In 1940, Nazi Germany overran France. Britain looked to be the next target. President Franklin Roosevelt knew he had to prepare America for war. But how? Arthur Herman, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and author of Freedom's Forge, tells the amazing story.
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Script:
In May 1940 the Nazi Blitzkrieg was overrunning France. Great Britain would be next.
British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill sent a telegram to the American President, Franklin Roosevelt.
“I trust you realize,” Churchill wrote, “the voice and the force of the United States may count for nothing if they are withheld too long.”
Roosevelt was a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy and a student of naval strategy. If Hitler were to take control of Britain, he would take control of the Atlantic. This, Roosevelt knew, would pose a grave threat to America.
Roosevelt also knew America wasn’t ready for war—not psychologically (most Americans didn’t want to get involved in a conflict on the other side of the ocean) and not militarily.
The United States had the world’s eighteenth largest army. Hungary and even Holland had bigger armies, while Hitler commanded the most advanced military machine ever seen.
The Army’s Chief of Staff General George Marshall told Roosevelt that if Hitler overran Europe and landed seven divisions on the East Coast, there was nothing anyone could do to stop him.
With all this staring Roosevelt in the face, it would have been irresponsible for the Commander in Chief not to arm the United States for war.
But how?
Many in his administration believed then, as many Americans believe now, that the only way to deal with an extreme crisis was to give the government as much power and authority as possible.
But FDR had the insight to realize that a massive wartime buildup during what was still peacetime wouldn’t succeed unless he harnessed the productive power of American business; that is to say, Ame..
