>> there's an obscure footnote about japan's attempt to build a naval base on the mexican coast and baja, california. i knew frapping -- franklin roosevelt and was interested in what papers he had relating to the bay. i drove over from my home in connecticut to the frapping lin d. roosevelt library in hyde park. at the time, i had no interest whatsoever in writing about fdr, himself, but sometimes things happen. the fdr library is an amazing place. you have to wonder how any one man could have livedded a life crowded with so much. hundreds of thousands of shelf feet given over to zillions of telegrams, legal briefs, school book scribbles, secret cables, position papers, children's drawings, warnings, threats, scraps, and details of vitally important political land marks and long forgotten grand schemes that ran out of steam before they were acted upon. i discoveredded there was not a lot about the bay in the library. i was not that surprised. the crisis was more or less settled by the time franklin arrived in washington in 1913 to take up the duties in the navy department, but what did surprise me was that even a cursory glance through the library's indexes revealed a franklin ruse veal that i -- roosevelt that i knew nothing about. i grew up with fdr. he was the only president i knew until i was 15 years old. like everyone else, i was aware he had strong emotional ties to the sea, and the u.s. navy in particular. his home, which i visited in the past and which is next door to the library, is filled with naval prints, ship paintings, and other nautical paraphernalia. clearly, he identified with the navy. i had no idea of how deep that identification ran or how early it manifested itself. you look at drawings of boats that he made when he was just five years old, and they are remarkably so sophisticated. he understands the sails. he knows where they belong and how they work. it occurred to me that the fdr library might hold something more interesting to me than the bay crisis. this is identification with the navy respected not just one of his interests, but was, in fact, a basic part of the character. to a very real extent, he built his entire intellectual world view around the understanding of the navy. that is, he did not see the navy as part of the world view. he understood the world based on his view of the navy. that was an interesting idea. if such were the case, one could view his entire political career, especially as in the white house, as a reflection of the naval centered world view. the new deal, foreign policy, his fights with congress and the supreme court, his leadership in world war ii, his entire political career remitted in an inherently naval intelligence. that might make a book. i began researching franklin d. roosevelt in earnest, and it eventually resulted in this book. "roosevelt's navy: the education of the most powerful warrior president in american history." as is always the case with research, i came upon surprises. undoubtedly, the biggest surprise to me was the more i looked into franklin roosevelt's early years, the more i bumped into another roosevelt, theodore roosevelt. it was evident that the his influence to the young franklin, mostly overlooked, was profound and far reaching and would have to play an important part in the story of fdr and the navy that i wanted to tell, but i got ahead of myself. the story begins like most stories. it has a beginning, and i'd like to read some from chapter 1. a boy sits alone quietly reading a book. elsewhere in the house, the familiar sounds of servants going about chores are punk waited by the calm authoritative voice of the mother or father supervising the activities. the boy is oblivious to everything other than a book in his hands. the time is somewhere in the early 1890s, and the boy is franklin d. roosevelt. he's about 10 or 11 years old, and the book represents something of a challenge. technical terms, complicated charts, and curious diagrams, but because it is filled with a clash of combat and gun powder and crowded with thrilling accounts of daring do in the age of fighting, the boy is enraptured and reads with a focus of youth lost in the pages. sitting in the library of springwood, the family's country home in the village of hyde park overlooking the river 70 miles north of new york city. we can want be precisely sure when he first read the book he is holding. >> from early childhood, franklin is fascinated from sea and maritime, an avid sailer, and learned his seamanship in ice boats and other small craft, sailing yacht. in the summers in the bay where the family keeps a cottage, but it's not the subject matter that's drawn him to the war of 1812 # so much as the fact that the book is written by his disapt cousin of the oyster bay branch of the family. young franklin knows and admires his brilliant, fun-loving, 35-year-old cousin, ted, who enjoys inventing games for chirp and after a day of running and shouting loves to gather everyone around the fire and tell ripping tales of his adventure as a cowboy in the dakota territory. at this point in the life, he made a considerable name for himself as a writer, but not yet progressed as far as he'd like in the other chosen interest of politics. at the moment, he is still a relatively obscure washington civil service commission. world fame still lies in the future, but to those who already know him, his dinism and energy already define his character. throughout his life, franklin will have been referred to his 5th cousin with awe as the most wonderful man i ever knew. the book is filled with infectious patriotism and exploits of the gallant and glamorous commodores who led america's early navy. perry, porter, and the rest, but roosevelt has not limited the narrative to heros alone. woven into adventures are broader points on the value of navies in regime and the unique role played in shaping and carrying out national policy. he explains how warships can reach across the globe to enforce the national resolve thousands of miles from home as even the tiny american navy did in the war of 1812 when they gave the enemy off the coast of africa out to brazil. cousin ted points out that when navies are large enough to be organized into fleets, they can wield devastating power in combat. choke off an enemy supply line by blockading the coast, and he makes it clear that navies are just as important in peacetime as they are in war unlike armies which is apt to be expense nuances in times of peace. navies serve the nation long after the battles are over. properly deploy, they foster and protect foreign trade and very existence discourages attacks by any potential enemy. again and again, cousin ted hammers home the message that navies are vital to the welfare, and young franklin absorbed it all. ted's enthusiasm and tightly organized arguments form the foundation for the personal philosophy and provide the boy with a matrix with which to define the world around him. over the years to come, franklin d. roosevelt leads voraciously, but the one book, the war of 1812, remains of importance to him. fifty years onward when fate put him in control of the strongest navy in history, he turns to ted for inspir ration and guidance and cousin ted's book is never far away, lessons never ignored. throughout the presidential years, fdr kept two copies in the library, one for the white house, and the other from the boyhood home in hyde park. his education was out of a sheltered, privileged child. private teachers and governances imported to instruct him. because they toured through europe, by the age of 12, he was a veteran of half a dozen crossings and more or less fluent in both french and german for all of his travel and learning, there were important deficiency in the education that would take years to fully overcome. the most significant of these was the fact he was taught exclusively at home. he did not actually go to school until he was 14. while academic lessons can be taught anywhere, some of the most important lessons of childhood is only be learned in the rough and tumble of school. such lessons include the complex and sometimes painful ones involved with learning how to get along with one's peers. sometimes humiliating rivalry in the classroom for good grades, cut and thrust of the schoolyard where students are sorted out up fair and undemocratic, but always unrealistic. the problem of bullies, agonizing and delicate compromises learned in order to make friends and further compromises needed to keep them. gar beginning and lies, black and white lies required to hold the position in the crowd. these were the life lessons that franklin roosevelt missed as a young boy and would later take decades to master. he was neither spoiled nor pampered, his life left him at a certain social disadvantage for many years. several years after we met him reading history of the war of 1812, frank lip, at last, went to school for the first time. significantly, the school he went off to in massachusetts had been founded by a close friend of roosevelt's. it was a deliberately -- the school was modeled on the great public schools of england. it educated britain's leaders for centuries, seemed a good fit for young franklin, and, indeed, proved to be so. even here, there was a problem. the students in keeping with the standard english classes were expected to attend the school for six years meaning enrolling in its first form at age 12 and continuing through age 18. franklin's mother could not bring herself to part with the only child so soon and held him back two years so he did not enter the school until the third form when he was 14. up fortunately, for him, by that time, all his classmates had long sense established friendships, cliques, rivalries, and other social strategies of males and young franklin was left an odd man out. he found solace in studying the writings of the united states navy. probably one of the most up flew enissue largely forgotten military theorist of the day. he was one of the first strategists to understand what we call geopolitics, the idea that nations and cultures are largely shaped by geography and their ability to defend themselves or to attack others as governed primarily by the shorelines and waterways. importantly, like the school, mahan was a close friend of roosevelt. he came upon a series stationed off the coast of purr rue, and one say, relaxes in the library reading a book when he was hit by an important epiphany. all that business of hanibal crossing the alps with elephants to attack are rome was a large waste of time and money. if they had a sufficient navy to devote the roman navy, no need to cross the streets, and go to the alps down into italy, but sailed mediterranean and attacked rome directly. inspired by the navy and their importance, mahon wrote a book on the influence of sea power on history which became a textbook and deeply influenced young franklin roosevelt. just how deeply they influenced him can be seen in the notes for a debate held? in january when he was 15 years old. the subject of the debate was resolve, hawaii be promptly annex. the issue was very much in the news at the time, and a bill providing such a step was introduced in congress. the case for the atirmtive was to be provided by the headmaster himself after roosevelt was to respond with a rebuttal. to put the subject into context, it is well to remember that the issue of hawaiian annexation was being discussed in a world in which there were plenty of empires, but as yet, no aircraft, no radio, no panama canal, a world in which coal was not yet replaced by oil, so fueling ships, and in a world in which $100 million was worth billions in today's corp -- currency. reading his notes today, abundantly evident that young franklin understood the subject in truly remarkable depth and managed to present it with uncommon clarity and conviction dmop straiting a -- demonstrating a grasp of naval strategy and national strengths. the notes reveal how sophisticatedly he was developing and how the precepts defined his own understanding of the country and the world. after they presented the case, the youthful o poem began that led the listeners understand that today's subject was a global significance and established its naval importance. this is direct quote from franklin roosevelt, his notes made as a 15-year-old. of all the great powers of the world, the united states and russia are the only ones which have no colonies to di send. all of our territory is on this continue innocent, and all of it, other than alaska, is con yows. therefore, the united states and russia are the only two countries no part of which territory is cut off by a naval enemy. we have no vulnerable point at present. the annexation of hawaii by us affect the feelings of european powers in two ways. first anger them because europe is a common stopping point or em bod l them because we should, for the first time in our history have a vulnerable point. he has told us that our country can want be safe without hawaii. i shall try to disprove this. now, if we own the islands, we have to protect them. to do that, we should to fortify islands, but maintain a much larger navy. now, to do this, we should have to spend at least $100 million every year on the navy and erect forts to maintain soldiers on the island. he goes on from there, but i've read it enough to make clear this is a very sophisticated kid. a 15-year-old boy putting up a paper worthy of o presidential cabinet meeting. he announced to his parents he wanted to apply to annapolis and pursue a career in the navy. his parents were distressed, not happy with the thought of their boy sent to the far corners of the earth for years at a time. it took him awhile to convince him to go to harvard up stead. those were the days if you wanted to go to harvard, you went to harvard. it is different now. he went there and columbia law school that he didn't finish because he quit the minute he learned he pass the bar exams. rarely students can pass the bar before earning the law degrees. the fact he managed to do so it further evident that he is a young bright man and worked hard with the style he acquired to make up for the lack of a more relaxed self-confident essential behavior. he lost much of the awkward moes, but not all of it. that voice that so put off his classmates remained until the end. then he got married to another roosevelt. thoedore's favorite niece. that transformed the relationship from fdr from cousin ted to uncle ted. also significantly, uncle ted, by this time, was president of the united states. here we must pause for a minute to examine briefly just how he got to be president because is bears directly on franklin's subsequent career. around the time franklin prepared notes, thee dore was running the police department in new york city having a grand time rooting out corruption, but the power of the republican party decided he was a nuance in the post so they looked arched for a job to offer him to get him out of new york. someone remembered he wrote with a book about the navy and war of 1812. would he be interested in a job as assistant secretary of the navy in washington? tr jumped at the chance. weeks after being sworn in, the spanish american war broke out. he yit -- quit, sailed to cuba, and was a hero, months later, governor of new york, and after that, haven't, and with the death of mckinley, president. his young cousin took note of every step. back to franklin who at this time had a prestiming gas wall street firm. he found the work boring and constricting leading directly to a remarkable scene near the end of franklin's first year on wall street. when a slow day at the office. the five fellow law clerks sat at the desk discussing hopes and maps for the future. when it came his turn, franklin surprised the listeners stating clearly the life and of law was not for him. he would, infed, when the opportunity presented itself go into politics running for the new york state legislature. after an up determined stay in albany, he said, no hint of irony, apparently, he would arrange to get nils appointed assistant secretary of the navy in washington. from this, runs for governor of new york and then he exmained nip who is governor of new york has a good chance to be president with any luck. of course, it was not lost on any of his listeners that fdr was precisely retracing the rise of ted roosevelt. the most significant reaction to his pronapsment is it provoked neither laughter or hooting. they accepted it at face value the entire reasonable nature of the plan. even today, when he fulfilled the dream to the letter, one stands out in bold relief. the plan to be name assistant secretary of the navy. not just any sub cabinet office would do, just the job tr held. how would he manage that, you ask? it was not an officer he could campaign for in the normal sense. only one person in the world could appoint him, and that was the president of the united states. what president, you ask? who knew? nobody, but somehow he would get the job, and it would, with any luck as he put it, lead directly -- excuse me -- to the white house. he was 28 years old. he was never lacking in ambition or certain amount of self-confidence. in due course, franklin quit the job and ran for the new york state senate and won. he ran again and won again. only weeks after that he negotiated with the governor of new jersey, woodrow wilson for what would be the appointment of assistant secretary of the navy. how he managed to land such an important job so quickly is something you're going to have to find out for yourself. i'll enthe book. the ins and out of the politics and while they make interesting reading, they are a little too complicated for a brief talk like this. what i'd like to touch on in remaining time is a brief, but important trip franklin took to the panama canal still under construction when he visited it in 1912. the canal was roosevelt's single most achievement making a singular impression on frank lip. the canal was built specifically to conform to the theories of mahan. the u.s. they've vie would agent as a single unite. the canal made a swift gathering of the fleet practice call. without that, the theory went, america would be forced to build and maintain two entire fleets, one for each ocean to protect its thousands of miles of coastline. frapping lin and two traveling companions, his brother-in-law and a female low member of the new york center arrived in april 1912, and thanks to the roosevelt name, given vine treatment. after turning the atlantaic, they traveled 50 miles by train to panama city, marveling at the vast nature of the enterprise. my last quote here. the vast ambitions of the cam were not evident until the next morning where the three were taken on a guided tour of the great cut nearly nine miles in length. it was here where most of the 65 -- 65,000 men were literally moving mountains and the battle for the canal would be won or lost. steam shovels pit for the work towered over the land scape loaded 6 ton boulders where they would be sent to the coast for break waters and the terminals. years later, a still odd frank lip described the scene looking down on a human rift in the earth's crust at the base of which the engippings and aunt-like forms ruched to and fro without map or reason. the noise was deafening, and the clink of the drills eating their way into the rock, the shrill whistles of the locomotives, the unprurpted rumble of the dirt planes crowded the tracks, and the clanking of chaping were from the workman. they inspected the great locks, designed to raise the vessels 85 feet to the level of the cut. i can't describe it, franklin wrote wrecklessly. the two things that improved the most was the hole in the ground and the locks because of the engineering problems in size. ima