Titans of History

ROOSEVELT

1882–1945

His life must … be regarded as one of the commanding events in human destiny.

Winston Churchill, following the death of Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his unparalleled four terms as US president, pulled the country out of the depths of the Depression, commanded the American military effort in the Second World War and helped create the “American century,” with his colossal, rich nation as the arsenal of freedom. A charming, shrewd and enigmatic man of tolerant liberal convictions, immense personal courage and ruthless political cunning, Roosevelt’s determination to secure democracy at home and abroad makes him one of the greatest leaders in history.

Roosevelt was first elected president in 1932 by a country in the grip of a terrible economic slump, with 30 million out of work. As soon as he took office, he set about implementing the New Deal he had promised the American people, setting them back on the path to economic prosperity. Unprecedented levels of government intervention in agriculture, trade and industry allowed capitalism to recover from the blows dealt it by the Wall Street Crash.

Roosevelt’s administrations took on unheard of levels of responsibility for the people’s welfare. In the face of bitter opposition from free marketeers, he introduced social security, protected workers’ rights to organize trade unions, and regulated working hours and wages. At the same time, through the 1930s, he oversaw the restoration of America’s economic strength, so re-establishing the faith of Americans in their political system and their way of life—and giving the country the muscle to face the trials of global war that were to come.

Roosevelt wanted his country to be “the good neighbor” to the world and sought for the United States a new role as a guarantor of freedom around the world. He recognized early the barbaric evil of Nazi Germany and knew that neutrality in the Second World War would, in the long term, damage US interests, but such was the strength of isolationist feeling that he was obliged to fight the 1940 presidential election on the promise of keeping America out of the war.

At the same time, Roosevelt did everything he could to support the Allies, instituting the Lend-Lease program of economic and military support that helped Britain to fight on alone against the Nazis after the fall of France. In January 1941 he enunciated the Four Freedoms for which he stated America would be willing to fight: freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. In August 1941 he met Churchill and the two issued the Atlantic Charter, which asserted the universal right to national self-determination and security and laid down the principles of what was to become the United Nations.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 ended US isolation. For Roosevelt, it was not enough to defeat Germany and Japan: “It is useless to win battles if the cause for which we fight the battles is lost,” he declared. “It is useless to win a war unless it stays won.” His duplicity and shrewdness in statecraft whether in war or peace was best summed up in his own words, “You know I am a juggler and I never let my right hand know what my left hand does. I may have one policy for Europe and one diametrically opposite for North and South America. I may be entirely inconsistent, and furthermore I’m perfectly willing to mislead and tell untruths if it will help the war.”

During the conflict, Roosevelt not only laid the foundations of the United Nations, but also, with Churchill and Soviet dictator Stalin, became an architect of the postwar world. He prided himself on charming Stalin and building a personal relationship with the Soviet leader, often by baiting his close ally Churchill.

He has been criticized for yielding too much of eastern Europe to Stalin during these discussions, but since Soviet forces were in occupation there already, it is probable that only another war would have liberated them.

Roosevelt’s belief that the weak should be defended against the predations of the rich and powerful had been drummed into him since childhood. Although he had had a privileged upbringing in the patrician society of the East Coast, an inspirational headmaster had instilled in him a deep sense of social responsibility. This was later enhanced by his marriage to his distant cousin Eleanor. A bluestocking of progressive social ideals, she was an indefatigable campaigner on behalf of the disadvantaged right up until her death in 1962.

Roosevelt’s genius lay in his handling of people. To the millions of Americans who listened as he outlined his policies on the radio in his avuncular “fireside chats,” it seemed as though he was personally guaranteeing their well-being. “We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” he reassured them. Roosevelt’s relationship with Churchill, his ally in the darkest war years, was one of genuine affinity; he once ended a long and serious cable by telling the British prime minister: “It is fun being in the same decade as you.”

After the Big Three Allied leaders met at Yalta in February 1945, Roosevelt appeared to the press in a wheelchair, apologizing for his “unusual posture” but saying it was “a lot easier” than carrying “ten pounds of steel around the bottom of my legs.” It was his first public acknowledgment of the paralytic effects of the polio that he had contracted at the age of thirty-nine, and which he had battled and concealed by wearing leg braces and by other means. This was both a defense against public perceptions of weakness and a truly heroic personal refusal to let a debilitating ailment wreck his determination to carry out his presidential tasks.

Roosevelt’s sudden death from a massive cerebral hemorrhage in April 1945, just before the first meeting of the UN, stunned the world.