#34 Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969)

Wahoo! Only 9 presidential bios to go! As you can tell, I’m just a little elated over the fact that the light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter by the day. On the other hand, I will continue to do justice to the remaining phew (hahahaha…look at that pun! I’m awesome!)

So. Eisenhower. What I already knew about Eisenhower could be boiled down to random fragments from AP US History (such as the U2 incident), brief appearances in the FDR and Truman bios, and my uncle’s rather substantial political pins collection (I particularly liked the “I Like Ike” ones). One thing I was sure of though was that Ike deserved a larger than usual bio and so I went a-searching. I was ecstatic to find that not only was there a sizeable Ike biography readily available but it was also written by that paragon of American historical academic literature himself—Stephen E. Ambrose. If you’ve spent anytime perusing American history books then you’re bound, sooner or later, to run across old Stephen Ambrose. What’s ideal in this instance is that he actually got to interview Eisenhower, among other things. This may mean that he’s probably a little more biased towards Eisenhower than not but I was definitely willing to take that chance. After all, I’m running out of presidents and I desperately wanted to include Mr. Ambrose on my acclaimed list of authors before the end. Yay! (PS I am such a dork!)

I read, therefore, Eisenhower: Soldier and President by Stephen E Ambrose (Simon and Schuster: New York, 1990). I just have to mention the totally cheesy and also rather creepy cover to this book. Huh. Check it out->

Dwight was the last American president to be born in the nineteenth century on October 14, 1890. His parents were Mennonites and they would have a total of seven boys, of which Dwight was square in the middle. When he was just one year old, the family moved to Abilene, Kansas, where Ike grew up and where his father became a mechanic. While there, Ike attended the local public schools where he excelled at spelling, math, military history, and sports! He displayed early signs of leadership qualities, especially in high school, when he instituted the Abilene HS Athletic Association. During his freshman year of high school, Dwight fell seriously ill. After scraping his knee, it got infected and there were moments when they thought it would need to be amputated. Dwight held firm however, and the dreadful moment passed, leaving him intact.

His love of military history indicated that he should attend college at West Point and in 1911 that is precisely what he did. After four successful years (and several pranks later), he graduated and was assigned to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. While there he met and fell in love with Mamie (otherwise known as Mary Geneva Doud) and they were married on July 1, 1916.

In 1917, Eisenhower was promoted to captain in the army and he looked forward to heading overseas to take part in the Great War. However, Ike turned out to be just too good at organization and training to let go. The army instead sent him to Fort Olgethorpe, GA, where he trained officers, to Fort Meade, MD, and finally to Camp Colt, Pennsylvania for tank training. It was during this time that Eisehower and Patton became good friends because they both realized the importance of the tanks in warfare. By now the war was over and Eisenhower would forever rue the fact that he was actually in the Army and missed it.

Unfortunately, another casualty was claimed in the guise of Eisenhower’s small son, “Icky.” In 1920, the four-year-old contracted scarlet fever and died. Distracted with grief, the Eisenhowers were glad to get away by being transferred to Panama on the staff of General Cooper. After four years of working together, Cooper saw good things in Eisenhower and referred him to the Command and General Staff School at Leavenworth, Kansas. “The course brought out the best in Eisenhower, his ability to master detail without getting bogged down in it, his talent for translating ideas into action, his positive (almost eager) reaction to pressure, his mastery of his profession, and his sense of being a team player (the emphasis of the course was on the smooth functioning of the machine). When the final rankings were posted, he stood first in his class” (p. 42).

Upon graduation, Eisenhower decided to take an unusual but very interesting job. He and Mamie were sent to Paris by General Pershing where Ike then wrote a history of the American Army in France during the last war. “Pershing was so pleased, in fact, that he sent Eisenhower to the Army War College for a year, then to Paris to study the ground and expand the history” (p. 43). It was a pleasant interlude.

But by 1929, it was back to the grindstone when Eisenhower was placed under General Douglas MacArthur. He served under MacArthur for several years in the United States and then under him from 1935-39 when he was transferred to the Philippines. In 1936, Eisenhower was promoted to lieutenant-colonel. Unfortunately, MacArthur and Eisenhower butted heads on so many occasions that when WWII began, Eisenhower begged Washington to reassign him. They complied and he returned to the United States in 1940 to train troops. He became a full colonel.

While in the US, Eisenhower greatly impressed the reigning brass, especially General George Marshall, the military Chief of Staff. On June 8, 1942, Eisenhower was promoted to head the European Theater of Operations and so he (not Mamie) moved to London. There he was given a particularly attractive chauffeur, Kay Summersby, and the two quickly became good friends. Over the years, she would stay by Eisenhower’s side as his secretary and follow him wherever he went. There were widespread rumors that they were having an affair and even later on, Kay admitted as much, except that they had never consummated it. Mamie was very unhappy with the whole situation.

In conjunction with the British, the Americans decided to invade North African and dislodge the Germans. To do this, they instituted Operation Torch and placed Eisenhower over the Allied Expeditionary Force (AEF). “Ike’s life was an unending series of conferences, meetings, debates, trips and inspections” (p. 78). Eisenhower faced several troubles in North Africa. The first one occurred when he allowed all the French forces (already on the continent) to be placed under a very shady guy named Darian. Then Eisenhower, when battling the Germans, displayed a worrying tendency towards caution at the point of attack. Nevertheless, the AEF captured Tunis on May 13, 1943 and took many German prisoners.

Eisenhower and the AEF were then told to take Italy. Mussolini had already been deposed by this time but the Germans were still controlling the country. The invasion of Sicily began on July 1, 1943 and Eisenhower did not handle these tactics too well either. Instead of going in for the quick win, he took his time and the war dragged on. The AEF eventually neutralized Sicily and then began the invasion of the Italian mainland. More long, drawn-out battles.

Despite all this though, Eisenhower was chosen by FDR to head Operation Overload, the invasion of France. “It was the most coveted command in the history of warfare” (p. 114). Actually Eisenhower got the job because Marshall, who wanted this position, was needed more in Washington which meant that someone else needed to command the invasion. From what I understand, Eisenhower’s major job in all this (considering that he did not command the individual units) was to coordinate all the units together and make sure that they each had the proper number of ammunition, transportation, and air support. It was also his decision to launch the invasion by deciding upon the most propitious day. Originally, D-Day was scheduled for May 1st but Eisenhower did not like the weather and moved it back to June 6th. As we all know, that day was perfect and the AEF got its first toehold into the northern region of France.

By August 1944, France was retaken from the Germans but it was slow going after that. In fact, there was a very costly German counteroffensive that Eisenhower failed to foresee, which set the process back months. However, by May, 1945, Germany was surrounded by the Allies and the Russians and so they surrendered (V-E Day) through the armistice at Reims. “For Eisenhower, the weeks that followed were full of activity—making arrangements with the Russians, occupation duties, diplomatic difficulties, redeploying the American troops in Europe to the Pacific, entertaining visiting VIPs—but most of his energy went into the hectic, exhausting, satisfying, prolonged celebration” (p. 205). Eisenhower was named the head of the American Occupation Zone in Germany and did his best to uphold the American principles there, including de-Nazification which caused a rift with Patton. De-Nazification allowed no former Nazis to hold office or conduct business in Germany. The problem with this, as Patton averred, was that there were no good people who were not former Nazis. After all, the way to get along in the Third Reich was to pretend to go along with Hitler. But Eisenhower was adamant.

“If being the head of an occupation force in Germany had been a thankless and unwelcome task, being Chief of Staff of the US Army as it demobilized was worse” (p. 219). It was true—Marshall’s tenure as Chief of Staff was soon over and Eisenhower was the obvious choice to fill his place. “Eisenhower anticipated, correctly, interminable battles with the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over the issues of universal military training and unification of the armed services, and battles with Congress over the issues of demobilization and the size and strength of the postwar Army” (p. 219).

Eisenhower served the next two years with distinction but in 1948, it was time for him to retire (the Chief of Staff was a two-year position). “As a five-star general, he was technically on active duty for life, and thus drew a salary of $15,000 per year. But he had no savings, owned no property, stocks or bonds” (p. 233). The crisis was solved when Columbia University in New York offered Eisenhower the presidency of the college. The Eisenhowers did not want to move to New York City but the position was a good one with very little to do. Unfortunately, over the years that Eisenhower was president of Columbia, there was bad blood between him and the university. Apparently the way that generals handle things and the way that academics do are two totally different things. But even though he was unhappy in his work, Eisenhower continued to stay active. He wrote his war memoirs; he also had a full life with his many friendships. Eisenhower had come to know and respect many millionaires and he spent lots of time staying at their various vacation homes, playing golf and fishing and card games.

It was with relief though that Truman appointed Eisenhower as the first Supreme Commander of NATO in 1950. Eisenhower moved to Europe to take up his position but faced issues there from the start. The main problem was the fact that not enough countries could supply men for the NATO army. So Eisenhower decided that Germany would need to contribute but France freaked out about that. There was bitter fighting and really nothing was accomplished while Ike was on duty. He also heavily promoted a unified Europe but that also did not pan out.

Eisenhower’s millionaire friends—let’s be honest—were mainly Republican and it was quite apparent to them that although the war had ended years ago, Eisenhower still retained an almost abnormal popularity in the United States. They worked on him and finally got him to declare his candidacy for president for the 1952 election. Running against him was Adlai Stevenson of the Democratic Party. This campaign also was one of the dirtiest in American history. “Taken all together, 1952 is recalled as one of the bitterest campaigns of the twentieth century, and the one that featured the most mudslinging. Few, if any, of the participants could look back on it with pride” (p. 285). During the campaign, Eisenhower brazenly declared that he would end the Korean War and it is believed that this statement was one of the reasons that he eventually won the election. “The response was enthusiastic. The nation’s number-one hero, her greatest soldier and most experienced statesman, was promising to give his personal attention to the nation’s number-one problem. It was reassuring, it was exciting, it was exactly what people wanted to hear” (p. 285-86).

“It was a smashing victory” (p. 286) when Dwight Eisenhower became the 34th President of the United States of America and the first Republican one in twenty years. Ike immediately got in a plane and traveled to Korea to view the war firsthand. By 1953, the war was effectively over. On the domestic front, there was a growing problem with the power of Senator Joseph McCarthy over the minds of most Americans. People urged Eisenhower to simply denounce him but McCarthy was a Republican and Ike knew he couldn’t just do that. “So while McCarthy had to be destroyed, his followers had to be educated and brought back into the mainstream, not alienated. The best way to do that, Eisenhower thought, was to destroy McCarthy by ignoring him, or by letting him destroy himself” (p. 309). This eventually (McCarthy destroyed himself) occurred after his crazy HUAC army hearing in 1954.

Eisenhower was lucky—he was able to appoint the Chief Justice to the Supreme Court and he chose one Earl Warren. This appointment was significant because in 1954, a major court case (better known as Brown vs the Board of Education) was tried. The vote was unanimous—all nine justices upheld the fact that segregation was unconstitutional and there was no such thing as separate but equal. Eisenhower had a lot of southern millionaire friends and was unwilling to agree with the court. In the end, he was extremely reluctant to use any sort of force on the white southerners or to stand out against segregation in any way.

That same year the French lost Vietnam at Dien Bien Phu and there were Geneva Summit meetings to discuss disarmament between the Cold War powers. In 1955, Eisenhower suffered his first heart attack and had to take time off but he was well enough, by his doctors standards, to be able to run for reelection the next year. He won again against Adlai Stevenson but was faced immediately with several crises overseas. The first one was the rampant riots running across Eastern Europe. Native people tried to overthrow the Soviet regimes in their countries but the insurrections were brutally put down by the Russians (Hungary is a good example.) Also the year before, Nasser, in Egypt, had nationalized the Suez Canal which severely pissed off Great Britain and France. Those two countries then got together in secret and made a special pact with Israel. If Israel would go to war against Egypt (financed by England and France, that is) then they could march into Egypt, restore peace, and grab the Canal right back. The plan was put into effect, Israel started bombing Egypt and the whole world was shocked. Eisenhower, instead of siding with America’s usual allies, backed Egypt because it was their canal anyways!

Even though Eisenhower was not a fan of segregation, he was the president of the United States and his job was to uphold the law, interpreted by the courts. Therefore, when the governor of Arkansas called out the police to keep nine African American students out of Central High School in Little Rock in 1957, Eisenhower saw that the time had come to act. He sent the National Guard to make sure that the school was integrated and the rest of the south had to toe the line as well. Also that year the Russians were successful in sending the first satellite, Sputnik, to the moon. This event produced a huge wave of shock, fear and hysteria across the United States because Americans believed that since the Soviets had beaten us in the race to space, the terror threat was even greater and more likely. Eisenhower had to spend the rest of his term commenting on this eventuality which probably lead, in some degree, to the stroke that he suffered that year. In an effort to allay suspicion that he was not doing enough for the space industry, he created NASA.


Eisenhower was having problems with Cuba, after an armed uprising placed Fidel Castro in charge. Ike worked behind the scenes with the CIA to try to get rid of Castro but nothing came of this under his administration. After a small American invasion of Lebanon (to show strength in the Middle East), Eisenhower traveled to Germany, France, and England to work out policy. Khrushchev, head of the Soviet Union, even visited the United States for two weeks and invited Ike to Russia in return but then an unfortunate thing happened. In 1960, a US-issued U-2 spy plane was shot down over the USSR taking covert pictures and the Russians captured the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, alive. Eisenhower denied the whole thing and ended up looking quite stupid when the Soviets exploited the whole matter in front of the world.

1960, however, was also the year that Eisenhower retired from office when John F Kennedy won the presidential election. In retirement, he and Mamie returned to their farm in Gettysburg, PA and in certain matters, Ike became an advisor both to JFK and Johnson. In 1965, he suffered a second heart attack and in ’68 a third. On March, 28, 1969, Dwight Eisenhower died of heart issues.

#33 Harry S Truman Part 2

Really Cool Stuff about Harry S Truman
1. Harry didn’t have a middle name because the “S” never stood for anything.
2. In 1947, Truman signed the National Defense Act which did away with the cabinet positions of Army and Navy and replaced them with a Secretary of Defense. This act also created the Joint Chiefs and the Central Intelligence Agency in an effort to keep the United States from becoming completely militarized.
3. The steelworker’s strike in 1946 was the largest in history. “When 800,000 steelworkers walked off the job in mid-January—the biggest work stoppage in the country’s history—and automobile workers, glassmakers, telephone operators, electric utilities employees, and numerous other industrial laborers struck in protest against inadequate wages, fringe benefits, and working conditions, Truman had no effective response other than please to both sides to consider the broader needs of the nation” (p. 39).
4. With the backing of the United States, the UN, on November 29, 1947, voted on a partition plan to create the nation of Israel.
5. Truman was the first president since Lincoln to face the growing civil rights issues. “On February 2, Truman fulfilled his promise by asking Congress to enact comprehensive civil rights legislation. It was an unprecedented presidential request. He urged an antilynching law; expanded protection for the right to vote and elimination in particular of poll taxes that denied blacks access to polls in seven southern states; a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission; and an end to racial discrimination on interstate transportation facilities. He also promised to issue executive orders ending segregation in the federal government and in the armed services” (p. 71).
6. The election of 1948 was a famous one, primarily because due to picture of Truman holding aloft the newspaper proclaiming that the other guy had won. The amazing thing was not the fact that Truman won but the fact that everyone believed he wouldn’t. How did this happen? “In October, the polls, the newspapers, the political pundits and leaders in both parties gave Truman little chance of winning…To almost everyone’s amazement on Election Day, Truman defeated Dewey by more than two million popular votes, winning twenty-eight states to Dewey’s sixteen and Thurmond’s four, decisively beating Dewey in the Electoral College by a 303 to 189 margin. Embarrassed pollsters explained their miscalculation by saying that they stopped polling too soon or failed to track shifts in voter sentiment in the last days of the campaign, when a seismic shift had occurred” (p. 82-83).
7. In 1950, Truman gave the go-ahead to develop the hydrogen bomb.
8. Two Puerto Ricans tried to assassinate Truman on November 1, 1950. “They managed to kill one guard and wounded two others, but one of the would-be assassins was killed and the other captured before they could break into the house and shoot Truman, who was taking an afternoon nap in a upstairs bedroom” (p. 111). Why would they want to kill Truman? “They wished to call the world’s attention to a demand for Puerto Rico’s independence from US control, which had existed since the Spanish-American War in 1898” (p. 110). The lone assassin was sentenced to death but Truman commuted his sentence to life in prison. He was eventually pardoned by Carter in 1981.
9. It was during Truman’s administration that the 22nd amendment was passed and ratified. It stated “that presidents could no longer be elected to more than two terms” (p. 131.)

I can’t say that I really enjoyed this book on Truman. One problem was, and this is hardly the author’s fault, the fact that the author clearly didn’t care for Truman and so I found myself not caring for Truman either. Boo. Like I mentioned earlier, Truman is my mom’s favorite president and all I read about in this book were the mistakes he made and the problems that he caused. Of all the presidents, I almost want to read another bio of this one so that I can get a clearer picture of this guy.

It also didn’t help that Dallek did not give a complete picture of who Truman was. Most of these biographies from the American Presidents Series do a great job, in an extremely limited space, of showing the entire lives of the presidents. However, I felt like Dallek was only concerned with Truman’s presidential period and thus gave his early life short-shrift. Truman’s pre-presidential life was stuffed into the first chapter in a few pages only and so it was impossible to get some sense of who this guy really was and what was interesting and different about him. And trust me—you hear all about, in gory detail, the corruption, the foreign and domestic issues and everything else that plagued Truman’s administration. The lack of detail about Truman’s private life extends all the way to the last page when Dallek merely says that Truman died with no reason why. I actually had to wiki it in an effort to sate my curiosity.

In spite of Dallek’s heavy-handling of Truman, glimpses of his character manage to filter through. I could tell that Truman, for all his bumbling political issues, was a straight-shooter for the most part and had a wide…um…variety of verbal expressions to convey his moods. Here’s a good example: “He [Truman] believed justice required an effective response to the plight of the Jews but he resented the unrelenting pressure of the White House from Jewish Americans for help in transporting hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Europe to Palestine, where they could settle in a new homeland. ‘Jesus Christ couldn’t please them when he was here on earth, so how could anyone expect that I would have any luck?’ he said at a cabinet meeting, venting his frustration” (p. 64). On another funny note, I enjoyed the term “To err is Truman” (p. 36).

For some reason, I’m personally disappointed in Truman’s presidential blunders. His background of small-time politician, haberdasher and farmer was hardly adequate preparation for dealing with the final end of the greatest war to that point, post-war domestic woes (including labor, civil rights, inflation issues), de-mobilization on a massive scale, foreign problems with the Soviet Union, China, Korea, etc., a tremendous Red Scare, the arms race, and all the little things. I’m more than a little amazed that we made it through those crazy years after WWII and just by writing this out, my admiration for Truman rose just a little more.

# 33 Harry S Truman (1884-1972)

“Truman’s current standing as an up-by-the-bootstraps American whose fortuitous elevation to the presidency and ultimate good sense and honesty in leading the nation through perilous times are a demonstration of how circumstances and human decency can ultimately produce a successful life—and a presidency that resonates as a model of how someone can acquit himself in the highest office.” –Robert Dallek, p. 152-53.

So I had some trouble with my search for the perfect Harry Truman bio. At first I wanted to read the book that David McCullough wrote but the dang thing was 1000 pages!! One. Thousand. Pages. That’s right. Now usually, 1000 pages is a perfect book size for me but after reading 700 pages of FDR and knowing that I have another 500 of Ike later…well it made me rather wary of reading another 1000. Come on, I’m not that fast a reader and I don’t like to brag, but I’m pretty fast as it is. He he.

I went online, did some research on Amazon, and decided upon Margaret Truman’s biography about her father. I had some qualms about reading something about Truman through the eyes of his daughter but this book got such great reviews that I went ahead and ordered it through the library anyways. However, this is where I hit another snag—this book was popular! All copies were in use and there was nothing I could do about it. It wasn’t at the other library system so that didn’t help me and I was damned if I bought this book. (Even though Truman is my mom’s favorite president, I wasn’t at all sure that I would like him.) In the end, I chose to play it safe by defaulting back the American Presidents Series with Harry S Truman: American Presidents Series by Robert Dallek (Times Books: New York, 2008).

Harry Truman was born in Missouri on May 8, 1884 and by 1890, the Trumans had moved to Independence, MO where they would stay for the remainder. Harry attended local public schools and graduated high school in 1901. Instead of pursuing higher education, as he wished, his father’s bankruptcy changed his plans and he had to take jobs to help provide for the family. He worked at the Santa Fe railroad as a payroll clerk and as a bank clerk in Kansas City but his interest in politics was already beginning. In 1900, he attended the Democratic National Convention held in St. Louis.

Starting in 1906, Harry moved back home to help his father with the family farm and there he stayed until WWI hit. With the advent of war, Truman joined the National Guard in 1917 as a first lieutenant and then as a captain. He was sent to France and there distinguished himself. He left the army in May, 1919 and by June he was married to Bess Wallace.

While working in his own haberdashery business, Truman began to lean more towards a life in politics. It was good that he did so because the 1920 post-war recession put him right out of business. Truman decided to tie himself to the local political machine, run by Tom Pendergast, and so doing, he joined as many local ‘clubs’ as he could to give himself a name. “Like President Warren G Harding, who had begun his career in Ohio as a ‘joiner’ of numerous fraternal organizations, Truman became an active member of several civic, service and veterans’ associations, including the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He saw his participation in these groups as essential for business success and as a means to win support from influential leaders for his candidacy” (p. 5).

In 1922, he won his first election for the eastern district judgeship of Jackson County but lost re-election two years later. With no political offices on the horizon, Truman’s next job was selling memberships in the Kansas City Auto Club. With Truman’s first election, he had shown strict party loyalty to Tom Pendergast and the local Democratic Party. This stood him in good stead for in 1926, Truman was elected as a presiding US judge of Jackson County and he would hold this post for another 8 years. “Although he had numerous second thoughts about staying on the job and suffered hidden emotional strains over having to deal with the corruption that was a fixture of Kansas City politics, he rationalized his continuing presence as presiding judge by devoting himself to the effective deliverance of public services: good roads, well-regarded public schools, a county hospital providing up-to-date medical care, humane treatment of indigents, and proper law enforcement by the police and the courts—all provided without budgetary overruns requiring higher taxes” (p. 7).

1934 was the year of his first major election campaign when he won a seat to the US Senate for Missouri and even won reelection in 1940. His first term was characterized by mainly being silent and observing, like all good junior senators, but by his second term, he chaired the Military Affairs Subcommittee hearings and he even put together his own Truman Committee to probe corruption and waste in the military sector of the US Government. For the first time, Truman was operating on the national stage.

As the election of 1944 approached, the Democratic Party had its presidential candidate all ready—Franklin D Roosevelt. Even though this was FDR’s fourth term, the Democrats were confident in his margin of success in the coming election. The problem was the vice presidential position. Current vice president, Wallace, was unacceptable (FDR was sick and nobody wanted Wallace waltzing into the presidency) and the only one that all Democrat leaders, including the president, agreed upon was Harry Truman. “He [Truman] was a solid New Deal supporter from a border state with ties to conservatives and liberals. His reputation for honesty and patriotism were unimpeachable” (p. 15-16). He was easily nominated and was primed to assume the vice presidency after FDR won the election.

What he had not fully expected was that merely six months into his job, he would be promoted, by default, to the highest position in the land. Although FDR was not expected to live out the fourth term, it was still rather a surprise when he died on April 12, 1945 thus making Harry Truman the 33rd President of the United States. Dalleck, the author, gives us a great anecdote about a conversation between Truman and ER. “Ushered up to the president’s quarters, Truman found himself in a room with the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. She delivered the news: ‘Harry, the president is dead.’ When he found his voice, a stunned Truman asked, ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ Mrs. Roosevelt replied, ‘Is there anything we can do for you, Harry? For you are the one in trouble now’” (p. 17).

“A vice president with no national executive experience was now to replace the longest-serving and most revered president since Lincoln, in midst of a world war” (p. 18). You can see why ER regarded Truman with pity. Truman, though, took the bit by the horns and told the American public that he would follow all of FDR’s wartime policies. The problem was that FDR demanded an unconditional surrender from Japan but Truman did not want to waste more American lives on accomplishing this goal. “Nothing weighed on Truman more heavily than the losses that American troops would suffer in an invasion of Japan’s home islands” (p. 26). In July 1945, Truman attended the Potsdam Conference with Joseph Stalin and Clement Atlee, the new prime minister of Great Britain, to discuss the continuing war with Japan. Stalin agreed to enter the Pacific war in three months time if it was still ongoing.

It was around this time that Truman heard about the Manhattan Project and the bomb testing that had been undertaken. Since the project started under Roosevelt and Truman had agreed to follow his policies there was really nothing else but to use the bomb. “He would have been seen as abandoning Roosevelt’s agenda and giving in to sentimental concerns about saving the lives of Japanese civilians at a cost in American lives” (p. 27). Therefore, on August 6, the first bomb dropped on Hiroshima and three days later, on Nagasaki. By August 14, peace had been declared (V-J Day).

1946 was not a good year for Truman. After the blissful end to an atrocious war, foreign and domestic affairs spiraled out of control for the nascent American president. A slow breakdown in US-Soviet relations started with events in Korea, plus a civil war in China pitting the Communists, led by Mao, against the equally awful Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek. He had problems with demobilization, inflation, the new Iron Curtain, and labor (there were coal and steel strikes). “It was not Truman’s affinity for the center that made him so vulnerable to criticism but his tendency to compound his problems by being less than astute, at times, in anticipating public antagonism to some of his actions” (p.36).

He came down hard on the strikers (mainly due to the fact that the nation had to have coal and steel for weapons production) and even got involved in the growing red scare by creating the Temporary Committee on Employee Loyalty. On the international front, Truman had problems with Great Britain pulling out of Greece and Turkey. Thus, he issued the Truman Doctrine. “Totalitarian regimes imposed upon free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States. I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures” (p. 59). Consequently setting the US on a course that would guide its policies for the next 50 years.

In an effort to keep European countries from falling to communism, Marshall as Secretary of State implemented his famous plan. “The State Department decided against proposing outright financial grants, structuring instead a European-wide cooperative effort to use American funds to repair national economies” (p. 60). Things were looking up for Truman and he used his gains overseas to propel him into the spotlight for the election of 1948. In the pre-election polls, Republican Thomas Dewey consistently beat Truman but there was fight in Truman yet. “And of no small consequence, Truman came across to most Americans as a man who didn’t need to be president to feel good about himself. He was like most of them—plainspoken, hardworking, flawed, decent, and honest. It was a rare combination in politics, one that Dewey could not match” (p. 82). In the end, Truman won by the skin of his teeth.

Beginning in 1948 and lasting well into 1949 was the ‘Berlin Crisis,’ the Soviet Union blockading the Allies’ portion of Berlin. Instead of getting aggressive, Truman merely had supplies airlifted into the beleaguered section and rode out the crisis. “His resolve in the face of the Soviet threat boosted his public standing in the United States and encouraged European allies to believe that Washington would not abandon them to Moscow’s bullying” (p. 76). Then in April 1949, NATO was created with the corresponding Warsaw Pact signed in retaliation. The growing problems in Korea sparked the arms race between the two sides of the Cold War and it would get worse.

Poor Harry. Events were slowly getting out of control. In 1950, the Communists won the war in China and forced the Nationalists onto Taiwan. Truman was sure that Mao would invade the island but he never did the US was then in a position to do nothing at all. “But when no invasion occurred, it left Chiang as a continuing presence in the US domestic dispute over China policy and froze the United States into a position of long-term antagonism to Communist China, which the Chinese were only too happy to reciprocate” (p. 97). Truman’s lack of action here reflected quite badly on him. Not to mention, there was still a war in Korea. North Korea had started it all by invading on June 25, 1950 but General MacArthur arrived and turned the tables. The US and South Koreans push the North Koreans back to the original boundary line but Truman allowed MacArthur to then invade North Korea. It was a mess that eventually brought the Chinese into the war, along with the Russians.

Domestically things were even worse for Truman at this time. Alger Hiss, a good friend of Truman’s and a government employee, was convicted of perjury. Truman was accused of cronyism. Senator Joseph McCarthy was on his meteoric rise and his accusations were fueling the rising anticommunistic trend in the United States. And then Truman stuck his foot in it—he fired the great General MacArthur. Not only had MacArthur been in the US Army (as had his father) for ages but he was an American icon. The problem started when MacArthur had promised total victory in Korea if allowed to invade (which Truman had gone along with) but the stakes kept getting higher and there had been no clean victory. Instead, MacArthur asked for increasing numbers of bombs, men, arms, etc with no end to the war in sight. Plus he, unwisely, decided to badmouth the administration to the press. “Truman justified his removal of MacArthur on three grounds: (a) the general had defied presidential directives to submit public statements for clearance before issuing them; (b) he had publicly disputed the president’s foreign policy positions, undermining confidence in the president’s foreign policy with allies and adversaries; and (c) he had recklessly tried to turn the limited war in Korea into a full-scale conflict with the Chinese, risking a response from the Soviet Union that could have precipitated World War III” (p. 119). Despite all these really good reasons, people were just plain mad at Truman’s seemingly un-American decision to relieve MacArthur. With MacArthur out of the picture, though, peace talks at Panmunjom began in June 1951.

In 1952, Truman decided not to run for president in the coming election. He was having problems with his Attorney General and he was not doing well physically. “He was so pale, strained, and tired that they feared he was on the verge of a collapse” (p. 136). He agreed to bombings in Korea and when another steel strike threatened, Truman seized the mills. This was a mistake. “It proved to be one of the greatest blunders of his presidency. Truman was vilified in the media and in the Congress as a Hitler, a Mussolini, a president who had abused his constitutional powers and should be impeached for trying to set up a dictatorship” (p. 136).

In the end, the election of 1952 was a huge Republican victory. “It was a shattering end to the Truman presidency” (p. 144). In retirement, the Trumans returned to Independence, MO and remained staunch Democrats. In fact, Truman even helped actively campaign in the subsequent 1956 and 1960 elections. He received a presidential pension and that along with the sale of his farm and his memoirs provided a very comfortable existence for him. He spent most of his time creating a presidential library and museum which opened in 1957. During his lifetime, he was honored by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. “Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society gave life to a number of reforms Truman had tried to enact as part of his Fair Deal, vindicating Truman’s judgment on what the country needed to improve the lives of most Americans” (p. 152). He died on December 26, 1972 of pneumonia and organ failure.

#32 Franklin Delano Roosevelt Part 2

Really Cool Stuff about Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1. It took several months for Sarah and James to name their first-born son. “For the next two months the baby went unnamed as James and Sara delicately struggled for control. Roosevelt tradition dictated the boy be named Isaac…Sara, who was expected to defer to her husband’s wishes, declined to do so in naming her son. She detested the name Isaac. Before the child was born she had decided if it was a boy, he would be named for her father: Warren Delano Roosevelt…But there was a problem. A brother of Sara’s had recently lost a young son who had been named Warren Delano IV. Out of sympathy, Sara agreed it would be untimely to name her baby Warren as well…As an alternative, Sara proposed to name the baby for her favorite uncle, Franklin Delano” (p. 17).
2. While traveling in Germany, the Roosevelts actually got to hang out with Kaiser Wilhelm II (that’s the guy who started WWI) on board his sailboat. “Sara [FDR’s mom] found the emperor impressive and energetic but not so kind as she remember his grandfather, William I, whom she had seen once in Paris”(p. 31).
3. FDR was the first politician to use an automobile to campaign. “But the experiment proved a whopping success. Wheezing along at the dazzling speed of twenty miles an hour, Roosevelt crisscrossed the district as no candidate had done before” (p. 65). He would also be the first to use an airplane politically as well. “Twenty-two years later, FDR would capture the nation’s attention by flying from Albany to Chicago to accept the Democratic nomination for president—the first presidential candidate to use an airplane during a campaign” (p. 65).
4. As a state senator, the Roosevelts moved to Albany. Where did they live? Why in Martin Van Buren’s old house of course! “That mansion had been built by Martin Van Buren when he was governor—the first New York governor to reach the White House—and reflected Little Van’s penchant for lavish living” (p. 70).
5. Not only did FDR provide Warm Springs as an aftercare facility for polio victims but his desire to learn more about polio led him to start the National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis and eventually the March of Dimes.
6. During the Great Depression, FDR was the first governor of any state to espouse the idea of unemployment insurance. “First at an ad hoc meeting of New England governors that he convened, then at the National Governors Association Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, FDR came flat out for a contributory scheme in which employees, employers, and the government would share the risks of future unemployment” (p. 242).
7. FDR had the first female cabinet member, Frances Perkins of the Department of Labor. “From the beginning FDR wanted to appoint a woman and Frances Perkins was a shoo-in” (p. 294).
8. Unbelievably, FDR was the first president to visit Canada. “He was the first American president to visit Canada while in office, and the outpouring of affection from islanders, many of whom had known the Roosevelts for two and three generations, was overwhelming” (p. 340).
9. FDR gave the first evening State of the Union address. “Roosevelt spoke to Congress in a special evening session—the first president to do so—and to the delight of wildly cheering Democrats pulled every partisan plug” (p. 361).
10. The election of 1936 was HUGE for FDR and the Democrats. “When the ballots were tabulated, Roosevelt had won an unprecedented 60.79 percent of the popular vote. He beat Landon 27,747,636 to 16, 679, 543—a margin 4 million votes larger than the Democratic landslide in 1932” (p. 373-4).
11. He was the first president to have the 20th amendment apply to him. “Roosevelt was inaugurated on January 20, 1937—the first president to take office under the Twentieth Amendment” (p. 376).
12. FDR was the first to make a presidential library. “The fieldstone library at Hyde Park he had designed to house his papers and memorabilia—the nation’s first presidential library—was nearly completion, as was his hilltop dreamhouse above Val-Kill” (p. 441).
13. FDR was also the first president to ever fly in office. “Roosevelt’s flight to Casablanca marked the first time an American president had flown while in office—and FDR had mixed feelings” (p. 569).


I really liked this rendition of FDR’s life. Not that I’ve read a plethora of FDR-related literature or anything, but in the spirit of things I watched several movies on him, including Annie, Warm Springs (with Kenneth Branaugh), and Sunrise at Campobello (with Greer Garson as ER—isn’t that hilarious!?!). This book was a highly enjoyable read and I really felt FDR come alive for me.

Even though Smith fervently upholds FDR and his accomplishments, the author also straight out gives us his faults. FDR made his fair share of mistakes, which Smith eagerly points out to us. “FDR avoided further friction simply by refusing to recognize that a problem existed. That was a trait he would hone to an art form in public life” (p. 55). His treatment of France and Charles de Gaulle during WWII created friction which still exists today and he also undermined the influence that China would have on world affairs. There were also the numerous domestic mistakes he made in office. “Roosevelt’s frustration with the Seventy-fifth Congress led him to his third serious mistake. The Court-packing fiasco was the first; the premature cutback in federal spending the second; and his 1938 attempt to purge the Democratic party of dissident members of Congress was the third” (p. 409). However, let’s not forget life before FDR. “Social Security, unemployment compensation, stock market regulation, the federal guarantee of bank deposits, wages and hours legislation, labor’s right to bargain collectively, agricultural price supports, rural electrification—all of which we take for granted—did not exist before FDR” (p. xiv).

I found that the author, Smith, was quite a funny guy himself and this penchant for humor came off clearly in his writing style. “Unfortunately for the president, Cummings and Reed were not the sharpest knives in the legal drawer” (p. 380). FDR also had a tendency to exaggerate (this doesn’t sound like any politician I know….har har). “On August 18, in Deer Lodge, Montana, he became carried away by his own rhetoric and claimed to have written the Hawaiian constitution, much as Al Gore once claimed to have invented the Internet” (p. 182). Here’s another funny story: one of FDR’s assistants was a man named Louis Howe and he was on an intimate basis with the entire Roosevelt family. At one point, Howe wrote a letter to a congressman explaining why FDR couldn’t give his friend a job in the Navy Department. “Now about your young friend…who appears to be one of nature’s noblemen and to have nothing against him except that he has broken most of the Ten Commandments. I am willing to admit that if we bar from the Navy every gent who has become mixed up with a beautiful female we would have to put most of our ships out to commission and I am afraid we might lose an admiral or two, but in this case the young man was unfortunately caught with the goods. You have run against the secretary’s [Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels] strongest antipathies…Do you want one of those ‘we are doing everything on earth to get this done because of the affection for the Congressman’ letters or not? Will send you a masterpiece that will convince your friends that Mr. Roosevelt is sitting on Mr. Daniels’ doorstep every night waiting for a chance to make one more please when he comes home to supper, if that will ease the strain” (p. 114).

One thing I always thought was interesting about FDR was the controversy over whether or not he knew about Pearl Harbor in advance. I read a book in college (I can’t remember the name) that expounded at some length on the idea that FDR knew all about the attack on Pearl Harbor but allowed it to occur so that he could get the United States into WWII. Smith immediately denies it all. Yes, it’s true that right before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States had broken Japan’s code and knew something about what was to happen. However, Smith heatedly states, that although it was no surprise to anyone that FDR wanted to get in the war and had already started moving the US toward a war footing in 1941, it does not mean that he was complicit in any prior attack on the US. “Roosevelt did not pay as much attention as he should have to the deteriorating situation in the Pacific in 1941; he allowed hawkish subordinates too much leeway, and he muffed a possible summit meeting with the Japanese prime minister. The administration recognized that Japan might attack in December 1941, but it did not expect the assault to come at Pearl Harbor, which the military believe to be impregnable” (p. xiv). It will be up to each of you to come to your own conclusion. Me personally? I agree with Smith and clear FDR of everything except shortsideness in regards to Japanese-American relations.

#32 Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945)

“Three presidents dominate American history: George Washington, who founded the country; Abraham Lincoln, who preserved it; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who rescued it from economic collapse and then led it to victory in the greatest war of all time” (Jean Edward Smith, p. xi).

Fortunately (or unfortunately if you don’t like musical theater), the picture of FDR that my mind conjures is the jolly, yet careworn polio-victim portrayed in Annie. When he busts out with the second chorus of ‘The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow,’ something about it makes me smile and by the time FDR chides Daddy Warbucks to lighten up, I’m singing along too. I can’t help it. Besides, Annie’s been stuck in my head since Hoover.

I decided that since FDR was a Big Deal (after all, he was elected 4 times!) I would have to get a bigger than normal bio on him. But after trolling through the mountains of informational books on this man, I realized that it would be a very hard task narrowing it down to just one book. In the end, I went for a relatively large (an 845-pager) and relatively new (2007) book. Not to mention, the author, Jean Edward Smith, had written tons of scholarly tomes devoted to WWII and the people of that time. I felt safe and comfortable to have Mr. Roosevelt in his hands. So I happily embarked on FDR by Jean Edward Smith (New York: Random House, 2007).

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born to Sarah Delano and James Roosevelt on January 30, 1882 in New York. Although he and Teddy were from separate sides of the family and both would take wildly divergent paths to the White House, they both grew up in affluence. “FDR grew up in a privileged, carefree environment of comfort and security” (p. 19). He spent much of his childhood traveling and being instructed by tutors. “Learning at home deprived FDR of the rough-and-tumble of public schools but it saved him from inept or mediocre teaching” (p. 20). Each summer the family vacationed at Campobello (off the coast of Maine) and little Franklin spent time collecting stamps and engaging in ornithology.

In 1896, FDR was educated for several years in Germany at the school, Bad Nauheim. This form of public education was to get him ready for entrance to Groton, a glorified, prestigious high school for boys in New England. He enjoyed himself hugely in the academic environment of Groton, excelling in the classic education provided and participating in the various sports on campus. “In his final year Roosevelt won a school letter as equipment manager of the baseball team. He also won the Latin and Punctuality Prizes and was a dormitory prefect and a member of the school choir and the debating society” (p. 28). By 1900, he was enrolled at Harvard where he studied economics, government, and history. He was also president of the famous Harvard newspaper, the Harvard Crimson. FDR did well at Harvard; the only blight during this time was the death of his much-loved father.

Franklin met Eleanor in 1902. Even though they were cousins, so to speak, they had never met before. On March 17, 1905, they were married. (Since Eleanor’s father had died, Teddy agreed to give his niece away.) FDR was now a very busy man. Not only was he a married man but the year before, in 1904, he was accepted to Columbia Law School, where he struggled. He was not very fond of the law but in 1907 he passed the bar and simultaneously dropped out of Columbia.

He tried practicing law briefly but he was never very happy with it and so his interest switched to politics. Cousin Teddy was in the White House and had so taken some of the stigma away blue-bloods from engaging in politics. In 1910, FDR ran for the state senate in which he traversed the state using a car. He was elected and went headfirst into party politics. While in the state senate, he voted on the 17th amendment and dealt with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire debacle.

With the 1912 presidential election on its way, FDR campaigned heavily for Wilson. Thus when Wilson won the election, he promoted FDR to the position of Assistant Secretary of the Navy (the very same position that Teddy had occupied!) “FDR cut a splendid figure as assistant secretary: tall, athletic, well spoken, enthusiastic” (p. 104). It was during his tenure as assistant secretary that FDR learned some very valuable political lessons, including how to handle Congress. “FDR learned that informal favors granted graciously often counted for more on Capitol Hill than cogent arguments and party loyalty” (p. 114). FDR even tried to run for the Senate, during this time, but lost.

Then WWI hit and FDR couldn’t go anywhere; Wilson needed him at his post. FDR devised a plan for a Council of National Defense and aided the country by promoting a Naval Reserve. “His most notable wartime achievement was the laying of a North Sea antisubmarine mine barrage—a chain of underwater high-explosive charges stretching 240 miles from the Orkney Islands to the coast of Norway” (p. 143). It was during the war that Franklin began a long-running affair with the wife of a friend, Lucy Mercer. This affair would last almost to Franklin’s time as President of the United States.

After the war, things weren’t going well on the domestic front, especially in New York. There were race riots, bombings and the Palmer Raids, which became a Communist witch hunt. FDR was rather uncertain as to where his political future was headed, since Wilson had suffered a stroke and it was uncertain whether he would live or not. It was then that the Democratic National Convention called upon FDR to run on the 1920 Democratic ticket as the vice presidential candidate, along with James Cox as president. Although FDR felt it was a hopeless cause (the Republicans had all the momentum), he still campaigned vigorously. “In the next three months he would crisscross the country twice, delivering nearly one thousand speeches and countless impromptu addresses—the most extensive campaign ever conducted by a candidate for national office” (p. 181). Even with a loss to Warren Harding, FDR’s political stock was higher than ever.

Unfortunately, at this point, FDR had no job in sight. Thankfully he was able to work on Wall Street for a while. “And the opportunity came when Van Lear Black, a wealthy Democratic contributor who owned the Baltimore Sun, asked FDR to become vice president of his Fidelity & Deposit Company of Maryland, the fourth largest surety bonding company in the United States. Roosevelt’s responsibilities would be to oversee the firm’s operations in New York and New England and to serve as rainmaker, bringing in new clients through his connections in government, labor, and industry” (p. 184). Basically they purchased his name. FDR also spent his time doing speaking engagements, heading foundations, and spearheading philanthropic activities. It was as chairman of the Boy Scouts of America that FDR was invited to the annual Boy Scout Jamboree on Thursday, July 28, 1921.

It was at the Boys Scouts Jamboree that FDR contracted polio. FDR became seriously ill in August at Campobello where he could not move anything below his neck. Eventually movement returned to his hands and torso but he would have trouble with his legs for the rest of his life. Due to this enforced confinement, Eleanor took over the political duties by giving speeches and attending events on behalf of her husband. FDR’s health slowly returned—through prolonged sailing and the use of special waters at Warm Springs, GA (he purchased Warm Springs in 1926 to specifically aid polio victims)—and by 1924, he was able to walk up to a podium to give the nominating speech for Al Smith for president.

1928 was the year that saw FDR back in the political spotlight. He was nominated for governor of the state of New York and won! FDR faced many problems as governor, such as electric power controversies and agriculture reform, but he enjoyed a good fight and powered through. He was reelected through a major campaign in 1930 and he took that as a sign that his New York constituents agreed with his policies, especially his newest idea of ‘social duty.’ “But the idea that government had the definite responsibility—a ‘social duty’—to use the resources of the state to prevent distress and to promote the general welfare was first suggested at that time” (p. 251).

To promote his case for president in 1932, FDR collected a group of professors from various colleges to become his ‘brain trust’ and tackled the Republican Party for the mess they had made of the Great Depression. “FDR’s administrative style was a legendary mixture of straightforward delegation, flowchart responsibility, Machiavellian cunning, and crafty deception” (p. xii). While he was campaigning in Miami, there was an assassination attempt at his life; the bullet barely missed him and hit Mayor Cermak instead. FDR would go on to win the presidential election in a huge sweep.

Term One: The New Deal (1932-36)
During his first term and especially during his first one hundred days, Roosevelt and a very amenable Congress pushed through tons of New Deal legislation. First there was a major banking bill that helped stabilize banks after the Great Depression. Next FDR turned to economize the national budget, while he then had Prohibition repealed and amended an agriculture bill for those in need. There was a newly instituted Public Works Associatio, while FERA aided those who were unemployed and the TVA and the CCC put people to work. FDR passed bills to regulate railroads and the securities markets. And once and for all, he took the US off the gold standard. “In retrospect it seems incredible, but in less than a month, and aside from rescuing the banking system, FDR had taken on and defeated three of the most powerful special interests in the nation: veterans (with the economy bill), temperance (with the beer bill), and organized labor (with the CCC)” (p. 321).

But FDR was not done yet. Next came the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), the FDIC bill, the FCA, a Railroad Coordination Act, the Glass-Stegall Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act. He also recognized Russia (which the US had failed to do since 1917) and passed the Social Security Act of 1935. What he failed to do was to tackle any sort of civil rights issues. “During the twelve years FDR was president not one piece of civil rights legislation became law” (p. 401.)

Term Two: Political Errors (1936-1940)
On such a tide of legislative initiative and sheer gumption, FDR was the clear favorite for the 1936 campaign against Republican, Alfred Landon. In fact, he seemed unstoppable as the FDR and the Democrats won yet again in a landslide victory.

Unfortunately, FDR made a major mistake here. He assumed that the economy was doing so much better that in 1937 he drastically cut government spending. The fragile US economy plummeted again in what would be called the Roosevelt Recession. Another mistake that he made was his court-packing scheme which would severly backfire on him. The final bill, called the Bill to Reorganize the Judicial Branch of Government, basically stated that FDR could add additional federal judges to the payroll for every current judge over 70 years of age, Supreme Court included. Six of the nine judges were currently over 70 and in a masterly display of legal defense, Charles Evans Hughes, the chief justice, demolished the bill with one lengthy statement. Domestically FDR’s political ground was shaky.

In the foreign policy arena, FDR had done very little so far. “Until 1939 Roosevelt’s involvement in foreign affairs had been sporadic” (p. 416). But this attitude seemed to dovetail with the isolationist tendencies of the general public. With war erupting around the globe, FDR did not think that Americans would countenance the US being included. Thus he tried to steer a middle course between the belligerents. “Roosevelt moved to meet the crisis on two fronts: revision of the Neutrality Act to permit the sale of war materiel to Britain and France in case of war and a long overdue change of command in the Army” (p. 432). FDR replaced General Craig with General Marshall as chief of staff.

Term Three: Global Outlook (1940-1944)
As the campaign for the election of 1940 got swinging, FDR threw his hat in the ring with a Selective Service bill. With a lower margin of victory than before, FDR was reelected over Wendell Wilkie, the Republican representative.

Unfortunately, Great Britain was slowly going broke paying hard cash for war materiel that was sold from the US. Therefore, FDR came up with a new plan: the Lend-Lease idea. Essentially the plan was that Great Britain should be lent the war materiel, instead of letting it sit around gathering dust, and then Britain would repay them in another form of materials. Here’s how FDR described the deal: “Suppose my neighbor’s home catches fire, and I have a length of garden hose four or five hundred feet away. If he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant, I may help him to put out his fire. Now what do I do? I don’t say to him, ‘Neighbor, my garden hose cost me fifteen dollars; you have to pay me fifteen dollars for it.’ No! I don’t want fifteen dollars. I want my garden hose back after the fire is over…What I’m trying to do is eliminate the dollar sign” (p. 485).

The United States joined the fray, however, on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. After that, the US fought the Battle of Midway, breaking the arm of the Japanese in the Pacific, and they also were engaged in North Africa. During this time, FDR and Winston Churchill held at least four meetings in various places to decide on war strategy. In November 1943, they even met with Joseph Stalin in Teheran to look ahead to the post-war era and later on, FDR and Churchill met with de Gaulle in Quebec in order to decide on France’s fate as well.

Term Four: Death (1944-45)
FDR’s health was seriously declining at this point. He had heart issues but since he would never ask his doctors what the prognosis was, the press was never able to find out how bad his health had gotten. In pictures of this time, you can see that he looks terrible but he went ahead anyway and decided to run for another term. In a last-minute decision, the Republican National Convention decided to scotch Henry Wallace as the incumbent vice president and replaced him with Senator Harry Truman. The decision rested on the fact that many people felt that FDR would not live out another term and so they did not want the radical Wallace inadvertently becoming president. The fourth term was a seemingly forgone conclusion; FDR and Truman beat Thomas Dewey handily.

FDR’s fourth term was mainly characterized by the Yalta Conference attended by Stalin and Churchill in February, 1945. This conference is where FDR got Stalin’s agreement to enter the war against Japan after Germany was defeated. Of course, FDR then had to turn a blind eye to Poland’s sovereignty at the hands of Russia. After returning to the US, FDR, looking ahead to war’s end, asked for a GI Bill of Rights; the US needed some way to provide for its veterans. FDR died on April 11, 1945 at Warm Springs, GA of sever hypertension and heart failure.

#31: Herbert Hoover Part 2

Really Cool Stuff about Herbert Hoover
1. Hoover was a member of the very first class at Stanford. “In late August 1891, Bert boarded a southbound train, and some weeks later Stanford welcomed him into its pioneer class—with the stipulation that he overcome his deficiency in English” (p. 6).
2. At Stanford, he was elected to the student government where he helped to make policy. “He also drafted a student constitution that was still in effect a half century later” (p. 8).
3. Hoover wrote a book, Principles of Mining, which would be used as a manual in mining schools. “Indifferent to its literary shortcomings, Hoover concentrated on conveying the substance of what he had learned about how to succeed in the industry. For years afterward, mine schools embraced Principles as a basic text” (p. 19).
4. Herbert and Lou teamed up to translate a Latin book into English. “Intellectual curiosity and a desire to enhance the prestige of the engineering profession led Hoover to collaborate with his wife in preparing an English edition of De Re Metallica, a 1556 treatise on mining and metallurgy by a German who adopted the pen name of Agricola” (p. 20).
5. In 1912, Hoover was named a trustee of Stanford. “Attachment to Stanford allowed Hoover to ease into community service when toward the end of 1912 he accepted election as a trustee of the university, a post he would hold for nearly half a century” (p. 22).
6. I thought this was an interesting fact—Hoover actually booked passage on the Lusitania but had to change his travel plans. “His task completed, Hoover packed his bags to sail home on the RMS Lusitania in mid-October, only to receive an urgent summons from the U.S. embassy” (p. 25). He couldn’t have known that this ship would sink in the Atlantic—the worst sea disaster since the Titanic.
7. As the chairman of the Commission for Relief in Belgium during the war, Hoover had his own special German passport. “Hoover secured from the Reich a passport reading ‘This man is not to be stopped anywhere under any circumstances,’ and when General von Bissing, the imperious governor-general of Belgium, became confrontational, Hoover hastened to Berlin and had him overruled” (p. 26-27).
8. As the food administrator during America’s foray into World War I, Hoover had a word coined for him in Webster’s Dictionary. “So pervasive were the food administrator’s messages that Webster’s gained a new entry: Hooverize, meaning to economize in the national interest. It became a household word” (p.35).
9. When Hoover was Secretary of Commerce, he worked hard to contribute to hydroelectric power in the United States. “Under his leadership, the agency worked out water sharing among seven quarrelsome states that made possible an ambitious project in Boulder Canyon that later bore the name Hoover Dam” (p. 59). During FDR’s administration, the name of Hoover Dam was changed to Boulder Dam but the name would not stick and be switched back years later.
10. Hoover was the first president to be born west of the Mississippi River. “The first person west of the Mississippi to be elected president, Hoover had won a resounding victory” (p. 76).
11. He was also the first president to mention crime in his inaugural address. “In May Hoover—the first president to refer to crime in an inaugural address—established a National Commission on Law Observances and Enforcement under former US attorney general George Wickersham” (p. 85). It was also due to Hoover’s influence that Scarface and Capone were captured. “Hoover also ordered the Department of Justice to move in on Capone, a project that led to the arrest and conviction of Scarface for tax evasion” (p. 85).
12. Ironically, Hoover decided to use the word ‘depression’ rather than ‘panic’ to describe the economic situation in 1929. “To calm nerves, he eschewed the familiar usage ‘panic’ and instead designated the downturn a ‘depression,’ an unfortunate choice that would be forever associated with him” (p. 104.)
13. The election of 1932 turned out to be a disaster for Hoover and the Republicans. “No president had ever suffered so great a turnaround from his first campaign to his second…Not for eighty years had there been such an avalanche of Democratic ballots. Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first Democrat to enter the White House with a popular majority since Franklin Pierce in 1853. Save for 1912, when the party divided, 1932 marked the worst defeat in the history of the GOP” (p. 142).
14. Herbert Hoover was the last president to deal with the long lame duck tenure of November through March. “Though the ratification in February 1933 of the Twentieth Amendment foreshortened the interregnum to January 20, it did not take effect until 1937—leaving Hoover America’s last lame-duck president of the old dispensation” (p. 142-43).
15. On one of his trips to Europe before World War II, Hoover had lunch with Adolf Hitler and was feted by several other Nazis. “While in Berlin on that trip [1938], Hoover received an invitation from an astounding source: Adolf Hitler. He resolved to decline, but the US ambassador urged him to meet the fuhrer…Yet Hoover permitted himself to be entertained sumptuously by Hermann Goering at his hunting lodge, and he showed no distress about the devouring of Austria. He even though that the Nazis could improve upon the government of Czechoslovakia” (p. 153).


I thought that the author, William Leuchtenburg, did a great job with Hoover because I found myself quite heartily disliking him. And something tells me that I’m not the only one either. “Is it conceivable that Hoover, despite these many tribulations, would have redeemed himself had he not been burdened by the albatross of the Great Depression? Unlikely” (p. 101). Ha! Pithy. Not to mention, Hoover was a not a very friendly or likeable guy.

Leuchtenburg gave a good account of Hoover, illustrating all his faults and virtues alike. For instance, Hoover was a major proponent of what he called ‘good deeds by stealth.’ “Though often greedy as an engineer and administrator to claim credit not due him, he went out of his way to make sure that his name was not publicly associated with charitable deeds—perhaps because of an ingrained Quaker sense that promoting oneself was unworthy” (p. 29). The Hoovers helped many people in this secretive manner and spent much of their money in this process. Also after the stock market crash in 1929, Hoover really did try to help but it was not easy because all presidential precedents up to that time had pointed towards nonintervention. “A number of Hoover’s predecessors had confronted financial crises, but none had left him a usable legacy. In previous depressions—from 1837 to 1894—Martin Van Buren, James Buchanan, and Ulysses S. Grant had done nothing, and Grover Cleveland had taken a hard line against aid to the unfortunate” (p. 103). The point was though that he did initially try to stem the negative economic downward trend. “Over nine days, starting in mid-November, the president summoned to the White House leaders of industry, finance, construction, public utilities, agriculture, labor, and the Federal Reserves system” (p. 104).

It was pretty clear as well that old Leuchtenburg had a subtle sense of humor. Several times I actually LOL’d over a sly comment of his. Here’s a comment on one of Hoover’s books. “As in his orations, however, most of American Individualism offered nothing that could not be heard at a weekly Kiwanis luncheon” (p. 66). Classic! Leuchtenburg again attacks Hoover’s pamphlet, American Individualism. “It is hard to fathom why this jejune screed, little more than a pamphlet, has been taken seriously as a meaningful contribution to social theory” (p. 67). Leuchtenberg also includes a rather hilarious parody on the 23 Psalm during the Great Depression. “Hoover is our shepherd/We are in want/He maketh us to lie/Down on the park benches/He leadeth us beside the still factories/He disturbeth our soul” (p. 140). Another funny episode occurred during the election of 1932 when Hoover received a telegram that said “Vote for Roosevelt and make it unanimous” (p. 141).

However, there is no real way to make Hoover into the good guy. “Though he had a brilliant career, he also revealed a troublesome tendency toward self-delusion. When something went wrong, he would either blame others or claim that the failure demonstrated his foresight. Self-righteous, he bridled at even mild criticism” (p. 18). Leuchtenberg also addresses the idea that Hoover is considered, by the American public, one of the worst presidents ever. “The bankruptcy of policy in Asia provides an important explanation for why a 2007 poll of more than one thousand international relations faculty across the United States and Canada ranked Hoover as the worst president of the twentieth century on foreign affairs. By failing to draw the line in Manchuria, historians have said, he gave aggressors in Berlin, Rome, and Tokyo a green light. He had floated into office on a sea of tranquility and departed with Adolf Hitler in power, the Reichstag in ashes, and the Japanese careening unhindered down the road that would dead-end at Pearl Harbor. Hoover has even been accused of paving the way to World War II” (p. 125).

After reading about both Coolidge and Hoover I believe that I have the lock on who is to blame for what in regards to the Great Depression. It was due to Coolidge’s laissez-faire attitude towards business that financial events spiraled completely out of control, culminating in the stock market crash. However it was due to Hoover’s myopic view of the nature of the depression which prolonged the madness longer than it needed to be. He refused to face reality and because he did not like to take the blame for things, he increasingly felt that the depression was someone else’s problem. This was detrimental to the nation at a time when people were looking to Hoover, as the president, for guidance.

#31 Herbert Hoover (1874-1964)

When I think of Hoover, I immediately think of Annie, the musical. In the musical, not the movie, there is a song called “We Want to Thank You, Herbert Hoover,” and it goes something like this:
Today we're living in a shanty
Today we're scrounging for a meal
Today I'm stealing coal for fires
Who knew I could steal?
I used to winter in the tropics
I spent my summers at the shore
I used to throw away the paper--
We'd like to thank you: Herber Hoover
For really showing us the way
We'd like to thank you: Herbert Hoover
You made us what we are today
Prosperity was 'round the corner
The cozy cottage built for two
In this blue heaven
That you gave us Yes!
We're turning blue!
They offered us Al Smith and Hoover
We paid attention and we chose
Not only did we pay attention
We paid through the nose.
In ev'ry pot he said "a chicken"
But Herbert Hoover he forgot
Not only don't we have the chicken
We ain't got the pot!
Hey Herbie
You left behind a grateful nation
So, Herb, our hats are off to you
We're up to here with admiration
Come down and have a little stew
Come down and share some Christmas dinner
Be sure to bring the missus too
We got no turkey for our stuffing
We'd like to thank you, Herbert Hoover
For really showing us the way
You dirty rat, you Bureaucrat, you
Made us what we are today
Come and get it, Herb!

So yes, I just included an entire song in my PRP. However, it’s not everyday that there’s an available song about a president so I’m excited. Also after reading the Coolidge bio, I was more interested than ever about getting to the bottom of the Great Depression debacle. Whose fault was it anyways? So I went to a rather reliable source: Herbert Hoover: The American Presidents Series by William Leuchtenburg (New York: Times Books, 2009). I was impressed because this author, Leuchtenburg, wrote a crapload of books on the Great Depression and the New Deal eras, giving him a fine insight, I felt, into Herbert Hoover.

Herbert Clark Hoover was born on August 10, 1874 in West Branch, Iowa to a family of
Quakers. “To a degree, the Society of Friends left lasting imprints on Hoover’s character and temperament—his self-reliance, his disdain for show, and his capacity for toil—and on his view of the world: his dutiful commitment to good works, his trust in a community of neighbors to sustain the needy, his pursuit of peace, and his conception of ‘ordered freedom’” (p. 3). Unfortunately, young Bert did not have a great childhood. When Bert was six years old, his father died which lead to him being shunted from uncle to uncle to live. Shortly after this, his mother also died leaving him and his two other siblings as orphans. They were split up between the family and Bert was sent to Oregon to live with another uncle.

His uncle, another Quaker, was quite a cold individual so Bert grew up striving to make his own way. “Bert engaged in hard labor—felling trees, splitting logs, clearing stumps—six days a week, with all of each Sabbath given over to religious observance” (p. 4). For schooling, he attended Friends Pacific Academy but in 1888, dropped out to become an office boy and hustler. “Hardworking and a quick study, he picked up bookkeeping and typing during the day and attended business college in the evening” (p. 5).

Although Bert was not a great scholar, he was eventually accepted (barely) to the new Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. He began as a business major but eventually changed to geology instead. During his time at Stanford, he was known for being unfriendly and terse but he did have a core group of friends that would stick together for years. “By the end of his four years, Hoover had collected a number of life-long buddies who would one day count themselves loyal followers of the Stanford alum they were designate ‘the Chief’” (p. 8). It was at college that Hoover met and fell in love withLou Henry, a female geology major, although he would be too poor to marry her for many years.

In 1895, he graduated. He was dirt poor so he did whatever jobs he could find, including work in a gold mine. One year later he was confronted with an interesting opportunity—to work for a British firm and move to Australia as a mining scout. He accepted and left for Australia to manage the mines of the Sons of Gwalia (gold.) “Over the next eighteen months, he logged more than five thousand miles in the bush, probing strata for veins of gold” (p. 10). Despite his unpopularity with his coworkers, he did a great job and was promoted to junior partner in the firm of Bewick, Moreing.

By 1989, Hoover was quite wealthy and he took the opportunity to finally marry Lou Henry. It was after this event that Hoover was promoted to supervise the new engineering operations in China. The Hoovers arrived in China in 1900 just in time to be held under siege by the rebelling ‘Boxers’. The combined European forces won and Hoover was able to begin his work locating workable mines. His greatest discovery was the Kaiping mines. “By skillful administration and an infusion of capital, he turned the immense Kaiping coal deposits into a flourishing enterprise. He was duly rewarded” (p. 15). In fact, he was made full partner in the British firm. Due to this promotion, he was transferred to London where he and his family (including his two sons) lived while he traveled around the globe on business.

In 1908, he sold out his shares for a variety of reasons, such as the fact that he was being sued, he wanted a bigger fortune, and he was dealing with health issues. The Hoover family moved back to the northern California area where he began his own business of ‘consulting,’ i.e. he was hired by ailing mines and then help revive them. He also got involved in investing. “He owned shares in the Brazilian Iron Syndicate, Russo-Asiatic Consolidated, and the Inter-Argentine Syndicate, and he reorganized oil explorations in Peru and Trinidad. His most unpromising venture—in the forbidding terrain of Burma—would eventually become the main source of his income” (p. 17-18).

Hoover was in London in 1914 when World War I began which left him admirably placed to aid thousands of Americans caught in Europe at the start of hostilities. He immediately created the “Committee of American Residents in London for Assistance of American Travellers”(p. 24) and was promoted, unofficially, to chair the Commission for Relief in Belgium. “An organization with no legal standing and no stable source of funds, the Commission for Relief in Belgium crossed national frontiers in the midst of the world’s first global war, plunged into markets on two continents, and spent unheard-of sums” (p. 26). Hoover won world renown through his efforts on behalf of the starving Belgians. In fact, “’By the end of 1916,’ George Nash has written, Hoover ‘stood preeminent in the greatest humanitarian undertaking the world has ever seen’” (p. 30).

By 1917, his reputation had grown so large that Wilson brought him back to the United States to head the Food Administration department as America entered the war. He used PR to convince the public to conserve food while also lobbying in Washington for Congress to pass the Lever Act. When the war ended, he was placed in control of the American Relief Association in Europe. “He controlled traffic on the Danube, Rhine, Vistula, and Elbe; coordinated railways in eighteen countries; rebuilt bridges and highways; reordered currencies; combated typhus; and reopened mines” (p. 42).

Due to Hoover’s international popularity, it just made sense for Harding to include Hoover on his cabinet as Secretary of Commerce. As secretary, Hoover created three new departments: aeronautics, radio, and housing. He also wrote the pamphlet American Individualism which defined the new American form of individuality.

After Harding’s death, Coolidge kept Hoover on in the Department of Commerce. This was a very good move because Hoover was available to assist after the worst natural disaster (up to that time) hit: the 1927 Mississippi River floods. “He sparked a fundraising drive that brought in $17 million; gathered an armada of six hundred vessels; and put together 150 tent cities as havens for multitudes of evacuees” (p. 68).

Though not all Republicans liked Hoover, his popularity was such that he won the Republican presidential nomination in 1928 to run against the Democrat, Al Smith. In his acceptance speech, Hoover rashly promised to banish poverty from the United States of America. Economic prosperity was still booming and this helped Hoover become the 31st President of the United States with little problem.

During the initial days of his administration, he focused on crime, on penal reform, on the Veterans Administration, and on water power and conservation. He had passed the Agricultural Marketing Act through Congress, the Norris-La Guardia Act and the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, the highest tariff the United States had passed to date. The stock market was booming and the lax governmental controls on business were virtually nonexistent.

And then the bottom fell out. On Thursday, October 24, 1929, stock prices began to waver and by “Black Tuesday” stocks had plunged into a freefall. “October 29, ‘Black Tuesday,’ was far worse: $30 billion in securities self-destructed. The next morning, the New York Times reported: ‘Stock prices virtually collapsed yesterday, swept downward with gigantic losses in the most disastrous trading day in the stock market’s history” (p. 103). Faced with this enormous crisis, Hoover initially tried to help the situation but events soon spiraled out of control due to a combination of events: a serious drought, thousands of banks failing, and unemployment rising.

Hoover, however, refused to face reality. “When in June a delegation that included bankers as well as bishops arrived at the White House to alert him to the accelerating decline, Hoover, visibly annoyed, told them that the economy was on the upswing and the ranks of the unemployed were dwindling. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over.’” (p. 107). Instead the economy worsened leaving millions of people homeless and living in shanty towns called Hoovervilles (the song at the beginning of the blog was set in a Hooverville) or empty freight cars named Hoover Pullmans.

The situations for famers had becoming increasingly dire. Crop prices had fallen to an all-time low while the drought produced horrible dust storms that swept across the Great Plains and the Midwest. Hoover did little to help. “Before Hoover’s term was over, one-fourth of American farmers lost their holdings—their fields, their stock, their barns, their homes—some of which had been in one family for generations” (p. 115).

The problems that the United States faced were soon affecting the rest of the world. Hoover had to deal with foreign issues that were slowly worsening as depression raged and world order broke down. Hoover had to deal with anti-American issues in South America and Asia and Hoover would be blamed for not confronting the Japanese and Chinese before the trouble began.

By 1932 found Hoover scrambling to try and rectify things as the next election loomed. The Revenue Act passed as did the Emergency Relief and Construction Act. It didn’t matter though. Hoover had become anathema to the American public and they resoundingly elected Franklin Roosevelt instead.Hoover was not happy about the election results. He hated FDR and thought that most Americans had been persuaded away from him by duplicitous means.

After the Hoovers retired to a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria, he spent most of his time writing books, memoirs, and articles in an effort to uphold his policies. Hoover also spent a lot of time traveling throughout Europe where he continued to be haled as the hero of World War I. Years passed and he continued to try to get back into politics, berating FDR for his New Deal practices and running roughshod over fellow Republicans.

His world changed in 1944 when Lou died but he himself was still alive and kicking. Only John Quincy Adams would live longer as a former president. Truman, as president, decided to use Hoover’s legendary managerial skills by placing him as a food ambassador around the world after the war ended. Hoover also helped begin UNICEF and was placed on the Hoover Commission. He published his final book, The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson, in 1958 and died on October 20, 1964 of an upper intestinal tract hemorrhage.