I have back pain, more specifically, coccyx/tailbone pain, which only subsides when I am on my back.
Reading on my back is not painful. So I read.
Now reading the "Mantle of Command: FDR at War,
1941-1942" by Nigel Hamilton (2014).
Focuses on FDR as commander-in-chief.
On his unifying the disparate armed services, directing them
to report directly to him.
His saying no to service chiefs who wanted him after Pearl
Harbor to devote everything to the Pacific war against Japan. FDR favored a
Europe First strategy, even while going forth with Midway etc, and a policy of unconditional
surrender toward Japan.
He thought the defeat of Japan would not bring about the
defeat of Germany, though the defeat of Germany would doom Japan.
His defying Churchill, chiefly in re Churchill's
unwillingness to promise India any kind of independence. Hence Indian troops
fled from the defense of Singapore and other Crown jewels. So, in fact, did
English troops, much to WC's mortification, when they surrendered en masse with
nary a fight to small Japanese forces.
What did Singapore etc. mean to them? The Empire? Right.
This, for FDR, contrasted with how Philippine troops, their
country granted independence, sided with us against Japan.
FDR's precise estimation of MacArthur, blowhard and
"braggart" as Eisenhower termed him. MacArthur wanted to be named commander-in-chief
even while FDR was president. In one face-to-face, he spoke to FDR as the President
politely informed him you do not talk to the President.
MacArthur apologized and heeled. But in the Philippines his
whole air force was destroyed on the ground despite direct warnings the
Japanese were coming. He lied about the strength of his forces as against those
of the Japanese, his point being not to fight but to burnish his image.
He demanded of Philippine President Quezon that Quezon back
pay him, MacArthur, millions of dollars for services rendered, this
(well-documented) in the midst of a crisis in the war.
FDR, well-apprised, denied DM the titles of command he
craved, and yet chose to make use of him, in somewhat the same way he made use
of Churchill, another, far more necessary braggart.
(DM, when forced to fight, was good at it.)
The potential rift with Churchill was of course more
significant. Winston thought American arms would not only save England but guarantee
its Empire, which it was beyond him to conceive of relinquishing. FDR believed
the Atlantic Charter, to which Winston was signatory, said otherwise, and did
not make exception for English colonies or dominions.
So, here I am, midway [sic] through, a portrayal of FDR by a
Brit historian who sees him as uncommonly astute and able to sort through
massive info — including impressions of people — to make historic decisions.
Hamilton reproduces one of FDR's key fireside chats, which stands
out in the plain truths about the situation it presents and neither bloviates
nor talks down to Americans, while rallying them.
What Hamilton does not say but I do, is that FDR's basically
successful guidance of the United States through the Depression, along with the
patrician authority that was his birthright, afforded him rare credence among
Americans.
And FDR knew how to extract from Republican opponents the
best they had to offer. He charmed them and brought their talents on if he
could.
The book ends in 1942.
I should add that in that time frame FDR judged it too soon
for opening a second front in France.
He was with Churchill about that, though not necessarily
with Stalin. However, as per Hamilton, when Stalin was apprised of FDR's plans
to challenge Rommel in North Africa by way of an American landing, he wished that
enterprise nothing less than God Bless.
The moral of the story, so far, is that in FDR we had the rare
good fortune of a leader our values and power, not yet arrogant and presumptuous,
deserved and required.
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