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Cautious Crusade: Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and the War against Nazi Germany
America's struggle against Nazism is one of the few aspects of World War II that has escaped controversy. Historians agree that it was a widely popular war, different from the subsequent conflicts in Korea and Vietnam because of the absence of partisan sniping, ebbing morale, or calls for a negotiated peace.
In this provocative book, Steven Casey challenges conventional wisdom about America's participation in World War II. Drawing on the numerous opinion polls and surveys conducted by the U.S. government, he traces the development of elite and mass attitudes toward Germany, from the early days of the war up to its conclusion. Casey persuasively argues that the president and the public rarely saw eye to eye on the nature of the enemy, the threat it posed, or the best methods for countering it. He describes the extensive propaganda campaign that Roosevelt designed to build support for the war effort, and shows that Roosevelt had to take public opinion into account when formulating a host of policies, from the Allied bombing campaign to the Morgenthau plan to pastoralize the Third Reich.
By examining the previously unrecognized relationship between public opinion and policy making during World War II, Casey's groundbreaking book sheds new light on a crucial era in American history.
In this provocative book, Steven Casey challenges conventional wisdom about America's participation in World War II. Drawing on the numerous opinion polls and surveys conducted by the U.S. government, he traces the development of elite and mass attitudes toward Germany, from the early days of the war up to its conclusion. Casey persuasively argues that the president and the public rarely saw eye to eye on the nature of the enemy, the threat it posed, or the best methods for countering it. He describes the extensive propaganda campaign that Roosevelt designed to build support for the war effort, and shows that Roosevelt had to take public opinion into account when formulating a host of policies, from the Allied bombing campaign to the Morgenthau plan to pastoralize the Third Reich.
By examining the previously unrecognized relationship between public opinion and policy making during World War II, Casey's groundbreaking book sheds new light on a crucial era in American history.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 4, 2011
A thorough, in depth portrait of FDR and his relationship with the press and public opinion from the end of the 1930s (round about the passage of the Neutrality Acts) until the end of the war. Casey shows us how much the relationship of policymaking with the media and public opinion changed in this period, and just how obsessed Roosevelt was with it. Public opinion polls weren't really invented until the later 1930s, and even then they were sort of shakily run for several years, but Roosevelt spent a good amount of his days keeping track of the feelings of the wider public in whatever way he could, and more often than not, it turns out, his decisions followed his perceptions of public opinion, rather than leading opinion where he wished it to go. Now, I should note that this thesis is mostly confined to foreign affairs- as I think we are all aware, he was much more willing to get aggressive with changing minds in the domestic period under the New Deal. But given long entrenched attitudes in the US about its place in the world (it shouldn't really have one, no foreign entanglements, stay out of the petty fighting of the Old World), he was much more cautious in his approach to his foreign policy.
Casey shows the constant push and pull between Roosevelt's private views on developments in Europe and Asia before the war, and how much what he really thought was reflected in public, and how he tried to change minds, if he did. He would spend hours with journalists a day sometimes, having columnists into the Oval Office to talk to them for as long as need be. He held three press conferences a week, and made sure to give the corps plenty to work with. When he wanted to get feelings out in the public that he couldn't say himself, he would encourage others to do his talking for him as a trial balloon, and attempt to essentially lead from behind the scenes. But to say that Roosevelt was an ardent internationalist who was restrained from getting involved with Europe by isolationist public opinion and vociferous minority in Congress would be too much. He himself had mixed feelings about getting involved, and up to the fall of France was convinced that perhaps the US didn't have to do more than supply Britain to help out in the war. He does make him sound like rather a sissy after June 1940 though because he clearly wanted to get involved, but basically lied to the public until he got reelected about what he wanted to do because he felt people wouldn't have elected him if he said they were going to get into the war. Throughout 1941 he continued to say that he wanted events to make him get into the war. He didn't want to fire the first shot- "events are the great persuader" was his tactic, and in that case, it worked. Interestingly, if you look at public opinion polls and the fact that the isolationist Congress was more strong in their feelings about staying out than anyone else, he probably could have gotten away with getting into the war sooner, but his deep paranoia about the whole thing kept him out until Pearl Harbor.
It's fascinating to see the growth and change of the media's relationship with the president and to compare it with the (quite similiar) present, and see in FDR's administration the modern patterns of interaction between the White House and the public being set up. It is one thing to say that public opinion is a great controlling factor on policymaking, it is another thing to see how it actually influences the day to day workings of the machine, and in what ways, and what "public opinion" was thought to mean at different times. All of these things shifted throughout the war. I also thought there were a lot of good questions asked here about how the relationship between FDR and the public was taken into account in individual decisions, and why or why not. For example, the initial decision to get involved in North Africa was dictated as much by the fact that FDR wanted to get an enormous, bored army off of US soil and involved in the war to solidify support for involvement as it was by Churchill's soft underbelly strategy. His plans for postwar Germany were actually much harsher than what eventually became the reality of the situation- he initially favored a plan by Morgenthau that would have essentially beaten Germany back to the Stone Age, dismembered it, and taken industry away forever. But a public who had been prepared by the administration to hate Nazis, not Germans, reacted very badly to this idea when the plan was leaked and FDR had to quickly backpedal due to election considerations as Dewey seized on it as a campaign issue for 1944.
Recommended to students of US politics, FDR fans, students of WWII, and students of US media history alike. The analysis here is in depth, specific and wide ranging enough that I think you'll come out of it with a pretty solid understanding of US wartime decisionmaking.
Casey shows the constant push and pull between Roosevelt's private views on developments in Europe and Asia before the war, and how much what he really thought was reflected in public, and how he tried to change minds, if he did. He would spend hours with journalists a day sometimes, having columnists into the Oval Office to talk to them for as long as need be. He held three press conferences a week, and made sure to give the corps plenty to work with. When he wanted to get feelings out in the public that he couldn't say himself, he would encourage others to do his talking for him as a trial balloon, and attempt to essentially lead from behind the scenes. But to say that Roosevelt was an ardent internationalist who was restrained from getting involved with Europe by isolationist public opinion and vociferous minority in Congress would be too much. He himself had mixed feelings about getting involved, and up to the fall of France was convinced that perhaps the US didn't have to do more than supply Britain to help out in the war. He does make him sound like rather a sissy after June 1940 though because he clearly wanted to get involved, but basically lied to the public until he got reelected about what he wanted to do because he felt people wouldn't have elected him if he said they were going to get into the war. Throughout 1941 he continued to say that he wanted events to make him get into the war. He didn't want to fire the first shot- "events are the great persuader" was his tactic, and in that case, it worked. Interestingly, if you look at public opinion polls and the fact that the isolationist Congress was more strong in their feelings about staying out than anyone else, he probably could have gotten away with getting into the war sooner, but his deep paranoia about the whole thing kept him out until Pearl Harbor.
It's fascinating to see the growth and change of the media's relationship with the president and to compare it with the (quite similiar) present, and see in FDR's administration the modern patterns of interaction between the White House and the public being set up. It is one thing to say that public opinion is a great controlling factor on policymaking, it is another thing to see how it actually influences the day to day workings of the machine, and in what ways, and what "public opinion" was thought to mean at different times. All of these things shifted throughout the war. I also thought there were a lot of good questions asked here about how the relationship between FDR and the public was taken into account in individual decisions, and why or why not. For example, the initial decision to get involved in North Africa was dictated as much by the fact that FDR wanted to get an enormous, bored army off of US soil and involved in the war to solidify support for involvement as it was by Churchill's soft underbelly strategy. His plans for postwar Germany were actually much harsher than what eventually became the reality of the situation- he initially favored a plan by Morgenthau that would have essentially beaten Germany back to the Stone Age, dismembered it, and taken industry away forever. But a public who had been prepared by the administration to hate Nazis, not Germans, reacted very badly to this idea when the plan was leaked and FDR had to quickly backpedal due to election considerations as Dewey seized on it as a campaign issue for 1944.
Recommended to students of US politics, FDR fans, students of WWII, and students of US media history alike. The analysis here is in depth, specific and wide ranging enough that I think you'll come out of it with a pretty solid understanding of US wartime decisionmaking.
August 16, 2013
From the beginning of the war in Europe until its end, FDR sought to make sure that the German military would be crippled and its militarist legacy extinguished for all time. The problem was that there were six forces that were vying to influence him. Churchill, Stalin, the US State Department, the Treasury, the US Army, and the American public all held different views on the appropriate punishment for Germany.
Steven Casey shows reams of evidence of the questioning of the public through surveys that guided FDR in weighing the foreseeable reaction to his ultimate decision to forge an agreement with Britain and the Soviet Union on the terms for Germany's surrender that would be far less vindictive than FDR had previously conceived.
This is a work of circumspect scholarship that demands a patient reader. It's clearly an adaptation of a dissertation, but mercifully the myriad notes remain as endnotes for the final third of the book. I have a larger vocabulary than the average reader, but I found myself opening the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary at least five times to understand the more esoteric words. (The built-in dictionary on my Kindle wasn't sufficient.)
Steven Casey shows reams of evidence of the questioning of the public through surveys that guided FDR in weighing the foreseeable reaction to his ultimate decision to forge an agreement with Britain and the Soviet Union on the terms for Germany's surrender that would be far less vindictive than FDR had previously conceived.
This is a work of circumspect scholarship that demands a patient reader. It's clearly an adaptation of a dissertation, but mercifully the myriad notes remain as endnotes for the final third of the book. I have a larger vocabulary than the average reader, but I found myself opening the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary at least five times to understand the more esoteric words. (The built-in dictionary on my Kindle wasn't sufficient.)
March 26, 2014
I bought this because I have lately been interested in learning more about the issues, tactics, thinking and life during WWII and the years leading to America's involvement. This is a very complete volume, almost too much so for my purpose. It is however, interesting, illustrating how public sentiment, discovered through polling, drove so much of US policy.
I will finish it, bu needed a break amongst the facts and numbers and issues this book puts forward.
I will finish it, bu needed a break amongst the facts and numbers and issues this book puts forward.
Want to read
May 2, 2012$1.99
July 2, 2012
Interesting and thought provoking, this book has it all: history, politics, communications & messaging, etc.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews