Franklin D Roosevelt - Risking Impeachment

When World War II erupted in the fall of 1939, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was faced with a difficult dilemma. He believed that the threat of Nazism was a real one—and not just for Europe, but for the United States and the rest of the world. A majority of Americans, however, were isolationists, and they wanted nothing to do with any “foreign wars.” However, when France surrendered to Germany in June 1940, Britain stood alone against Adolf Hitler (Number l).

Roosevelt would not allow England to fall. He spoke of the United States becoming “the great arsenal of democracy.” He compared giving military aid to Great Britain to someone lending his neighbor “a length of garden hose” to help put out a fire. When the fire was extinguished, the neighbor could return the hose. Thus was the idea of lend-lease presented to the American people. Who, after all, could be opposed to helping a neighbor put out a fire in his house? 

Conferences were set up between American and British political and military officials. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Number 3) even agreed on broad post-war goals in the Atlantic Charter. Announced in August 1941, it called for political freedom, a system of international security, and a reduction of armaments.

All of this took place many months before the United States was officially in the war.

If President Roosevelt had yielded to the isolationists, Great Britain might not have been able to stand up against the Nazi juggernaut. Hitler would have had time to develop intercontinental missiles, and America’s belief in the security of two great oceans might have proven as deceptive and illusory as the vaunted Maginot Line—the fixed French fortification between France and Germany— had been for France.

President Roosevelt risked impeachment to meet the menace of Hitler—and saved humankind from Nazi terror and slavery.

Early Political Success

Franklin D. Roosevelt was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth at Hyde Park, New York, in 1882.He attended all the best schools, from Groton to Harvard. His political rise was dra-matic. He began in the New York State Senate, went on to become Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Woodrow Wilson administration, and then ran for vice president on the losing Democratic ticket in 1920.

Tragedy struck when he contracted polio in April 1921 and was paralyzed from the waist down. Despite his handicap, he continued his political career and was elected governor of New York in 1928. Four years later, he was elected president of the United States.

The Depressions Ends as America Enters the War

Roosevelt took office as the country faced a grave economic crisis. Banks had failed, factories had closed, tens of millions were unemployed, and people starved while crops rotted in the fields. The Great Depression of the 1930s had begun. Promising the country a “New Deal,” the Roosevelt administration set up a range of programs to get people back to work, support farm prices, institute a Social Security system, insure bank deposits, and build public works.

The economic crisis had not been restricted to the United States, however. It was worldwide and handled differently by each country. In Germany, for example, Hitler began building a powerful army and threatened his neighbors if they did not acquiesce to his demands.

When World War II erupted in 1939, Americans sympathized with England and France, but they generally opposed getting involved militarily.

In the presidential election of 1940, Roosevelt ran for an unprecedented third term in office. His campaign speeches emphasized that American men would not be sent to fight in any foreign wars. The Democratic Party platform had added the phrase “unless we are attacked,” although Roosevelt thought that would be clearly understood. 

The fall of France brought the crisis to a head. Roosevelt appointed two prominent Republicans to key posts in his cabinet: Henry L. Stimson (Number 21) as secretary of war and Frank Knox (Number 60) as secretary of the Navy. Together, Stimson and Knox developed strategies to support Great Britain and prepare the United States for the impending conflict. Supposedly outmoded military equipment was shipped to Britain; American destroyers were swapped for British military bases near American shores. The U.S. Navy helped convoy merchant ships carrying supplies to England. Finally, the United States instituted a military draft. When Nazi submarines began sinking American ships, Roosevelt ordered the U.S. Navy to shoot Nazi war vessels on sight.

Roosevelt was well aware that his political enemies would be searching for ways to discredit, or even impeach, him. Nonetheless he continued the course.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese and Hitler declared war on the United States, isolationism ended. “Now,” said the president, “we are all in it, all the way.”

The War Years

The strategy of the United States and Great Britain was to hold off the Japanese in the Pacific and defeat Hitler first. Well into 1942, the news in the Pacific was gloomy. The Philippines had fallen, along with Hong Kong, Singapore, and many other key American, British, and Dutch bases. But Japan was spreading its forces too thin throughout the Pacific. “Island-hopping”—attacking the most important islands and leaving the others to eventually run short of food, ammunition, and supplies—by the Allies would lead to many Japanese bases being left to rot on the vine.

The war in Europe was progressing. The Soviet Union had been double-crossed by Hitler and was fighting along a huge front. Joseph Stalin (Number 4) wanted a “second front” on the European continent to relieve pressure on the Soviets. The Western allies argued that the time was not ripe, that there were not enough landing craft, men, or equipment. The American military first saw action against the Nazis in North Africa in 1942, then in Sicily and on the Italian mainland in 1943. In September 1943, Italy surrendered to the Allies when its dictator, Benito Mussolini (Number 50), was overthrown.

At meetings of “the Big Three” (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin), the Soviet dictator kept demanding a date and the naming of a commander for the second front. Dwight D. Eisenhower (Number 7) was chosen to lead the invasion. It came on June 6, 1944, with the invasion of Normandy. American, British, French, Canadian, and Polish troops waded ashore and secured a beachhead. Victory was only a matter of time.

In the Pacific, under the command of Chester Nimitz (Number 18), the U.S. Navy and Marines won major sea battles and took coral islands (“unsinkable aircraft carriers”) with heavy loss of life. In the Southwest Pacific, Douglas MacArthur (Number 8) stopped the Japanese on New Guinea and then invaded other Japanese-held islands. He led American forces back to re-take the Philippines. Allied forces moved closer to the Japanese home islands. 

Back in Europe, the Allies had withstood Hitler’s Ardennes offensive in the Battle of the Bulge. The Allies seized a Rhine bridge at Remagen and swarmed into the Reich.

With victory in Europe imminent, Allied powers held conferences with the Soviets to bring them into the Pacific war. Stalin agreed to do so 90 days after the German surrender.

The Final Days of World War II

The spring of 1945 would bring peace closer and closer. And then, on April 12, 1945, Roosevelt told a friend in Warm Springs, Georgia, “I have a terrific headache.” It was a cerebral hemorrhage; he never recovered. When Hitler heard the news of Roosevelt’s death in his Berlin bunker, he was overjoyed. It was, he thought, the miracle he had been waiting for, but it made no difference. 

The war went on, and 18 days later, Hitler killed himself.The war in Europe ended, but it looked as if the war against Japan would be a bloody one. However, years earlier Roosevelt had acted on a letter from Albert Einstein (Number 13) to win the race with the Nazis to build an atomic bomb. It would be used to end the war in the Pacific in August 1945.

Roosevelt’s Legacy 

Even after his death, Roosevelt influenced the process of world peace. The United States had chosen to stay out of the League of Nations following World War I. But discussions had taken place during World War II for a new international organization following the defeat of Germany and Japan. The new organization would be called the United Nations. Roosevelt made sure that both prominent Republicans and Democrats were included in the planning meetings. Bipartisanship would be as important in peace as it had been in war.

Roosevelt also left a uniquely American legacy. He had proposed the G.I. Bill of Rights in 1943. It was to provide for education, low-interest loans for housing, unemployment compensation, and a host of other benefits. That piece of legislation, passed in 1945, produced a new generation of college graduates, homeowners, and entrepreneurs. It also created the strongest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world. Roosevelt did not want to see another time when veterans had to sell apples on street corners in order to survive, and he got his wish.