ALAS, THERE WERE FEW primary sources still alive by the time I reached this subject. One of the last standing, Robert J. Stuart, who when a student at Yale cofounded the organization that became the isolationists’ principal campaigning body, America First, died shortly after the book was completed, in May 2014, aged ninety-eight. The original documents, too, have been so finely combed through that genuinely new material was scarce. I am therefore indebted to those who left firsthand accounts of their contribution to this story. And I owe a debt to the many fine editors, such as Elliott Roosevelt in the case of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s personal letters, Amanda Smith for Joseph P. Kennedy’s letters, William Jovanovich for Charles A. Lindbergh’s wartime journals, and Jane D. Ickes for the secret diary of Harold L. Ickes, among many others, who did so much of the preliminary work for me. I would not have dared start out on this account of how Franklin Roosevelt outsmarted the isolationists while persuading his countrymen to come to the defense of democracy had I not been able to draw upon the many hundreds of books on related topics written and published on both sides of the Atlantic. I thank all the authors listed in the bibliography, and many I have omitted to mention.
I am grateful, as ever, to my literary agent, Rafe Sagalyn, for his wisdom, encouragement and good humor, and to Brendan Curry, my editor at W. W. Norton, for the elegance of his touches on the tiller. Thanks, too, to my copyeditor, Allegra Huston, for her clear thinking and meticulous attention to detail. Similarly, George Herrick, Sean Wilentz, Conrad Black, and Rockwell Stensrud read through the book and provided helpful comments. And I am particularly grateful to my eldest brother, Paul Wapshott, who lent me his extensive knowledge of military affairs and World War Two. I should stress, however, that all errors found in the text are mine. Thanks also to Fern Hurst for providing me with a welcome refuge to write.
As always, I must thank my wife, Louise Nicholson, who, along with my sons, William and Oliver, have met with patience my endless ruminations on the respective merits of isolationism and interventionism and have suffered without complaint having our home invaded by tall stacks of dusty books. But I am above all grateful to Roosevelt and those who thought like him, who worked so hard to ensure that Nazism was defeated. Had a less brilliant and persuasive leader been at the helm of the United States at this critical turning point in history, this story would have had a tragic outcome. And it would most likely have been written in German.
Nicholas Wapshott
New York City
May 2014