Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The Arsenal Of Dem

Pole. Youll also see books about the u. S. Border patrol, israel, fracking, the taliban in afghanistan and the American West in 1776. All this and much more, 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors on cspan2. Booktv, television for serious readers. Up next, a. J. Baime appeared at the Chicago Tribune printers row lit fest to discuss the arsenal of democracy about the creation to have u. S. Bomber force prior to americas entry in world war ii. This is about 40 minutes. Thank you very much, john, and thank you to everyone whos here on a beautiful, sunny day. A its good to see you, and welcome to lit fest. If this is your first time, this is one of the great festivals of chicago, and were glad werere getting a good turnout today and there is a lot to do. Thank you for coming to this event. To theres another one right after, it. A friend of mine, rick kogan, will be conducting a discussionr so theres a lot to do, so, please, stick armed. Anything occurs to you, well give it at least ten minutes. Thisll run very quickly, i think, because ive had a chance to meet a. J. Baime, the author of the arsenal of democracy. Its fantastic, and i highly recommend it to you. Its a topic that covers politics, business, theres even some art and design in there, theres incredible personalities, and i learned a lot there reading it. Im sort of a world war ii buff. Do we have any other world war ii buffs here . Thin whos interested . I am, im a history buff for sure. A. J. Looks very youthful, so how did you come to do it, a. J. , and what does a young guy like you know about world war ii . Firstly, i just want to say its wonderful to be here. I want to thank my wife michelle is here, my son, clayton, who is on chapter four, im proud to say. I was not alive, i was born in 1971. And my last book took place in the 1960s, and a lot of people said what do you know about this . When they asked me the question, i always answer that i have to work much harder than anybody else who had lived through this because i didnt. So i had to not just understand the characters and what was happening and why it was happening, but i had to understand their motivations which meant going through their personal belongings and their papers and their correspondence and reading newspapers of the day, not looking for anything, but just to try this any way that i could to get inside the heads of the people i was writing about so that i could understand the extremely difficult decisions that they were making. Well, and we were talking earlier, and a. J. Mentioned that this book is almost a prequel to the book that he wrote before, go like hell, which is also available for sale and which talks about this incredible drama on the racing circuit. This one, for me, was sort of a revelation because everybodys heard of the edsel and edsel ford and not in a good light. I really didnt know much about edsel ford can and the relationship between henry ford, his father, and edsel ford is really one of the main driving narrative forces of the book, and it was extremely interesting. So can you tell us a little bit about their relationship . Sure. Its just by chance that the book comes out on fathers day. It does make a Great Fathers day gift. But when i was researching my last book, go like hell, there was this character named edsel who was one of my main characters, henry ford ii. And i found myself just so i identified with this character, edsel, who died a tragic death in 1943. Theres something about him that i just loved. He was somebody who was his understood his whole life. He was a person who was thrust into amazing amounts of power and wealth at a very critical time in our nations history, and people who live in detroit and people who though the story of the ford family think of edsel as this extremely flawed character. He was, his father who was this great pacifist refused to let edsel serve in world war i. So when edsel was at a young age, he was humiliated, he was e maas calculated. When all of the boys were going to fight in the war, he was not allowed to. His whole life was an uphill climb which seems strange for somebody who was born the only child, the only legitimate child of henry ford who was the richest and most powerful, you know, probably the most famous american through the entire first half of that century. So to me, there was this character, edsel, who his whole life he was trying to create honor for himself, and thats what happens in this book, but it doesnt happen until the final days before he dies. Its very dramatic for me and somebody i identified with. The people in detroit who are reading this book are saying theyre so pleased that edsel is getting his due. Its a little bit of a great gatsbytype story and really very interesting. Just for starters, the arsenal of democracy is the title. What does that mean and where does that come from . Historians have not agreed where the term comes from. Some people say it goes back to Woodrow Wilson during world war i. In this case on december 29th, 1940, fdr, hes in the situation where he realizes that theres this war going on in europe, and were not going to be able to escape it. Its coming our way, and theres nothing we can do about it. And he figured out something. He said this is a new kind of war, and he figured out something brilliant very early on. He might have taken a lesson from the nazis in this regard, but he realized that this was going to be a war fought with mass production. And so he gave the speech on december 29, 1940, and he called it the arsenal of democracy fireside chat. And the idea was to inspire free interrise and government to join together enterprise and government to join together and create this arse that would with which we were going to have to fight this war. At a the time it was very controversial because a lot of people didnt want to be in this war, but i think he sawinevitable. And the only way we were going to win was if Free Enterprise put all of their best judgment aside and created the tanks, airplanes specifically airplanes. But not just the tanks, the airplanes and the guns, but the tents, the jackets, the cigarettes, everything. Everything was going to go toward this war, and thats what this arsenal was. And, you know, one thing that comes through in the early part of the book is just how strong the forces of isolationism were. And the Chicago Tribune was among the players in that era that were very strongly opposed to any american involvement and wanted, in fact, our headline on september 1st of 1939 when the nazis invaded polander was poland was europes wars on. Not our war, their war. And that very much was a theme not just for the tribune or for germanamericans, but really all the way through for most of the country. I think people wanted to stay out. Wed had a horrible time in the depression, and some of the central characters in a. J. s book are very much of that thinking. Starting with henry ford and also Charles Charles lindbergh who plays a big role in this. Thats true. Ford and lindbergh were the two most famous antiwar person at the time, very honored civic beings, and they were very much against us being in this war. Lindbergh was not he didnt run it, but he was part of an Organization Called America First. Has anybody heard of America First . Anybody remember . Okay. So gerald ford was part of this group, e. E. Cummings and i believe walt disney, i think . That i have to fact check. But it was the biggest antiwar group in the country, and lindbergh was touring the nation giving speeches saying, you know, we have to stay out of this war. If we get in this war, its going to be the biggest catastrophe in the history of our nation, which in a way it was. But what i find most interesting oh, a picture in here, by the way, of lindbergh testifying before congress in a room much more crowded than this one in which he said i think that we need to stay out of this war because we cant win. And specifically, he was addressing the german luftwaffe. He said we cannot come up with air power thats going to be able to defeat this air force that germany has created that he had seen firsthand. So once the war starts after pearl harbor, its very moving to me when i read through lindberghs papers and how he came to join henry ford, these two antiwar activists joined together to create the bombers that you see here on the cover of this book. Well, it took them a while to get there, and one of the interesting facets leading up to the war was how the nazis were in some ways admired by some of the people in this book. And henry ford and lindbergh were both honored and took medals, i believe, from the nazis. Can you fill us in on just where they were there and what was known about the antisemitism and, you know, the terrible parts of the third reich that we know so well now . Sure. If i speak slowly, its because this is such sensitive material to me, and i dont want to get it wrong. [laughter] these were characters that were extremely misunderstood. Lindbergh and henry ford. They were both antisemites, i dont think theres any arguing that. But when you contextual im jewish, so im not making excuses for these people, but its important to understand getting back to the whole idea of the kind of research i was trying to do. Not just to understand these people, the decisions that they make and but why they were making them. And antisemitism was rife all over america. It wasnt just in germany. I quote one fact in the book that theres a gallup poll in 1938 that 25 of americans thought that there was going to be violence against jews here, Mass Violence against jews here in america. So these figures were not alone. So to understand, they were just the most powerful people in the country speaking what a lot of people felt, and i think that they wanted to be a spokesperson for that cause. Im not making excuses for them, again. Now, in terms of the war oh, in terms of, okay, yes. So both of these characters received a very important medal from hitler. It was a gift from hitler to both of these gentlemen for their service, and it was a brilliant propaganda move by hitler to give these guys this cross. Both of them refused to give this gift back to the third reich. And i think that they were alarmed by what would have happened if they did that. But here these guys were with their faces in the newspaper and probably on the cover of the Chicago Tribune. As a matter of fact, hitler was quoted in 1933 saying, you know, honoring henry ford, saying that henry ford was his hero. So there was a connection between these people that was written a lot about at the time that makes them so incredibly controversial. However, once the war started i think it was very clear that these two gentlemen that were is is that were so controversial and had received these medals had their hearts in the right laces, and they wanted to serve, and they wanted to win the war. Well, and we sort of got to that point slow hi which is illustrated in the book where henry ford and Charles Lindbergh were no fans of president roosevelt, and it was a struggle, i think, for roosevelt to turn this arsenal of democracy from, you know, sort of dormancy and reluctance into something that turned out to be warwinning. So how did he pull that off, a. J. . It was difficult. The new deal was very controversial. Roosevelt d when we think of roos related to, we think, well, heres this character who was so gloved and who really represented americanism all over the world. But a lot of people in this country didnt like him. A lot of people. And specifically, when he needed, when fdr needed to create the arsenal of democracy, one of the things well, the people he really needed were the people in charge of the big Assembly Lines. And these were all his enemies because they did not like the way that the new deal encroached upon their way of doing business, whether it was functioning during the Great Depression or not. So a lot of these leaders, henry ford first and foremost among them, thought that roosevelt was henry ford said i dont think that the government has too much, is having enough success running itself, so why do they want to come and run my business . Thats what he said. Im trying to get the quote right. But there were a lot of people who felt the way he did. The first thing he had to do when he had to create this arsenal was to find people who were going to help him, and that was not an easy task. The first person he called upon was the president of general motors, william knudsen. Does anybody remember william need seven . Anybody . So he was extremely famous at the time. Came through ellis island, and he was the first person that roosevelt called. Brought him down to West Virginia and said hey, you know him down to washington and said, hey, we need to create an arsenal. Another really prominent character is the b24 liberator bomber. This is this gigantic plane that at the time it was made was the fastest, most powerful, it carried the most bombs. Its a fourengine plane. And it really got off on the wrong foot, and the ford people who rused it started from who produced it started from scratch literally. Can you tell us the story of willow run and how that got started . Willow run at the time was created theory overnight. The fords tried to create the biggest factory under one roof anywhere in the world. And one fascinating fact is if you drive to detroit today, youll go through a little is right outside detroit, and you can pull off the highway, and you can see it, and its there. Now, if you do that today, what youre going to see is these giant wrecking balls that are destroying this factory right now. At the time the fords built this factory as quickly as they could in an open fear field. They had to clear an orchard and build the biggest factory under one roof anywhere in the world and try to take the biggest, fastest, most destructive fourengine bomber and make it the most mass produced of all time. Im giving away the ending, but it is still today the host massproduced military mostc massproduced military aircraft of all time. We writers love narrative arc. We love it when everything goes wrong before everything goes right, which is exactly what happens in this book. So everything did go wrong, and i found a lot of diaries of the people who worked on and inside this factory. To hear what they were saying and thinking about it inm u 1941 when everything was going wrong is really incredible. Yeah. I mean, among other things the state of the art for the Aviation Industry in the u. S. Was more or less handmadec planes. Nobody had a system for mass producing a plane. And in some ways it was in keeping with the state of the technology, because you could build a plane by hand and make changes on the next one if it didnt work out whereas in the case of ford they tried to make it like a model t where they would have, you know, steel diecast Machine Tools to make it, and then when it didnt work, youd have to redo all the Machine Tools. What sort of problems did they run into it, a. J. . This was a new airplane. They were trying to maas produce a a mass airplane. By 1940 the fords were trying to make it, build one an hour. Okay . This thing weighed 56,000 pounds fully loaded, it could go 303 Miles Per Hour and carry 8,000 pounds of bombs. Nobody at the time had ever mass produced an airplane, certainly not one this size. So basically, everything went wrong. One of my personal favorite parts of the book is theres this guy named harry truman, youve probably heard of im. He has his own arc in the book which is incredible because at the beginning of the war truman was, couldnt get the president s secretaries to return his phone calls. And by the end of the war, hes the president president of the United States of america. But in the middle of this book he has this committee called the truman committee, and they come into willow run and say what is going on here . This place is a disaster. This is supposed to be the most famous p factory in the arsenal of democracy, and its a disaster. So truman goes, and he goes through the Assembly Lines with these engineers, and hes walking through and seeing the way theyre building these bombers, and he walks out and realizes that the tasks that these people have, it was just a little too difficult, they were too optimistic. Of course, by the time truman becomes president , you know, the fords were heroes once again, and they achieved their goal of building this 56,000 bomber at one an hour. It is interesting to think about some of the problems they had because one of their test pilots, the one whos featured prominently in the book, is Charles Lindbergh. And theres a great anecdote where he takes one of these big bombers up, and hes luck key he got away with his life from the sound of it. Can you tell us . He called it the worst piece of aircraft construction ive ever flown, and thats a quote. [laughter] so thats in 1943, early when the first bomb withers are coming off the Assembly Line. They had to fix this thing, and they had to figure out how to do it. One of my favorite things about lindbergh flying these things, theres a lot of interpersonal drama in this book between the characters. So lindberghs vision, for me, in his diaries wasnt just a way to understand how they were trying to take this bomber and fix it and make it the way it was supposed to be, but also he had his interactions with all the different characters. So he, basically he was a window into all of these important people like henry ford. He had so much to say about henry. So his contribution to the book if not wasnt just the airplane, but his visions of all these characters and the way he wrote about them. And i have quotes in the book. It was just, it was a great pleasure of mine to be able to read his papers. So you have henry ford and Charles Lindbergh working together on this thing, but i think really the unsung hero in the book is edsel ford. And can you tell us what his role was in getting willow run, which was nicknamed will it run with a question mark and what he had to do to get this thing moving . It was really edsel, more than anyone else i think, that got it where it needed to be. There was a guy named cast iron charlie sorenson. He was this hero in detroit, an engineer and also an ellis island person who came to this country with nothing and ended up, you know, he was this production genius. He was a genius engineer. So i think really thes