Allied Leaders of World War Two/Roosevelt, Part 5

"FDR As War Leader/Part 3"

Roosevelt wanted to help Britain very much, and he developed a close relationship with Prime Minister Winston Churchill, whose mother had been an American. In June 1941, Hitler launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, his former ally. When Japan attacked the American naval forces at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and America declared war on Japan, Hitler and Mussolini did both Churchill and Roosevelt a favor, of sorts, by declaring war on the United States a few days later.* Now American forces could be deployed directly to Britain. The decision was made to give more weight to pursuing the war against Hitler, as he was the primary threat to Britain, but major American forces were initially deployed in the Pacific to halt the expansion of Japan.** The already accelerating American economy shifted into high gear, and with millions of men (and some women) entering into the armed forces, unemployment plunged, albeit at the cost of high budget deficits, which exceeded 100% of GDP.***

In what became a highly controversial decision, Roosevelt signed an "executive order" which led to the relocation and internment in special camps of more than a hundred thousand people of Japanese ancestry, many of them natural-born citizens of the United States. About fifteen thousand people of German and Italian ancestry were also held, as were a very few people with ancestry tied to other Axis nations.

Roosevelt met with other top Allied leaders on several occasions during the war to discuss strategy, including the landing of Allied troops in western Europe, and post-war policies, with his most controversial meeting coming in early 1945 in the Soviet city of Yalta, where Roosevelt was seen by many as capitulating to Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin over postwar territories in eastern Europe. (See the individual articles on Stalin, Churchill and DeGaulle in this series for more info on Allied relationships during the war.) Roosevelt reluctantly stood for re-election in 1944, as his health was in decline. He defeated Republican Thomas Dewey (from New York), but his margin of victory shrunk considerably from his previous three elections. After returning from Yalta and visits with other world leaders in 1945, Roosevelt went to his vacation home in Georgia. On April 12 he suffered an apparent cerebral hemorrhage and died. The nation mourned collectively. The war in Europe ended just a few weeks later. Vice president Harry Truman assumed the presidency.

* I dare say, most Americans are undoubtedly unaware of this, but America did NOT declare war on Germany and Italy because of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Neither Hitler nor Mussolini seemed to grasp the fact of American power, and that America's entry into the war against them, barring a dramatic change in circumstances, sealed their fate.

** Remember, while Americans didn't like Hitler, they were far more furious over the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and Roosevelt was both militarily and politically committed to halt Japan, early on.

*** The deficits declined considerably after the war.

WORD HISTORY:
Glow-The ancient history of this word is uncertain, but it "may" go back to Indo European "ghel/ghluo," which, if true, had the idea of "shine." Whether this is the source or not, Old Germanic had "gloanan," which meant "to shine." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "glowan," which meant "shine brightly, glow." Later this became "glouen," before the modern version. The noun form developed from the verb in the 1400s. Common throughout the other Germanic languages: West Frisian has "gloeie," Dutch has "gloeien," German has "glühen," Low German Saxon has "glöhn," Icelandic has "glóa," Norwegian, Swedish and Danish all have "glo."