FDR

by Jean Edward Smith

THREE PRESIDENTS DOMINATE American history: George Washington, who founded the country; Abraham Lincoln, who preserved it; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who rescued it from economic collapse and then led it to victory in the greatest war of all time. Elected for an unprecedented four terms, Roosevelt proved the most gifted American statesman of the twentieth century. When he took office in 1933, one third of the nation was unemployed. Agriculture lay destitute. Factories were idle, businesses were closing their doors, and the banking system teetered on the brink of collapse.

Roosevelt seized the opportunity. He galvanized the nation with an inaugural address (“the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”) that ranks with Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, declared a banking holiday to restore confidence in the nation’s banks, and initiated a flurry of legislative proposals to put the country back on its feet. Under FDR’s energetic leadership the government became an active participant in the economic life of the nation.

More important, he restored the country’s confidence.

His fireside chats brought the presidency into every living room in America. And what may be more remarkable, he did this while paralyzed from the waist down. For the last twenty-three years of his life, Franklin Roosevelt could not stand unassisted.

FDR’s effort to recover from polio took him to Warm Springs, Georgia. Year after year at Warm Springs he was exposed to the brutal reality of rural poverty.

As commander in chief, Roosevelt was better prepared than any president before him, save Washington and Grant.

Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. —FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, MARCH 4, 1933

“This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

In retrospect it seems incredible, but in less than a month, and aside from rescuing the banking system, FDR had taken on and defeated three of the most powerful special interests in the nation: veterans (with the economy bill), temperance (with the beer bill), and organized labor (with the CCC).

I propose that hereafter, when a Judge reaches the age of seventy, a new and younger Judge shall be added to the Court automatically. —FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, MARCH 9, 1937

Crystal Night (Kristallnacht) in Germany, November 10, 1938, helped solidify American opinion against Hitler. On November 7, Herschel Grynszpan, a seventeen-year-old Polish Jewish refugee, shot and mortally wounded the third secretary of the German Embassy in Paris, Ernst vom Rath. Grynszpan was protesting the summary expulsion from Germany of ten thousand long-resident

resident Polish Jews, without notice and without legal recourse. He had intended to assassinate the German ambassador to France and shot Rath by mistake. In response to Rath’s death, the Nazi leadership ordered a night of vengeance. Storm troopers burned synagogues, smashed Jewish businesses, and vandalized private homes. The New York Times correspondent in Berlin called it “A wave of destruction, looting, and incendiarism unparalleled in Germany since the Thirty Years’ War.”47 Nearly 200 synagogues were burned, 7,500 shops broken into and looted, countless houses destroyed. Twenty thousand Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps. By government decree German insurance companies were absolved of liability; the nation’s Jewish community was fined $400 million to atone for Rath’s death; and all Jewish retail establishments were shuttered and closed.

Jews were barred from attending schools and universities, denied admission to concerts and theaters, and prohibited from driving automobiles.48 “I myself could scarcely believe that such things could...

Churchill proceeded to ask Roosevelt for immediate assistance: “forty or fifty of your older destroyers,” several hundred late-model aircraft, antiaircraft weapons, and ammunition, plus steel and other raw materials.44 The following day FDR made a dramatic appearance before a joint session of Congress to ask for a supplemental defense appropriation of $1.2 billion.

The United States was currently producing 6,000 airplanes a year. Roosevelt asked for 50,000.

Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. —FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, DECEMBER 8, 1941

American relations with Japan had been on a downward spiral ever since the Grant administration. President Grant had spent a month in the country during his world tour in 1879. “My visit to Japan has been the most pleasant of all my travels,” the former chief executive wrote from Tokyo.

By November 29, 1941, each of the Japanese task forces had put to sea. Each was instructed that “in the event an agreement is reached with the United States, the task force will immediately return to Japan.” The First Air Fleet was also instructed to turn back if sighted by the enemy before X-Day minus one.110 Yamamoto’s decision to attack the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor not only was breathtakingly bold but involved a revolutionary, hitherto untried use of naval airpower—an experimental concept untested in the crucible of battle. Taranto had involved twelve planes from a single carrier 170 miles away. The First Air Fleet would assault what was considered the strongest naval base in the world, halfway across the Pacific, with the largest air armada ever assembled at sea. “What a strange position I find myself in,” Yamamoto wrote to his friend Rear Admiral Teikichi Hori on the eve of the fleet’s departure, “—having

When the attack order was given on December 2, 1941, the First Air Fleet had covered about half the distance to Oahu.

On December 4, in heavy seas, First Air Fleet pivoted southeast, roughly nine hundred miles north of Hawaii.

Two days later, at precisely 11:30 A.M., Nagumo completed his final refueling, released his slow-moving tankers, swung due south toward Oahu, and increased speed to twenty knots. After hoisting the historic “Z” flag Admiral Togo had flown at Tsushima, Nagumo flashed Yamamoto’s Nelson-like message to the fleet: “The rise and fall of the Empire depends upon this battle. Every man will do his duty.”112 At 5:50 the following morning, December 7, 1941, the First Air Fleet was 220 miles north of Oahu. Nagumo wheeled due east into a brisk wind and increased speed to twenty-four knots, essential for a successful launch. The flattops pitched violently, listing between twelve and fifteen degrees, making the first-light takeoffs all the more risky.

Weather delayed the takeoff twenty minutes. At 6:10 A.M. the launch began: first the fighters, then the horizontal bombers, dive-bombers, and torpedo planes—183 in all. By 6:20 they were in battle formation bound for Oahu. One hour later, Nagumo launched the second attack wave, mostly horizontal bombers and dive-bombers. Within ninety minutes of the first wave’s initial takeoff, a formidable fleet of 350 planes was homing in on its targets at Pearl Harbor, Hickam and Wheeler Fields, and Kaneohe Air Station.

The Japanese attack lasted little more than two hours. When the last plane winged away at 10 A.M., eighteen U.S. vessels, including eight battleships, had been sunk or heavily damaged. More than 175 military aircraft were destroyed on the ground and another 159 crippled. In all, 2,403 servicemen were dead, 1,103 of them entombed on the battleship Arizona, which sank almost instantly when a bomb exploded in its forward magazine. Another 1,200 men were wounded. Japan lost twenty-nine planes, mostly dive-bombers, in the second attack wave.

Roosevelt learned of the attack at 1:40 P.M. Washington time, roughly forty-five minutes after the first wave of Zeros began their strafing run. He was having a late lunch with Harry Hopkins at his desk in the upstairs study when Knox called from the Navy Department. “Mr. President, it looks like the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor.”118 A flurry of phone calls followed. At 2:30 Stark called the president with confirmation.

At three o’clock Roosevelt met his war council. Reports continued to come in, each more terrible than the last. The president handled the telephone personally. He ordered Hull to inform the Latin American governments and secure their cooperation; Knox and Stimson were instructed to draft the necessary orders to put the nation on a war footing.

Churchill called from Chequers, his weekend estate. “Mr. President, what’s this about Japan?”

“It’s quite true,” Roosevelt replied. “They have attacked us at Pearl Harbor. We are all in the same boat now.” “That certainly simplifies things,” said Churchill. “God be with you.”122 Later Churchill wrote, “To have the United States on our side was to me the greatest joy.

The Japanese invasion force commenced its assault on Midway on June 4. At dawn Nagumo launched his first air strike, unaware that three American carriers—Enterprise, Hornet, and a quickly refitted Yorktown—stood off to the northeast. Believing his position secure, Nagumo ordered a time-consuming change of armament for his second attack wave just as his first wave returned to refuel.

At that point, with his flight decks cluttered, American bombers and torpedo planes attacked. But Japanese antiaircraft fire and Zeros kept the attackers at bay, and by 10:24 Nagumo felt he had weathered the storm. None of his ships had been hit.

The next five minutes would change the course of history. Arriving at the precise moment when Nagumo’s protective screen of Zeros had been drawn down to refuel, two squadrons of American dive-bombers, one from Enterprise, the other from Yorktown, poured through...

Three were sunk and the fourth so heavily damaged the Japanese scuttled it. Deprived of air cover, Yamamoto reversed course and sai...

The Battle of Midway proved to be the decisive battle in the Pacific. With the loss of four large carriers, their aircraft and their pilots, Japan never regained naval superiority. In the two years following Midway the ...

In January 1942 German U-boats prowling off the East Coast sank 48 ships of 276,795 tons; in February, 73 ships of 429,891 tons; and in March, 95 ships of 534,064 tons. The Navy did not sink its first German submarine until April 1942. Williamson Murray and Allan B. Millett, A War to Be Won 250 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000).

One morning FDR wheeled himself into Churchill’s bedroom just as the prime minister emerged from his bathroom stark naked and gleaming pink from a hot bath. Roosevelt apologized and turned about, but Churchill protested, “The Prime Minister of Great Britain has nothing to conceal from the President of the United States.” Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins 442 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948).

Almighty God: Our sons this day have set upon a mighty endeavor. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. —FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, JUNE 6, 1944

The G.I. Bill changed the face of America. Not only did it make colleges and universities accessible, it overturned the states’ rights taboo against federal funding for education. Until World War II, less than 5 percent of the nation’s college-age population attended universities. The cost of a year in college was roughly equal to the average annual wage, and there were few scholarships. Higher education was a privileged enclave for the children of the well-to-do. Under the G.I. Bill more than a million former servicemen and women attended universities at government expense in the immediate postwar years.

In the peak year of 1947, veterans accounted for 49 percent of total college enrollment. And of the 15 million who served in the armed forces during World War II, more than half took advantage of the schooling opportunities provided by the G.I.

I can’t talk about my opponent the way I would like to sometimes, because I try to think that I am a Christian. —FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, NOVEMBER 4, 1944

The deterioration of Roosevelt’s health became evident in the late winter and early spring of 1944. For years his blood pressure had been rising, and he had given up his daily dips in the White House pool sometime in 1940.9 Grace Tully noticed that the president was slowing down: the dark circles under his eyes grew darker, his shoulders slumped, his hands shook more than ever as he lit his cigarette.

Hitler’s “final solution” had been launched with the utmost secrecy on January 20, 1942, at what historians call the Wannsee Conference—a meeting of top government officials on the outskirts of Berlin. By the summer of ’42 reports of death camps began to filter west. How much Roosevelt knew is uncertain.

The following day, Thursday, April 12, 1945, Roosevelt sat in the living room of the Little White House while Elizabeth Shoumatoff painted. She was struck how much better the president looked. The “gray look” had disappeared, and he had “exceptionally good color.” Later Shoumatoff learned from doctors that Roosevelt’s flushed appearance was a warning sign of an approaching cerebral hemorrhage.174 Shortly before one o’clock the butler came in to set the table for lunch. FDR glanced at his watch and said, “We have fifteen minutes more to work.”

Then suddenly, he put his hand to his head in a quick jerky manner. “I have a terrific pain in the back of my head,” he said.175 Roosevelt slumped forward and collapsed. He never regained consciousness. At 3:35 P.M. Dr. Bruenn pronounced the president dead.

According to FDR’s medical history, as reported by Dr. Howard G. Bruenn, the president had not had his blood pressure checked since February 27, 1941—three years previously—when it had measured 188/105. By current standards Admiral McIntire would be considered guilty of egregious neglect for failing to consult a cardiologist and recommend remedial treatment at that time. But in the 1940s—and indeed, even into the 1960s—a majority of physicians believed that rising blood pressure was a necessary physiological response by an aging body to force blood through hardened arteries.