The Sphinx

October 6, 2014
Wapshott (Keynes/Hayek), the international editor at Newsweek, brings a British perspective to this narrative of F.D.R.’s successful outmaneuvering of the American isolationist movement in the run-up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, against the backdrop of his controversial run for an unprecedented third term. Wapshott demonstrates that isolationism was a comprehensive sentiment with deep roots in both parties. Joe Kennedy, Charles Lindbergh, and Alf Landon play featured roles as Roosevelt’s foils—in part a literary device enabling the personalization of a complex political process. But the hero of Wapshott’s story is F.D.R., the man who, after the Munich agreement, understood that the only question was “how soon America should prepare itself to take part” in a now-certain war. Pursuing that objective “was a tightrope walk between alarm and complacency, for which his complex and sophisticated character was ideally suited,” and success earned him the nickname of “the Sphinx.” Wapshott successfully unravels the complex sequence of negotiations, hints, half-promises, and cunning that brought Roosevelt the Democratic nomination, re-election to the Presidency, a massive rearmament program, and support for an embattled Britain—all within just a few years. In our current age of smashmouth politics, Roosevelt’s success in bringing critics and doubters on board seems his most remarkable achievement.

October 15, 2014
Ambiguity and uncertainty are major themes in this examination of Franklin Roosevelt's leadership in the years before Pearl Harbor.What's a politician to do? In 1941, 70 percent of the American public favored backing Britain against Hitler, even at the risk of war; 70 percent of the same public wanted to stay out of that war, encouraged by such prominent figures as Charles Lindbergh and the American ambassador to Britain, Joseph P. Kennedy. A year earlier, attitudes were much the same. Roosevelt became convinced that he needed to remain in the White House for an unprecedented third term to bring about the rearmament of a reluctant nation. Somehow, he had to engineer his nomination and election without providing an opening for a challenger from the isolationist wing of his own party. In this elegantly written account, Newsweek international editor Wapshott (Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics, 2012, etc.) depicts Roosevelt sowing confusion by encouraging no-hope candidates while remaining coy about his own future. As Britain's prospects deteriorated, he pushed constantly against the boundaries of the Neutrality Act with every ploy he could imagine, all the while denying any desire to take America to war-though his actual objectives remain uncertain to this day. The villains of the piece are Lindbergh, an anti-Semitic fascist sympathizer whose authoritative overestimates of Nazi strength bolstered those who argued that resistance to Hitler was futile, and Kennedy, an articulate, principled proponent of this defeatism. Though clearly no fan of the noninterventionists, Wapshott showcases their arguments with sufficient clarity to show that, while they proved to be on the wrong side of history, some of their concerns about the evolution of a permanently militarized state with an overweening executive have proved prescient. Though presented with a pro-Roosevelt tilt, this is history solidly researched and engagingly written. However, it is well-surveyed territory, and the author brings little genuinely new to the discussion.

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October 15, 2014

Wapshott (journalist; Keynes Hayek) focuses on the personality and policy clashes between pre-Pearl Harbor American internationalists and isolationists, exemplified by Franklin D. Roosevelt on one side and primarily Charles Lindbergh and Joseph P. Kennedy on the other. Roosevelt, notably sphinxlike in his dealings with the press on whether he would run for a third term and in his impression of being noninterventionist while preparing for an eventual war, deftly neutralized potential rivals by appointing Kennedy as U.S. Ambassador to the UK and Lindbergh as a would-be but discounted military advisor. The author details how Kennedy and Lindbergh's bitter statements and proappeasement sympathies undermined their ambitions. Roosevelt's maneuvering is described favorably; Wapshott maintains it cemented his legacy as a wartime leader, however, he omits Roosevelt's later attempts at peacemaking after World War II. This narrative history largely synthesizes the work of other historians rather than mining archival collections. VERDICT The debate over American intervention in World War II is a popular subject among readers of all kinds, but scholars might prefer Susan Dunn's 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler--The Election Amid the Storm or Lynne Olson's Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941.--Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Lib. of Congress, Washington, DC

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2014
The debates between so-called isolationists and internationalists preceding Pearl Harbor were intense, often vitriolic, and continued the ongoing debate about the proper role of the U.S. in world affairs. Wapshott, the international editor at Newsweek, with the advantage of hindsight, clearly favors President Roosevelt and those who supported various degrees of active intervention against the Nazi regime. As he indicates, opposition to intervention was not a simple partisan issue. Isolationist sentiments were deeply entrenched in segments of the Republican and Democratic Parties and in the nation at large. Rather than examine that broad front in detail, Wapshott concentrates on the principal, out-front leaders, especially Charles Lindbergh and the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph Kennedy. Lindbergh is treated harshly here as Wapshott emphasizes (and probably exaggerates) his anti-Semitism and Nazi sympathies. Kennedy is criticized for his strident (and, of course, wrong) insistence that Britain could not continue to stand alone against Hitler. On the other hand, Wapshott sees Roosevelt as a master politician, dissembling when necessary, shrewdly disarming opponents with both tough rhetoric and humor, and slowly leading a reluctant public in the desired direction. This is an informative and timely revisiting of the era in light of our current intervention in the Middle East.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)