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: '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: FDR at the Bar of History, yet again
Review: Thomas Fleming has written a book that is a compelling mix of invective and fact. It focuses on those aspects of Roosevelt that are certainly to fault. His tendency to manipulate those closest to him to his own ends have certainly been well chronicled elsewhere. But Fleming's pricipal aim is to challenge FDR's historical standing as a an architect of victory in World War II.
He begins by building a case for FDR sneaking America into a war with Germany. First part of this strtegem was the leaking of war plans of the United States Government to the Press. Hitler had it in his mind that the U.S. might come after him. Hitler doesn't want a war but the nasty FDR just won't realize. Next we give naval assistance and ship aid to Britain on mercant ships. When merchant ships get sunk, FDR tries to use these incidents to further American entry into the war on the side of the British. But this doesn't worked as FDR had hoped, so he turns to provoking Germany's Axis partner, Japan. So by boycotting shipments of oil to Japan and dispatching the American Fleet to Pearl Harbor, FDR provokes the under-rated Japanese to attack at Pearl Harbor. Fleming does not say that FDR expected the attack on December 7, 1941. But he does say that FDR sent the fleet to Hawaii, defenceless from Japanese cunning protected by American racism about capabilities of the Japanese that he has provoked. The strategic precariousness of the United States after the attack and into 1942 and beyond, flows from the racism towards the Japanese from the attack.
But there is a particular flaw in Flemming in regards to the attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt did not mandate any limitation on security of the Fleet at Pearl harbor. FDR may deserve some of the blame, but not all or most of it for the disaster on December 7.
This gives you an idea of the whole book. Some points such as racism creating problems for the Americans in the Pacific, are pretty hard to refute. But the suggestion that the attack at Pearl harbor was avoidable doesn't really address the whole matter. Fleming does make a convincing case that war for the United States didn't have to begin on December 7, 1941. But he makes no case for war being avoidable altogether had FDR stayed his hand.
President Clinton should read this book, because its probably a good indicator of the kind of treatment he may be getting 50 years from now.
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