I thought this was interesting:
“O’Donnell later covered the fighting in Europe. Returning home in 1945, he and another reporter had their White House credentials yanked due to “their isolationist, anti-British, anti-Russian pens.” A nasty spat followed, eventually becoming public when it spilled into the Philadelphia Record’s pages. It grew so nasty that Steve Early, the very first White House press secretary, threatened to resign if the men’s credentials weren’t returned. FDR grudgingly complied. “
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Just pointing out, that anti-British, and anti-Russian pens, were apparently a big thing for him.
Having grown up during the cold war myself, that seems an interesting frame of reference for the President. And now we seem to be getting along famously, with the country once again.
Times they do change.
I grew up during the Cold War myself, and took an avid interest in WWII history. Lots of war stories were printed and/or put on the Silver Screen in those days.But just as interesting is the political history of WWII. Things like the fact that Lindberg was not merely an isolationist, he was the public face of the movement. And isolationism was the mainstream of American political thought - before Pearl Harbor, involvement in WWII polled 80% against . . . which was precisely the feeling in Britain at the time of the infamous Munich agreement between Chamberlain and Hitler.
Dunkirk snatched the British Army from the jaws of annihilation, but not from the jaws of defeat. And the Soviet Union was allied with Germany. There was a belief, after the May, 1940 Fall of France, that Britain could not but come to terms with Hitler.
OTOH the idea of the Royal Navy under German control powerfully focused the minds of American strategic thinkers. The upshot was that FDR, acting about as constitutionally as Barak Obama’s “phone and pen,”
Two other interesting facts: Pearl Harbor was just about exactly 18 months after the start of the US military productivity buildup - and when FDR asked Bill Knudsen - the only man Bernard Baruch recommended for the job of arranging the bulidup, after himself declining on grounds of age - how long the buildup would take, he replied, "18 months.” And according to
- funneled as much military aid to Britain as he could manage, and
- instituted a frantic build up America’s capacity (in terms of buildings, and especially machine tools) to manufacture war materiel.
Per Wikipedia, "The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939 . . . “
- Freedom's Forge:
- How American Business Produced Victory in World War II
Arthur Hermanthe US Navy harassed the German U-boats before Pearl Harbor - intensifying its activity “throughout the summer of 1941” - and, of course, the first day of summer was exactly when Hitler invaded the USSR.
- The New Dealers' War:
- FDR and the War Within World War II
by Thomas FlemingThe thing is, Russia as a beleagered - conventional wisdom was that the USSR was no more of a match for the Wehrmact than France allied with Britan had proved to be in Europe - enemy of Hitler was a different kettle of fish than the USSR in alliance with Hitler. FDR’s right hand man, Harry Hopkins, was in Britain at the time of the invasion of Russia, and he went to Moscow to evaluate the situation. Stalin told Hopkins the USSR would be able to fight Hitler for a year, if unaided, and indefinitely with aid. Hopkins was convinced - and the US became an ally of the USSR, and would remain so until the death of Hitler.
The US had not recognized the USSR after the Bolchevik Revolution, but doing so was FDR’s first diplomatic initiative. You can say all you want about Sen. Joseph McCarthy, but the US government was riddled with Soviet sympathizers by the time Truman retired.