From “A Review of Franklin Roosevelt’s Foreign Policies,” included in the appendix of Freedom Betrayed. The excerpt, from a chapter in an early draft of Herbert Hoover’s “War Book,” was written no later than early 1947.
In [the—ed.] view of his supporters, he led, with transcendent genius, an obstinate and unwilling people to their national duty. In the view of his opponents, he led a people into an unnecessary and monstrous catastrophe by consuming egotism, by evil intrigue, by intellectual dishonesty, by lies and by violations of the Constitution.
His intellectual dishonesty is represented by his scores of assurances over three years to the American people that he would never send her sons to war while he was driving to that end, his wholly unconstitutionally undeclared war upon Germany, his constant fanning of war psychosis of fear and hate by misstatement, his vicious attacks upon the non-interventionists, his misrepresentation of the real purpose of Lend-Lease, his undeclared war upon Japan by economic sanctions that could only provoke attack by Japan, and his refusal to accept [Japanese Prime Minister] Konoye’s proposals, his military alliance with the British and his undertakings to attack Portugal and Japan on Britain’s behalf without any authority from Congress, his call to America to make its second crusade for the Four Freedoms which became the mockery of the world and the Atlantic Charter which was conceived in propaganda and became a betrayal of American good faith. At Teheran both were secretly burned on the altar of appeasement of Stalin and 150 million people consigned to slavery and to fear by night as well as by day, and then Yalta, where Roosevelt sealed this sacrifice and secretly made more commitments while constantly denying all of these.
It is obvious that the American people and the Congress were overwhelmingly opposed to our becoming involved in the war right up to Pearl Harbor. This was clear, not only from informal polls of the people and of the Congress, but it is evidenced by the line Mr. Roosevelt followed of not only constantly reassuring that he would not send our sons to war but also by his necessity to dress every measure, whether it be armament, Lend-Lease, convoys, or economic sanctions, with the camouflage that it will keep us out of war. And all this despite the gigantic propaganda for war through his own speeches, the Administration, the British, and a host of war committees.
The time may come when the American people, in frustration and disgust, will hate the memory of every man who contributed to getting the United States into the war. The attempts to deify them are already failing.
The long view of history will pass some harsh judgments upon Franklin D. Roosevelt, even beyond these foreign policy mis-steps in statesmanship.
