Rating: 
Summary: Debunking the myth of Roosevelt as great Wartime president
Review: Fleming provides a very readable historic review of Roosevelt's policies pre-war and during the war that debunk many of the myths about Roosevelt's greatness as a war leader. Others have made this effort before (see e.g. Wind over Sand, Roosevelt's Road to Russia, A Time for War)without any noticeable effect on Roosevelt's reputation. Regretably, Fleming's book may suffer the same fate. However, for those searching for the truth, Fleming provides some new insights. For example, Fleming adds the political context (largely forgotten or ignored) that apparently was crucial in how the war was conducted. Fleming shows the incredible historic significance of the narrow victory by those who forced Roosevelt to dump Wallace as Vice President in 1944. Fleming also raises several moral questions that have been largely ignored. He focuses attention on the Allied fire bombing of civilian targets, a neglected topic that deserves more serious scrutiny nor only on a moral level but also on a practical level. Indirectly, Fleming raises many times the moral question of using bad means to obtain good ends. The legacy of Roosevelt's war time leadership (the Cold war, Korea, China, etc.) is evidence of the folly of those who would do anything (however immoral) to obtain a perceived good.
Rating:
Summary: 'Memory isn't history' ... but this sure is
Review: This summer, millions of American filmgoers will see, in the new 'Pearl Harbor' movie, a portrait of Franklin Roosevelt so hagiographic that even many of his supporters are embarrassed. For anyone willing to expend a little effort to find a more accurate portrait of That Man in the White House, I hugely recommend this huge book.Fleming's philosophy, explained early on, is that 'memory is not history.' Although many Americans -- particularly members of the so-called 'greatest generation' and their children -- still have fond memories of FDR, rank him among history's great leaders in war and peace, and defend his memory and legacy, Fleming argues that these rose-colored memories are not substitutes for fact. FDR was not a demigod. He was a man: a fallible man, a devious man, an arrogant and ambitious man, a political man in both the best and worst senses of that term, and -- for the last years of his life -- a very seriously ill man. FDR, Fleming argues, embodied both sides of 'the profound dichotomy in American life,' the tension between the idealism of the Declaration of Independence and the myth of the Founding, and 'the often brutal realism' and hard-edged practicality that Americans have shown in times of crisis and opportunity like the settling of the frontier. Fleming argues Roosevelt manipulated both sides of the dichotomy to maneuver America into the war on the side of the Allies. The New Dealers in his administration supported him in this, hoping to make the war a crusade for a 'New Deal for the World,' the way the First World War was a crusade for democracy. Once America was in the war, Roosevelt vacillated between the two poles of the 'profound dichotomy.' On the one hand, he publicly declared that 'Dr New Deal' had been replaced by 'Dr Win-The-War' as the physician who could cure the nations' ills, and sometimes seemed to have viewed the New Deal more as an electoral ploy than an ideological commitment (After one Roosevelt decision, New Dealer Harry Hopkins tellingly fumed, 'The New Deal has once again been sacrificed to the war effort.' Hopkins wanted the war to serve his ideological goals, not come ahead of them.) On the other hand, Roosevelt clung with grim tenacity to his 'unconditional surrender' formula, despite anguished pleas from his military commanders, Winston Churchill, the anti-Hitler German resistance, and even the Pope that all he was doing was fueling the Nazis' propaganda machine, undermining any hope of an effective resistance, and guaranteeing millions of additional casualties. Fleming traces the administration's internal battles between the New Dealers and the pragmatists -- battles that climaxed, in his view, in the 1944 jettisoning of Henry Wallace from the Democrats' vice-presidential nomination, the fight over the Allied terror-bombing of German and Japanese civilians (The Allies 'must exceed the Nazis in fury, ruthlessness, and efficiency,' Hopkins wrote.) culminating in the decision to use the atomic bomb, and Roosevelt's consistent, naïve belief that the Soviet Union could become a trustworthy post-war ally, if only he could 'get at' Stalin with his famous charm. He was reinforced in his belief by ideologically motivated naifs like Henry Wallace and, as the Venona transcripts later proved, Soviet agents in the inner circles of American government. Fleming argues that here, too, Europe paid the price for the New Dealers' blinkered view of history and politics. If Fleming has a hero in this book, it is clearly Missouri Senator Harry Truman. No fan of Roosevelt, Truman and his Senate Committee investigated the administration's handling of the war effort and sharply criticized the New Dealers for their ideologically based running of the war effort. Of course, Truman would soon find himself tangled in the New Dealers' web, forced as president to cope with the consequences of the New Dealers' war. Despite its heft, I found this an exciting and surprisingly fast read (the type is fairly large, and there is a lot of leading between the lines, so you shouldn't be intimidated by the size). I found myself saddened that I had finished the book -- a rare experience in non-fiction reading. Many 'greatest generation'-ers, plus left-liberals and other partisans of Big Government, will not enjoy seeing their most sacred cow gored so effectively. But this excellent book is a valuable (and much needed) antidote to the waves of pro-FDR idolatry we've been subjected to for more than half a century, and an important reminder of the memories we've suppressed in our nostalgic remembrings of the 'Good War.' Very, very highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A Welcome Change
Review: This volume is a welcome change from the selectivity, bias, and unthinking adoration that characterizes so many FDR treatments. Fleming, who was reared in a Democrat household with Roosevelt's portrait on the wall, not only overcame his early inclinations, but produced a breakout assessment that is largely irrefutable. As noted here, some readers loathe the book but they are unable to deny Fleming's sailient points because he skewers FDR and the New Dealers with their own words and the blatant contrast between statements and deeds. Fleming again reveals the New Deal as a massive failure: only WW II cured the Depression. We're left wondering if that was one reason FDR pushed so hard for war. As late as 1937-38, during his 2nd term, his ideological insistence on government control of business led to a severe recession while other nations outstripped the US, including Britain, Germany, Japan, Sweden, and Chile. As for the German resistance, some doubters are right: we'll never know whether it could have effected a change. But FDR covered up the very existence of the Front of Decent People and refused to respond to its approaches. On the other hand, his lingering hostility to Poland and other Eastern European nations defies logical and ethical explanation. Ever the politician, he kept the Soviets' 1939 Katyn Forest massacre from the public (sending a knowledgable intelligence officer to Samoa), lest he alienate a powerful US voting block. The hypocrisy of the "unconditional surrender" policy is hardly new, but Fleming dissects it with meticulous evidence. Despite statements to the contrary, Italy and Japan were in fact allowed to surrender conditionally but Germans felt they had no option but to continue fighting. One must wonder why the exception. Was it because neither Italy nor Japan posed a threat to the Soviet Union? FDR's fawning over Stalin and Stalinism prompts such speculation. There is also the matter of Roosevelt's egomaniacal assurrance that only he could lead the world's greatest military and industrial power. (Wendell Willkie, the 1940 Republican candidate, like many GOP pols, self-destructed, even indicating a willingness to run as FDR's VP!) In order to get elected to his 3rd and 4th terms, FDR had to lie to the public about his health, with connivance of his navy doctors. Finally, Fleming notes that immediately after delivering his 1945 inaugural (the shortest on record) FDR did two things: updated his will and planned his funeral. Those were not the actions of a forward-looking leader, and Fleming recognizes that fact.
Rating:
Summary: a real eye-opener
Review: This book is a real eye-opener, a book that uncovers the shocking lies, deceit, and betrayal that went on under FDR during WWII. Meticulously footnoted, the book offers irrefutable proof of FDR's cunning as a master of propaganda and political intrigue. You will learn how: -- FDR's declared policy of unconditional surrender (against the advice of all of his chief of staff and all historical precedent) prolonged the war unnecessarily, costing hundreds of thousands of American soldiers' lives; -- How FDR kept secret from the American people and his own staff, the existence of a German underground movement to overthrow Hitler, the "Front of Decent People", and how its leaders, Admiral Canaris and General Rommel, pleaded with FDR to help them destroy the Nazi regime from within, but they were rebuffed by FDR because FDR wanted and needed to war to not end quickly.
-- How FDR's ill-advised "unconditional surrender" policy caused a two month delay of the Italian armistice, giving the Nazis those weeks to establish defenses in Italy, evetually resulting in the deaths of 200,000 U.S. and Allied soldiers. -- How the Bureau of Economic Warfare, set up by FDR, became a tool for the expansion of world socialism, and how it wasted billions in a failed attempt to grow rubber trees in South America instead of investing in U.S. technology for the development of synthetic rubber needed for the war effort. -- How FDR used race riots over segregation in the South in 1943 for his own political gain, and never spoke out against or did anything to end segregation. -- How FDR knew about the Holocaust, but the German people did not, yet FDR declined to inform the German people about it through a leaflet dropping campaign. FDR also concealed his knowledge of the Holocause from his cabinet and the American people. FDR could have saved millions of lives by shining the light of day on the issue, but didn't. -- How FDR encouraged virulent anti-Japanese racism in the U.S. -- How, despite his public denials, FDR promoted the extremely controversial targeted bombing of civilian population centers as a war tactic (calling it "terror bombing"), indiscriminately killing hundreds of thousands of innocent noncombatants in cities such as Dresden and Berlin. -- How FDR promoted the lie that "religious freedom" existed in Stalinist Russia, while knowing that it was untrue. -- How FDR kept to himself knowldege that Stalin murdered 10 million farmers in Russia in 1932-33, rather than reveal it to the American public, because he believed so wholeheartedly in Stalin's communism. -- How FDR enthusiasticaly endorsed the Communist propaganda book, "Mission to Moscow", which described life in Stalinist Russia in the most absurdly glowing terms, and ordered it made into a movie, even as Russians were at the time starving to death by the millions. -- How FDR knew all along about the Katyn Massacre (Stalin's murder of 10,000 Polish officers), but quashed all news about it so that the American people did not learn about it until decades later. When photographic written proof of the massacre came in to FDR in 1943, FDR ordered it stashed in a warehouse. -- How in November 1943, FDR secretly endorsed the idea of disarming France, turning it into a puppet state after the war, and of promoting a communist takeover by Stalin of India. -- How FDR was indifferent to the post-war spread of communism in Europe. -- How at his meeting with Stalin atTeheran, FDR "consented to Stalin's demand for most of eastern Poland, asling only that his approval be kept quiet until after the 1944 elections, lest it cost him votes among Polish Americans...[FDR] seemed utterly indifferent to Poland's contribution to the war effort. The Poles had the fourth largest number of men under arms on the Allied side of the war. Moreover, they produced no Nazi puppet government nor any collaborators. Yet Roosevelt's sympathy for Poland was as nonexistent as his support." -- How FDR became an apologist for the Chinese Communists. the Chinese ambassador tried to warn about the Chicom brutality but was ignored. ••••
I could go on, but it would take a book-length list. It will be much better for you to get the book yourself. Further, I will caution you to ignore the cries of "lies, lies" by this book's detractors, most of whom have never even read the book despite their claims to the contrary. Theirs are nothing but a knee-jerk reactions to defend their ideological hero. Read this book, you will not regret it!
Rating:
Summary: This Book Provides Answers: Unpleasant Ones
Review: If ever, when contemplating our actions during WWII, you have faltered for even a moment trying to reconcile the glaring discrepancy between America's conduct and the nature of our people, you need to read this book. Regardless of whether you were perplexed by our military vulnerability at Pearl Harbor, the internment of Japanese-Americans, our partnership with Stalin's evil empire, or our willingness to terror-bomb non-combatant civilians, Thomas Fleming has some answers for you. At a time of increased public recognition of our heroic fighting men--our WWII Band of Brothers--it is important for us to also understand that though our courageous soldiers marched into battle to a cadence of patriotism and honor, our leaders got them over there on a road paved with deceit and disrespect. The war--the "good war"--was built on lies and deals and FDR's foolish dream of a new world order. He exhausted much of his time and energy trying to find a way to get America into Europe's war, and, in frustration, he finally had to set-up and sacrifice our boys in the Pacific. Brave American men fought for a cause and a leader that--had they known the truth--they would have turned and fought against. Read this well-documented book and pay close attention to those who, from the safety of their desks in Washington, are so eager to bomb civilians and push for the extermination an entire race of people. It may strike you that they are still there in D.C., once again working the halls, greasing the palms, and screaming for blood--this time for the blood of their new enemies. This book puts a real face on ugly politics, and its a face that, for the sake of America, we better learn to recognize.
Rating:
Summary: Great Untold History
Review: Fleming disagrees with the conventional Wisdom that FDR was a great war President. He says that World War II was approached as an international version of the New Deal. FDR didn't just want to win he wanted to re-shape the world. Fleming believes FDR's insistence on fighting the Germans in North Africa, insisting on unconditional German surrender, ignoring the dangers of communism and specifically trusting Joseph Stalin were major blunders that cost untold lives during and after the war. First, by fighting the Germans in North Africa, FDR made Joe Stalin's encroachment on Eastern Europe all the more easy. Had he instead focused on beating the Japanese and protecting England exclusively, Hitler could have used his entire force to fight Stalin. They would have butchered one another without as many U.S. casualties, and the end result would have been two weakened madmen which would have given Stalin less chance to seize Eastern Europe. Second, although it may not be discussed these days, FDR's insistence of unconditional surrender was quite controversial. No less than Eisenhower himself thought it was a foolish idea, but even more interesting is that it was almost unprecedented in the history of war. Fleming points out that the U.S. (Unconditional Surrender) Grant got the name from his siege at Vicksburg, not the General Lee surrender which was quite cordial and accommodating. Unconditional surrender was a mistake for two reasons says Fleming. It made it much less likely that regular Germans would attempt to overthrow Hitler, because unconditional surrender assumed that all Germans were equally guilty. There were even cables from prominent Germans through neutral Switzerland that tried to negotiate an easier surrender if they offed Hitler, but FDR would have none of it. He blamed the Germans for two world wars and wanted to bring them to their knees. With FDR it was less about Hitler and more about defeating the wicked Huns. The cost was hundreds of thousands of American lives that could have been saved with a more temperate policy. Third, Lauchlin Currie, Senior Administrative assistant to the President, Assistant Secretary of State Harry Dexter White, and State Department officials Alger Hiss and Lawrence Duggan have all been proven spies by the declassified Venona Project. They had access to classified documents and turned them over to other Soviet operatives. Reformed communist, Whitaker Chambers told Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle about these men as early as 1939, but when Berle informed FDR, he said it was absurd. FDR always trusted fellow Ivy League men over the evidence, and didn't really see communism as much of a threat anyway. When he met Joesph Stalin during the war, he began calling him Uncle Joe and told confidants that he had "gotten to him" during their discussions. He allowed important meetings that decided post war policy to occur in places like the Soviet embassy in Terhan where every conversation he had was being listened to by the Russians. He even took communist spies like Alger Hiss to the Yalta conferece, where Hiss passed on who knows what information to "Uncle" Joe. Fleming says that all of FDR's mistakes were the result of treating World War II as a social project for the planet. FDR could have beaten the Germans, weakened the Soviets considerably and saved more American lives if his priorities had been winning the war and peace. His more lofty goals of reshaping the world gave him a skewed view of communism and led to the enslavement of Europeans and the deaths of too many Americans. Fleming seems to be on to something here. FDR had his plusses, but the idolatry of Roosevelt has led many people to disregard his grand mistakes. It's nice that Fleming has taken the time to remind us of them.
Rating:
Summary: Eye Opening Expose' of FDR and the New Dealers
Review: In these times where Presidential "Greatness" lists are appearing fairly often, Mr. Fleming has turned a microscope on a President that regularly rates on these lists near the top. What is revealed in this carefully researched book puts a serious question to FDR's high ranking. Mr. Fleming has approached FDRs presidency with an open mind and brought a fresh insight to both the minor as well as the major events and policies of this most tumultous time. Fleshing out in great detail the key players of the New Deal provided this reader with a better understanding on how they interacted/inter-related with FDR and each other. What I learned was both eye opening and disturbing, particularly FDR and his many subordinates appeasement and accomodation of Stalin, and the level of communist infiltration of his administration. Having read Robert Ferrell's book on FDRs last year and the cover-up of his grave ill health prepared me to understand how it related to the larger context of WWII as outlined in this book. The book is well written and the prose will allow the reader to easily become immersed in a very important subject. I applaud Mr. Fleming for a job well done and highly recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Revisionism Writ Large
Review: This is a book which touches on many of the big questions of the twentieth century. Why did Japan attack when she did? How did American transform itself with a 3rd rate army and 6th rate navy to the world's supreme military power. How did two of the world's democracies arrive at and execute a policy of aerial bombing which their political leaders knew would lead to the mass murder of 100,000's of innocents? And for a European reader; Why is the phrase Liberal such a term of derision in United States politics? Each of these questions weaves itself in and out of the narrative of Fleming's book. But do not read this book for an objective overview of FDR. This is revisionism writ large. Once the hero of American politics Fleming sets out to reveal FDR as a simultaneously ruthless and bunglingly naive politician. As an insight into Japan's rash decision to attack Pearl Harbour Fleming offers a plausible and balance argument. More credible than the conspiracy theorist who believe FDR and his inner cabinet knew precisely of the Pearl Harbour attack and not as naïve as those who think that FDR and company were as stunned by the attack as the American people. The process by which US industry and commerce equipped its' military to defeat the Japanese laid down the essential structure of the US economy. One that continued through the Cold War and now onto the War on Terrorism. FDR built this machine. Its' structure, its' reliance on monopolies and "big business" were all the antipathy of what the majority of the Democratic Party believed. But FDR knew it was needed to win the war and he put it together. Fleming gives him little credit. Reading Fleming's account of the US military's justification for "radar" bombing I was left wondering how their arguments would play out in the International Court of Justice or indeed the Hague Tribunal. By the way Britain would be entering a no-contest plea. Of course this also goes to the decision to drop the atomic bombs. Fleming attempts to lay the blame squarely on FDR's shoulders. He introduced unconditional surrender. He stirred up the hatred of the Japanese. Truman was left with little option. It is in areas such as this, the big strategic issues, that Fleming exposes his weakness as a historian of politics as oppose to one of diplomacy and world affairs. Nowhere does Fleming cover the policy change towards Russia and the post war world that arrived with Jimmy Byrnes in the State Department. Nowhere does he discuss Byrnes desire to demonstrate power to the Russians; atomic bomb by way of smoke signal. Maybe Fleming would argue that this is a book about FDR and his political allies and as such his analysis ended with his death. However he stills uses the atomic bombing of Japan as one last chance to cut FDR. For a better understanding of the decision to drop the bombs look to the brilliantly researched Gar Alperovitz's The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb. From Prague to Galway Europeans describe themselves as liberals with a kind of honour. They look on in curious bemusement as Jay Lenno uses it as a form of ridicule. Why? As Fleming describes it, the original American liberals, Wallace and friends, believed Stalin was an Uncle, communist Russia was a force for world peace and having a few Russian spies in State Department lead to a more balance view of the world. They clung to their naïve beliefs right up the start of the Cold War and the American political class has never forgotten just how stupid they were. Was FDR one of them? Did he really think that he could "get at" Stalin with his legendary charm? Fleming does not really address this question. He attributes supreme strategic insight into FDR's decision to provoke Japan but assumes that he never guessed at the nature of Stalin's power grab. Fleming never considers that FDR was playing by the basic maxim that my enemy's enemy is my friend. That the US needed Russia. That FDR needed the US public to have a benign view of Stalin. By all means read and enjoy Fleming's book. But remember there is a balance to these things. When a politicians dies in disgrace some author will come along in a few years and write about how he wasn't such a bad fellow - Nixon. When they die a hero some other author will come along and say what about this and that and........
Rating:
Summary: The Roosevelt Nobody Knows
Review: Imagine the following scenario: The economy is in bad shape after years of poorly conceived policy interventions, and as a result, the general public holds the federal government in disrepute. Suddenly, an attack by foreign enemies on the U.S. galvanizes the nation in support of the political class, thus rejuvenating formerly demoralized public employees and altering the image of the president from a likable man, not known for his mental agility, to a wise statesman in calm control of the nation, a man so obviously dedicated to his responsibilities that he could unilaterally declare "an unlimited national emergency" and be trusted with the power. The president is question is not George W. Bush but Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who knew the effect that Days of Infamy can have on the public's tolerance for statism at home. Historian Thomas Fleming's masterpiece, The New Dealers' War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the War Within World War II, explains how this-and more-happened sixty years ago, in an outstanding book that sadly became timelier following September 11, 2001. Fleming's picture of FDR is a decidedly less-than-iconic portrait of our thirty-second president, when compared to the image that has been drummed into the national psyche in countless government-funded civics classes since his death in April 1945. Fleming's FDR is driven by a messianic complex and an intense hatred of German history, culture, and people. To appreciate FDR's strong desire for war with Germany, which was so great that he sanctioned one with Japan in order to achieve it, it is important to understand the state of the economy in the years leading up to it. By the midpoint of FDR's second term, the failure of the New Deal policies was evident to all but the truly delusional. The unemployment rate again reached levels associated with the hated Hoover, while the public's tolerance of the pretentious New Dealers and their endless attempts to control the economy waned. Especially humiliating were statistics that showed the United States lagging far behind foreign countries in recovering from the Depression. American national income in 1937 was 85.8 percent of the 1929 high-water mark, while England's was 124.3 percent. Chile, Sweden, and Australia had growth rates in the 20-percent range. The United States figure was a dismal -7.0 percent. The New Deal was exposed as a bad one, and the president's image looked irrevocably tarnished. A disconsolate FDR would confide to his associates his frustrations resulting from his lost political dominance: "[It is] a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead-and finding no one there" (p. 67). But Roosevelt's political capital was vastly superior to his mental capital (he would joke at times about earning "gentleman's C's" while at Harvard). He knew that the only way he could repair his place in history to fit his own self-image was to lead the country in an unpopular European war, thus necessitating an attempt for an unprecedented third term. Fleming argues, convincingly, that America's entry into the war was crucial for the revival of the New Deal. A group of Republican congressman would tell ex-President Hoover that "the administration was concerned with war not as war but as a method of destroying the present form of government in the United States" (p. 84), while Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio warned that "Entrance into the European War will be the next great New Deal experiment" (p. 87). Several essays meant to rally disenchanted New Dealers fueled these ideas, such as the one written by the archetypal New Dealer Harry Hopkins with the brash title, "The New Deal of Mr. Roosevelt is the Designate and Invincible Adversary of the New Order of Hitler." There is only one way to defeat Hitler, Hopkins would write (p. 85): "By the new order of democracy, which is the New Deal universally extended and applied." Hopkins would (ominously) add that democracy "must wage total war against totalitarian war. It must exceed the Nazi in fury, ruthlessness and efficiency." Apparently, you have to be a totalitarian to beat a totalitarian. (Does the same logic apply for beating terrorism?) There is much, much more in this superb book, including Fleming's description of Henry Wallace-perhaps the weirdest man ever to achieve high office anywhere-and of Roosevelt's revealing devotion to the evil Stalin, resulting in the needless bestowing of Christian Eastern Europe to the Soviet Empire following the war. At one point early in the book, Fleming writes of Harry Truman's opposition to a third term for Roosevelt because his study of history had convinced him no man should be considered indispensable in a republic. This sentiment complements that of Lord Acton, whose famous aphorism ("all power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely") warns against placing too much power in the hands of any individual. The bloody consequences of such concentrations of power were evident throughout the twentieth century. Of course, the timeliness of The New Dealers' War increased following the events of September 11-the present generation's Day of Infamy. Since that date, a rejuvenated Congress has authorized many tens of billions to fight yet another enemy and to fund new layers of government control at home, with the near unanimous support of a shaken public. Meanwhile, the current president has identified the federal government's new role of ridding the world of evil. It would appear that support for the government is once again high, in marked contrast to the divided nation that was revealed during the 2000 election. It must be fun again to be in public service. Thomas Fleming reminds us that we have gone down this road before. What we gained was an overweening state and what we lost were many of the liberties that should be the most treasured of all values. The wise among us will heed the lesson.
Rating: 
Summary: Brazen Muckraking
Review: Although this book is presented as a work of non-fiction, it is filled with inaccuracies and unsupported allegations and should not be considered seriously by anyone interested in the history or the people involved. Primary historical sources are ignored by a writer who strives to fit "facts" to his conclusion instead of altering his conclusion in response to the facts. This book would only be of interest to those who are trying to sell the idea that the gilded age of child labor, sweat shops, bread lines, racism, and Hoovervilles is preferable to the broader progress the US experienced during the 20th century.
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