Strata Vol. 1 (1)
The Ideological Conflict between the United States
and the Revisionist Powers (1933-39)
JONATHAN De La HAZA RUANO
Abstract:
Recently on 1 December 2009, Barack Obama made the unfortunate
decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. He also
called for more vigorous efforts at nation-building, which is a
euphemism for building democratic institutions and a free market
economy. The decision is political, since most Americans cannot
accept the fact that the Afghanistan war cannot be won. But where
does this popular foreign policy culture come from? Why do
Americans believe that the United States should build democratic and
free market institutions in the Middle East? Why do they think that
the United States can transform Iraq and Afghanistan into
democracies, when past military interventions have proven
otherwise? The object of my article is to answer these questions by
reintroducing a period before World War II when the foreign policy
culture mentioned above first came into existence. In the 1930s, the
United States was at a crossroads. They could remain loyal to
isolationism which held that the United States should avoid political
entanglements outside the Western Hemisphere. The other choice
was to embrace Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Wilsonian foreign
policy, which posited that the United States should impose Wilsonian
principles of democracy and free market capitalism either by the
force of its example or the force of its arms. Owing to Roosevelt’s
skill in converting the public to Wilsonianism, the American people
made the latter choice on the eve of the Second World War.
For most historians the United States mistakenly believed in
the 1930s that peace was attainable if Germany and Japan were
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appeased. But in fact this characterization of U.S. foreign policy is
largely incorrect. The United States was involved in a Cold War of
sorts against the revisionist powers (Germany and Japan) which
started to heat up toward the end of the 1930s. Since 1934, Franklin
Delano Roosevelt (FDR) waged economic warfare against Germany
first to discourage Nazi rearmament1 and then to create, with Britain
and France, a formidable European deterrent that would make Hitler
think twice before going to war.2 There was even a proxy war where
Roosevelt tried unsuccessfully to send military aid to a government
fighting Fascism in Spain in 1938.3 But perhaps the most public
feature of this period of frozen tensions were the ideological
differences between the United States and the revisionist powers that
Roosevelt lay before the American people in a series of speeches and
press conferences in the years’ 1937-39.
These ideological differences were inevitable, because
Roosevelt and Hitler’s worldviews were diametrically opposed.
Roosevelt was a Wilsonian4 who wanted to build a World Order built
1
Arnold Offner, “Appeasement Revised: The United States, Great Britain and
Germany, 1933-1940,” The Journal of American History 64 (September 1977),
pp. 374-375.
2
Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau supported the U.S. government’s gold
buying program because he believed that it would provide the possible
opponents of the revisionist powers with more foreign exchange for their war
chest, which would prove useful in the event of war. See Morgenthau to FDR,
March 23, 1938, PSF 79, FDR Library
3
Dominic Tierney, pp. 299-301, 306.
4
President Woodrow Wilson was considered the father of Wilsonian idealism,
but really Wilsonianism was loosely based on the U.S. imperialist ideology of
the 19th century. Imperialist thinker and Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was
like Woodrow Wilson a strong believer in national sovereignty, but he believed
that countries with barbaric governments forfeited the protections afforded to
them by international law. Woodrow Wilson’s actions, ranging from his
decision to intervene in Soviet Russia (1919) to his championing of national
sovereignty, indicate that his foreign policy views were similar, if not identical,
to those of many U.S. imperialists. The end of Wilsonian idealism was the
American World Order, a kind of capitalist utopia where democracy and the free
market were universal, and the imperialist/Wilsonian view of sovereignty was
significant, because it showed Wilson was realistic about how he wanted to
build this American World Order.
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around the Wilsonian principles of free trade, the free market,
national sovereignty, democracy and international cooperation. A
World Order that was also based on the promise that those who
worked hard day after day would not only better themselves, but also
improve the lives of their children and grandchildren. This was the
idealistic World Order that the United States – from the time of
Roosevelt’s presidency to the present day – wished to impose on the
rest of the world either by the force of its example or the force of its
arms.
Admittedly, this was not the way most people remember
Wilsonianism,5 since using force to impose a set of principles
appeared to be at odds with the Wilsonian belief in sovereignty. But
Presidents Woodrow Wilson and FDR believed that sovereignty was
only for the civilized countries, not “barbaric” governments who by
their own actions (oppression at home and international aggression)
forfeited the protections afforded to them by international law. Thus
while championing every nation’s right to self-determination, Wilson
sent U.S. troops into Russia to topple Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik
government in 1918-19.6 Similarly when Cuba drifted toward
socialism in November 1933, FDR surrounded the island with
warships and achieved a political outcome favorable to the United
States – namely Fulgenico Batista’s rise of power.7
Aside from raising questions about its inconsistency with
sovereignty, Wilsonianism also begs the question of why the United
States should be the one to build the World Order. The selection of
the United States for this Herculean task was not destiny, as it was
the result of the profound influence of American exceptionalism
interwoven into the fabric of patriotism and cloaked in the Judeo5
Knock, for example, insisted that had Wilson been alive in the 1940s and
1950s, he would have opposed military interventions. Thomas J. Knock, To End
all Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (New York:
Oxford UP, 1992), p. 273.
6
R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy, The Harper Encyclopedia of Military
History: From 3500 BC to the Present (New York: Harper Collins Publishers,
1993), p. 1095.
7
Irwin F. Gellman, Good Neighbour Policy: United States Policies in Latin
America, 1933-1945 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1979), pp. 19-20.
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Christian faith. American policy-makers, like ordinary Americans, saw
their country as a Judeo-Christian nation and a beacon of liberty with
the greatest principles on earth. They thought that surely the very
principles that succeeded so well in the United States could succeed
in other countries as well. Of course, the principles of democracy, the
free market, sovereignty, free trade and a social vision for
hardworking people were not uniquely American. The United States
was also not morally superior to every other country on earth. But
American exceptionalism had to be taken on the basis of faith. FDR
was not going to allow reality to persuade him that certain principles
were not American or that the United States was not the most saintly
country on earth.8
With his unshakeable faith in the moral superiority of the
United States and its principles, Roosevelt was bound to have a very
difficult time with Adolf Hitler. Since the United States was in his
view beyond reproach, FDR saw any government that failed to
measure up to its moral principles as evil.9 Hitler’s totalitarian
ideology represented everything Roosevelt opposed: dictatorship
instead of democracy, the violation of civil liberties, closed markets
instead of the Open Door, and worse still the overturning of
international treaties. Roosevelt tolerated Hitler for about one year.
Then in March 1934, he cancelled the commercial agreement with
Germany, signaling the start of several economic measures against
8
For more information on American exceptionalism, see Bradford Perkins, “The
Unique American Prism,” in Major Problems in American Foreign Relations
Volume I: To 1920 (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000), pp. 2-8.
Roosevelt’s views on U.S. foreign policy and the United States’ moral
superiority to Europe are well covered in John Lamberton Harper, American
Visions of Europe: Franklin D. Roosevelt, George F. Kennan, and Dean G.
Acheson (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996), p. 26.
9
Sumner Welles expressed this Manichean worldview best, when he wrote,
“What we did not then see sufficiently clearly was that a war having its origin in
the causes which brought about the war in Europe in 1939 could hardly become
anything other than world-wide -- a war between free men and the powers intent
upon creating universal tyranny and oppression.” See Sumner Welles, The Time
for Decision (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1944), p. 212.
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that country.10 Roosevelt also had a hard time with the Japanese
government. For FDR, Japan was undemocratic and its aggression in
northern China was unconscionable. To be sure, Roosevelt’s
Manichean view of Japan seems hypocritical given that his
government often supported other undemocratic regimes. But it
should be noted that even U.S. economic aid to dictatorships was
justified on Wilsonian grounds. Treasury Secretary Henry
Morgenthau, for example, advised FDR in 23 March 1938 that
sending credits to China’s Kuomintang Premier Chiang Kai-Shek
would “further the struggle of democracy against aggression
everywhere.”11
Thus, although FDR’s Wilsonian worldview only came into
focus – and even then very gradually – during the late 1930s and early
1940s, its origins date back to 1933. The ideological conflict
underwent two distinct phases in its development. The first (1933-36)
was one-key. Few people knew where the President stood on foreign
policy, because FDR believed that explicit steps taken toward
Wilsonianism in an isolationist climate would ruin his chances for
reelection. Consequently, U.S. foreign policy seemed to lack a rudder
and was often swayed by isolationist sentiment. In the second phase
(1937-39), the Axis powers (Germany and Japan) ran amuck and
FDR started his propaganda campaign against them. The
Constitution Day speech (September 17, 1937), the Quarantine
speech and the State of the Union, along with several press
conferences, sought to demonize the Axis and rally support for a
more international foreign policy agenda.
Before discussing how the ideological conflict unfolded,
however, a few observations need to be made on its importance and
relevance. If the ideological conflict was simply a stale debate about
foreign policy ideas, it would not be worth writing about. But there
are at least two reasons why the ideological conflict between the
United States and the revisionist powers should receive greater
10
Arnold A. Offner, “Appeasement Revised: The United States, Great Britain
and Germany, 1933-1940,” The Journal of American History 64 (September
1977), pp. 374-375.
11
Morgenthau to FDR, March 23, 1938, PSF 79, FDR Library
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attention. The first is that the ideology of America’s empire –
embodied in concepts like “globalization” of trade and culture,
“universal human rights,” “world peace,” pre-emptive strike, and
even the United States’ right to wage war without declaring it – first
appeared, albeit hazily, in the 1930s. Indeed, no explanation for the
wars in Afghanistan or Iraq would be complete without making
reference to ideological rebirth of Wilsonianism and the rise of a new
foreign policy consensus during the years of the Great Depression.
Americans did not conclude overnight that it was a good idea for the
United States to invade foreign countries that they probably never
heard of before. Americans were not born internationalists. Until the
late 1930s, the majority of them were isolationists convinced that the
United States should avoid all political entanglements with countries
outside the Western Hemisphere. But they were eventually
transformed into internationalists through years of exposure to the
Wilsonian propaganda machine. Roosevelt was the first to get this
machine working and his successors, Democrats and Republicans
alike, continued where he left off.
The second reason is that the successful propagation of
Wilsonian thought led to the rise of the American Empire, whose
presence is felt everywhere today – especially by the deeply resentful
Muslim World. The shock of World War II alone was not enough to
change American minds about the United States’ role in the world.
The United States had experienced a World War before in 1917-18,
only to fall back into isolationism. Roosevelt’s success in changing
public perceptions was crucial for ensuring that the United States not
only became an empire, but that it remained one.
First Phase, 1933-36
Throughout the 1930s FDR remained faithful to his
Wilsonian principles all along, but he refused to admit that publicly
because of isolationist pressures. The foreign policy that Americans
saw was not the foreign policy that Roosevelt wanted to pursue;
instead, it was the product of isolationist pressures emanating from
Congress and public opinion. The Good Neighbour Policy,
announced in early 1933, was one example. Considering that the
public image of the Good Neighbour Policy was to treat Latin
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American states as equal, Roosevelt picked the most unlikely people
to run it. FDR was an unlikely person to champion this policy. He
supported U.S. military interventions in Mexico, Haiti, the
Dominican Republic and Panama before 1920.12 Later in 1940, FDR
considered resorting to military intervention in the event that Brazil
and Mexico refused to allow U.S. bases on their soil.13 Secretary of
State Cordell Hull, responsible for the day-to-day running of this
policy, had no prior experience in Latin American affairs. Sumner
Welles had that experience, but he supported military interventions in
the past and even advised Roosevelt twice to send marines to Cuba in
late 1933 in light of the social unrest there.14 Although FDR rejected
Welles’ advice, he hoped to influence political developments in Cuba
by surrounding the island with U.S. warships.15
Another example was FDR’s support for neutrality. In 1935,
the Neutrality Act was passed by Congress and signed into law. The
act prohibited the sale of arms to belligerents whenever the President
proclaimed a state of war. Undeniably Roosevelt, by signing this act
into law, was taking his country in a more isolationist direction.16 But
that was probably not his intention. He wanted Congress to give him
discretionary authority to levy an embargo against the aggressors
alone, so that he had the option of helping the victims of aggression
(which were likely democracies). But Congress forced FDR to
compromise. To keep U.S. arms out of the hands of totalitarian
12
Fredrick B. Pike, FDR’s Good Neighbour Policy: Sixty Years of Generally
Gentle Chaos (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), pp. 129-130.
13
John Child, “From ‘Colour’ and ‘Rainbow’: U.S. Strategic Planning for Latin
America, 1919-1945,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 21,
No. 2 (May 1979), pp. 251-252.
14
Irwin F. Gellman, pp. 19-20.
15
David G. Haglund, p. 46.
16
Isolationism is the belief, shared by a majority of Americans in the 1920s and
the 1930s, that the United States should avoid political entanglements outside
the Western Hemisphere. Most isolationists believed that the United States
should only have economic relations with Europe, namely those having to do
with trade and private investment. Military alliances and other kinds of political
entanglements, which may get the United States involved in another war, were
to be avoided. Isolationists also opposed large defense budgets with the result
that little money was invested in the military until 1939.
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nations, he reluctantly paid Congress’ price: U.S. weapons were not
sent to either side.17
While some foreign policy initiatives were the product of
isolationist public opinion, there was another side to Roosevelt’s
foreign policy that the public never saw. On 9 January 1933, FDR
had a luncheon with Henry Stimson at Hyde Park that lasted for five
hours. Charles Beard hypothesized that FDR and Stimson planned to
implement the Stimson doctrine which called for economic sanctions
against Japan in the distant future. Beard described the Stimson
Doctrine as a “road to war,” implying that FDR wanted to provoke
Japan into going to war with the U.S. There is no direct evidence that
the meeting was about provoking Japan or the Stimson doctrine, but
Beard had demonstrated that his argument could not be disproved
either. Many questions about FDR’s foreign policy remain
unanswered because so much of it was concealed from the public.
Only FDR and Stimson knew what was said at Hyde Park and they
kept their secret.18
Thus in the early 1930s, little of Roosevelt’s foreign policy
was visible and what was visible was the product of isolationist
pressures. FDR’s primary focus was on making the New Deal a
success and for that he needed the support of the isolationist bloc in
Congress.19 Although the administration trained their watchful eye on
the revisionist powers, military expenditures were slashed20 and
17
Emily S. Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream: American Economic
and Cultural Expansion, 1890-1945 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982), pg. 177
See also Wayne Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 1932-45 (Lincoln, NE:
University of Nebraska Press, 1983), p. 186.
18
Charles A. Beard, American Foreign Policy in the Making: A Study in
Responsibilities (New Haven: Yale UP, 1946), pp. 134-135, 136. Raymond
Moley, FDR’s advisor, also went on record as saying that the Stimson Doctrine,
if implemented, “invited a major war in the Far East.” Possibly, this was the
reason why Moley was not invited to FDR’s meeting with Stimson at Hyde
Park. Ibid, p. 134.
19
Wayne Cole, pp. 92-93, 129.
20
Rondall R. Rice, The Politics of Air Power: From Confrontation to
Cooperation in Army Aviation Civil-Military Relations (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 2004), p. 103
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executive foreign policy leadership seemed lacking with Congress
happily filling the void.21
Yet during the entire time, Roosevelt retained his Wilsonian
creed and probably intended to craft his foreign policy along these
lines. Certainly, the men who worked with him indicated as much.
Cordell Hull explained in his memoirs that:
Both the President and I were strongly inclined
toward international cooperation [and] sharply
opposed to extreme nationalism and to isolation. But
we were ahead of Congress as a whole. In many
instances in the years to come, Congress narrowed
the range and importance of our efforts to make the
United States a more integral part of world affairs.
Congress was slower on many occasions than the
Executive in seeing the dangers looming to world
peace and in taking appropriate steps to meet them.22
Similarly Sumner Welles, Assistant Secretary (1933-36) and later
Under Secretary of State (1937-43), claimed that Roosevelt began his
presidency in 1933 with a comprehensive foreign policy agenda for
solving the European and Pacific problems.23
Aside from these statements, Roosevelt’s appointments to
senior posts in his administration signalled a move toward
internationalism. Cordell Hull was a Wilsonian who believed that the
U.S. was the “supreme moral factor in the world’s progress.”24 Other
21
Most of the important foreign policy legislation, which were largely
isolationist, originated in Congress. Senator Hiram Johnson passed the Johnson
Act in 1934 which forbade the U.S. government from floating loans to
governments who had defaulted on their debts. The Neutrality Act of 1935 was
another example. Also in 1935, the Senate defeated the World Court resolution.
Wayne Cole, pp. 81-94, 123-127, 163-186.
22
Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull: Volume 1 (London: Hodder &
Stoughton, 1948), p. 211.
23
Sumner Welles, p. 50.
24
Randall B. Woods, The Roosevelt Foreign Policy Establishment and the
“Good Neighbour”: The United States and Argentina (Lawrence: The Regents
Press of Kansas), p. 25.
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Wilsonians included Harold Ickes, appointed Secretary of the Interior
in 1933, Henry Morgenthau, appointed Secretary of the Treasury in
1934, Norman Davis, a roving ambassador,25 and Sumner Welles.26
Harry Hopkins, who served in several capacities, shared Roosevelt’s
Wilsonian views as he later revealed in an interview:
You and I are for Roosevelt because he’s a great
spiritual figure, because he’s an idealist, like Wilson,
and he’s got the guts to drive through against any
opposition to realize those ideas. Oh, he sometimes
tries to appear tough and cynical and flippant, but
that’s an act he likes to put on, especially at press
conferences…. You can see the real Roosevelt when
he comes out with something like the Four Freedoms.
And don’t get the idea that those are any catch
phrases. He believes them! He believes they can be
practically attained.27
In the military services, it was less clear whether Secretary of War
Henry Stimson (1940-45) and Secretary of the Navy Claude Swanson
(1933-39) were Wilsonians. However, Stimson did agree with many
important elements of Roosevelt’s internationalist foreign policy28,
while Swanson revealed his own internationalism when he urged
FDR in late 1937 to declare war on Japan after the Japanese bombed
the U.S. gunboat Panay.29
25
Galen R. Perras, Franklin Roosevelt and the Origins of the CanadianAmerican Security Alliance, 1933-1945: Necessary, but Not Necessary Enough
(Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1998), p. 38.
26
Benjamin Welles, Sumner Welles: FDR’s Global Strategist (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1997), p. 135.
27
Robert Endicott Osgood, Ideals and Self-Interest in America’s Foreign
Relations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 410.
28
Charles A. Beard, American Foreign Policy in the Making: A Study in
Responsibilities (New Haven: Yale UP, 1946), pp. 134-135.
29
Conrad Black, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom (New
York: Public Affairs, 2003), p. 428.
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Admittedly, there were some differences of opinion in
Roosevelt’s cabinet. Galen Perras even implied that FDR had a team
of rivals with realists (Assistant Secretaries Adolf Berle and Welles)
and Wilsonian idealists.30 Yet in truth, Welles was a Wilsonian31 and
Berle a ‘yes-man’ and they would not have survived in their positions
for very long had they been anything else. Secretary of War Harry
Woodring (1936-40), who, as an isolationist, was anything but a yesman, was fired from his post after less than four years because he
disagreed with Roosevelt’s decision to send ten B-17 bombers to
Britain.32 FDR did not like opposition in his administration, which
was why even Hopkins rarely presented the President with
“unpleasant arguments.”33 Roosevelt also revealed his intolerance of
dissent in other ways. As Welles explained:
It was very rare indeed that President Roosevelt could
be persuaded to bring into White House Conferences
on foreign policy any of those State Department
specialists who had devoted a lifetime to the study of
some particular country or region, and who could
have given him the detailed information and
authoritative viewpoint that he very well frequently
lacked.34
In other words, Roosevelt was more interested in people who shared
his views than those who, while knowledgeable and experienced,
were likely to disagree with him on foreign policy matters. Stanley
Hornbeck was an expert on Asian affairs, but he was excluded from
30
Galen R. Perras, p. 38.
Benjamin Welles, p. 135.
32
Keith D. McFarland, Harry H. Woodring: A Political Biography of F.D.R.
Controversial Secretary of War (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1975),
pp. 224-232.
33
Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957),
p. 167.
34
Sumner Welles, Seven Decisions That Shaped History (New York: Harper &
Bros., Publishers, 1951), p. 216.
31
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Jonathan Ruano
FDR’s foreign policy meetings.35 Joseph Grew, U.S. Ambassador to
Japan (1932-1941), had a superb understanding of Japan, but FDR
kept him at arm’s length.36
The senior officials who lasted longest in the Roosevelt
administration were internationalists. But they also had another thing
in common: they were deeply suspicious of the revisionist powers.
After watching Japan and Germany, Roosevelt was by his own
admission concerned about the world situation in May 1933.37 On 14
June 1934, he told Welles that Japan was achieving mastery over the
Far East and Europe was instituting “a balance of power regime.”38
In referring to “a balance of power,” FDR was not praising
European power politics. As a Wilsonian, he believed the balance of
power caused World War I and that its revival would cause another
35
Ibid., p. 216.
Since the early 1930s, Joseph Grew had a negligible influence on the United
States’ Asian policy. In 6 February 1934 Grew warned the State Department that
unless the U.S. changed its trade policy, then Japan would go to war in the Far
East. In Grew’s view, there was an explosive mixture brewing in Japan.
Overpopulation, limited resources and a common desire for better living
standards pressured Japan to demand more “economic elbow room.” But the
world was “gradually closing its markets to [Japanese] products,” leaving
Japan’s economic needs unaddressed. Grew continued, “[Japan] can, as in the
past, [extend their economic life line] by means of military force, but further
Japanese military adventures in the Far East would very probably result in a
tremendous clash with the Western powers, in which, presumably, Japan would
be crushed… The problem confronting Western nations.. would appear to be
whether to endeavor to preserve Western interests in the Far East for a
generation or two by defeating Japan in a war, or whether to satisfy Japan’s urge
for economic expansion by granting larger markets and greater opportunity for
Japanese enterprise in the territories controlled by Western nations.” See Joseph
Grew to Cordell Hull, Tokyo, February 6, 1935, from FRUS: Diplomatic
Papers, 1935, Volume 3: The Far East (Washington: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 1953), p. 852. In spite of Grew’s warning, Roosevelt continued to
restrict Japanese access to American markets throughout the 1930s. See Ethel B.
Dietrich, “Closing Doors against Japan,” Far East Survey 7, No. 16 (August 10,
1938), p. 183.
37
James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (New York:
Harthcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1956), p. 259.
38
Galen R. Perras, p. 11.
36
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World War.39 Hull also had a cynical view of Japan and Germany. In
his memoirs, he wrote the following about Japan:
As I entered the State Department I had two points
on the Far East firmly in mind. One was the definite
interest the United States had in maintaining the
independence of China and preventing Japan from
gaining overlordship of the entire Far East. The other
was an equally definite conviction that Japan had no
intention whatever of abiding by treaties but would
regulate her conduct by the opportunities of the
moment.40
Although Japan’s invasion of Manchuria reinforced his views, Hull
predicted as far back as 1922 that Japan meant to continue its
expansion regardless of the treaties it signed. With concern to
Germany, Hull wrote, “There was little doubt in my mind in March
1933 that Germany would provide one of my biggest problems in the
years to come.”41 Hull then cited George Messersmith’s telegram
(May 1933) which observed that the Nazis wanted “to make
Germany the most capable instrument of war that has ever existed.”42
Others with like views were Welles, Morgenthau, Swanson and
Stimson. Benjamin Welles described his father Sumner as a “strong
anti-Fascist.”43 Arnold Offner saw Morgenthau as “perhaps the most
voluble anti-Nazi.”44 In 1934, Swanson advised FDR to use PanAmerican Airways to establish an air base on Wake Island in reaction
39
Ross A. Kennedy, “Woodrow Wilson, World War I and an American
Conception of National Security,” Diplomatic History 25, No. 1 (winter 2001),
p. 2.
40
Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull: Volume 1 (London: Hodder &
Stoughton, 1948), p. 270.
41
Ibid., p. 170.
42
Ibid., pp. 234-235.
43
Benjamin Welles, p. 210.
44
Arnold Offner, p. 375.
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to similar moves by Japan to fortify its islands.45 Finally, Stimson as
Secretary of State advised President Herbert Hoover to enforce
economic sanctions against Japan in 1931.46
In summation, Roosevelt knew what his foreign policy goals
were – they were Wilsonian – but he went about achieving them in a
very patient and deliberative way. Although some historians have
criticized him for not confronting the Axis powers sooner, FDR
could not have acted otherwise. At that time, isolationism was too
strong to overcome and FDR realized that his Wilsonian foreign
policy legacy could only endure once he secured his political future.
He did not want to repeat Woodrow Wilson’s mistake which was to
aggressively rally popular support for his Wilsonian foreign policy at a
time when public opinion was weary of war and inclined towards
isolation. Wilson’s campaign to garner support for internationalism
only spoiled his chances to build an American World Order and
inadvertently drove Wilsonians into the political wilderness.47 By
learning from Wilson’s failure, Roosevelt won a landslide victory in
the 1936 presidential election48 while quietly consolidating his few
internationalist gains. The first of these was FDR’s major
appointments to his cabinet: almost all of the men appointed were
Wilsonian or had internationalist leanings. The second was the
President’s authoritarian approach to governance which permitted
debate over the means to achieving Wilsonian goals, but not over the
ends themselves. As his political position improved, Roosevelt slowly
drove out those officials who did not believe in the Wilsonian
mission and forged not a team of rivals, but a team of anti-German
and anti-Japanese loyalists with Wilsonian or internationalist views. In
short, the ideological differences between the United States and the
revisionist powers did not just suddenly spring up in reaction to
unexpected international crises in Europe and the Far East. They
45
Marylin Bender and Selig Altschul, The Chosen Instrument: Pan Am, Juan
Trippe, the Rise and Fall of an American Entrepreneur (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1982), pp. 230-232.
46
Charles A. Beard, pp. 134-35.
47
Conrad Black, p. 427; Paul Boyer et al, The Enduring Vision: A History of the
American People (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002), pp. 476-477.
48
Ibid., pp. 516-517.
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were always there, however hazily defined. What made the period
discussed in the next chapter different from the first was that FDR
had taken the bold step of explaining those ideological differences to
the American public. The purpose behind the President’s press
conferences and speeches was not simply to demonize the revisionist
powers. It had a more subtle purpose: FDR wanted to transform the
political landscape so that public opinion would rally behind a
Wilsonian foreign policy instead of an isolationist one.
Second Phase, 1937-1939
Roosevelt’s decision to lay out the ideological differences
with Japan and Germany before the American people and advocate a
Wilsonian foreign policy was a truly shocking and astonishing
development for its time, because no president since Wilson had the
audacity to do what FDR did. With most Americans still opposed to
the United States getting politically involved with countries overseas,
calling for an internationalist U.S. foreign policy was widely
considered as political suicide. Indeed, as we shall see, Roosevelt
almost derailed his political career after giving the hugely
controversial Quarantine Speech. He recovered, but only by
remaining silent on foreign policy issues for a whole year.
Yet in spite of the risks, Roosevelt had clearly chosen to
discard his former reticence on foreign policy by mid-1937. The
reason for this change is unknown, but world events probably
afforded FDR the opportunity to convert public opinion to his
internationalist views. On 7 March 1936, Germany reoccupied the
Rhineland.49 In September, Germany and Italy sent military aid to the
Fascists fighting in Spain.50 Japan resumed its expansion in China in
1937. These events gave credibility to Roosevelt’s anti-Axis views
which he did not have before 1937.
49
R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy, The Harper Encyclopedia of Military
History: From 3500 BC to the Present (New York: Harper Collins Publishers,
1993), p. 1132.
50
Ibid. p. 1127.
49
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On 30 June 1937, Roosevelt took advantage of a reporter’s
question about his cruise to stress the seriousness of Japanese
aggression in China:
Question: Have you decided on your cruise for the
week-end?
FDR: Not definitely; I am going aboard tonight and
staying pretty close to Washington on account of the
Far Eastern situation…
Q: Why is it necessary to be so close to home on that
situation? Of course, I know what it is, but –
FDR: Well, it is a very disturbing situation with two
great nations getting into trouble.
Q: I know that. But the fact that you have to keep
your foot at first base interests me. I wonder if there
is anything to it.
FDR: It is pretty vital.51
At the time of this exchange, isolationism in the United States was
still strong. The reporter was aware of Japanese aggression, but as an
isolationist he could not imagine why it should concern the President
or his country. The exchange, therefore, reflected the continuing
strength of isolationism, but it also marked the point when Roosevelt
began to change public perceptions. He implied in a subtle way that
the Far Eastern crisis had an impact on the United States without
specifying what that impact was. The American people were led to
believe that the impact was significant, otherwise, why would the
President postpone his vacation? Thus, in that restricted sense
internationalism was promoted. On 3 August 1937, FDR repeated
the manoeuvre again, insisting that his holiday might have to be
postponed because of the seriousness of the Far Eastern situation.52
By the autumn of 1937, FDR gave speeches, as well as press
conferences, to get his internationalist message across. FDR’s first
51
Complete Presidential Press Conferences of Franklin D. Roosevelt (New
York: Da Capo Press, 1972), Volume 10: 84-85.
52
Ibid., Volume 10: 91-92.
50
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public address on totalitarianism came on the 150th Anniversary of
the Constitution on 17 September 1937. Since isolationism only
recently peaked, the speech had to be low-key. Roosevelt did not
even mention the culprits by name.53 But as Samuel Rosenman, one
of FDR’s speech writers, explained:
Although he did not mention those countries
by name – because this was still the period of
diplomatic silk gloves – it was quite clear about whom
he was talking. He warned that they were gradually
building up the danger of a new world war and said
that although ‘the people of America are rightly
determined to keep that growing menace from our
shores… it takes even more foresight, intelligence and
patience to meet the subtle attack which spreading
dictatorship makes upon the morale of a
democracy.’54
The Constitution Day speech was the first of Roosevelt’s
public attacks against the Axis powers, but it was tame in comparison
to the Quarantine speech he gave on 5 October 1937. There has been
considerable debate over what Roosevelt hoped to accomplish with
his Quarantine speech. Contemporaries condemned the speech as
“warmongering and saber-rattling.”55 Isolationist Congressmen
threatened to impeach Roosevelt.56 Historians have been more
divided than angry. Beard and Basil Raunch believed the Quarantine
speech marked the end of an isolationist foreign policy.57 Historians
Dorothy Borg, David Haglund and Perras argued that “the speech’s
53
Samuel I. Rosenman, p. 163.
Ibid., p. 164.
55
Ibid., p. 166.
56
James MacGregor Burns, p. 318.
57
David Haglund, Latin America and the Transformation of U.S. Strategic
Thought, 1926-1940 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984), p.
61, 63.
54
51
Jonathan Ruano
many ambiguities reflected Roosevelt’s groping for a new policy after
the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war…”58
Yet, these views are partly convincing at best. There is no
proof that FDR wanted a war. Beard and Raunch’s contention that
the speech was a watershed in U.S. foreign policy is true as far as
FDR’s public statements went. But Roosevelt’s foreign policy was
always internationalist, if only in a subtle way. Borg, on the other
hand, was correct in stating that the speech was ambiguous, but she
drew the wrong conclusion from that observation. Roosevelt’s
speech was ambiguous not because he was undecided on his foreign
policy.59 Rather, FDR saw his Quarantine speech as one of several
steps that had to be taken to convert the public to his internationalist
philosophy. It was too much of a gamble to call for an interventionist
foreign policy right away because the strong current of isolationist
opinion would not permit it. But to accomplish that same goal
gradually, that was possible. As Conrad Black explained:
Roosevelt has been criticized by posterity for not
explicitly urging an interventionist policy earlier and
rallying public opinion to it. He wasn’t confident that
a third term could be had on that basis against a
credible Republican candidate, and he didn’t want to
replicate any part of Wilson’s tragedy in bringing the
country to the edge of a new policy and then being
repudiated by his successor. He preferred to sound a
sort of international reveille, then deny the noisy
concerns of adversaries as irresponsible war-scare
tactics, observe a brief period of silence, and then
repeat the process. Gradually American opinion
would
be
chivvied
toward
substantive
internationalism.60
58
Galen R. Perras, p. 37. Haglund, pp. 61, 63.
Perras, p. 37, Haglund, pp. 61, 63. My commentary on what these historians
observed.
60
Conrad Black, p. 427.
59
52
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But there is another reason why Borg’s interpretation is
unconvincing. It was inconsistent with Roosevelt’s secretive character
to reveal explicitly or implicitly his foreign policy intentions or lack of
them. In many ways, Roosevelt’s tendency to shield his thoughts and
himself from the public glare was quite eccentric, because these were
more the actions of a distrustful loaner than a sociable politician. For
instance, he possessed an “almost invariable unwillingness to dictate
any memoranda of his conversations with foreign statesmen or
foreign diplomatic representatives...,” which in itself was odd because
foreign diplomatic representatives consistently recorded their
conversations with him.61 Welles spoke of Roosevelt having “three or
four personalities” that he would turn on and off with “such speed
that you often never knew where you were or to which personality
you were talking.”62 Roosevelt’s letters to subordinates were usually
sparse responses, because he wanted to “shield his personal views in
order to deal with isolationist pressures.”63 Hjalmar Schacht
remembered the President for his reticence.64 Of course, FDR could
not hide who he was completely. Yet considering the kind of person
he was, it is naïve to suggest that Roosevelt’s foreign policy intentions
or lack of them can be ascertained from one of his public speeches.
At best, the president’s foreign policy intentions can only be inferred
from his public statements. To do this properly, it is not enough to
look at one speech or one press conference in isolation, but to
examine several in succession to discern patterns or inconsistencies
that provide insight into intent.
With this in mind, the more plausible interpretation is that
the Quarantine speech was another attack against the Axis powers
much like the Constitution Day speech was. Roosevelt laid before the
American people several atrocities: bombing innocent civilians,
submarine attacks on shipping and taking sides in civil warfare –
indirect references to German-Italian involvement in the Spanish
61
Sumner Welles, pp. 215-216.
Frederick B. Pike, p. 157.
63
Dominic Tierney, p. 306.
64
Hjalmar Schacht, Confessions of ‘The Old Wizard’: The Autobiography of
Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1974), p. 282.
62
53
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Civil War and Japanese aggression in Asia.65 In making his argument,
FDR injected Wilsonianism into the public debate on foreign policy.
Wilsonians saw foreign policy as a struggle between good and evil66
and FDR explained the global situation in those terms: “The peace,
the freedom and the security of ninety percent of the world is being
jeopardized by the remaining ten percent who are threatening a
breakdown of all international order and law.”67 With this speech,
Roosevelt became the first President since Wilson to depict
international conflicts as global and as struggles between good and
evil in which there was no room for diplomacy.
What made the Quarantine speech so controversial, however,
was FDR’s claim that America had to get involved. Roosevelt
declared, “Let no one imagine that America will escape, that America
may expect mercy, that this Western Hemisphere will not be
attacked…”68 and “The peace-loving nations must make a concerted
effort in opposition to those violations of treaties and those ignorings
of humane instincts which today are creating a state of international
instability from which there is no escape through isolation or
neutrality [sic].”69 As noted above, FDR wanted to gradually convert
the public to his internationalist philosophy. To be sure, Roosevelt
discreetly pursued a Wilsonian foreign policy; but under the veil of
secrecy, he could only accomplish so much. Secrecy meant keeping
most of the government out of the loop to limit possible leaks. As a
result, FDR could not fully mobilize departmental resources and, in
some instances, the departments inadvertently thwarted his plans.
Thus popularizing internationalism enabled Roosevelt to accomplish
those Wilsonian goals that he could not achieve in secret.70
Roosevelt tried to be cautious every step of the way. He
reassured his audience that “We are determined to keep out of
65
Samuel I. Rosenman, p. 165.
Henry A. Kissinger, “Between the Old Left and the New Right,” In Foreign
Affairs 78, no. 3 (May/June 1999), p. 103.
67
James MacGregor Burns, p. 318.
68
Conrad Black, p. 426.
69
James MacGregor Burns, p. 318.
70
Dominic Tierney, pp. 302, 304-305.
66
54
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war,”71 but that was not enough. The problem for Roosevelt was that
in his attempt to popularize internationalism, he went too far. It was
one thing to argue that distant parts of the globe were in turmoil, but
quite another to get the United States involved. At a time when most
Americans believed their country should not solve the problems of
other nations, FDR’s speech was shocking.72 FDR made “the mistake
of trying to lead the people of the United States too quickly, and
before they had been adequately informed of the facts or spiritually
prepared for the event.”73
The result was a setback that forced Roosevelt to change
course. Instead of exhorting Americans to embrace Wilsonianism, he
played the role of the peacemaker committed to neutrality. This
conversion was a shrewd political calculation. FDR did not believe
America should stay neutral: yet, he reasoned that if his peace efforts
and commitment to neutrality changed the behaviour of the Axis for
the better – which he thought unlikely – he would reap political
dividends for this change in policy. But if the new course failed, FDR
could argue more persuasively for internationalism.74
But there was also another element at play. Having come to
power when isolationism was peaking, Roosevelt had a unique
advantage over future Presidents: he did not have to appear tough on
foreign policy issues. If FDR’s peace efforts failed, the public was not
going to blame him for the failure. On the contrary, public opinion in
the event backed Roosevelt and became very hostile toward the Axis
and, in particular, Germany. “Hitler,” Black writes, “didn’t realize
that every time Roosevelt made a humane or constructive suggestion
and Hitler ridiculed him, American opinion firmed up behind the
President.”75
The peacemaker plan was vintage Roosevelt in that it had his
deceptive personality written all over it. Roosevelt decided to be even
71
Wayne Cole, p. 245.
Ibid., p. 247. Senator Nye, for example, expressed his fear to reporters “that
we are once again being caused to feel that the call is upon America to police a
world that chooses to follow insane leaders.”
73
Samuel I. Rosenman, p. 167.
74
Conrad Black, p. 450.
75
Ibid., p. 451.
72
55
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more deceptive because the Quarantine speech’s fallout gave him less
reason to trust others. Democrat leaders and even Hull refused to
support Roosevelt’s Quarantine position when isolationism reared its
ugly head. “It’s a terrible thing,” FDR told Rosenman, “to look over
your shoulder when you are trying to lead – and to find no one
there.”76 Welles explained to Rosenman that disloyalty and political
expediency forced FDR to embark on a “negative course” in the
aftermath of the Quarantine speech:
[Roosevelt] was surprised by the volume of the
attacks made upon [the Quarantine speech]… You
yourself knew him so much better than most that you
will understand what I mean when I say that I think
that the negative course he pursued thereafter was
due as much to his peculiar individual reaction of silence in
the face of disaster or bitter disappointment –
provoked in this case by the lack of vision as well as
personal disloyalty of some of those who should have
made themselves heard – as to any feeling on his part
that politically it might be expedient to ride out the storm
(italics mine).77
Adhering to this negative course, on 6 October 1937,
Roosevelt tried to deflate the Quarantine controversy by telling
reporters that he supported neutrality all along:
Question: You say there isn’t any conflict between
what you outline and the Neutrality Act. They seem
to be on opposite poles to me…. How can you be
neutral if you are going to align yourself with one
group of nations?
FDR: What do you mean, ‘aligning’? You mean a
treaty?
76
77
Samuel I. Rosenman, p. 167.
Ibid., p. 167.
56
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Q: Not necessarily. I mean action on the part of
peace-loving nations.
FDR: There are a lot of methods in the world that
have never been tried yet.
Q: But, at any rate, that is not an indication of a
neutral attitude – ‘quarantine the aggressors’ and
‘other nations of the world.’
FDR: I can’t give you any clue to it. You will have to
invent one. I have got one.
Q: This is no longer neutrality,
FDR: On the contrary, it might be a stronger
neutrality.78
Of course, Roosevelt’s professed support for neutrality alone was a
lie because only the day before he warned his audience in the
Quarantine speech that “there is no escape [from international
lawlessness] through mere isolation or neutrality.”79
Roosevelt’s political antics did not end there. After the
Quarantine speech, Roosevelt refrained from expressing any foreign
policy views. He did not give any major speeches on foreign policy.
In January 1938, Roosevelt briefly observed that, “Democracy has
disappeared in several other great nations…”, but then went on to
discuss economic issues.80 When the Germans occupied Austria on
12 March 1938, Roosevelt ordered Hull to speak on his behalf.81 At
press conferences, Roosevelt showed a similar degree of reticence.
The President’s exchange with reporters, which came after the
Japanese bombed the U.S. gunboat Panay in China, was typical:
Question: Anything on the Panay incident, Mr.
President?
FDR: Nothing further. You are probably getting from
the State Department all the dispatches as they come.
78
Ibid., p. 168.
James MacGregor Burns, p. 318.
80
Samuel I. Rosenman, p. 174.
81
James MacGregor Burns, pp. 354-55.
79
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Q: Haven’t heard from the Japanese Emperor, have
you, Mr. President?
FDR: I haven’t had anything come in at all today
except what is given out by the State Department.
Q: Was it your intention to suggest that you would
like to get an answer from the Emperor?
FDR: I think what has been given out stands for itself
– by itself.82
On 12 March 1938, German tanks rolled into Austria, but Roosevelt
again had little to say about this important event:
FDR: I am afraid my technique has not improved
very much. I don't think I have any news [regarding
Anchluss].
Q: It can be assumed then that this Government has
no intention for the present of withdrawing its
Ambassador and Diplomatic Staff from Austria.
FDR: Is that a statement? I think you had better not
assume things. You had better talk to the Secretary of
State on that.83
In April 1938 Hitler demanded the Sudetenland from
Czechoslovakia.84 Again, Roosevelt did not comment. One reporter
asked, “Is there anything in the German-Czechoslovakian situation
that calls for comment on the part of this Government?” Roosevelt’s
response was, “You will have to ask the Secretary of State.”85
Although FDR made no major speeches on foreign policy or
said much at press conferences, on 3 November 1937 he participated
in the Brussels conference which sought to resolve the Sino-Japanese
conflict. For many historians, U.S. involvement at Brussels revealed
82
Complete Presidential Press Conferences of Franklin D. Roosevelt (New
York: Da Capo Press, 1972), Volume 10: 409-410
83
Ibid., Volume 11: 225-226.
84
William Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Alone, 193240 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988), pp. 311-312.
85
Ibid., Volume 11: 435-436.
58
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at least something about Roosevelt’s private views on the
international situation. Yet, FDR’s participation was little more than a
politically-inspired move to establish his record as peacemaker. He
did not expect the conference to achieve anything nor did he take the
initiative to insure its success.86 In fact, the conference’s success
depended on how Japan responded and the Japanese decided not to
show up.87
In the following year, Welles advised FDR to hold a
conference on 11 November 1938. FDR embraced Welles’ idea, even
though he had little faith in conferences. Again, Roosevelt’s motives
were politically-inspired. As Black explained, “[Roosevelt] couldn’t
have imagined such a meeting could succeed, but he must have
reasoned that a good-faith chairmanship of such a conference would
strengthen his hand among both hawks and doves in his country.”88
Unfortunately for FDR, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
preferred to deal with Hitler on his own. Chamberlain’s plan, as we
shall see, was to dismember Czechoslovakia to buy from Hitler a
lasting peace in Europe.89
Roosevelt’s response to Chamberlain’s plan has sparked a
recent controversy amongst historians. This has been a surprising
86
Roosevelt knew that Britain and France would support sanctions against Japan
if they had U.S. support. The problem Britain and France faced, however, was
that U.S. support was not forthcoming. When British Foreign Secretary Anthony
Eden asked for the “exact interpretation” of the quarantine idea (hoping it meant
support for sanctions) on October 12, FDR replied “that the attempt which had
been made to pin the United States down to a specific statement as to how far it
would go, and precisely what the President meant by his Chicago speech, was
objectionable and damaging.” In October 22, William Bullitt learned that France
would resume arms shipments to China, if the U.S. agreed to help France defend
Indochina from a possible Japanese attack. Once again, FDR did not commit to
anything. See Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign
Policy, 1932-1945 (New York: Oxford UP, 1979), p. 150.
87
Conrad Black, p. 444. In October 6, 1937, Roosevelt went on record as saying
that nothing was ever achieved at conferences and that he did not favor one.
Evidently, he was evidently engaging in hyperbole, because he was familiar
with the Vienna Congress which issued in the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
88
Ibid., p. 444
89
Ibid., pp. 444-445.
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development because before the 1990s virtually every historian
assumed that Roosevelt backed Chamberlain’s appeasement strategy
until long after the Munich Pact. Burns observed that on September
29 FDR made an open appeal to all nations for a negotiated peace.
Moreover, when Chamberlain rushed over to Munich to negotiate
the final deal with Hitler, Roosevelt cabled the former with the words
“good man.”90 Immediately after Munich, Roosevelt wrote a friend,
“A few days ago I wanted to kill Hitler and amputate the nose.
Today, I have really friendly feelings for the latter and no longer wish
to assassinate the Fuhrer.”91
Yet one has to understand the man before coming to grips
with his views on foreign policy. Since that man is Roosevelt, his
statements cannot be taken on face value. FDR was so devious that
even his subordinates could not discern his views. Dean Acheson,
who was assistant secretary of state (1941-45), recalled that FDR’s
“responses seemed too quick; his reasons too facile for considered
judgment; one could not tell what lay beneath them.”92 Referring to
Roosevelt, Ickes cried, “I cannot come to grips with him!”93
The interpretation, then, that fits best with the President’s
character and the events that came before and were subsequent to
the Munich Conference was that Roosevelt, in reaction to
Chamberlain’s appeasement plan, was at his deceptive best. Publicly,
Roosevelt remained silent on appeasement before and after Munich.
On September 29, the President instructed Kennedy not to imply any
official U.S. approval of Chamberlain’s negotiations.94 After Munich,
Berle and Press Secretary Steve Early advised Roosevelt to claim
some credit for the apparent success of appeasement. But FDR
refused to accept any credit.95
Privately, Roosevelt revealed his disgust with appeasement on
several occasions. Even Burns concedes that Roosevelt had
misgivings about Chamberlain’s strategy:
90
James MacGregor Burns, p. 387
Ibid., p. 387.
92
Conrad Black, p. 1117
93
James MacGregor Burns, p. 472.
94
Ibid., p. 478.
95
Ibid., p. 473.
91
60
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Looking on the Nazis and Fascists as gangsters who
ultimately would have to be restrained, [Roosevelt]
had deep misgivings about Chamberlain’s
appeasement policies. When he heard that the prime
minister was ready to recognize Mussolini’s conquest
of Ethiopia in return for a pact of friendship, the
President said that if when a police chief made a deal
with gangsters the result was no more holdups, the
police chief would be a hero, but if the gangsters
reneged the police chief would go to jail.
Chamberlain, he felt, was taking a very long chance. 96
Later in April 1938, Roosevelt wrote to U.S. ambassador to Spain
Claude Bowers (an anti-Fascist) that if Chamberlain delayed war by
three years, he would “be hailed as a hero. If he fails or [gives] too
much and receives too little, he will be overthrown….
Fundamentally, you and I hate compromise with principle.”97 When
Chamberlain reached a deal with Hitler on September 30, giving
Germany the Sudetenland in return for a pledge to forgo future
conquests, most westerners breathed a sigh of relief. Roosevelt did
not join them. The President told Ickes that he feared Britain and
France would next appease Hitler with Trinidad and Martinique. If
that happened, Roosevelt continued, he would order the U.S. Navy
to seize those islands.98
In the months following Munich, Roosevelt’s peacemaker
plan bore fruit. By championing conferences and seeming to be
somewhat in step the general desire for a negotiated compromise
(though he avoided making any statements that would bind him to a
compromise), FDR showed Americans that he tried peace and
neutrality, but that neither worked.99 Roosevelt as the failed
peacemaker now became the pretext for resuming a propaganda
96
Ibid., p. 385.
Conrad Black, p. 447.
98
James MacGregor Burns, pp. 387-388.
99
Conrad Black, p. 475.
97
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campaign that started back in September 1937 with the same goals in
mind: to demonize the enemy and to rally the public behind
internationalism.
Before the year was out, Roosevelt ratcheted his propaganda
machine again. Roosevelt’s new speech was heard on radio
broadcasts and cinema newsreels across the nation. Its purpose was
to rebuke Kennedy’s appeasement speech on October 19.100 In a less
than subtle attack on Chamberlain’s appeasement strategy, Roosevelt
declared,
There can be no peace if the reign of law is to be
replaced by the recurrent sanctification of sheer force.
There can be no peace if national policy adopts as a
deliberate instrument the threat of war. There can be
no peace if national policy adopts as a deliberate
instrument the dispersion of all over the world of
helpless and persecuted wanderers with no place to
lay their heads. There can be no peace if humble men
and women are not free to think their own thoughts,
express their own feelings, to worship God. There
can be no peace if economic resources that ought to
be devoted to social and economic reconstruction are
to be diverted to an intensified competition in
armaments...101
Surprisingly FDR’s address, which obviously referred to Germany,
did not inflame the American people as the Quarantine speech had
done; a clear sign that public opinion was now moving away from
isolationism and changing in the President’s favour.102
Recognizing that shift, Roosevelt moved his anti-Axis
rhetoric up another notch with his State of the Union address on 4
100
Ibid., p. 483.
Ibid., p. 484.
102
Leverett S. Lyon et al, Government and Economic Life: Development and
Current Issues of American Public Policy, Volume II (Washington D.C.: The
Brookings Institution, 1941), p. 1093.
101
62
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January 1939. He argued that religious freedom made democracy and
international good will possible and that:
Where freedom of religion has been attacked, the
attack has come from sources opposed to democracy.
Whether democracy has been overthrown, the spirit
of free worship has disappeared. And where religion
and democracy have vanished, good faith and reason
in international affairs have given way to strident
ambition and brute force.103
In other words, religion, democracy and international good faith were
like dominoes. Knock one domino down and the other two will fall.
“[Roosevelt’s] comment to us was,” Rosenman explained, “‘We can
do business with [Hitler] all right but in the process we would lose
everything that America stands for.’ That everything was
encompassed in ‘religion, democracy and international good faith.’”
The second part of the speech, closely related to the first, argued that
neutrality alone was no longer possible.104
With these addresses, Roosevelt began his campaign for the
repeal of the arms embargo provision of the Neutrality Act, which
represented one of the main obstacles to his Wilsonian foreign
policy. Congress opposed Roosevelt every step of the way;105 but they
could not stop Hitler from playing into the President’s hands. On 2
March, Hitler annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia.106 Roosevelt made
sure his fellow Americans drew the right conclusions at a press
conference held on 31 March 1939:
What is concerning Europe and all the rest of the
World … is that the hope that the world had
last September that the German policy was limited
and would continue to be limited to bringing
103
Samuel I. Rosenman, p. 182.
Ibid., p. 182.
105
Ibid., p. 183.
106
Conrad Black, pp. 512-513.
104
63
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contiguous German people into the Reich and only
German people, without bringing other races under
the Reich, that those hopes have been dissipated by
the events of the last few weeks… Therefore, it is felt
by people in every continent that where there was a
limit last autumn, there is no limit today. It makes a
very different picture. And there being no apparent
limit today, this new policy may logically be carried
out on an increasing scale in any part of the world…
From our point of view such a policy could, in the
absence of any check to it, mean German domination,
not only in all the small nations of Europe, but might
extend very possibly to other continents.107
With his leverage strengthened, on 14 July, Roosevelt publicly
entered the neutrality fight and lost. But, Rosenmen added, this “was
the last time the Congressional isolationist bloc defeated
Roosevelt...”108 When Germany invaded Poland on September 1,
FDR’s case for repealing the arms embargo became even stronger.109
Finally, on 4 November 1939, Congress passed legislation that
allowed non-American ships to transport U.S. arms to the victims of
aggression on a cash and carry basis.110
The discussion of FDR’s ideological campaign could be
extended to 1941, if not beyond. But there is no need since by 1939
U.S. foreign policy was set on its Wilsonian path. In less than three
years, FDR went from making tepid arguments for a more
internationalist U.S. foreign policy to unambiguous statements
supporting a full-blown Wilsonian approach to World Affairs. That
Roosevelt could change the tenor of his speeches so quickly and get
away with it politically was largely a testament to his own skill in
changing the American people’s minds on foreign policy. But there
was another element at play: Roosevelt was patient. Many historians
107
Complete Presidential Press Conferences of Franklin D. Roosevelt (New
York: Da Capo Press, 1972), Volume 13: 236-237.
108
Samuel Rosenman, p. 184, 187.
109
Robert Dallek, pp. 197-198.
110
Samuel Rosenman, p. 191.
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forget this side of FDR. They assume that whenever the President
backed away from an internationalist position, he was changing his
foreign policy views. Nothing could be further from the truth. When
faced with a reverse, FDR backtracked but never lost sight of his
Wilsonian objectives, and patiently awaited the next opportunity to
begin his anti-Axis campaign again. The Munich Pact’s aftermath was
that next opportunity and FDR was very successful in exploiting it.
The result was the formation of a new foreign policy consensus in
the United States that has provided ample support to a more robust,
activist and Wilsonian approach to World affairs. It is still with us.
Conclusion
Within the context of the Second World War, the new
foreign policy consensus in the United States – which allowed
presidents to openly pursue a Wilsonian foreign policy – seemed to
be a positive development. Yet in reality, the consequences of the
new consensus and the Wilsonian foreign policy that came with it
have been a mixed blessing. U.S. policy-makers, whose knowledge of
world affairs and foreign cultures was limited, were charged with
making decisions whose impact was felt on a global scale. Sometimes
these policy-makers made the right choice such as transforming the
former revisionist powers into peaceful democracies and
implementing the Marshall Plan that saved Europe from economic
collapse and potentially longer spell of poverty. Yet these colossal
achievements were eventually overshadowed by more numerous
failures. It was not that the policy-makers did not mean the best. The
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) coup d’etats in Iran (1952-53) and
Guatemala (1953), the Bay of Pigs invasion (1961), U.S. involvement
in the Vietnam War (1965-73), and the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars of
the 21st century were all motivated by noble intentions. The problem
was that they ended up spoiling everything. They hoped Iran would
evolve into a democracy, but instead it became a royal dictatorship.
The coup was supposed to achieve democracy in Guatemala, but the
result was civil war. South Vietnam was supposed to become a
showcase for democracy, but Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and
Richard Nixon did more harm than good. Nation-building – a
euphemism for building democratic institutions and a free market
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economy – was meant to take place in Afghanistan and Iraq, but both
nations are falling apart.
The problem was not that there were no experts who could
offer many good reasons for not intervening in foreign countries.
These experts were in the Foreign Service and the State Department.
Instead, the policy-makers did not listen to their experts, a tradition
that started with FDR and continued under his successors. Certainly
arrogance explains this tendency to disregard good advice, but it goes
far deeper than that. Wilsonianism and American exceptionalism
blinded idealistic policy-makers to the error of their own ways. They
assumed that the very principles – democracy and free market
capitalism – that succeeded so well in the United States could succeed
in other countries as well, once the tyrants were removed and foreign
peoples could learn from the American example. But it never
happened that way. What was supposed to be a simple exercise in
toppling dictators and replacing them with democratically elected
governments became a prolonged conflict with insurgents
determined on driving U.S. forces out of their country. When the
illusion of immediate success evaporated and insurgent attacks
started breaking out, Wilsonian policy-makers only made matters
worse by assuming that the insurgents were motivated by nefarious
and twisted goals. Like FDR, they could not imagine that the United
States, the beacon of liberty, was in the wrong. This attitude
prolonged international conflicts that should have ended sooner and
discouraged attempts at constructive diplomacy.
The final problem was that the American people were solidly
behind this naïve Wilsonian foreign policy. Owing to the success of
Roosevelt’s Wilsonian propaganda, the public believed that the
United States had to play a role in the world. To be sure, World War
II has been considered the main reason for this development, but this
is only true to a degree. Americans could not comprehend distant
wars, because the majority of them did not understand the
perpetrators or the victims and why they behaved the way they did.
When an international crisis broke out, Roosevelt’s Wilsonianism was
their frame of reference. Isolationists, by contrast, simply repeated
the mantra that the United States should not get involved in distant
places and failed to offer constructive alternatives to FDR’s
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Wilsonianism like a balance of power. The only serious rival offering
an alternative was Chamberlain who wanted to educate Americans
about appeasement; but FDR made sure he never set foot on U.S.
soil.111 Consequently, Wilsonianism shaped how Americans saw their
world and, as a result, changing foreign policy culture has become
very difficult. Even Barack Obama, who ran on the platform of
engaging the Middle East in diplomacy, has bowed to the public will
by sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and calling for
renewed efforts at nation-building. Roosevelt’s creation, the
Wilsonian foreign policy and the new foreign policy concensus –
which has done the United States such a disservice on so many
occasions in the past – persists to this day.
111
Conrad Black, p. 473.
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