2/8: America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War Hardcover – September 24, 2024 by H. W. Brands (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 6 November 2024
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/America-First-Roosevelt-Lindbergh-Shadow/dp/0385550413
Hitler's invasion of Poland in September 1939 launched a momentous period of decision-making for the United States. With fascism rampant abroad, should America take responsibility for its defeat?
For popular hero Charles Lindbergh, saying no to another world war only twenty years after the first was the obvious answer. Lindbergh had become famous and adored around the world after his historic first flight over the Atlantic in 1927. In the years since, he had emerged as a vocal critic of American involvement overseas, rallying Americans against foreign war as the leading spokesman the America First Committee.
While Hitler advanced across Europe and threatened the British Isles, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt struggled to turn the tide of public opinion. With great effort, political shrewdness and outright deception—aided by secret British disinformation efforts in America—FDR readied the country for war. He pushed the US onto the world stage where it has stayed ever since.
In this gripping narrative, H.W. Brands sheds light on a crucial tipping point in American history and depicts the making of a legendary president.
1941
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Batchel, visiting with Professor Brands, Bill Brands. |
| 0:07.0 | His new book is America First, Roosevelt v. Lindbergh in the shadow of war. |
| 0:11.2 | The summer of 39, the deterioration on the continent is obvious from great distance in America. |
| 0:18.9 | Lindberg watches it in despair. However, the events are tumbling, and when the |
| 0:24.3 | Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is made, it's clear that war is imminent. What will happen is that |
| 0:31.6 | the Hitlerites attack Poland from the east. Within weeks, the communists, the Marxists, the Leninists, the Stalinists, attack Poland from the West, and the country is no more. It is destroyed. |
| 0:47.3 | The response to that is various in America. Mr. Roosevelt immediately uses the word neutrality. He has to because there's been a |
| 0:57.1 | neutral decision made by Congress to maintain neutrality in the event of war anywhere. There's |
| 1:03.2 | been a war going on in Asia since at least 32 of the Japanese tearing up China. However, it's |
| 1:10.0 | Lindberg's reaction that is most, is freshest because he goes |
| 1:15.0 | on the radio. Why does he do that, Professor? Why does a modest man who values solitary flight at |
| 1:23.4 | 5,000 feet over the wilderness take to the national radio? |
| 1:34.0 | It's something that I wrestled with in writing this book, because Lindbergh says again and again, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this, but he does it again and again. |
| 1:37.8 | So is he being perfectly honest with himself? |
| 1:41.0 | Is there some aspect of the fame, the notoriety that comes from being |
| 1:46.8 | Charles Lindbergh that he values? Well, he certainly values it in the sense that it gives him a |
| 1:52.2 | platform. He is, in essence, a private figure. But when he calls up the mutual broadcasting system |
| 1:59.3 | and CBS and other networks and says, I want to give a radio |
| 2:02.5 | talk. They give him airtime. You know, an ordinary person couldn't do this, but Charles Lindberg |
| 2:07.4 | could because there would be an audience. And so the broadcast would attract sponsors and would |
| 2:13.1 | pay for itself. So he decides he needs to do this because Lindberg's father had been a member of |
| 2:21.5 | Congress and he had been opposed to American intervention in the First World War. And he had fallen |
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