Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (107 page)

Roosevelt realized that Churchill had his own agenda in speaking as he did. Publicity was by no means the only way of frustrating the German plot, if indeed there was a plot. A search of the
Iroquois
would do quite well and would be necessary in any event. But Roosevelt followed Churchill’s advice in publicizing the threat. The inconclusiveness of the intelligence left many newspaper readers puzzled but nonetheless made the point the president most wanted made: that the European war posed a danger to Americans.

T
HE TIMING WAS
crucial, for Roosevelt was in the thick of a battle of his own, to repeal the arms embargo. He had observed the final descent to war with a feeling of helpless irresponsibility. At a news conference just hours after the German troops invaded Poland, he began to redeem the credit he had accumulated with the press during the previous six years. He explained how he had learned of the invasion just before three o’clock that morning and how William Hassett, his assistant, had immediately informed the press associations. “I do not believe at this particular time of this very critical period in the world’s history,” he added, “that there is anything which I can say, except to ask for full cooperation of the press throughout the country in sticking as closely as possible to facts. Of course that will be the best thing for our own nation, and, I think, for civilization.” Roosevelt noted that rumors often flew faster than facts during moments of crisis. He urged the reporters to take care before repeating whatever they had heard. “It is a very simple thing to check either with the State Department, or any other department concerned, or with the White House.” He provided a current example. “The secretary of state called me up about fifteen minutes ago, before I came over here, and said there was a report out—I do not know whether it was printed or not, but if it was printed it would be a pity—that we had sent out a general order for all American merchant ships to return to American ports.” The report was not true, and it wasn’t especially damaging. But it did sow confusion and in some cases alarm. Roosevelt added, “I do not think there is anything else I can tell you about that you do not know already.” Yet he agreed to answer questions.

“I think probably what is uppermost in the minds of all the American people today is, ‘Can we stay out?’” a reporter asked. “Would you like to make any comment at this time on that situation?”

“Only this, that I not only sincerely hope so, but I believe we can; and that every effort will be made by the administration so to do.”

“May we make that a direct quote?”

“Yes.”

The president reiterated his position when he took to the airwaves two days later, after Britain and France had declared war on Germany. In one of his most succinct Fireside Chats, Roosevelt explained that until that very morning he had “hoped against hope that some miracle would prevent a devastating war in Europe and bring to an end the invasion of Poland by Germany.” But such was not to be. He reminded his listeners of his efforts to preserve the peace. And he affirmed that he was as determined as ever to keep the United States at peace. “Let no man or woman thoughtlessly or falsely talk of America sending its armies to European fields. At this moment there is being prepared a proclamation of American neutrality. This would have been done even if there had been no neutrality statute on the books, for this proclamation is in accordance with international law and in accordance with American policy.”

All the same, Americans must recognize the danger to their country.

You must master at the outset a simple but unalterable fact in modern foreign relations between nations. When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger. It is easy for you and for me to shrug our shoulders and to say that conflicts taking place thousands of miles from the continental United States, and, indeed, thousands of miles from the whole American hemisphere, do not seriously affect the Americas—and that all the United States has to do is to ignore them and go about its own business. Passionately though we may desire detachment, we are forced to realize that every word that comes through the air, every ship that sails the sea, every battle that is fought, does affect the American future.

For this reason, the kind of neutrality Roosevelt proclaimed was not the sort Wilson had requested a generation earlier. “This nation will remain a neutral nation, but I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in thought as well. Even a neutral has a right to take account of facts. Even a neutral cannot be asked to close his mind or his conscience.”

A
FTER THE STRUGGLE
with Congress that summer, there was no doubt that Roosevelt would invoke the arms embargo, which he did on September 5, in accord with the neutrality law of 1937. And after his statement to the American people, there was no doubt he would try to persuade Congress to revise the neutrality law and repeal the arms embargo. “I hope and believe that we shall repeal the embargo within the next month,” Roosevelt wrote Neville Chamberlain.

The president called a special session of Congress, and when the lawmakers convened on September 21 a message from Roosevelt awaited them. Special sessions devoted to foreign affairs were rare in American history, convened primarily when a president asked for a declaration of war. Roosevelt assured the legislators, and the American people, that nothing could be farther from his mind. The question was: how to stay out of war? The president reminded the lawmakers that he had asked them to repeal the arms embargo only three months earlier, and they had refused. He reminded them that he had been warning of just such an outbreak of war as had recently occurred. He reminded them that he had said that a legislatively mandated neutrality might have an unneutral effect and thereby facilitate aggression. He reminded them that America’s historic neutrality had been a matter of executive policy rather than legislative mandate.

This historic position, he said, should be the goal, at least with respect to weapons. Congress should repeal the embargo provisions of the 1937 act. “They are, in my opinion, most vitally dangerous to American neutrality, American security and, above all, American peace.” The embargo blindly failed to distinguish between aggressors and their victims, encouraging the former and preventing the latter from purchasing the requisites of their defense. Roosevelt allowed that certain parts of the neutrality law might remain as currently written or even be strengthened. American ships might be barred from traveling in war zones. American citizens might be prevented from sailing on belligerent ships. Foreign purchases might be required to be cash-and-carry. He would leave to Congress how to handle such provisions.

But the arms embargo must be repealed. The critics would contend, as they had contended for years, that repeal would move the United States closer to war. They were as wrong now as they had always been. “It offers far greater safeguards than we now possess or have ever possessed, to protect American lives and property from danger. It is a positive program for giving safety…. There lies the road to peace!”

The isolationists disagreed, but the outbreak of the war, after Borah and the others had dismissed the prospect, enhanced Roosevelt’s reputation for diplomatic prescience and put the isolationists on the defensive. Public opinion swung to the president’s side. A Gallup poll showed a solid majority of Americans supporting repeal of the arms embargo; the only group opposing repeal, and that by a small margin, was German-born immigrants.

The Gallup poll showed something else. While 95 percent of respondents wanted the United States to stay out of the war, 84 percent wanted Britain and France to defeat Germany. “In other words,” George Gallup explained, “the surveys point unmistakably to the fact that the present debate over changing the neutrality act—both in Congress and throughout the country—cannot be regarded as solely a debate on ‘pure’ neutrality. To a great many Americans the issue is simply one of helping England and France, without going to war ourselves.”

The isolationists dug in. They held rallies in several cities, demanding genuine neutrality and excoriating Roosevelt and the British and French for endangering it. Charles Lindbergh, the isolationists’ celebrity, claimed to be even-handed between the belligerents, but his language echoed themes being trumpeted by the Nazis. America’s link to Europe, Lindbergh said, was “a bond of race and not of political ideology.” The aviator explained: “It is the European race we must preserve; political progress will follow. Racial strength is vital; politics, a luxury. If the white race is ever seriously threatened, it may then be time for us to take our part in its protection, to fight side by side with the English, French and Germans, but not with one against the other for our mutual destruction.” Lindbergh was willing to accept a modification of the arms embargo suggested by Herbert Hoover, one allowing the sale of defensive weapons but forbidding the export of offensive arms. “For the benefit of Western civilization we should continue our embargo on offensive armaments,” Lindbergh declared.

Roosevelt recognized that he had the isolationists at a disadvantage on the arms embargo. And having said his piece, he brought forward other advocates of repeal. The White House produced military experts who dismissed the distinction between offensive and defensive weapons. Fighter planes could shoot down enemy bombers, they said, but they could also support advancing tanks. Even bombers could be defensive if used against an invading army or to preempt an air attack.

As the isolationists grew desperate, they lashed out at Roosevelt more vehemently than ever. One isolationist senator, Democrat Joel Bennett Clark of Missouri, reported that the president had attended an Episcopal service at which the priest asked God to preserve King George of England against his enemies. “I certainly do not want to impose the duty on the president of the United States of getting up and walking out of the church during the prayer,” Clark said, perhaps not reflecting on Roosevelt’s difficulty in walking under any circumstances. “But the news of it went out to the civilized world; and, after the incident, to have the president have his picture taken with the pastor, glancing at this prayer book which had been presented by the King and Queen, does not add anything to our general reputation for impartiality and neutrality.” Several isolationists predicted that the campaign for embargo repeal was the opening round of the 1940 presidential campaign. Whether or not the United States actually went to war, Roosevelt would cast himself as commander in chief and urge Americans not to change leaders amid a crisis.

The isolationists realized they were fighting a losing battle. “You can’t lick a steamroller,” Charles W. Tobey, a Republican senator from New Hampshire, lamented. On the decisive votes, Roosevelt prevailed by wide margins: 63 to 30 in the Senate, 243 to 181 in the House. The president reiterated that the measure was intended to preserve America’s peace, not threaten it. “I am very glad that the bill has restored the historic position of the neutrality of the United States,” he said.