Franklin D. Roosevelt and His Foreign Policy Critics

Abstract

From the spring of 1940 until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the German declaration of war in early December 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt confronted a situation as frightening for the nation as any since the Civil War. By the end of 1940, Adolf Hitler had convincingly demonstrated to the world his ambitions and the awesome power of his military force. The. British, ineffectual in their efforts to halt Hitler's advance on the Continent, stood alone awaiting an assault they appeared ill-prepared to repel. But the German air attack failed; the invasion did not come. Hitler's opponents, actual and potential, thus were given an opportunity to look to their defenses and consider the next moves, both their's and his. In the United States, the administration's efforts to make the most of the opportunity were limited by widespread cynicism about the origins of the European war and well-organized resistance to direct American involvement. The situation was troubling and potentially dangerous, and the rapid conversion of public attitudes became an important part of Roosevelt's foreign policy. Isolationism, with its strong emotional appeal and the sanction of American tradition, might be challenged by words, but only Hitler's final, and perhaps fatal, offensive could conclusively disprove its value. Rather than wait for the Great Debate to bring the American people to its senses, FDR resolved to supplement the persuasive effects of world events and the arguments of the interventionist forces by seeking to silence or discredit the critics of his administration's foreign policy. The chief objects of Roosevelt's concern were not spies, saboteurs, enemy