The World of the Roosevelts Published in cooperation with the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute Hyde Park, New York General Editors: William E. Leuchtenburg, Douglas Brinkley, and William J. vanden Heuvel FDR AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES Foreign Perceptions of an American President Edited by Cornelis A. van Minnen and John F. Sears NATO: THE FOUNDING OF THE ATLANTIC ALLIANCE AND THE INTEGRATION OF EUROPE Edited by Francis H. Heller and John R. Gillingham AMERICA UNBOUND World War II and the Making of a Superpower Edited by Warren F. Kimball THE ORIGINS OF U.S. NUCLEAR STRATEGY, 1945 1953 Samuel R. Williamson, Jr. and Steven L. Rearden AMERICAN DIPLOMATS IN THE NETHERLANDS, 1815 1850 Cornelis A. van Minnen EISENHOWER, KENNEDY, AND THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Pascaline Winand ALLIES AT WAR The Soviet, American, and British Experience, 1939 1945 Edited by David Reynolds, Warren F. Kimball, and A. O. Chubarian THE ATLANTIC CHARTER Edited by Douglas Brinkley and David R. Facey-Crowther PEARL HARBOR REVISITED Edited by Robert W. Love, Jr. FDR AND THE HOLOCAUST Edited by Verne W. Newton THE UNITED STATES AND THE INTEGRATION OF EUROPE Legacies of the Postwar Era Edited by Francis H. Heller and John R. Gillingham ADENAUER AND KENNEDY A Study in German-American Relations Frank A. Mayer THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE A Study in Presidential Statecraft William N. Tilchin TARIFFS, TRADE AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION, 1947 1957 From Study Group to Common Market Wendy Asbeek Brusse SUMNER WELLES FDR s Global Strategist A Biography by Benjamin Welles THE NEW DEAL AND PUBLIC POLICY Edited by Byron W. Daynes, William D. Pederson, and Michael P. Riccards WORLD WAR II IN EUROPE Edited by Charles F. Brower FDR AND THE U.S. NAVY Edward J. Marolda THE SECOND QUEBEC CONFERENCE REVISITED Edited by David B. Woolner THEODORE ROOSEVELT, THE U.S. NAVY, AND THE SPANISH- AMERICAN WAR Edited by Edward J. Marolda
FDR, THE VATICAN, AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN AMERICA, 1933 1945 Edited by David B. Woolner and Richard G. Kurial FDR AND THE ENVIRONMENT Edited by Henry L. Henderson and David B. Woolner VAN LOON: POPULAR HISTORIAN, JOURNALIST, AND FDR CONFIDANT Cornelis A. van Minnen ROOSEVELT AND FRANCO DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR From the Civil War to Pearl Harbor Joan Maria Thomàs FDR S WORLD War, Peace, and Legacies Edited by David B. Woolner, Warren F. Kimball, and David Reynolds FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT S FOREIGN POLICY AND THE WELLES MISSION J. Simon Rofe
FDR s World War, Peace, and Legacies EDITED BY DAVID B. WOOLNER, WARREN F. KIMBALL, AND DAVID REYNOLDS
FDR S WORLD Copyright David B. Woolner, Warren F. Kimball, and David Reynolds, 2008. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-0-230-60938-9 All rights reserved. First published in 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-37587-5 ISBN 978-0-230-61625-7 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230616257 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data FDR s world : war, peace, and legacies / edited by David B. Woolner, Warren F. Kimball, and David Reynolds. p. cm. (The world of the Roosevelts) Based on the proceedings of two conferences: In the shadow of FDR: how Roosevelt s wartime leadership shaped the postwar world organized by the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum and held in 2005; and Roosevelt and Churchill: the legacy of two statesmen organized jointly with the Churchill Centre, Washington, D.C. and held in 2007. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0 230 60938 4 1. Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882 1945. 2. Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882 1945 Influence. 3. World War, 1939 1945 United States. 4. World War, 1939 1945 Diplomatic history. 5. United States Foreign relations 1933 1945. 6. United States Foreign relations 1945 1989. 7. National security United States History. 8. Aeronautics, Commercial History 20th century. 9. Presidents United States Biography. I. Woolner, David B., 1955 II. Kimball, Warren F. III. Reynolds, David, 1952 E807.F346 2008 973.917092 dc22 2008012348 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: November 2008 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.
To the archivists of the FDR Presidential Library, whose dedication to scholarship has provided invaluable assistance to generations of historians.
Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments ix xi Introduction 1 1 FDR s Foreign Policy and the Construction of American History, 1945 1955 5 David Reynolds 2 FDR and the World-Wide Arena 35 Alan K. Henrikson 3 FDR and the Origins of the National Security Establishment 63 Mark A. Stoler 4 The Sheriffs: FDR s Postwar World 91 Warren F. Kimball 5 FDR and the Colonial Question 123 Lloyd Gardner 6 FDR and the China Question 145 Michael Schaller 7 FDR and the New Economic Order 175 Randall B. Woods 8 FDR and the Struggle for a Postwar Civil Aviation Regime: Legacy or Loss? 193 Alan P. Dobson 9 FDR s Worldviews, 1941 1945 215 Walter LaFeber
viii Contents Epilogue: FDR: Reflections on Legacy and Leadership The View From 2008 227 David B. Woolner List of Contributors 243 Index 247
Figures 2.1 The President s Globe 36 2.2 One World, One War 37 2.3 Arctic Arena 38 2.4 Progress of the War, Fireside Chat, February 23, 1942 44 2.5 Fifth Draft of FDR s Four Freedoms Speech 48 2.6 Flag of the United Nations Organization 53 2.7 The Realization of the Shrinking World 54
Acknowledgments Two thousand five marked the sixtieth anniversary of the death of one of the most important figures of the twentieth century Franklin D. Roosevelt. It also marked the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II and the birth of the postwar world. FDR never had the opportunity to live in this world. But his tenure as president in the twelve tumultuous years that preceded 1945 left an indelible mark on the generation that lived through the Great Depression and World War II, and, some would argue, an indelible mark on the events that followed. To honor this occasion and to try to assess the impact of Roosevelt s leadership, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum organized a major conference entitled In the Shadow of FDR: How Roosevelt s Wartime Leadership Shaped the Postwar World. As the title suggests, the conference sought to determine the extent to which FDR s efforts to hold together a disparate wartime alliance, while simultaneously trying to secure a better future for the generation that fought the war, have shaped the past six decades. By all accounts, the conference was a major success. It kindled a great deal of spirited debate about the impact of FDR s leadership. It also raised further questions, particularly about FDR s friendship with Winston Churchill and the wartime special relationship between Great Britain and the United States. These questions inspired a second gathering of historians two years later, in a conference organized jointly with The Churchill Centre, Washington, DC, entitled: Roosevelt and Churchill: The Legacy of Two Statesmen. Here, the wartime record of both leaders was examined with a special emphasis on the many difficult political, military, and economic issues that Great Britain and the United States wrestled with as they tried to craft and nurture the Anglo-American alliance. The two conferences attracted some of the best Roosevelt and wartime era historians in the world. They also produced some outstanding scholarship. Together, the two gatherings and the scholarship that went into them represent a serious reassessment of FDR s wartime leadership and its legacy
xii Acknowledgments for the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book is based on the proceedings of these two conferences. An intellectual undertaking of this scope and vigor could not have happened without the assistance of many individuals and the support of a number of key institutions. The inspiration for the conference came from professors Warren Kimball and David Reynolds, two of the world s leading FDR scholars, and in the case of Warren Kimball, a member of the Roosevelt Institute s Board of Governors. Without their dedication, determination, and profound desire to gain a more complete understanding of this tumultuous period in our history, these conferences and this book would not have been possible. Special thanks are also due to William J. vanden Heuvel, the founder and chair emeritus of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, for his welcoming remarks, and for his efforts to help make the two conferences and the many other activities of the Institute possible. We are also grateful to Dr. Christopher Breiseth, the president and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, for his support; to Dr. Cynthia Koch, the director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum; and to the staffs of the FDR Library and Roosevelt Institute especially Lynn Bassanese, Elaine Murphy, and Mary McFarland for their kind assistance. For their help in organizing the Roosevelt Churchill Conference, we would like to thank William C. Ives, then president of The Churchill Centre, as well as Daniel N. Myers, The Churchill Centre s executive director, who took on much of the burden of organizing this event, ably assisted by Karen Linebarger in the Centre s Washington office. We wish to extend our heartfelt thanks to the participants of both gatherings who so graciously accepted our invitation to share their knowledge and help us gauge the extent to which FDR s leadership shaped the postwar world. This includes a special thanks to the many commentators and chairs who added so much to the proceedings of both events. For the September 2005 conference, we are grateful to Lt. Col. Lance Betros, the chair of the Department of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and David Eisenhower, Public Policy fellow at the Annenberg School of Communication, for providing us with their perspectives on FDR s legacy with respect to the United States Armed Forces; to J. Garry Clifford, professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut, for his astute observations on the historiographical interpretation of FDR; to historian Frank Costigliola of the University of Connecticut for his comments on FDR s global perspective; to Stephen Schlesinger, the former director of the World Policy Institute at the New School, and Richard Kurial, dean of Arts at the University of Prince Edward Island, for their analysis of FDR s conception of world order; to William Roger Louis, Kerr professor of English History and Culture at the University of Texas, for his comments on FDR and
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii colonialism; to Anders Stephanson, James P. Shenton professor of History at Columbia University, and Ann Douglas, Parr professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia, for their views on FDR and the China question ; to Alan Dobson, professor of Politics and director of the Transatlantic Studies Association at the University of Dundee, and Michael Hopkins, lecturer at the Department of History at the University of Liverpool, for their comments on FDR and the management of the world economy; and finally to Steven M. Gillon, professor of History at the University of Okalahoma and resident historian at the History Channel, and Eric Alterman, distinguished professor of English, Brooklyn College, professor of Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and columnist for The Nation, for their perceptive additions to Professor LaFeber s observations on the overall meaning of the original proceedings. With respect to the June 2007 conference, we are grateful to Godfrey Hodgson, associate fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University, for his astute observations on the legacy of Churchill and Roosevelt; for the stimulating panel discussion on the transition from hot war to Cold War, we extend our thanks to Lloyd Gardner, the Charles and Mary Beard professor emeritus of History at Rutgers University; Deborah Nutter, senior associate dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy; David Reynolds, professor of International History at Cambridge University; and Martin Walker, syndicated columnist and editor-in-chief emeritus of United Press International. Finally we also wish to thank Lt. Gen. (Ret) Josiah Bunting III for his fascinating address on the relationship between Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and George C. Marshall. As has been the case with a number of Roosevelt Institute conferences, we are extremely grateful to Michael Gartland and the Charlotte Cunneen Hackett Charitable Trust for their financial support of our efforts; and also to Peter Kovler and the Majorie Kovler Foundation. Without their support, the conference and this book would not have been possible. We would also like to thank Alessandra Bastagli and Christopher Chappell at Palgrave for their assistance in the final preparation of this book. One final note: In the days since these conferences were organized, the world lost one of its preeminent historians, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. We are grateful that Arthur was not only able to attend the original conference, but also to give the opening remarks. His sage observations and enthusiasm for our efforts continue to inspire. We miss him deeply. David B. Woolner Cambridge, England; and Hyde Park, New York