Dean Schermerhorn's Blog

Chapter 2 of No End Save Victory by David Kaiser opens with Congress and the American people approving a huge defense buildup in the wake of the German triumph in Europe. On May 16, 1940, Roosevelt asked for an appropriation that was half again as large as the amount that he had requested in January. This proposal showed that Roosevelt anticipated an all-out struggle with hostile powers even then, and that he was determined to take advantage of American industrial might to play a decisive role in that struggle.

Kaiser discusses George Marshall’s testimony calling for an expansion of the Army and profiles Marshall. The general presented a memo in a meeting with FDR that called for avoiding conflict with Japan and concentrating on South America and possible Nazi influence there.

On May 31, 1940, the Joint Planning Committee submitted the Rainbow 4 war plan, based on the worst-case scenario of German and Italian triumph in Europe and Axis naval dominance in the Atlantic. The plan included moves to control areas of the Caribbean and South America that might be vulnerable to German and Japanese influence. Overseas tasks were deferred until more forces were available. FDR later approved the Rainbow 4 plan.

Roosevelt, meanwhile, was attacking another problem, war production. In a May 26, 1940, Fireside Chat he framed the challenge of building up the United States’ productive capacity as “action on behalf of moral values on a world scale.” He then formed a Defense Commission made up of business, labor and government leaders. This commission would report directly to him.

In a June 10 speech, Roosevelt announced that the United States would “extend to the opponents of force the material resources of this nation.” He also compared the current crisis to other critical moments in U.S. history.

During June, Churchill pleaded with FDR to come to the aid of France, and U.S. military leaders planned on moving the U.S. fleet to the Atlantic if the French fleet fell to the Germans. FDR planned on taking over European possessions in the Americas as part of an overall plan for defending the Western Hemisphere. While he still acted to make some arms available to the British, FDR did not plan on any significant action to save Great Britain.

In June and July 1940, when France fell and Great Britain seemed to face invasion, the administration pushed through an immense naval buildup, and the legislation passed both houses of Congress easily.

Kaiser then discusses FDR’s pursuit of a third term. As an opening blow, he brought into his cabinet two prominent Republicans to run the war effort, Frank Knox and Henry L. Stimson. Kaiser profiles both men. The Republicans picked Wendell Willkie for 1940. He favored a defense buildup and aid to nations fighting aggression.

The draft issue arose in June and July 1940, and Marshall called for two million men to defend the Western Hemisphere.

In July FDR took a secret and critical step toward war by sending Rear Admiral Robert Ghormley to London. Ghormley was to hold secret talks with the British on ways that the United States and Britain could work together.

Also in July, the Democrats nominated FDR for a third term. In accepting this call to service, Roosevelt also announced his support for Marshall’s draft bill. After much controversy, a weakened draft bill became law in September.

The chapter closes with the destroyers for bases deal with Great Britain, which took effect in September 1940. With these bases, the United States prepared for war but not for any immediate intervention in Europe.

The first chapter of No End Save Victory opens by recounting Japan’s aggression in China in the 1930s. FDR proposed to the British ambassador an Anglo-American blockade of Japan if Japan committed another act of aggression against the United States or Great Britain. The British responded favorably to this proposal, and Roosevelt sent the chief of the Navy’s War Plans Division to London.

Roosevelt also proposed to the British an international conference of neutral nations to meet in Washington and alleviate world tensions. Neville Chamberlain rejected this proposal.

FDR in response proposed some modest steps that the United States could take to prepare to fight a world war on its own. “Once again using the legal and moral language so typical of his generation, he insisted that the threat of lawlessness could easily reach the Americas,” Kaiser writes. This was in 1938, when Hitler was annexing Austria and making demands on Czechoslovakia. FDR thought that this would lead to war.

FDR had the nation begin preparing for a war in which the United States might need to defend the Western Hemisphere against Germany, Italy and Japan with no help from allies. Roosevelt succeeded in getting the Army and Navy leadership to begin planning the strategies and production required to face the Axis powers alone. Kaiser describes the qualities of the Army and Navy leaders that enabled them to write the war plans.

Kaiser points out that FDR remained the supreme strategic authority and met frequently and privately with the Army chief of staff and the chief of naval operations and their subordinates. FDR was the only person with the authority to initiate a completely new war plan, which he did in November 1938, in the wake of the Munich agreement.

FDR told the cabinet in October 1938 that the United States needed drastically to increase its air force, to counter the German threat. Kaiser points out that FDR, along with Britain and France, greatly exaggerated the size of the German air force.

On November 9, 1938, the Joint Board instructed the Joint Planning Committee to begin studies and estimates of possible United States action in the event that Germany or Italy violated the Monroe Doctrine and established a presence in the Western Hemisphere. This scenario included Japan trying to expand its influence over the Philippines.

Kaiser asserts that it was no coincidence that this action followed by only a month FDR’s warning to the cabinet that the United States needed to build up its air force so as not to be vulnerable to German threats. By May 1939 the Joint Board was directed to create four war plans that assumed that the United States probably would face the Axis powers alone. Each plan assumed an increasing sphere of U.S. involvement, with Rainbow 4 projecting U.S. military power into the Pacific and into Europe.

As plans for defending the Western Hemisphere developed, it became clear that the Navy and especially the Air Corps were inadequate to the task. On November 18, 1938, FDR met with military leaders and advisers to discuss expanding the Air Corps, motivated by Hitler’s diplomatic triumph at Munich.

FDR proposed a huge air force and developing the productive capacity to achieve it. FDR wanted 5,000 planes and to be able to produce 10,000 per year, even if he had to ask Congress for the authority to sell some of those planes to other countries. Kaiser notes that here Roosevelt already was planning on aid to nations fighting the Nazis, something he would not actually propose for another two years.

Roosevelt faced the problem of finding a way to create the tremendous productive capacity that a war with the Axis would require when Congress and the American people hoped to remain at peace.

FDR shared his concerns and plans, at least in broad outline, on January 2, 1939, in a message to Congress and in his State of the Union address the next day. He warned the people that they would need to defend their values by force of arms. Kaiser points out that the American people, like their leaders, were aware of the Axis threat and the need to increase armaments to protect the nation; they just expected to wait and fight only when that meant defending the Western Hemisphere.

War broke out in Europe on September 1, 1939. Three weeks later Roosevelt spoke to Congress, asking for neutrality legislation. He intended for the United States to be able to trade with belligerents. He also said that the United States needed to protect Western civilization. After long debates, amendments passed that allowed for “cash and carry” sales of arms to belligerents.

The chapter ends with Germany invading France and the United States beginning to implement the plans that it had made to meet this threat.

I have not written a post for one month, for several reasons. The first obstacle that I encountered was with WordPress, or at least with the version of WordPress that GoDaddy’s Managed WordPress provides. All of a sudden the fields that allowed me to enter keywords and other SEO items no longer appeared. This motivated me to learn more about WordPress, so I bought the Dummies book and began reading it. Something has distracted me from that, so I have not found some other way to enter SEO terms for my blog. Maybe I will learn those tricks if I read further.

In the meantime, I continued reading No End Save Victory and finished it. Thus I am way behind on reporting on that book. As my overall impression, I found the book interesting but less revealing about Franklin Roosevelt than I had hoped. The book provides quite a detailed view of the many people and ideas involved in planning for the United States’ entry into World War II. It just did not seem to have the depth of insight into FDR that I expected.

In hopes of finding a more positive view of this book, I will review it and report on segments. The first chapter is entitled “Civilization Under Threat, May 1940.” It provides background on the 1930s and the start of World War II as well as FDR’s policy in response to the crises.

It notes that FDR went along with the views of most people in the United States, stating that the U.S. should stay out of the problems of foreign nations during his first term and his campaign for re-election in 1936.

FDR responded to the outbreak of war between Japan and China by not acknowledging that it was a war and thereby not invoking the Neutrality Act. Instead he spoke out against the threat to civilization and to the Western Hemisphere. He gave his famous “quarantine speech.” Kaiser notes that Roosevelt did not call for any specific action against Japan or other aggressors.

FDR had a clear idea of what he wanted to achieve, he just was not ready to state it specifically until his goal was closer to fruition. Thus he continued to state principles but not specifics. Kaiser described this practice as arising from FDR’s psychological makeup, which had developed since his childhood.

Kaiser holds that FDR wanted to form a naval coalition with the British that would force the Japanese to cease their aggression in China. When the British refused to join him, FDR thought that the United States might have to face the threat of international lawlessness alone.

After the Japanese captured Nanking, killing thousands of civilians, and sank the U.S. gunboat Panay, Roosevelt proposed steps that might have led to war with Japan in 1938.

Kaiser points out FDR’s interest in the Navy and his plans to use the Navy against Japan. In December 1938 Anthony Eden indicated that the British would now welcome an Anglo-American naval demonstration against Japan. Here Roosevelt saw an opportunity to use the Navy to impose the quarantine, of which he had spoken earlier, against Japan.

I will leave off here and pick up the story in my next post. I can see from reviewing the book that No End Save Victory is more revealing about FDR than I had at first noticed.