[0:06]David Kennedy is a professor of history Emeritus at Stanford University and one of the world's experts on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
[0:20]David, you got your BA here at Stanford in history and then your PhD in American Studies at Yale. And in the year 2000, you won a Pulitzer Prize for history for your excellent work, Freedom from Fear, The American people in depression and war. So you are pretty much the best person in the world to talk about Franklin D. Roosevelt. And my first question is, um, where do you think he stands in the Pantheon of American presidents, if we look at Lincoln and Washington and, uh, and the others, where where abouts is FDR, would you say? Well, my, my opinion or my answer to that question about Roosevelt's standing in the Pantheon of American presidents is not idiosyncratic with me. He repeatedly shows up as the number one or two or three uh rank ranked one or two or three is the most consequential American presidents. And I think, you know, I often tell students that there are three moments in American history. When if you understand their character and their depth, you understand a lot about the whole trajectory of this society through time. And one is the revolutionary constitutional moments. The second is the Civil War and Reconstruction moment, and the third is the Great Depression and World War II moment. All three of those episodes turns out not coincidentally, each embraced a armed conflict as well as great upheaval at home. Um, the basic character, you might even say trajectory of the society's development was deeply inflicted. And it's not surprising, given the consequence of those three moments, that the presidents who presided over each of them, respectively, show up repeatedly in these polls of historians and others as the most consequential presidents. So it's George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt. And we could probably quarrel at some length or debate at some length how to rank those three, but those three always show up consistently as among the most important. Um, and they were also, you know, and this, I hesitate to put the discussion onto this plane, um, but they were, they were people of character. They were people of admirable human qualities, and they I think they, they by and large, led the country in a positive way. They they not, they did not trade on the politics of hatred and resentment the way some other national leaders have done, here and elsewhere, uh, but they were again, not to put too fine a point on it, visionaries about the the country's future. Um, and I often argue with people, this argument is now got a little stale, frankly.
[3:07]But the there was a view of Franklin Roosevelt that prevailed in some quarters for a long time, that he was an experimentalist and a pragmatist, and he tried this and that the other thing, whatever stuck to the wall became his policies. I think that's a view of him that is fundamentally mistaken.
[3:25]I think he had a vision, I use that word advisedly, uh of the where he wanted to take American society, and you can find that vision articulated fairly well in his correspondence with his political associates and intimates and others in the 1920s before he became president. And he wanted a society in which there was more security. It's no accident that the word security appears in the single most durable and consequential piece of legislation from that period, the Social Security Act. And indeed he presided over uh a lot of measures of the passage of a lot of measures that reduced risk in American life, in risk of the risk of unemployment, risks associated with old age, risks associated with investing, uh risks associated with home ownership and so on and so on, and he succeeded largely in taking a society in that direction and creating a society in which which was more inclusive and less risky for a lot of people. He said something at one point, I can't quote it exactly, but I can paraphrase it pretty well. Something about he wanted to build a society in which no one was left out. And that that's a pretty fundamental idea for any leader to embrace, and I think he largely succeeded. And then if we turn to the international scene, again, the record is more muddled here, because he was less articulate about this. But the war over which he presided as the American president, uh, created a world that was less risky. There's been no grand guerre uh for three generations after World War II, a whole set of new institutions that tried to bring a measure of order to the international system. Uh, these two are legacies of his that leadership, and I think it's uh is quite legitimate and justified that he has this ranking as one of the three most consequential American presidents. And um, another um way to rebut this idea that it was unplanned and uh and he was experimental were the first a hundred days in office, weren't they, where he brought in an extraordinary blizzard of uh of new organizations and institutions. Well, I might argue with you on that point, Andrew, because if there's any moment in his presidency when the the accusation of experimentalism and pragmatism might have some some traction, it's that hundred days. But the but there's a particular context there because the urgent question at that moment in early 19 in the spring of 1933 was the counter punch to the depression, which it was at its absolute nadir at that point. 13 million people, 25% of the workforce, unemployed, banks closed, so on, so forth. Now, the idea was common that that the entire economic system was fatally wounded, and it might never recover. As a matter of fact, people to this day debate what exactly drove that great economic calamity. And John Maynard Keynes had not yet published his great work try to analyze that matter, that was several years later. So there was a lot of of haphazard and eclectic uh experimenting, let's say, in that first hundred days, but the real consequential moment comes a year or two later, 1935. In particular, which in some ways is the Annus Mirabilis of the New Deal and Roosevelt's domestic legacy, when you see the Social Security Act passed, the the the full employment bill, and so on, so forth. So, it's it takes a while for Roosevelt to really get past the urgent task of combating the depression, and down to what I think in his mind was the more serious task of leaving a legacy of institutional change that really altered the landscape of the American of American society and the American economy. Did he save America from Communism if it if it got wrong if if the Great Depression got worse, um, if his uh his actions hadn't um uh helped create the uplift, how bad could it have got? Well, again, I'd I'd tweak your question a little, not only save the country from the possibility of communism, but the the equal danger of fascism. Um, and in fact, if you remember the famous open letter that John Maynard Keynes wrote to Roosevelt at the onset of his administration in 1933, again, I'm paraphrasing, not quoting exactly. But Keynes said something to the effect that if if Roosevelt did not prove to be a successful champion of rational and deliberate liberal reform, the the path would be open to extreme measures of another sort entirely, and he had in mind quite clearly, either Bolshevism, Communism, or Fascism, or Nazism. Uh so those were quite different, but also twin dangers, you might say, if the if the whole liberal democratic order proved unable to recover from the depression and really set the society in a more stable path. And you had Populists who were waiting in the in the wings, didn't you, Huey Long might have been one, and uh, and you could probably name some others. Yes, Huey Long, Father Coughlin, I suppose, would be another. And there were German Bunds and Brown shirts in the United States. My own view, frankly, is that the the idea that any of those people were imminently capable of pushing the country into a a fascist or a communist pathway, they have been greatly exaggerated. Um, in fact, one of the remarkable things that I discovered when I first started researching Freedom from Fear, was something that Roosevelt remarked on the campaign trail in 1932. And I found plenty of contemporary evidence that support this. Again, I'm paraphrasing, but I've got, I can quote this pretty exactly. He said something to the effect that this country is now facing the greatest challenge to its institutions and its stability since the Civil War, and yet the American people remain passive.
[9:24]They're not flooding into the Piazzas of the country and demanding some kind of radical change, they're they're grimly accepting this without really organizing any deliberate uh deliberately focused alternative. And that that struck me. And again, I found plenty of evidence to support that observation at the time. So I I it wasn't in 1933, the depths of the depression, the best evidence we have is the American people were not psychologically on the precipice of being wooed by some kind of man on the white horse leader, whether they took the direction to the left or the right.
[10:52]So I I I just resist the idea that we were almost there and Roosevelt snatched us back from the brink. He was an American aristocrat, wasn't he, by background, um, uh, had a strong sense of noblesse oblige. What uh what drove him? Well, you know, the simple answer, I think of what drove Roosevelt, uh this may sound kind of corny, but I think it captures something essential, he loved his country. Uh people often ask me, particularly young people today in their cynical moods, say, why would anybody want to go into public life or be a political leader or whatever kind? And I say, I think there's a simple answer to that, if you love your country, you want to serve that way. And I think he had a lot of that deeply internalized in his family, you called it noblesse oblige. Uh, I called a little bit different term, but the same idea, uh, an attitude of Signorial solicitude for his country. Uh, he he's just I think it was deep in his DNA. I don't think there was some Eureka or Paula the road to Damascus moment, it's just the way you've been raised in his family tradition of public service. Uh, and his cousin Theodore Roosevelt had, I think, a lot of the same uh cultural uh orientation or political uh attitude. Um, and we know that Franklin admired Theonard, even though they're from different parties and different branches of the Roosevelt family. So again, in our cynical age, it's maybe hard to get our imaginations around the fact that someone would really devote himself lifelong to the improving the conditions of the society around him through political leadership, but I think it's as simple as that in the last analysis. He came to power, um, at much the same time as Adolf Hitler and and died in the same month as Adolf Hitler. Um, so it's um, it's worthwhile asking about his uh his fight against American isolationism and uh and the America First movement and uh Lindbergh and and so on. Um, to what extent was that something that developed over time or was it something that he saw as being of uh, a sort of central unwavering part of his of his um, political um, being? Well, again, I think Roosevelt's record as an internationalist and as a proponent of a a different role for the United States in the international system, and indeed a different architecture for the system as a whole, uh, it's it's mixed in its evolutionary development. He starts out uh as an Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Wilson administration. And Wilson, of course, is in some ways the defining iconic American leader who first seriously proposed a pathway for the United States to play a more active international role. Uh, a lot of controversy about exactly what the character of that proposition was, but there, there he is. But in his first inaugural address, uh, in 1933, Roosevelt essentially said, for the moment, international relations do not concern us because we have such serious problems here at home. And that's often been seized on by people who think that he at that moment had repudiated any kind of internationalist uh position. But I again, I think it was a matter of priorities that exactly as he said, is for the moment, we must concentrate on matters at home. And he wasn't abandoning the Wilsonian vision of a more active international role for this country. And indeed, as the situation globally gets worse through the 1930s with Japanese incursions in China and rearmament of Nazi Germany and War in Ethiopia, Italian invasion of Ethiopia and so on. He begins a process, you can date it roughly from 1935. Again, I think it's a master class that he offers in presidential leadership, trying to convince a largely isolationist public, public isolationism had in some ways been reinforced by disillusionment with the results of American intervention in World War I. He begins a years long effort to educate the public at large about the the necessity and the legitimacy of the United States playing a more active international role. And he gets some roadblocks along the way, he doesn't succeed right away at all. And it takes a a succession of events in the international system itself, not least the whole the more Japanese aggression in Asia, the fall of France in particular in 1940. But also this consistent years long effort on Roosevelt's part to educate the public about the need for this country to put its weight in the scales to bring some measure of order and legitimacy to the international system. And when in December 1941, the uh um Germans declared war in America days after the Japanese have attacked America. One might have thought that uh the United States, the natural thing would be to deal with the people who actually had attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, but instead, um the Roosevelt administration adopts the Germany First policy and uh and puts the by far the greater amount of uh troops into the West rather than the East. Uh which I've always thought of as the greatest act of statesmanship of the 20th century to adopt this Clausewitzian concept of of of taking out the more powerful of the two enemies. Uh would you go along with that? Absolutely, yes. Roosevelt himself again in his usual homely way, uh quite succinctly put this great strategic principle as follows. He said the defeat of Germany will mean the defeat of Japan, but the defeat of Japan will not mean the defeat of Germany. The Japanese aggression in Asia was in many ways parasitic on the disruption of the European system, uh especially the colonial powers in Asia were hugely distracted and diminished in their capacity to control events in Asia. And it was it was Roosevelt agreed from the outset with the idea, or he himself put forward the idea that Germany was the number one strategic adversary and had to be dealt with first. There's an interesting byplay to this that comes up in some of these discussions. Uh in Roosevelt, pardon me, in Churchill's memoir, I forget exactly where, but he describes Churchill describes for the reader his state of mind when he heard the news of the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941. And Churchill writes something like, as so, the United States was in after all into the neck and into the death Churchillian rhetoric. Um, and so I went to bed as as England would survive, Britain would survive, and I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and the thankful. Well, strategically, that that's that's an accurate description of Churchill's great objective is to bring the United States into the conflict at the side of Britain. No question, but as the description of what Churchill actually did in December 1941, it's inaccurate because the first thing he did essentially was get himself to Washington DC as fast as he could, lived in the White House for a period of two weeks, I think, in December 1941 to make sure that the Americans were going to honor the Germany First principle.
[18:35]And he he sensed, as you've just suggested, Andrew, that that it was possible and imaginable that the the insult of the blow at Pearl Harbor and the thirst for revenge against Japan might be so overwhelming that the Roosevelt administration would hound off into the Pacific in a war of vengeance against the Japanese and abandon the Germany First principle. But Roosevelt again, and I give him credit here for what you've just described as one of the great strategic decisions of the century. He was steadfast in his vision and great strategic premise that Germany was the principal adversary, and we were not going to commit uh resources to the Pacific war that would distract from the European theater. Now, that changes a little bit, maybe more than a little bit after the Battle of Midway, a few months after uh the Pearl Harbor attack when American forces sank the majority of the Japanese aircraft carrier fleet in a single day. And that opened the possibility of a more what should I say, forward, expeditionary, aggressive war in the Pacific on the United States part, so there was a slight revision of the original plan, and the original idea was to devote something on the order of 90% of American resources to the European theater and 10% on purely defensive war in the Pacific. After Midway, that changes to 70% Europe, 30% Pacific. But the United States turned out to have such depth of resources that even that recalculation left a lot of material and human and otherwise uh for the principal theater of war, which was the European theater. Tell us about the personal relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt. As you say, he after he's sleeping the night that uh that uh that night, the sleep of the saved, uh, and the thankful, he did go out to to DC and uh started a um, well, they'd already met of course twice before, but this was the real time when they got to know one another properly. What uh what was the relationship like?
[20:34]Well, I think it was cordial but also somewhat cautious, especially on Roosevelt's side. And again, I think there's a lot of mythologizing about just how how boon companionable the two of them were. They certainly got along in ways that are maybe a little bit remarkable in the annals of great state relations. Uh but both were also quite calculating, and one interesting question that I tried to pursue a bit when I wrote about this, never fully resolved. Is at what point does it become clear that Churchill, pardon me, Roosevelt, not Churchill, is the senior partner. Uh and I think Churchill is probably the senior partner up through the moment of the Casablanca conference uh when the unconditional surrender formula is declared and the invasion of Italy is agreed. And after that, Roosevelt becomes the superior partner. Well, Churchill doesn't even know about the unconditional surrender until until FDR brings it out in in the the Casablanca conference. I mean that's a that's quite a key moment of uh of sort of power play between the two, isn't it? I agree, and in some ways, you could regard the unconditional surrender statement as a uh kind of a what should I say, a consolation prize for Stalin, now that the invasion of Italy has been agreed thanks to Churchill's dominance in the relationship. And the great worry was that the Soviets might either collapse under the Vermont's pressure in the Soviet Union or be so badly bloody that they would seek a negotiated settlement and leave the war, and that would make the whole situation of the Anglo-American alliance much more dire. So there there's another interesting moment uh go back to Pearl Harbor. Um, when Churchill is preparing to come to Washington DC, and he tells somebody, it might have been Alexander Cadigan, a far office person, I can't remember to whom he was talking. But he said something to the effect, I'm going to go to Washington and make sure that those bloody Americans stick to their Germany first premise. And whoever's interlocutor was, said something like, isn't that a little harsh to speak to them that way? And you've been speaking to them so kindly and solicitously up till now. And he says again, I'm paraphrasing, but I've got, I can quote this pretty exactly. He said, well, that's the way we talked to them when we were wooing them. Now that they're in the Harem, we don't need to do that anymore. So, Churchill, he had his own calculating uh uh attitude about how to deal with the Americans. And the the again, on Roosevelt's side, Roosevelt was always, I think, somewhat wary. When they get to the first big three meeting at Tehran in 1943, Roosevelt's very first uh uh initiative is to have a private meeting with Stalin and exclude Churchill. And he he deliberately kept Churchill out of that conversation.
[23:43]Churchill was quite upset about that, but again, it's part of Roosevelt's uh uh determination not to especially at that moment in 1943, uh to be the the creature of Churchill's strategic desires and to assert his own. And before by 1943, it's very clear that the United States is the arsenal of democracy, that the amount of sheer war material that is being poured out is hugely superior to that the British Empire.
[24:04]And um, and this obviously gives um FDR the final say in things like the final um uh decision over when uh to launch the cross-channel attack. Yes, again, as you well know, Churchill for understandable reasons, was very nervous about the possibility of success of the cross-channel attack. There'd been um you of course remembered the fate of the British army when it confronted the Kaiser's German army at Passion Dale and so on. He remembered Gallipoli, um, and uh the Diep raid. Churchill was understandably very, very worried that an amphibious invasion across the channel would not succeed and result in the kind of bloodshed that he witnessed in World War I. And again, this this reflects or or illustrates a long-standing strategic debate between the British and the American military. Roosevelt, pardon me, Eisenhower in his diary, when the decision was made to invade North Africa. Eisenhower said in 1942, Eisenhower wrote something like, this is the blackest day in American the history of the American military. Because we're going to divert forces to a peripheral theater, Africa, which has no real bearing on the event of the, the, the, the standing power of the Germans in their strategic heartland in the continent of Europe itself. Italy had a lot of the same character. And in fact, the Americans would refer to this these initiatives in North Africa and Italy as periphery pecking. And this, they thought this was the the the heart of Churchill's uh strategic concept of how to wage the war, where the Americans were impatient to wage war the way they'd all learned at West Point for the previous several generations, to build enough strength to take on the enemy's main strength and have one big decisive battle. And yet FDR went along with Churchill and Alan Brooke rather than with Eisenhower and General Marshall. Yes, because he he really had nothing, no counterweight. American force was so quite small. American military production was still just in its incipient stage. So he really didn't not have the, what should I say, the resources to effectively counter Churchill's uh strategic priorities. But by 1943, certainly by 1944, he assuredly did.
