PREVIEW:: This source details President Franklin D. Roosevelt's covert strategy to maneuver the United States into supporting Great Britain despite strong domestic anti-war resistance, and the ideological clash this caused with Charles Lindbergh. America
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 28 September 2025
⏱️ 3 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This source details President Franklin D. Roosevelt's covert strategy to maneuver the United States into supporting Great Britain despite strong domestic anti-war resistance, and the ideological clash this caused with Charles Lindbergh.
America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War Hardcover – September 24, 2024 by H. W. Brands (Author)
1941
Roosevelt's Covert Strategy:
- Roosevelt was highly committed to Churchill and intended to bring the U.S. in on the British side.
- Since he could not openly support intervention due to resistance from Lindbergh, Congress, and the anti-war movement, Roosevelt utilized a highly confidential strategy.
- He managed an influence-peddling operation designed to prepare the American people for war against the "Hitlerites in Europe" and the "Imperial Japanese Navy and Army in the Pacific."
- Roosevelt maintained secret correspondence with Churchill; the American public was unaware that Rooseveltwas planning with Churchill on how they would fight together should war occur. Roosevelt had morally sided with the British but told Churchill it would take time to bring the American people around politically.
- He brought in covert operators from Great Britain.
- The administration gave its covert blessing to a large-scale British propaganda effort directed by William Stephenson in America.
- Stephenson's goal was explicitly to move American public opinion to the side of Britain.
- Stephenson's crew, channeled to Roosevelt via William Donovan, employed standard propaganda techniques, such as planting unacknowledged stories and arranging for rumors to appear and be confirmed by other rumors.
- The source highlights the hypocrisy of the administration engaging in this manipulation while simultaneously "complaining bitterly against the Germans for attempting to do the very same thing."
- Roosevelt recognized that the interests of Britain were "not identical to the interests of the United States."
- Roosevelt's public rationale for aiding Britain was that the U.S. would be "aiding democracy."
- Lindbergh "calls him out on this," arguing that aiding Britain meant "aiding imperialism."
- Lindbergh questioned whether Americans should fight to defend the British Empire, asking if American soldiers would go to "defend British rule in India."
- Churchill is characterized as the "most unreconstructed of British imperialists" who was determined to defend the British Empire, a goal Roosevelt had no desire to pursue.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Building a coffee business? |
| 0:01.9 | Serving the best Americano in town is up to you. |
| 0:04.1 | But winning back time and growing your business, leave that to sum-up. Take orders and payments anywhere with the new SumUp terminal. Turn occasional customers into regulars with a free loyalty program. And with the SumUp point-of-sale system, you'll always know when you're running low on your best-selling blends. Visit sumup.com.com.com. to learn more. |
| 0:21.1 | This is John Batchel, |
| 0:22.6 | conversation with |
| 0:23.4 | Professor H.co.uk to learn more. |
| 0:25.7 | This is John Batchel, conversation with Professor H.W. Brands, Bill Brands. |
| 0:31.1 | His new book, America First, Roosevelt versus Lindberg in the Shadow of War. |
| 0:42.8 | These are the critical years, 1939, 1940, and then the Japanese attack in 1941. Lindberg was the hero of the age. FDR, running for a third term, was a genius at political success. H.W. Brands introduces here Lindberg and his thinking |
| 0:52.2 | about the New Germany and the old Britain. More of this tonight, |
| 0:58.1 | much more. Lindberg had a stubborn admiration for German culture. He thought the Germans knew |
| 1:04.6 | how to do things right. And he was quite dismayed at this strange and alarming turn that German |
| 1:10.7 | politics had taken. So he did not know what to make |
| 1:13.8 | of Christelmacht. He did not know what to make of Adolf Hitler. He did not know what to make of |
| 1:18.0 | the rise of the Nazi party and the apparent obvious embrace by the German people of these strange |
| 1:24.3 | new movements. So this puzzled him. He was very discouraged about the British and Britain's approach to world affairs |
| 1:32.8 | because he thought Britain at one time had been a great country, |
| 1:36.1 | but it had allowed itself to fall into complacency and apathy. |
| 1:42.1 | And this seemed to be marked by the fact that the British and the French |
| 1:47.5 | had established this post-war regime at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. And they'd imposed |
| 1:54.4 | these restrictions on Germany, which were unrealistic at the time, as almost everybody realized. And |
| 1:59.2 | then they refused to enforce them afterwards. So it was |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.