Transcripts For CSPAN2 Second Act 20131021 : vimarsana.com

Was one of the under recognized people in american life. The first cabinet member in the United States, secretary of labor had known fdr for 30 years by the time 1940 came around. Franklin roosevelt wasnt a simple man. That quality of simplicity which we like to think marks the great and noble laws and his yet he was the most complicated human being i of her new to it and out of this nature their spring much of the drive which brought achievement. It made it possible for him to have insights and imagination and to the most varied human experiences and this he applied to the social geographical economic and strategic circumstances thrust upon him at the responsibilities. So thousands of books have been written. Why do we need another one . Youre here to find out and i am here to tell you. Almost everything has been written about either the new deal or the war. Theres nothing written about the connective tissue between those ethical achievements and i have been trying very hard to get into his head which is not an easy thing to do for reasons i will explain to try to understand this Decision Making process and how he went about its. Of course he wrote no more because he didnt survive his presidency and he wasnt always candid so it is no easy task to get in to fdrs head. Let me set the scene. Fdr had won a huge landslide reelection in 1936 but he sent an illdefined plan that was called the the Court Packing plant. And he took his talks foot off the accelerator excuse me just a second. Into the 1938 election he tried to purge the recalcitrant conservative democrats who wouldnt support the new deal programs and he failed miserably. He was probably at all lowest point of his political standing during his entire presidency. He planned to retire at the end of the second term as most president s do plan to retire at the end of the second term to be there is no question he designed and was now building the first president ial library in the country in hyde park the was going to be his headquarters. He built a retreat at their. He was sending of the artifacts when he went back to hyde park a lucrative contract to write regular articles and his mind was set on rebuilding his Financial Base and enjoying retirement. There was speculation about whether or not he was going to run for the third term but nobody included roosevelt paid serious attention to it appears. September 1st 1939 hitler invaded poland and already consumed in this was too much for the policy of appeasement even as far as the british and french were concerned at the announced they would come to polands defense and britain and france declared war, germany for but it cant be known know as the phony war. If there was a standoff about eight or nine months and they stood across the trenches but without fighting. Fdr with a war moving on the horizon he was convinced there would be a war and ultimately that it would come to the United States. He didnt have a lot of support in that but he was convinced of it and he struggled to find a way to help britain and france. They needed to withstand the aggression of hitler and only the United States had the capacity but in the league with the neutrality act that provided aid of any kind and fdr sought to change that and he ultimately did but it wasnt easy. But the country was highly isolationist and its hard to imagine now that the country wasnt engaged in the world as it is now. People saw world war one being repeated and a lot of americans thought that it was a fools error for america to get engaged in world war i they didnt think we had any business. They didnt repay their debt. There was no good to be had. Nonetheless despite this isolationist strain in the congress and the country fdr struggled to find a way to get aid to britain and france. Sometimes he got caught that he shaped this policy to aid the allies by himself and this is where it gets interesting. There was no security council. There was no white house staff that dealt with substantive issues all he had was the cabinet and state department which he had little regard nor did he have an intelligence apparatus. There was nothing resembling the cia so his intelligence gathering is often with interviewing returning to harvard classmates to find out what they saw in europe but he made to work for them. There was growing pressure on them to state whether he intended to run for a third term to. Only two of them tried seriously, Ulysses Grant and his hero with neither succeeded. The press kept asking what his intentions were he would say go stand on the corner and he got away with that. At the gridiron dinner in december of 1939, the press relentlessly went out after him and had a papiermache and nobody laughed harder than fdr and its part of the museum had a height park hyde park. The story lines are inextricably intertwined and remain so for the rest of the story. The war begins in 1940 when hitler invaded the countries in france and france three quickly falls. Britain is hanging by a thread. There is every reason to believe hitler is going to invade the british isles. Its everybodys assumption including roosevelt that britain could go down. But nonetheless he does everything he can to bolster the United Kingdom at that point. What we talk about fdrs Decision Making process because that is what is at the core of this book. But thats not true. I dont believe thats true. There is no evidence to suggest that. Theres nothing inevitable about this decision. He made the decision entirely alone from september until before the convention in july and 40. There is no evidence that he talked to another human being about this issue. This was typical of the Decision Making process of on the major decisions. He always needed people around him that he was a very solitary person. In upstate new york the to frenchspeaking selfreliant and dewitt that became one of his defining characteristics throughout the presidency. He made this decision alone without ever having spoken to anyone and he always wait until the last minute to make these decisions. He reasoned i will get more information if i have the opportunity. So he never made a decision until he had to. What did i learn about fdr . He loved to have people around him all the time even if it was a tense situation and especially if it was a tense situation. He loved the vitality of people around him all the time and yet he was a loner. His wife eleanor said he had no confidence, not even me and thats true. Im hard pressed to identify anyone in whom he confided major issues such as this. The pulitzer prizewinning playwright became a speech writer during this period of 1940 and he wrote a classic biography and its a great biography now complemented if you are fascinated by this man and he was a fascinating man who asks. What he said is he has a forested interior. Just think about that. A thickly forested interior and he didnt want anyone to penetrate that forest and they didnt. The was his defining characteristic. Theres also a duality to roosevelt that i found wanting this episode in was in evidence. He was able to and perceptive and day moral states and in that set lofty goals and yet in pursuit of those when he would be cautious, and beschloss, sometimes arrogant and manipulative so this is one of the contradictions of the fdr that we see in the Frances Perkins was talking about. This was on july 11th. Fdr was swearing in frank knox as the secretary of the navy. Felix frankfurter had came down from the court to preside over this would quote and he asked him to return to the white house that evening to discuss an important matter. The spent two hours in the study and not to be confused at the oval office his favorite room where he spent most of his time they spent two hours discussing this issue will. Nobody knows what was said that at the end of it they asked him to write a memo to bring it to him immediately incorporating what he said. He said he would but he said he would like to request a memo archibald will who was appointed at the United States deciding whether to run what hes justified in running for an unprecedented third term seeking advice from the justice who is not a politician and from a poet who happens to be the library of congress to. This is fdr wass way we for the surest window into his mind at this point and i think they are so important i had them printed in the index in this book so he decided to run were and he knew the country wasnt ready for it he thought only he could do that. He looked around for another democrat who would support his domestic policies because Wendell Willkie had been nominated and was an attractive candidate he couldnt find anybody so he decided that he had to run. This set the stage in chicago. Im not going to tell you it happened but some of it was planned and most of it was not and was filled with drama. Frances perkins engineered something at the convention with Eleanor Roosevelt that saved roosevelt from himself. He was full of arrogance and was on the verge of making a huge mistake that would have ended in a disaster for everybody. They came together and prevented it. This was the time women were not down the table politically but they did it and it was remarkable. I really admired what they did to the and in doing so they paved the way to play the role in political affairs. Charles lindbergh plays a prominent role because he was leader of the isolationist movement in the United States and was a very cordial meeting they didnt like each other at all. Roosevelt told a colleague that he thought he was a nazi fact the rate cut. He was very cozy with the nazis when he was in germany. But the surprise of the book is Wendell Willkie who is in my view almost as much a hero as franklin roosevelt. Wendell willkie was a utility executive who had been up until a year before the Republican Convention a democrat. He was an internationalist and was almost a duplicate of Franklin Delano roosevelt but he was running the republican nomination and he was catching fire because his opposition were , they were kind of the olden style and people saw the war coming and wanted somebody that thought differently and they came from nowhere to win the nomination of the Republican Party in june of 1940. There was great resentment in california that he was on the part of many that he only recently been a democrat and this was exemplified by an encounter he had in a hotel lobby with a former senator from what indiana. He said youre not my kind of republican will. He said i was a democrat for a while but now im a republican. The senator said back in indiana we invite the town into church but we dont let them lead to acquire the first evening. [laughter] there was a serious point being made. But where he really score by thinking and distinguished himself was after he lost very graciously and the mandate of this was his plan to give the president the power to send aid to countries all over the world fighting aggression. It made the United States the great arsenal of democracy during world war ii. A huge effort. The Republican Leadership opposed it. Wendell willkie said this is a matter of principle. They had a wonderful dinner the night before. Roosevelt gave him a note to send to churchill. And on the roosevelts beau she made the difference in passing and he never forgot. He incurred a practical risk and even though he died before the election he probably ruined his chances of ever holding that because what he did with a great statesmanship the kind of statesmanship we would like to see more of today. Winston Churchill Churchill and roosevelt had only met once. They met at a dinner in london in 1918 during world war i. Churchill never remembered the encounter. Roosevelt never forgot the fact that churchill never remembered. [laughter] but church always arduously according roosevelt because he needed help the United States to survive and roosevelt was trying to give it and what he needed desperately were some world war i and destroyers to replace the votes in Great Britain and the English Channel almost daily. Its a complicated story but they said the destroyers to britain without seeking the approval of congress that was a very unusual thing but he did it they learn how to do things without congress and a paved the way there were. But they had to be treated and returned for something to satisfy the u. S. Law would they have to be treated for access to british bases in the caribbean and elsewhere in the western hemisphere. And the list to satisfy the u. S. Law. Churchill was worried they were going to find this in such ways he would be getting the better of the bargain and he didnt want that impression to reach london obviously so they couldnt work it out socially and arranged a transatlantic Conference Call and he put his attorney general on the phone and jackson tried to describe to churchill by a visit to be a trade or bargain and churchill said and players just dont bargain. Robert jackson the attorney general said republics do. Roosevelt to, the waters of a low but said dont you see the trouble is i have to bargain he said me before a new attorney general. They worked it out but they got the destroyers over there. Fdr began to campaign. He visited the defense plants, army bases and so forth and of this kind of a variation come to be called the rose garden strategy but he ultimately made war of the issue. Huge issue. The polls began to close and he had to come out of his cocoon and campaign arduously for the last two weeks of the campaign will in dramatic speeches on the eastern seaboard. The polls had tightened to medically and he was receiving the returns as he always did in the dining room of the house and he saw something in the early returns that really troubled him. He turned to his secret Service Agent and he said close that door. I dont want to see anybody. The secret Service Agent said you and your family . Bayh said anybody. And the door was closed. That agent said they never saw the president lose his nerve but he was sweating and he lost his nerve. He thought he was going to lose. What consequences that had no would not just immediately but long term. They helped shape the world beyond world war ii. It began the eclipse of isolationism because after this point they would be engaged in the rest of the world and they still are. This election because of the destroyer deal and the arrangement planted the seeds for the National Security state that we are today and it changed the way that we think about the presidency. Never again would a president ial candidate succeed without passing that test is he will to protect the interest of the American People were there for this is one of the most consequential in american history. Its right up there with 1864 when lincoln ran during the civil war it was every bit as important. This is my own effort will. Thank you. [applause] we have a question. How did he keep bowls prior to the convention of 1940 . There were only two candidates running. Both of them are members of the administration. They had a falling out in the beginning of the second term and there was no love lost and he was a serious candidate. Jim farley was a little different. He was the chairman of the party, postmaster general who managed the earlier campaign and he thought it was his turn and i wasnt. He wasnt qualified to be president. He had no Foreign Policy experience at all and he wasnt a new dealer and there is no way that fdr would allow. But what roosevelt did, and he had to know the consequences of this. When he refused to state his intentions he basically throws the field so most other candidates didnt know what he would do but they felt there was a good chance that perhaps he would run. Yes, sir. What position did he take on the war during the campaign itself . During the campaign itself he took the same position. In his acceptance speech in indiana following the Republican Convention he made a very dramatic statement increasing the policy to britain short of the war but he was under heavy pressure when he was convinced that when he was a certain loser and that was factually true so he began to make it is issue and made a statement we dont know whether it was deliberate or not saying reid reelect roosevelt and people were scared to death at this and he started calling them in war maunder but he supported the first peacetime draft in the United States and that wouldnt have passed without his support so he became flexible during the campaign. But he reverted after the election and became a steadfast supporter. In your close work about president roosevelt, to parts of the same question. What was your Biggest Surprise and how did your opinion of him to change the most . If not a superficial understanding that least a simpler one and i can to conclude he was a complicated man in the use of different examples of this crop the story the Biggest Surprise is he was such a social animal he was sent a letter he was very much a loner and i couldnt that knocked me over when i got into it. He was a very solitary man. That interior wasnt penetrated by anybody. Its amazing to learn he had no staff almost and im curious what but my question is you mentioned the two women prevented him from making a mistake at the convention and what he didnt have any staff and this is one of the Amazing Things he figured this out in his head he processed all of this and at the end of the day he would come out with a decision. For example, after the election he went out for a cruise in the naval bases he loved to vacation, armed cruisers and even fish off of them and during the course of this he got a letter from churchill saying we are desperate. We are out of money. We need help. We can no longer pay cash. The reserves are gone. They mauled this over for two days. The only other staff person on the ship with him was harry hopkins. But during these todays even hopkins didnt talk. At the end, he came out remember the fire hose and allergy . He came back and he was to that brilliantly. If your home and on fire youre going to borrow your neighbors hoes. Robert taft didnt always come up with quick responses but he said its a lot like lending chewing gum. After its gone you dont want it coming back. Roosevelt decided of the convention that he wanted Henry Wallace to be his Vice President and he had prepared to refuse the democratic nomination if wallace didnt get that nomination. And there was a huge rebellion going on because wallace has also recently been a republican and there was great resentment among the democratic policies so there was a revolt under way and to make a long story short the engineered the trip to chicago to make a speech at the convention that most people think made the difference. We keep mentioning the invasion of poland. On the other side of the world japan has been doing it for awhile and asia doesnt seem to come up much. Did it impact anything . It didnt impact the story that i was writing about because he was focused on hitler quote and it was kind of on a separate track talks this book basically stops so i decided just to focus on this question of how and why did they decide to run for a third term and hitler figured very much but japan did not. A quick question about the relationship in your research if he found anything new about the relationship and the u. S. Support with the propaganda and the growing allies with russia did you learn anything new in the research and just generally what you thought about the relationship truthfully klaxon he doesnt have a presence in the book. They invaded and basically divided poland and of course hitler invaded in 1941. But russia really doesnt play a role in this story. Any other questions . You are a knowledgeable audience. There we go. This is a box theoretical but what would devin given the isolationism in the country if hitler hadnt declared war on the United States after pearl harbor . As a fascinating question and this book doesnt lot of rural harbor it stops shorter than that but its a fascinating question. Its especially interesting because during 1940 and most of 1941 hitler didnt want to antagonize the United States or bring them into the war and roosevelt didnt think the country was ready to get into the war so its a fascinating question. I dont know the full answer to it. As we all know germany declared war on the United States three days after pearl harbor but i think there would have been a hiatus that would have played itself of in some way but obviously over a longer period of time. The war was inevitable. One of the thesis in fear itself is the southern democrats were essential in getting, supporting roosevelt and getting legislation on the preparedness. I wonder if you get into that at all. That is true to the it roosevelt had a lot of support from southern democrats on the military preparedness. Thats not surprising. He didnt have the support from the progressive republicans. This is an era when there were progressive republicans and there were a lot of them and they were very helpful in passing the new deal agenda. George norris roosevelt probably didnt have a better friend in the senate than George Norris and nebraska and the flip side of that is they did not support him on the military preparedness for reasons i didnt understand. To discuss the relationship . He plays a pretty big role. Roosevelt made a mistake naming him the ambassador because he was basically a defeatist and he was always urging the Prime Minister of Great Britain whoever happened to be first chamberlain and then churchill to kenseth he was an advocate of appeasement. This was a term that was not understood as it is today. It was a legitimate instrument of Foreign Policy but it ran its course. Roosevelt made a mistake putting him over there but he couldnt rely on it because he wasnt in sync with his policies and that offended him kennedy to such an extent that at the end during the campaign, kennedy agreed at the request of Clare Boothe Luce to come to the United States and indorse Wendell Willkie. Felix frankfurter at the same time worried about the catholic to be here said Supreme Court worried about the Catholic Book tv it takes a couple of the Supreme Court justices who actually knew something about the catholic vote. Came down to see roosevelt and they persuaded him that only joe kennedy, a full endorsement could make the difference. A