simple but unalterable fact in modern foreign relations. When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger.
It is easy for you and me to shrug our shoulders and say that conflicts taking place thousands of miles from the continental United States, and, indeed, the whole American Hemisphere, do not seriously affect the Americas—and that all the United States has to do is to ignore them and go about our own business. Passionately though we may desire detachment, we are forced to realize that every word that comes through the air, every ship that sails the sea, every battle that is fought, does affect the American future.
Later in the speech he added, “This nation will remain a neutral nation, but I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in thought as well. Even a neutral has a right to take account of facts. Even a neutral cannot be asked to close his mind or his conscience.” That line was FDR’s own insertion into the prepared draft. He was sending a message, perhaps urging Americans to think for themselves and not simply buy the line of isolationists wholesale.
Still warmed by the visit of King George and Queen Elizabeth, Americans felt a new stirring of sympathy for the Brits, which was echoed in the White House. Eleanor wrote to the queen:
Ever since England was forced into the war I have wanted to write and tell you how constantly you and the King are in my thoughts.
Since meeting you, I think I can understand a little better what a weight of sorrow and anxiety must be yours.
We can but pray for a just peace and my warm sympathy is with you.
Sincerely yours,
Eleanor Roosevelt
After war was declared, Chamberlain finally brought Churchill into his cabinet as first lord of the Admiralty—Great Britain’s version of secretary of the navy, and a position Churchill had held during the First World War. That delighted FDR, who felt he could relate better to a navy man. On September 11, he wrote Churchill:
It’s because you and I had similar jobs in World War 1 that I want you to know how glad I am that you’re back again in charge of the navy, although I know there are new problems. I want you and the Prime Minister to know that I’d be happy for you to keep me informed of anything important that’s happening. You can always send sealed letters directly to me.
I’m glad you finished writing the first parts of your history book before this war started—and I’ve much enjoyed reading them.
With my sincere regards,
Faithfully yours,
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
Churchill more than complied with the invitation to keep in touch. Over the course of their relationship, the two men would exchange some two thousand letters.
Feeling their position threatened, American isolationists heightened their rhetoric. On October 13, Lindbergh was on fire with a racially charged speech:
Our bond with Europe is a bond of race and not of political ideology. We had to fight a European army to establish democracy in this country. It is the European race we must preserve; political progress will follow. Racial strength is vital politics, a luxury. If the white race is ever seriously threatened, it may then be time for us to take our part in its protection, to fight side by side with the English, French, and Germans, but not with one against the other for our mutual destruction.
FDR would later tell Morgenthau, “If I should die tomorrow, I want you to know this. I am absolutely convinced that Lindbergh is a Nazi.”
On September 21, FDR appeared before Congress to once again urge its members to repeal the arms embargo. He had called Rosenman to Washington to help him prepare the speech. When Rosenman arrived at the White House, he found an uproar. A large group of congressmen from both parties was huddled in the Oval Office with FDR, discussing potential legislation to lift the embargo, Rosenman recalled. “Reporters were swarming around the entrance hall in the executive offices waiting for the conference to break up.”
LeHand gave Rosenman two speech drafts: one dictated by FDR and another prepared by aides. He sat down in the cabinet room and set out to create a cohesive whole. He worked late into the night, stopping only for dinner with the president, and after a few hours’ sleep was up again early to continue his work. At 9:00 A.M., he took the speech into the president’s bedroom, where they continued working on it together. The president was scheduled to deliver the speech at 2:00 P.M., and it was completed at 12:30.
His purpose was to reset the debate—to frame the issue as a return to American principles. He believed that the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s, which had been designed to limit the United States’ involvement in foreign wars, damaged US interests by sidelining the nation in a time of true crisis. He presented his proposal not as a step toward engagement in war but as a safeguard against the looming dangers:
On July fourteenth of this year, I asked the Congress in the cause of peace and in the interest of real American neutrality and security to take action to change that Act.
I now ask again that such action be taken in respect to that part of the Act which is wholly inconsistent with ancient precepts of the law of nations—the embargo provisions. I ask it because they are, in my opinion, most vitally dangerous to American neutrality, American security and American peace. . . .
I give to you my deep and unalterable conviction, based on years of experience as a worker in the field of international peace, that by the repeal of the embargo the United States will more probably remain at peace than if the law remains as it stands today. I say this because with the repeal of the embargo this Government clearly and definitely will insist that American citizens and American ships keep away from the immediate perils of the actual zones of conflict. . . .
Destiny first made us, with our sister nations on this Hemisphere, joint heirs of European culture. Fate seems now to compel us to assume the task of helping to maintain in the Western world a citadel wherein that civilization may be kept alive. The peace, the integrity and the safety of the Americas—these must be kept firm and serene. In a period when it is sometimes said that free discussion is no longer compatible with national safety, may you by your deeds show the world that we of the United States are one people, of one mind, one spirit, one clear resolution, walking before God in the light of the living.
That time it worked. Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1939, which FDR signed on November 4. It lifted the embargo under a cash-and-carry system, allowing the sale of material to belligerents (e.g., Great Britain) if they paid in cash and arranged for transport with their own ships.
Critics charged that supplying material to Great Britain would compromise the United States’ own military readiness. But Roosevelt saw the two needs as part of the same goal. He thought that by lending aid in this way, the United States would be able to stay out of the war. There might also have been a more strategic calculation. The US war machine was not fighting fit. For years during the Depression, military spending had been on the back burner, and it showed. The current military was only 100,000 strong, and the country was far behind on weaponry, air and sea vessels, and materials—especially when compared with the strength of the German army.
It was cause for alarm.
In September, FDR made three appointments designed to reverse that decline and prepare the US military apparatus for whatever threat might come its way. The first was General George C. Marshall as army chief of staff. Although he had never commanded troops on the ground, Marshall was a master strategist and one of the most revered generals in the United States, respected as well by his British counterparts. Roosevelt admired him for his temperament and for his problem-solving skills. Above all, the army needed a tactician more than a showman such as Douglas MacArthur, who was heroic but a loose cannon. Marshall was beloved by his subordinates because he treated them with dignity and respect. He was a listener, not a barker of orders.
A second appointment was the Republican Henry Stimson as secretary of war, replacing the isolationist Harry Woodring. Stimson, a military veteran of World War I and secretary of war under William Howard Taft, was a strong interventionist who was serious about the expansion of the military.
The third was the Republican William Franklin “Frank” Knox as secretary of the navy. Knox, a former newspaper publisher and vice presidential candidate with Alf Landon in 1936, was also an advocate of greater military readiness.
By FDR’s side, as he had been since 1933, was Major General Edwin “Pa” Watson, his senior military aide. Watson, who had been a junior military aide to Woodrow Wilson while FDR was serving in the Department of the Navy, was FDR’s most trusted liaison with the Department of War and a voice he often listened to.
Now Roosevelt had his bipartisan military coalition. The future was unpredictable, but the nation would be ready.
NO US PRESIDENT HAD ever served more than two terms in office. None had even tried, except for Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt, who had run his Independent Party campaign after he’d left office. Before February 27, 1951, when the Twenty-second Amendment was ratified, there was no term limit. But ever since President Washington had chosen to step down after two terms, a two-term maximum had been considered the unwritten rule. As the 1940 election year approached, many people were wondering if FDR was going to break it.
It didn’t look like it. All signs pointed to Roosevelt’s desire to retire. He often spoke longingly about his postpresidential life. He was deeply engaged in preparations for the Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, and he was making plans to write his autobiography. He’d dangled the idea before Rosenman that Rosenman and his wife might move to the Hyde Park area so he could work with FDR on his papers. He’d invited Hopkins to do the same. He imagined a close cadre of the people he cared for most, living out a joint retirement in intellectual pursuits. It sounded idyllic after the heavy pressures of office.
Eleanor, as always, was circumspect in her opinion about whether her husband should retire or pursue a third term, but it was no secret that she didn’t want him to run again. She felt that he had done his part and it was time to pass the torch and let the New Deal continue without him. She knew her husband well and had observed the diminishment of his passion for the job. Frankly, she thought he was bored, she confided to one of his advisers. And the strain on his physical well-being was obvious. The rest of the family agreed. Roosevelt told Morgenthau in January, “I do not want to run unless between now and the convention things get very, very much worse in Europe.”
And things were getting worse.
In April, the Nazis invaded Denmark and Norway as a strategic positioning to establish a foothold in western Europe. Then, at 2:30 in the morning on May 10, in a “blitzkrieg”—a lightning attack—German forces flooded into Belgium and Holland, overwhelming their defenses and bombing airfields in Belgium, Holland, France, and Luxembourg.
FDR sat in his office late into the night, reviewing the reports from Europe, which were sketchy but increasingly grim. A report from London brought news that Prime Minister Chamberlain had resigned. Once lauded as a hero for preserving the peace, Chamberlain had faced a crumbling coalition in the days leading up to Germany’s latest assault. Without support in the government, he had stepped down. Churchill was ready. His position as first lord of the Admiralty had restored his reputation. He was able to pull together a coalition, and the king invited him to establish a government. In a move that would have seemed fantastical a year earlier, Churchill became prime minister. (From then on, he would often sign his letters to Roosevelt, “Former Naval Person,” acknowledging their naval ties.)
Still urging appeasement, Ambassador Kennedy wired FDR that perhaps the best option would be for Great Britain and France to negotiate a peace with Hitler. That, he felt, would be preferable to almost certain slaughter. In the coming weeks, German troops stormed into France. On June 14, Nazi troops marched into Paris, taking the city. William Shirer’s poignant report stunned the world; it was a rebuke to those who thought negotiation with Hitler was still possible: “We hear the church bells ringing again today ringing the tidings of the entry of German troops into Paris. And tonight, the swastika flag with Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich hovers from the Eiffel Tower there by the Seine in that Paris. . . . Now, Great Britain was alone against the Nazis.”
Five days later, Churchill sent a message to FDR. “As you are no doubt aware, the scene has darkened swiftly.” Laying his cards on the table, he wrote, “If necessary, we shall continue the war alone, and we are not afraid of that.” But he warned Roosevelt that if the United States did not lend its voice and support, before too long it would be too late to have any impact.
The American people remained firm in their opposition to joining the war. But many thought the United States should help in some way. France was under devastating assault. The idea that Great Britain might fall to the Nazis was unthinkable.
Then, on June 10, Italy entered the war, aligned with Germany. The news coincided with a personal event for the Roosevelts. Their son Franklin, Jr., was graduating from the University of Virginia Law School, and FDR was scheduled to give the commencement speech. In the car on the way to the ceremony, he scribbled a new line in his prepared text, which he delivered to the graduates: “On this tenth day of June, 1940, the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.” FDR’s critics thought his words too inflammatory, and his supporters feared he might alienate Italian American voters in the upcoming election. But Roosevelt was furious at the Italians—and he vowed to stop any Italian money from leaving the country.
With Great Britain standing virtually alone against Germany and now Italy, FDR was growing increasingly gloomy about Great Britain’s prospects, worrying that it was about to be “licked” by the Germans. He’d watched Churchill set hearts alight with his prose, and he admired Great Britain’s resolve, but it felt futile.
At the same time, FDR was struggling with his own moment of truth. Time was running out for him to make a decision about whether or not he would run for a third term. In his private moments, he was beset by melancholy. He was at his best when a clear enemy could be sighted and defeated—such as the Great Depression. But now his hands were tied. The United States was not at war with Hitler. He could not be decisive when the decision was not his to make.
What should he do? What could he do? He was feeling a sense of obligation to continue in office and see the crisis through, but opponents of a third term were noisy, with their slogan. “I’m Against the Third Term . . . Washington wouldn’t, Grant couldn’t, Roosevelt shouldn’t,” read a campaign button. Even his own vice president, John Nance Garner, was openly opposing a third term and talking about running himself.
In a conversation with Nebraska senator George Norris, the senator joked that if he didn’t run, where would all the liberals go? FDR gave a sober reply: “Did you ever stop to think that if I should run and be elected I would have much more trouble with Congress in my third term and much more bitterness to contend with as a result of my running for a third term than I have ever had before?”
When FDR described the conversation to Morgenthau, the secretary nodded. “After all, Mr. President,” he said, “you can make up your mind at the last moment, and make up your mind in a split second.”
“Absolutely,” the president agreed.
The Republican National Convention was held first, from June 24 to 28 in Philadelphia. The Republicans nominated a nonpolitician, Wendell Willkie, a successful business executive. Originally a Democrat and supporter of the New Deal, Willkie had changed his mind and his party over what he considered unfair burdens on business. In reality, his positions on the issues were not that far from FDR’s. Republicans might have found Willkie a less-than-perfect loyalist, but they liked his style. Energetic, smart, a plainspoken midwestern breath of fresh air after nearly eight years of Roosevelt, they embraced him as their best hope against the president, if he should choose to run.
The Democrats were set to meet on July 15. Still, there was only silence from the White House. James Farley, the postmaster general and head of the Democratic National Committee, had largely fallen out with his mentor over the years, and now he was an open opponent of a third term. Farley was considering putting his own name into contention for the nomination. He was deeply frustrated by Roosevelt’s failure to say one way or another whether he would run. Until he did, the delegates were on hold. No one wanted to buck the president.
In early July, Farley drove from New York City to Hyde Park, hoping to get a firm answer. Crossing the George Washington Bridge and driving up the Palisades, passing through his birthplace in Rockland County, Farley’s thoughts were focused on the meeting ahead. “From time to time I turned my eyes to enjoy the grandeur of the Hudson,” he wrote, “but for the most part my attention was on the impending meeting. I made up my mind that I would not take exception to anything that might be said, nor would I rake up irritations from the past.” He was full of emotion but determined not to show it.
Arriving at Hyde Park to a warm welcome from Sara and Eleanor, he joined the family for a pleasant lunch. Hopkins and his secretary were there, as were Missy LeHand and Steve Early. Afterward, Farley and the president went to the study for a private conversation. To Farley’s disappointment, FDR was cagey about his decision. He said he didn’t want to run, but he stopped short of saying he wouldn’t. Farley was looking for something more specific, more like William Tecumseh Sherman, the Civil War general who had said, “I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected.”
FDR sat back in his chair and lit a cigarette. If Farley wanted Sherman, he would give him his own version. “Jim,” he said, “if nominated and elected, I could not in these times refuse to take the inaugural oath, even if I knew I would be dead within five days.”
Farley concluded that FDR was waiting to be drafted and he could expect no definitive statement. He felt his trip had been wasted. When he told FDR he was planning to put his own name into nomination, the president was noncommittal.
The president asked Hopkins to go to the convention and work the floor. He gave him instructions that made Hopkins uneasy. Roosevelt said he would not announce an intention to run. In fact, he would send a message saying he had no wish to be nominated and releasing his delegates. If the delegates wanted him, they would have to draft him.
It was a risky strategy, but Hopkins obliged. Once in Chicago, he appealed directly to Farley to withdraw his name and run FDR’s campaign, a move that angered Farley. That was no way to run a convention!
When the delegates heard of Roosevelt’s recusal, they were stunned. But right after the announcement there was a cry in the hall: “We want Roosevelt!” The delegates took up the cheer: “We want Roosevelt! We want Roosevelt.” No one stopped to wonder who had raised the cry. Later, it turned out that a Chicago official, Thomas Garry, superintendent of sewers, was in the basement with a microphone. The rally had been staged. The seemingly spontaneous chant had the effect of galvanizing the delegates for Roosevelt. The following day, most of them voted for him, with few breaking to cast votes for Garner, Farley, or a third candidate, Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland. The count was so lopsided that Farley, nearly in tears, took the stage and called for a suspension of the rules to nominate Roosevelt by acclamation—just what Roosevelt had wanted.
The real drama of the convention was the vice presidential nomination. Roosevelt let it be known that he wanted Henry Wallace, his secretary of agriculture. The delegates rebelled. They didn’t consider Wallace, a former Republican, to be a true Democrat. The opposition was fierce. However, FDR wanted Wallace, believing he would be the most reliable caretaker of the New Deal if anything were to happen to Roosevelt.
Hopkins called the White House and reached Tully. He informed her that it was likely the nomination of Wallace would fail. When she told FDR, he blew up. “Well, damn it to hell,” he cried, “they will go for Wallace or I won’t run and you can jolly well tell them so.”
After he calmed down, FDR realized that threats were not the answer. Instead, he sent Eleanor to Chicago. When the first lady arrived on the convention floor, it looked as if the delegates would go to war to defeat Wallace. She rose calmly to address them in her trilling voice, never mentioning Wallace’s name but reminding them of the grave times in which they lived. “You will have to rise above considerations which are narrow and partisan,” she chided them, and they responded. Wallace won the nomination. (Notably, Farley stepped down as postmaster general in September.)
FDR had always loved retail politics, getting out into the country to meet the people. But in 1940 he was barely on the trail, burdened by affairs in Washington. Meanwhile, Willkie was campaigning vigorously. Although he could be an electrifying speaker, Willkie was a disorganized campaigner, his inexperience constantly on display. Sometimes it seemed as though he forgot himself and supported policies the president was advocating, such as aid to Great Britain. The central issue of the election was not domestic policy but the international crisis. Republicans believed that a vote for Roosevelt was a vote for war and a vote for Willkie was a vote against war. Yet Willkie’s primary appeal was that he was not Roosevelt, and there was always a chance it might be enough.
The news from Great Britain was demoralizing. In September, Germans launched bombing raids on London and other cities. It wasn’t an invasion, in Germany’s typical manner, but a campaign to terrorize the English and weaken their resolve. Night after night, bombs fell in a blitz that would continue well into 1941. Churchill was often on the streets, in his signature top hat and walking stick, surveying the damage and offering words of comfort. The king and queen sent their daughters away to safety at Windsor Castle while they remained behind, frequently visiting the bombed neighborhoods. While the king was touring the East End, which had endured much of the bombing, someone in the crowd cried, “Thank God for a good King!” The king replied, “Thank God for a good people.” A few days later, when Buckingham Palace was also bombed, the queen remarked that now she could look East Enders in the face. They were all in it together.
A popular song captured the sense of solidarity:
In London, in London,
Like Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown
The King is still in London Town.
As bombs fell on London, Ambassador Kennedy’s star was crashing to earth. He moved his family out of the city and asked FDR to accept his resignation. He gave as his reason his sense of being increasingly out of the loop on war discussions, but the Brits thought he wanted to leave because he was a coward. They called him “Jittery Joe.”
FDR was relieved. He immediately appointed John Gilbert Winant, a former governor of New Hampshire and avid New Dealer, who won the affection of the British people as soon as he landed in London. “There’s no place I’d rather be at this time,” he said upon his arrival. After Kennedy, the British were cheered to have an American ambassador who actually wanted to be there.
Winant went about proving himself to be Kennedy’s opposite. He walked the streets at night while bombs were falling, helping the fire brigades pull people out of the rubble. Londoners were stunned to see the tall, handsome American coming toward them on their darkest nights, smiling warmly and asking what he could do to help.
Roosevelt realized that the bombings were aimed at undermining the public morale of the British. He speculated to Morgenthau that perhaps the way to destroy German morale was to do the same. “I know south Germany, because I have bicycled over every foot of it when I was a child and there is a town every ten miles,” he said. “I have suggested to the English again and again if they sent a hundred planes over Germany for military objectives that ten of them should bomb some of these smaller towns that have never been bombed before. There must be some kind of a factory in every town. That is the only way to break the German morale.”
At the end of September, Hitler strengthened his hand by formalizing a Tripartite Pact with Italy and Japan. The Axis Powers, as they became known, agreed to divvy up their efforts and their areas of action: Germany and Italy would lead the fight in Europe, with Japan concentrating on the Pacific. From FDR’s point of view, Japan was the greatest threat to US interests. The country had been engaged in aggressive expansionism for nearly a decade, beginning with an invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and continuing with other clashes in China. The United States condemned the Japanese attacks on China, establishing economic sanctions and trade embargoes and providing aid to the Chinese. But Japan continued its aggressive movement into Southeast Asia, its eye on Pacific conquests as well. In 1939, FDR had moved the Pacific Fleet from California to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, a US territory, as a means of halting Japan’s path through the Pacific. The Axis Tripartite Pact specifically promised assistance from the others if one of the parties was attacked by a nation not involved in the war; were the United States to attack Japanese vessels, it would be tantamount to declaring war on Germany and Italy.
FDR was growing frustrated about being on the sidelines, and the campaign drove him farther away from engagement, as he was pressured to say time and again that Americans would not join the fight. Shortly before the election, James had a candid conversation with his father. He told him he thought he was being dishonest about his position on the war, especially his claim that Americans would not be sent to war. FDR admitted that war was almost certain but a delaying tactic was prudent. When Americans were on his side and the nation was better prepared, perhaps things would look different. For now he was determined to win the election. “I think I’m needed,” he told James.
On election day, Roosevelt was ahead in the polls, but his margin had narrowed enough to cause him anxiety. The early returns showed Willkie doing better than Landon had in 1936, and a worried Roosevelt shut himself inside a room alone, contemplating the possibility of defeat. But the results soon turned around, and late in the evening it appeared that Roosevelt had won again—although Willkie would not concede until 11:00 the next morning. The final count was tighter than in his previous elections but still decisive—54.7 percent of the popular vote and 449 electoral votes for Roosevelt and 44.8 percent and 82 electoral votes for Willkie.
The traditional torchlight parade came up the driveway around midnight, and Roosevelt went out onto the porch to greet his neighbors. He seemed newly energized as he waved to them, but deep down he knew the hardest challenge was still to come.
A tightening inner circle was forming around the president, and that team would be responsible for speech writing until the end of FDR’s presidency. It was a particularly significant time for a close collaboration that could create just the right message. FDR was not Churchill; he could not afford careless or overly emotional words. Each fireside chat, each speech to Congress, was like stepping onto a field littered with hidden mines. Reckless taunts might turn Americans away from the fight; inspiring prose could draw them closer.
The speech-writing team included Hopkins and Rosenman, as well as a newcomer, Robert Sherwood. Sherwood was an intriguing outsider, a two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright, who would help craft some of Roosevelt’s most memorable speeches and fireside chats.
Two speeches would characterize FDR’s defense of democracy as he prepared to begin his third term—the first, a fireside chat on December 29, known as the “arsenal of democracy” speech; and the second, on January 6, a State of the Union address, known as the “Four Freedoms” speech.
The day after Christmas, FDR asked Rosenman and Sherwood to come stay at the White House and work with him and Hopkins on a fireside chat he wanted to give on December 29. The president told them he was looking for simplicity and clarity—a way to convey what was at stake in language that would be as easy to grasp as his early New Deal appeals had been. They found that simplicity in the phrase “arsenal of democracy.”
According to Rosenman, the phrase had first been used by Jean Monnet, a French diplomat, in a recent conversation with Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter, describing the United States’ role in the fight against Hitler. Frankfurter had been so struck by the phrase that he had suggested that Monnet lend it to the president, who could give it more international weight. When Roosevelt saw the line in his speech, he brightened. “I love it!” he told the speechwriters.
In establishing the concept of that arsenal, Roosevelt went farther than he had gone before to describe the common path forward. And he took a direct jab at isolationists: “There are also American citizens, many of them in high places, who unwittingly in most cases are aiding and abetting the work of these [Nazi] agents.” When the draft was sent for review by the State Department, “many of them in high places” was crossed out in red. FDR scoffed at that. “Leave it in,” he told the speechwriters. “In fact, I’m very much tempted to say ‘many of them in high places . . . including the State Department.’”
The State of the Union speech had been in the works for weeks. The State Department had submitted one draft, and FDR and his speechwriters worked on additional drafts. When Hopkins, Rosenman, and Sherwood gathered in the president’s study one evening to review the third draft, FDR told them he had a new idea for an uplifting ending.
“We waited as he leaned far back in his swivel chair with his eyes on the ceiling,” Rosenman recalled. “It was a long pause—so long that it began to become uncomfortable. Then he leaned forward again in his chair and said, ‘Dorothy [stenographer Dorothy Brady], take a law.’” And he dictated the text of the Four Freedoms: “We must look forward to a world based on four essential human freedoms,” he said, naming them as freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship God, each in his own way, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
The speech would become a standard of American values, repeated down through the decades. Forty-five years later, President Ronald Reagan would reprise it in a challenge to the Soviet Union. “You can see the real Roosevelt when he comes out with something like the Four Freedoms,” Hopkins said approvingly. “And don’t get the idea that those are any catch phrases. He believes them. He believes they can be practically obtained.”
THE INAUGURATION ON JANUARY 20 felt somewhat understated. The nation was still adjusting to a third-term president. Republicans were demoralized, having also failed to win majorities in the House and Senate. It was easy to feel that they were stuck with a president for life and his legislative wing. At a White House dinner leading up to the inauguration, Supreme Court chief justice Charles Evans Hughes was discussing the oath of office with the president. “Mr. President,” he joked, “after I have read the oath and you have repeated it, how would it do for me to lean forward and whisper, ‘Don’t you think this is getting just a little monotonous for both of us?’”
January 20, Inauguration Day, was cold and clear, and it was hard to miss the military theme. As the president took his seat on the reviewing stand after the ceremony, General George Marshall demonstrated the improving military forces, leading a large contingent from the army, navy, and air force down Pennsylvania Avenue, with tanks following, as fighters and bombers thundered across the sky above.
Roosevelt’s address, which was broadcast throughout the world, reached back in history to recall the words of George Washington in his first inaugural address in 1789: “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered . . . deeply, . . . finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” He called on Americans to keep that sacred fire: “If we let it be smothered with doubt and fear—then we shall reject the destiny which Washington strove so valiantly and so triumphantly to establish.”
Knowing he now had four years ahead of him, Roosevelt was becoming more decisive. Shortly after the New Year, he made a move to cement the United States’ support of Great Britain: he sent Harry Hopkins to London as a personal envoy.
As Hopkins explained his role to the broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, “I have come here to try to find a way to be a catalytic between two prima donnas.” Of course, his mission was far more profound. From then on, Hopkins was FDR’s key emissary to Churchill, and he would later play a similar role with Stalin.
Soon after, Roosevelt appointed W. Averell Harriman as special envoy to Great Britain. (He gave him an invented title: Defense Expediter.) Harriman, a prominent banker, adviser, and old friend of the family, would become one of the most important diplomats of the era, later as ambassador to the Soviet Union. When FDR first approached him, Harriman found the mission to be vague. “The President talked to me as if it was mutually understood that it had been decided I should go for some time past,” Harriman wrote in his notes of their meeting. “All in all, rambling on as he does on many subjects . . .” Although Harriman accepted the challenge, it was clear he would have to design the job on the ground.
With those two powerhouses on the scene, the president was telegraphing his intent to get an early start on his third term and grab the momentum to drive a clarifying message about America’s proper role in the world.