Transcripts For CSPAN3 Woodrow Wilsons Second Term 20240622

Plain. This is another hoover sign. There are a lot of hoover street signs in europe. There arent any memorials to the countless volunteers, nor to the u. S. Delegates who did the grunt work. But i think in the centennial year its important to remember that the work that they did. Thank you. This weekend, on the cspan networks, politics, books and American History. On cspan saturday, at 6 00 p. M. Eastern, hurricane katrinas tenth anniversary with the live coverage from new orleans. Speakers include president bill clinton and Mitch Landrieu and sunday evening at 6 30 on our road to the white house coverage, speeches from Democratic Candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders at the Democratic National Committee Summer meeting in minneapolis. On c haspan2, book tv. Talking to the New York Times immigration reporter liz robins about his book undocumented tracing the journey to the top of the class of Princeton University and sunday at 1 15 p. 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Entered the First World War, most of the efforts focused on Foreign Affairs and diplomacy. Professor macmillan talks about wilsons work and attempts for lasting peace through the 1919 paris peace conference and the league of nations. The university of virginias Miller Center hosted this 90minute program. Here in the United States, the great war is indelibly linked to the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Wilsons presidency was infused with irony and contradiction. Many of you may know that when he assumed office in 1913 his primary focus was intentionally going to be on domestic priorities. But he wound up spending most of the next eight years dealing with one foreign crises after another and most particularly world war i. When world war i erupted, wilson wanted to stay aloof. Keep the United States neutral. But he wound up embarking on a great crusade abroad to make the world safe for democracy. Wilson was the first president during his tenure in office to actually go abroad. He went to paris at the end of 1918 to engage in the negotiations at the paris peace conference. When he went abroad, he was heralded as a great savior in december of 1918. The crowds in paris and london and rome, all the great cities of europe he visited right before the peace conference, people came out in the hundreds of thousands to greet wilson. He was a real hero. By the time he wound up leaving paris in june of 1919, permanently, he was being scorned and ridiculed and personally he couldnt wait to leave. And when he return eed home, th league and the treaty seemed to have the majority support of the American People, at least judged by newspaper editorials and magazine editorials. But his foes in the u. S. Senate assailed wilsons handiwork, the treaty of versailles and particularly the league of nations and impaled him to go on a nationwide tour to drum up support for the league of the nations and the treaty during which; of course, he was strict within a terrible stroke and inka ka pass tated for the rest of his presidency. Even in his personal life, wilson was a very contradictory figure. To many, and if you see pictures of him, you think of him as a very prudest and austere person. But privately, wilson was charming and witty and very passionate. He was grief stricken when his first wife died in 1914. But very quickly, he struck up a romantic relationship with a washington socialite named ed it bolan and the joke around washington went like this. Quote, what do the new mrs. Wilson do when the president proposed . The answer, she fell out of bed with surprise. So, i lifted that anecdote actually from Margaret Macmillans wonderful book on peace making in 1919. And we are incredibly lucky to have Margaret Macmillan here with us today. She is truly one of the outstanding, one of the most distinguished historians of International Relations in the world. Shes a professor of history at oxford. And the warden, head of saipt Anthonys College at oxford. For those of you who have been at oxford, i went a year there about a decade ago and you know that it is one of perhaps arguably the best place in the world to study International Relations. Professor macmillan has written many books, shes written on british women in india, on nixons opening of relations with china, shes written on the uses and abuses of history. But most of all, shes known for her two wonderful volumes on world war i. The first that she wrote about a dozen years ago was on peace making in 1919. And the other which just appeared last year is about the origins of world war i, the war that ended peace. Thats the name of the book. And the former book, the one that in some ways will be the framework for todays lecture, i suspect, won id say a half dozen of the English Speaking worlds most prestigious prizes for the best book on International Relations. So, im incredibly happy to have Margaret Macmillan here with us. Shes going to talk for 40 or 45 minutes about wilson and war and peace and then ill engage her in a conversation for 10 or 15 minutes and then ill open it up for questions. Thank you. Id like to thank you very much for that kind introduction. I should warn you about that joke about mrs. Wilson. The man who made it was asked to leave washington. And id like to thank the Miller Center for inviting me. Its a great pleasure to be here and a great pleasure im ashamed to say, my first visit to university of virginia and charlottesville. Im going to talk today about Woodrow Wilson and war and peace. As you probably know, in 1913, just at the beginning of his first administration, he said to a friend it would be an irony of fate if my administration had to focus on foreign policy. It was not his interest. It was not something that he particularly wanted to have to do. And as professor leffler said, that was something that he ended up doing and i think we look at him because he presides over the United States at a time of great crisis in World History, the great world, the First World War and one of the great crises of modern history. It shattered much of the old european order. It had consequences which lasted for decades, perhaps into the 21st century and it affected much of the rest of the world, as well. But its also very important moment in American History and World History because its a time the United States is in the process of transforming its already great economic strength, its great strength as a nation which is finally coming together after the scars and trauma of the civil war and the United States begins transforming that strength into military strength. And when the war began, the United States was not a military power. In any sense of the word. It had a small nauf vi, although it was beginning to build up the naval strength. It had a very small army. It counted in military terms much less than a much smaller country such as italy an enwhat we see as a consequence of the First World War is the beginnings of the United States becoming a truly global power. I mean, those beginnings were there before 1914 but the period of 1914 and 1918 is as i say both a very important period in the history of the United States and a very important period in the history of the world. And so, it is important i think to look both at what was happening in the world, what was happening in the United States and at the personality of Woodrow Wilson himself because as president he not only expressed the feelings and aspirations of a great Many Americans, he came to power on that great surge of progressive sentiment, sentiment that was hoping to remake american society. But he also came to express something of american views as themselves and what they might be doing in the world and so i do think we have to Pay Attention to wilson the man but we have to put him firmly in the context of his times. His personality and his character and his many foibles would not have mattered if he was not in charge of an important nation and increasingly important nation at a pivotal time in history. Melvin said something about the personality of that man and i think he remains a puzzle to a lot of us, historians and others and will continue to remain a puzzle because like i a lot of human beings, he is contradictory. He was a great idealist and he was also someone who would act in an absolutely ruthless way f. You crossed him, he tentded to assume that you were his enemy. He was not good of accepting different points of view. His life is marked by a series of rejecting those that rejected him, stood against him. He could be extraordinarily rigid. He was a great orator. Perms one of the greatest among american president s but he also in private told some of the worst jokes i have ever seen. When he was in paris, he was surrounded by a group of, of course, people who were working for him and admiring him an used to write down the conversations in the evening and they wrote down his jokes and if you want to go, theres a huge collection of his papers and find really bag shaggy dog stories, go to the wilson papers. These are jokes i dont know how they stood them. Sort of jokes that go on for 20 moneys with an irishman, an a scotsman, you know that sort of joke. I wont bother to tell them. He was a sbe lukt july in office and a very good practical poll sirn. Anyone governor of new jersey knew about the practicalsties of policies. He was an effective governor. He liked discussing ideas and he could also be very rigid once he made his mind up. He would talk about politics and then no further discussion. He also had a confidence and who knows where it came from that he understood wetter than in other leaders what the people wanted and the people he said and he never really defined what the people was but it seemed to be those that agreed with him that spoke through him and he ran into trouble in europe and said to the elected leaders your people have spoken to me. I know what they want. I know what the people of the world want. The french ambassador in washington who observed him closely and i think quite liked him, said of him that he was a man who had he lived a couple of centuries ago would have been the greatest tyrant in the world because he does not seem to have the slightest conception that he can ever be wrong. And i think this is something that marks wilson. I mean, a very intelligent, interesting man and a man immovable and rinld. Now, when he came to office he had linlg of course Many Americans very strong sense of what the United States could do in the world. And i think part of his understanding and his views of what the United States could do in the world came from his own background. He was a devout presbyterian. He remained a believer all his life and i think he believed in the role of good works, that it was the responsibility of people put on earth to carry out good works and he believed that the United States had a role and indeed an obligation to do good works in the world. He believed that the United States could and should be a force for good. The United States should be an example to the world. As he said when he was campaigning in new jersey in 1912, america is an idea, america is an ideal, america is a vision. And that i think is something that helps to shape his attitude towards american neighbors, to those it has to deal with and towards americas enemies. He supported the spanishamerican war and initially opposed it but he convinced himself that the United States was actually bringing the benefits of civilization to the territories which it took over from the spanish. He supported the intervention of the United States in the affairs of latin american countries. Again, because he felt that the United States was a force for good in those countries. And when he became president , in the first term of his presidency, he intervened quite forcefully in mexican affairs, often i think on rather shaky grounds but he felt he was doing the right thing as he said to british diplomat, im going to teach the south american republics to elect good men. And this is an odd view for a democratic and felt he was carrying out in a sense a mission of gods work and said of mexico sending troops into mexico, we have gone to mexico to serve mankind if we can find the way. We do not want to fight the mexicans. If you were a mexican you might see it a bit differently. So, this is the man whos president of the United States when the war breaks out. Someone whos prepared to use American Power where he sees it as necessary to do good and also of course i think admitted to defend american interests. He certainly felt that in dealing with the caribbean basin and mexico, the United States had every right to defend the rights of american strategic interests. He did not in 1914 i think see the United States as playing a larger role in the world. He was at that stage still very much focused on domestic reforms and a Prime Minister of domestic reforms. But when the war broke out, he was horrified like many were. Distracted, of course, by the fact that his wife was dying in the first days of august as europe was going into the First World War. But he took himself away from her death bed and sent her a note which, unfortunately, was not paid attention to, two different sides moving toward war offering to act as a mediator. The note was not answered by this point. The european nations siding towards war. The war started and there were those in the United States who said forcefully that the United States should get involved. Theodore roosevelt among them and also those on the other side who said equally forcefully the United States should not get involved under any circumstances and there was also considerable debate about if the United States were to get involved on what side should it get involved and it was not a foregone conclusion to intervene on the side of the allies, britain, france, subsequently italy an russia and i think a number of reasons for this. There were large sections of the population in the United States which had no particular love for britain. A large irish population which was not prepared to support the United States going in on the british side. And there were all those who had fled russia for very good reason and who had moved to the United States and saw no reason to support an autocracy and democrats whether they had family who had come from russia did not feel comfortable with the United States supporting a country that was known for being thoroughly undemocratic and autocratic. There was also a Large Population of german descent in the United States, many of whom if they were not prepared to advocate the United States to join on the german side and not willing to see them fight a country for which they had a good deal of affection and as the war broke out i think there was division in Public Opinion in the United States, fair to say although before Public Opinion polls probably the majority of americans hoped that the United States could stay out of the war. They looked at what was happening in europe. With horror. Particularly, as the war developed. As it seemed that what had been promised to be a short war was going to turn into a hideous war of attrition, that was going to drag on and on and on. A lot of americans looked at europe and thought why are they doing it . With a sense of bewilderment, shock, horror that the europeans seemed intent on destroying their own civilization and so i think initially at least in the first year of the war if you can gauge american Public Opinion i think the feeling was that the United States should stay out. But a number of factors some of them outside wilsons control and sometimes inside his control began to push the United States gradually towards the allied side. Wilson himself was probably more sympathetic to the allies than he was to the central pow earls of germany and austria, hungary and other allies, the Ottoman Empire, bulgaria and so on. I think he had visited europe much. He was a great admirer of the development of constitutionalism in britain and the development of liberal thinking in britain and he felt on balance the allied side was the better side. And so, from the beginning when there was a question of doing something that might favor the allied side or might favor the central powers, wilson tended although not always to come down on the side of the allied side and so for example on the issue of loans to belligerence, this was a rather thorny issue. Should nose fighting be able to borrow money in the United States . His secretary of state was for a ban on both sides and argued with justification true neutrality. If you are neutral, you should not lend to either side but there was pressure of business, banks to lend and the people were the allies because they were in a better position to borrow. The state department was also in favor of making loans to the allies. And by the late fall of 1914, wilson had ordered the state department and ordered brian to make it possible for the allies to borrow in the United States. And as brian quite i think correctly argued this was, in fact, tilting towards the allies. The allies to the loan to the allies were going to increase steadily to the point of 1917 the United States mostly private interests had lent some 7 billion to the allies and so gradually at least financially the United States became more and more committed to the allies and wilson did nothing to stop it and in fact facilitated it. The war also had a going some of them to germany but again the bulk to allied powers. By 1917, u. S. Export 3. 5 billion. Theres a marked increase in the war and which doesnt commit the United States to the allies but does entangle the United States more and more economically through the loans and the exports with the allies. The United States was also pushed towards the allied side by what the germans did and wasnt that the british didnt irritate the United States. The british, the Great British weapon was the naval blockade and the british imposed on germany. They began to disrupt neutral trade, trade being carried in neutral shipping to germany which began to irritate, of course, american Public Opinion when American Ships were stopped, when american cargoes seized on the grounds they could be there for war and this remained a constant irritant in the relations twaen the United States and the allies, particularly between the United States and britain. But on the whole, it was germany that managed to enrage american Public Opinion much more than britain did. And there were a number of reasons for this. The germans increasingly as the war went on found the policy or allowed their policy made by the military. And military, the German Military like military everywhere tended to see very much in terms of what theyre doing in terms of winning the war and tended to ignore or down play political factors and this you can see at the beginning of the war the jer mans invaded belgium. Whose neutrality had been guaranteed by a number of european states and germany itself and what germany is doing is breaking its own guarantee to belgium, invading a very small country and the german invasion of belgium was going to help significantly to tilt American Opinion against germany. It outweighed by far the ir tans of the britain blockade and began to see germany as something that had been domin e dominated and running out of control and there were going to be several incidents in the invasion of bell yum which really shocked American Opinion and opinion elsewhere. The germans behaved with increasingly brutality in belgium. They were enraged when the belgians decided to resist and round up civilians, use them for forced labor in germany and began as a sort of warning occasionally to shoot a number of belgian civilians and contrary to the rules of war. It is fairly clear that the germans also burnt a large part of the very ancient city of leuven in belgian and including a very great old library and this really shocked american Public Opinion as it shocked opinion around the world. This seemed an act of bar barism, an act of civilization. One german later on said that the two things that really swayed american Public Opinion against us were leuven and the luis tan yeah. In 1915 when german submarines sank the british liner the a large number of civilians were drowned and a number of americans and a real shock to american Public Opinion and so you can see a gradual shift in American Opinion which wilson certainly does nothing to stop and probably shares towards the allied side and this is a long way saying that the United States should be involved in the war. Wilsons own view was that we shouldnt be involved, this is not a war that involves us and on several occasions he offered his services or the services of the United States as a mediator. While this was happening there was also debate within the United States about whether the quite should get more prepared for war. Should the United States up its mill trar prepations in a world that was increasingly turbulent . And this was something that, again, divided american Public Opinion but it was something again that Woodrow Wilson felt himself had to be done that the United States he argued could not take the chance in a world that was at war of not being prepared militarily. He cast this in terms of being prepared against mexico, in terms of continental defense. But that could be stretched to mean and preparedness in terms of naval preparedness in the atlantic, for example. There was a fear increasingly in the United States if germany won in europe it would be a europe hostile to the United States and that the United States would then find itself in a position where it would be more vulnerable eventually as technology was clearly changing and advancing, it would become more vulnerable to threats from europe. In any case, december 15th, december 1915, wilson and his state of the union speech talked very focused, it was very focused on military preparedness. He developed new an approved new fiveyear plan for the navy and approved by the senate in june 1916, after a great deal of debate. In congress, a National Defense act was approved which increased the army to some 223,000 people and had been an army of less than 70,000 people so this was a very, very marked increase. Again, this was cast in terms of defense of the United States. Not of getting into war. I think you can see the similarities between the sort of debate that took place in the United States before 1941. A similar debate that the United States doesnt want to get involved in war. Doesnt approve of the war. Doesnt want to choose sides. But nevertheless, should look out for itself in a world thats becoming very, very difficult. What you also got was an interesting debate in the United States about what the proper role for the United States should be in the world. And its a debate which i think has recured throughout the history of the United States. I think we see it again today. A debate about whether the United States should be internationalist, whether it should get involved in the world for any number of reasons, to promote American Safety and security, economic interests or american values. The debates go right back to the founding of the republic and i think will continue. Or whether the United States should withdraw from the world, look after itself first and not let the rest of the world impung upon it. Its the world isolationist enters the vocabulary and with us very much today. You probably all know what happened. The war drags on. The United States is more and more involved economically. American opinion is debating what the United States should be doing. Wilson runs in 1916 on a platform of keeping the United States out of the war. We will be too proud to fight, he said. He kept us out of the war, was what the democrats said when wilson won and this was very much the platform he ran on. Again, i think theres a real jajz dell nor roosevelt in 1940. Again, arguing that he was the one to keep the United States out of the war. In the end, what brought the United States in i think was both this gradual shift in a Public Opinion and not enough to do but i think really it was what the germans did, the germans behaved in a way that i can only describe as folly. The german supreme command by 1917 virtually in command of the german state. It had set up something close to a military dictatorship and it had been pressing to renew unrestricted submarine warfare. This had stopped in 1915. After an American Ship had been sunk. And there was huge protest in the United States and the German Government at the time had recognized that unrestricted warfare and submarines firing on any shipping approaching british shores, knew that will or not, was not helping german. The high command add been pressing for resumption of warfare and in january 1917 they got their wish. And so, the sinkings and the loss of american lives began to go up and American Opinion begins now to harden. In 1917, beginning of 1917, wilson talks to the senate. Hes still hoping to keep the United States out of the war but whats i think very significant is that hes sketching a world after the war, beginning to take an act i have role in defining what that world should look like. Thats not the same as going into the war but indicating that the United States at least as far as wilson is concerned and quite a lot of support of this saying that the world will be different place and we ought to have a say in it and once you think that, youre morexbo lik to want to get involved. It is in this address to the senate in january 1917 that he talks about peace without victory. He talks for the first time about how the world might develop a community of powers to replace the old balance of power. And begins to sketch out some of his ideas for a new type of way, a new type of a new way of managing International Relations. Well, the germans do their best to make up american minds. They do not not only do they resume unrestricted submarine warfare but they sell a telegram to the Mexican Government, the zimmerman telegraph after the foreign secretary who sends it and what has zimmerman sends to the Mexican Government is a telegram saying we think you probably, paraphrasing, you would like to have back the territory which the United States took for you in the 19th century. We suggest that you declare war on the United States. We can probably persuade japan to join in and support you. The germans had to send it on british cables because the british cut the german telegraph cables to the new world and coded but the british broken the german code and the british decode the cable, look at it, realize they have a really hot potato here. Sit on it for a time being as they decide to try what to what theyll do with it. And in february they take it to Woodrow Wilson. And you can imagine his reaction. I mean, this is treachery of the first order. This is now a menace to the security of the United States right there on the southern border of the United States. And so, from that point on its pretty much a foregone conclusion gnat United States will enter the war on the allied side. What also makes it easier for the United States to contemplate doing this is in february 1917 theres also a revolution in russia. This is not yet the boll sha vek revoluti revolution. Its a constitutional and democratic government is set up. And so, one of the main objections that used to come from liberals and people who profoundly democratic to joining on the allied side that the allies included this autocratic power and now removed and so in april to cut a long and quite congresswoman pli kated story short wilson goes to congress and asks for a declaration of war. Its one of miss best speeches. He does so not in a triumphant way. The United States he says is entering into a war which is going to cost it, going to lose, going to suffer, going to suffer the loss of life. He himself has a heavy heart but what he hopes is that the war will end in producing a better world. And what he hoped privately and said to many that he hoped it would bring the American People together. Educate them about international issues. And their responsibility towards the war. He was i wouldnt say a great war leader but i think he understood very clearly what needed to be done in war. He understood the importance of mobilizing the nation for war. The day after signing the declaration of war he made a list called the program and he said we need clearly to up the measures for war. We need to increase the size of the army and navy. We need to pass all necessary legislation to put the country in a thorough state of defense and preparation for action. We need and this is one of more controversial things he did and he in fact did it, public control public expression and speech carefully. We need to make sure that we do not have spies and we do not suffer espionage at home. And this i think is one of the areas which is very contentious about the days of the presidency because theres a real curtail of Civil Liberties and Woodrow Wilson could be said and i would agree did not do enough to defend basic Civil Liberties and allowed a tax on civil minorities, unions, segregation in the armed forces. As a war leader i think he did a lot to bring the United States together and you can look at areas where he didnt. He also recognized that the war was going to have to be financed and he put Bernard Baruch in charge of the war and Industries Board and he and others tried to coordinate without i would say a great deal of success American Industrial output and also managed to raise a great deal of money through the sale of bonds dmoen as liberty loans. Unlike some of the predecessors, he was not himself particularly interested in things military. And he did not on the whole intervene in either making strategy, he allowed strategy for winning the war to be made by the allies so now had a coherent command and Supreme Commander and he was prepared to support general pershing and the attitude is more that he would allow pershing what he felt best and you get very little interference. He doesnt play the role of churchill or roosevelt in the Second World War. What he does do in the course of the war is continue to sketch out american war aims. On january the 18th, a year after his address, in which he talks about peace without victory, of course, january 18, 1918, he unveils the 18 points and more comprehensive statement of the world he wants. He doesnt use Self Determination in that speech and that term associated with him. It had been used previously by the british Prime Minister David Lloyd George making a similar speech. It was suspected in the white house to preempt and to steal publicity from him. Who knows . Lloyd george sketched out a liberal world of the postwar world and talked about Self Determination and although the term now i think forever associated with wilson he does not use it initially all that much and uses it later on and in the 14 points he talks about the sort of liberal world order he wants, a world of open diploma y diplomacy, openly arrived at. A lot of americans are now this blame the war in europe on secret agreement, secret diplomacy and the relations will be trance parnl. That in fact doesnt last and something thats very, very difficult to do. He talks about community of nations, collective security, and this, of course, is the forerunner of the league of nations. He talks not about Self Determination but autonomy for the empire. He talks about helping russia to find its way. He talks about disarmament. He talks about lower trade barriers and this is a liberal International Order of collective security, if we can have disarmament, if we can link the world together through trade increasingly then well have a world thats safer and a world as he said, of course, safe for democracy and he continued to elaborate on his views of the postwar world in the last months and year of the war. Increasingly, too, and you can see it in his private conversation, his speeches, he tends to blame what he calls german militarism for a lot of the war and not germany itself although its certainly very close to that. But he is increasingly vehement against what he calls oppression of militarism. The asen den sy of the values. These he says must be removed from germany before germany can be rehabilitated and reintegrated into the community of nations and so sfoo n spite of what later historians said, he was not prepared to be soft with germany, chastise germany, amend germany, make germany a better place and then and only then fit to be admitted into the community of nations. The war ended as you know very quickly. The germans made a last great push in the summer of 1918. But they had by this point run out of steam and i think the fact that there were now a million americans in europe and more in Training Camps, 2 million more in Training Camps in the United States, that tremendous american support, material, manpower, fresh, fresh approach to the war was now counting against germany. The germans simply crumbled. The german homefront was collapsed and by the awe thumb of 1918, german allies were beginning to fall away and so the germans, the high command who continued to assure the german civilian government, the shadowish civilian government with very little power and all is going well and then panic at the end of the september and say we have to have an armistice. We have had it. The German Government hoping i think that they might get gentler treatment from the United States because of the sorts of speeches that were Woodrow Wilson has been making and very well reported in germany send an open note to Woodrow Wilson asking him to broker an armistice and wilson much to the fury of his European Partners he will never call them allies. He says the United States is an associate power and much of the fury of the british and french begins to negotiate through open xhupgs s published in newspaper with the germans and not something the british and french approve but theyre preempted of the germans and wilson does and the armistice is made really in spite of what the british and the french want. On the british and french side, there is a sentiment that it is probably better to go on and that germany needs to be thoroughly defeated and certainly those in the United States who are arguing this, as well. Teddy roosevelt is saying and sos senator henry cabot lloyd, theres the seeds of the trouble for the future. Sometimes i think they were right. Its a very, very difficult draebt. In the Second World War, roosevelt and churchill decided on Unconditional Surrender as a policy. No conditional surrender as there was in the First World War. The armistice was made. It was made in such a way that germany continued as a state, although there had been some talk of breaking it up into the Component Parts and germany on the whole did not come badly out of that armistice. The government had by this point been replaced by the more or less democratic government. Soil was not occupied except for the west bank of the rhein. And this perhaps led to trouble in the future. I would argue that it did. Most germans never really felt they were defeated or saw the consequences of defeat and the high command who so rapidly fashion demanded that the government ask for an armistice saying we could have fought on. We dont know why the government asked for the armistice. They panicked and we didnt and then with the support of the right in germany to promote this pernicious myth that germany had been stabbed in the back. That it had never been defeated on the battlefield and stabbed in the become at the traitors at home, liberals, communists, socialists and unfortunately jews and became a very, very dangerous founding myth and grew in power rather than lessening in the 1920s and 30s. So the war ends on november 11th, 1918. And the question now is what sort of peace will be made . And as professor leffler mentioned, wilson came himself to the peace conference to take place in paris. He was heavily criticized for it at the time. I think he was right to go because this was a very, very important conference. The world had in many ways quite literally been turned upside by the war and europe and much of the rest of the world was in turmoil. Four empires had disappeared or in process of disappearing. Germany falling to pieces. Was losing territories which it had conquered a century earlier. Losing the polish territories, the colonies. The Ottoman Empire to disappear. By november 19 shortly after november 11th, 1918, the austrianhungarian empire had disappeared and new nations were struggling to be born in the wreckage of that. And russia had had both an internal revolution and was losing an empire. The states on the periphery of russia were declaring their independence. States such as latvia, ukraine tried and succeeded very briefly in the independence. Georgia, russia was both an empire and a regime and both were splintering in the aftermath of that great war and so there were huge questions that the world had to settle. What was the shape of europe going to be like . What was the shape of the middle east going to be like . As the Ottoman Empire fell to pieces suddenly all the arab territories, vast arab territories of the Ottoman Empire up for grabs of some sort. Africa in the south pacific, questions to be settled in the far east and a real danger that many felt at the time that europe and the world were going to plunge into even more revolution. The second revolution in russia, the revolution of november 1917, had seen a very small Splinter Group and there were fear that is that revolution followed elsewhere and some evidence it would be. There was a communist revolution in bah vary yeah and lasted far week and enough to worry people. A communist revolution in hungary lasting for six months. Insurrections in italy, in france. General strikes, militant ones in britain. In canada. So there were troubles around the world and i think there was a very real fear that 1918 was not the end of something, it was the beginning of another even more dreadful period in Human History and so i think wilson was absolutely right to go to paris. I think where he made a mistake was in the way he chose his delegation. He did not include any republicans. Well, a nominal republican and paid absolutely no attention to. And this i think was wrong. He also fought the 1918 Congressional Election as a vote of confidence in himself. He made the making of peace a partisan affair and i think again you can criticize him for that and striking that fdr in 1945 made sure that any peace arrangements he made, any International Conferences he went to before he died in 1945 bipartisan, he had bipartisan support for what he was trying to do. I think wilson was right to go to paris. He is blamed ever since for much that went wrong. I mean, the many views of wilson in paris. Theres wilson the messiah. Who came from the United States with the gift of peace and International Fellowship and greated by black hearted, cynical people in europe who took his gift an destroyed it. That was promulgated by pooh em that wilson was too good in the europeans, europeans didnt understand what it was he was offering and sunk in the old ways of doing things. My own view is that is wrong. Many europeans supported what wilson was trying to do. They had after all seen firsthand and many survived what the war had done to their society and so i think for lot of europeans wilson offered promise, hope and many of the ideas he was bringing with him were ideas in europe for a listening time and these were not just ideas he had come up with. These were ideas, for example, collective security and ideas talked about throughout the 19th century in europe, ideas of international ashtray. International free trade. These again were ideas talked about. Disarmament, two huge disarmament conferences in the high before 1914 and didnt succeed and the ideas certainly were there and so i think the view that wilson was too good for europe is wrong and the view that wilson was a total incompetent at paris is wrong. That is view that was promulgated among others by john may fjord kans and very critical of everyone who was in paris. He portrays them as dreadful, cynical old men who dont know what theyre doing. The french Prime Minister he describes as a giant chimpanzee in human form sitting there with hooded eyes thinking only of revenge of germany and which is not true. He knew whatever he thought of the germans that france was going to have to work with them at some point at some level. He more trays the british Prime Minister as a half goat, half man coming out of the welsh myths and weaves spells around wilson and wilson someone blindfolded spun around and around until he doesnt know whether he is coming or going. This is not true. I think wilson made mistakes. They all did. I think he assumed the league could do too much. Whenever a question came up, he said, look, as long as we get the league up and running, it will sort it out. The league will be able to deal with it. I think he was bringing something very important, he was bringing to the forefront of Public Opinion another way of looking at the world, another way of trying to run the world and i think this was enormous important, particularly when you could see what had happened. I think, however, for all the i think very great strength of the wilsons vision and i think there was real support in europe for it, he was doing and trying to do something that was probably impossible. I take a view of the paris peace conference with my view is that it made mistakes, that it did not create a stable world but that it probably couldnt have done much better. The conditions for a lasting peace were simply not there. And its all very well to say the people sitting in paris should have sorted the world out. The world was not in a condition to be sorted out. It was very different in 1918 when the powers met at the conference of vienna to sort out the french wars of revolution. By 1815, europe was tired. It didnt want anymore war. Nobody wanted anymore woor. That 1918, that wasnt true. Many people didnt want war. A lot of people were still fighting. There were series of small wars after 1918. Winston churchill called them the wars of the pig mys. Wars between poland and ukraine. Wars in the middle east. Wars in the southern parts of europe. So this was not a peaceful world. This was not a world that was yet ready for peace. Whats more it was a world in which revolutionary feelings were running high. The Russian Revolution had set off revolutionary fervor around europe and it was not clear where that was going to end and it was a world of nationalisms running high. The peoples who had been within the empires, increasingly been defining themselves as nations suddenly they saw open doors, an attempt to establish nations of their own. The trouble was that establishing a nation with National Boundaries was not easy. Because there were no clear markers of where those boundaries should be. The center of europe had a mix of peoples. Nationalities were so mixed up that youd have a Hungarian Village next to a german village. Nor were there in many cases clearly defined historic boundaries. Because european history had seen so much, there was too much of t and for so many centuries, boundaries had. Could and gone, what was a legitimate boundary. They all said history shows this should be the extent of our nation. But human nature being what it is, what they called on was the time their nation had been biggest in the past. So the bulgarians looked back to the 14th century when theyd been big. And they were often claiming the same bits of territory. And you can just imagine what the greeks did. [ laughter ] or the italians. They could go back further with even more justification. So i would argue that it wasnt wilsons fault, it wasnt clemmenseaus fault. The circumstances were not right for it. And they tried. They tried very hard. They brought their experts. This was one of the times when for better or worse, people like me, professors, were allowed to go along and give their opinion on how boundaries should be drawn. And the committees worked very hard, and they heard delegations who came in with maps who showed that they should have this piece of territory rather than somebody else. The americans on on the whole in those committees were pretty reasonable. They tried to give countries a fighting chance of surviving. They tried to make them economically stable. They tried to incorporate railway networks, but they tried also to resist the more outlandish claims. And the americans, on the whole, i think played a very reasonable part. The trouble was they were dealing with something that was not reasonable. Ethnic nationalism wasnt reasonable and it wasnt going to be settled very easily. National selfdetermination, in the end, what it did mean. Robert lansing, who was wilsons secretary of state, he said, well, how do you define an ethnic nation . What about the people within it who doesnt want to be part of it, and they are an ethnic nation too. And how small can you get . Can you keep sub dividing it until you get smaller and smaller nations. Wilson himself told the senate at the end of 1919 that hed come to regret that he ever outed the words national selfdetermination. He said i didnt foresee what trouble it would cause. And so, you look at the paris peace conference. Im inclined to say that will sp and the rest of them did the best job they could. Nevertheless, you can, and ill just finish with this. There are things you can criticize about what wilson, and you can certainly criticize what some of the others did. He was right, i think, to insist on negotiating relief covenant first. He said weve got to get the covenant first. So the could have napts was the first part of the treaty with germany to be written, and then it was going to be put into all the other treaties as well. There is, certainly, grounds to criticize. One of the things i would criticize is the way he handled the japanese q japrequest. The japanese wanted to be part of a liberal International Order, but what they wanted was to be recognized. And they were very sensitive about the fact that their nationals had been denied entry into the United States, into canada into australia on national grounds. It came to be known as the racial equality clause that there should be no des crim nation on the basis of religion or nationality. And wilson ruled it out on a rather feeble technicality. He was afraid of losing votes from the west coast and felt that if he challenged the fears on the west coast, if he didnt go along with what the west coast wanted, that is exclufgs asian immigration that he would have more trouble getting the treaty through congress. I think he was wrong on this, because it served to poison relations in the long term with japan. I think he was also wrong but it was not him alone whether china came to the peace conference, and china and japan were both allies in the First World War. And they said now that germany has been defeated we would like back what had been german concessions in china. And the germans also said we had a claim on those. They could have gave german concessions to the japanese e and it infewer yatesed the chinese. It helped spur the growth of the Chinese Communist party and helped to turn china, again, from a liberal International Order. As one Young Chinese intellectual said, we used to trust people like wilson, now we just think theyre just great liars. I think you can look what wilson did for expediency and realize it was going to have very longterm consequences. What i think, in the end, he felt, and they all felt the treaty was the best they could have got. Was it too harsh on germany . I would argue not. But this is something we can talk about again. I think the final criticism i would make of wilson is that he didnt make it possible for the treaty to go through congress. He came back. There was opposition. But as far as we know, and, again, this was before Public Opinion polls. American Public Opinion, if anything, was in favor of the United States joining the league. Literary review did a survey. An opinion was, i think, 21, over 21 in favor of the u. S. Joining the league. And there was an organization to promote the american membership of the league which had far more members than the parallel organization to oppose american membership of the league. I think, in the end, why the treaty failed was because wilson was not prepared to compromise. He was not prepared to accept the reservations which came attached to the treaty as it made its way through the senate. He ordered his democrats to vote against the treaty as amended. So therefore american p membership of the league was defeated by a combination of democrat and republican votes. You can argue that wilson was no longer the man hed been. He suffered a dreadful stroke in the fall of 1919 in the course of this trip. And he had become both isolated and extremely stubborn. So on the balance, my own view is that wilson was not the savior of the world that people hoped he would be, but he was not the bamboozled and blindfolded figure spun around that the people like cains thought he was. He was a complicated man. He presided over the United States at a complicated time in a complicated world. His record is mixed. But given those circumstances, i think anybodys record would have been mixed. Thanks. [ applause ] march frgaremargaret, thank. That was a wonderful survey of the United States and wilson in war and peace. So i neglected to say when i introduced you that youre canadian by birth. And youve been in england for many years. Most americans think of Woodrow Wilson as a great idealist. And theyre often, thats infused, both with respect and also with a little bit of contempt, that he was a great idealist. Do you think wilson was a great idealist . Yes, i do. And i think you needed great idealists them, and we probably need them now. I mean, this view that we can muddle along, you know, each nation in a dogeatdog world, i dont think its going to work. I think the consequences can be so dreadful that we need to think of other ways. Perhaps this is a canadian view because we are such a small power. But we see cooperation with other nations as a way for security and safety in the world. And, you know, conflicts on the scale of the First World War, much less the Second World War, and les hope therell never be that scale again, are so damaging to us all that i think its actually not idealistic to try and build ways of preventing that. Its very practical. Hes often viewed as idealistic, because when he comes back to the u. S. , he refuses to compromise. Yeah. And much of what we think about wilson, i think, stems from that intransigence about compromising with his domestic foes. Some people who dont think he was an idealist point to the fact that actually when he was negotiating in paris, as you point out many times, he was a remarkable compromiser. Yeah. I mean, in fact, some of his domestic opponents ridiculed him, precisely because he had compromised too much. And had betrayed his own principles, again and again and again, during the negotiations in paris. Yeah. So was he really a ridge id idealist, or was he a pragmatic compromiser . I think he became more ridge id when he was back in the United States, and i think the consequences of the stroke are important, and that he was kept pretty much in isolation by his wife. That he was not either in a position to compromise or was not getting the right advice or simply not capable of doing it. He did compromise in paris, and i think you have to. I mean, the idea that can you go in and hold your ideals high and never make a compromise, he was dealing with other very powerful nations. And theres a tendency for people to read back the great power of the United States, which is certainly had by 1944, 1945 back to this period. Yes, it was a powerful country, but it was not the power it would be by 1944, 1945. Britain was still a great power. France was a great power. So he could not push them around. And so i think wilson had to recognize that other nations had interests here. And there was a real problem over germany. I mean, wilson wanted a peace without retribution. Although, he felt very strongly that germany should be punished in some way. The idea that wilson was prepared to be so gentle with germany is a wrong one. I think he really thought germany did need to pay a price for what it had done. He shared the view that germany had started the war. But it was easy for him to say, look, we shouldnt exact too much in the way of reparations from germany, because it wasnt going to hurt the United States. But the french had a real problem. And so did the british. The french looked at the north of france where a lot of the war had been fought, Something Like a quarter of all their industrial plants had been destroyed. Their mines had been destrioyed. Their railways had been destr destroy destroyed, villages and towns had been destroyed. They looked across the border to germany, virtually unscathed. And they thought, why can the germans go on living like this and we have to rebuild. Why shouldnt the germans pay . And clemmenseau said i have to look at what the public says. It probably wasnt sensible. And in the end, it was very difficult to get reparations out of germany, but Public Opinion put clemmen so in a position. And they said the french and the belgians are going to get recome pence for the damage, they argued that the pensions paid to widows and children should be also in the build. You could say wilson shouldnt have gone along with this, but it was difficult to go against his allies. What they were doing was drawing up the treaty with germany, and if he had failed to compromise, it might well have broken down, because this is something the french in particular were not prepared to compromised on. But what the french did do, they backed down on a lot. They backed down on occupying germany, they backed down on longterm proposals to build germany up. So the compromise was not just on wilsons side. The french compromised too. The british compromised too. And it was a very difficult situation of the one thing wilson might have contemplated, but he was against it. It would have been difficult, i think, was to cancel allied debts to the United States. The allies had borrowed some 9 billion from the United States to pay for the war. And that was one of the reasons they were so firm on getting reparations, because the british had lent to the french, they both lent to the russians. They werent paying anybody anything because theyd canceled all debts. The british and french and its italians had huge debts. And so that gave added impetus for them to want to extract reparations from germany. Now cains came up with a plan. He said why dont we just cancel the whole lot. If the United States would cancel the debts, britain and france can agree not to get reparations from germany, it will be a lot better. It would probably have been a lot better, but it was politically impossible, i think. Inside the United States . In the Second World War they did actually provide a lot of the financing for the allied war effort without expecting to be repaid. Thats a good experience of learning from the past, right . Yeah. So, i mean, i tend to agree with you, that wilson was an artful compromiser. Artful compromiser. During the paris deliberations, and everybody really compromised quite a bit. So the notions that we often have of wilson the ridge id idealist comes from when he returns home and he refused to compromisete sarees. And as you say, the best we can tell, americans supported the league. It wasnt that americans were isolationist in 1918, 1919. They supported americas role in the world. And it was a question of how to define that, what that role would be. So, you know, one of the continuing debates in American Foreign relations history is the question of should wilson have compromised with lodge, and of course once, you know, hes stricken, obviously that has a re real impact on him physically and psychologically and he becomes even more intransigent. But even before then, he shows every sign of not wanting to compromise at all. In fact, he shows a lot of contempt for his domestic adversarie adversaries. And of course this increases their contempt for him in turn. So how, how, how should we explain this. And should we be, should we be very critical . I mean, could we have had a constructive american role in the world if wilson had been willing to make some compromise . My own view is you could. And i think the world would have been a better place for it. Wilson could have made compromises in paris. But as you pointed out, compromises with the republicans. This was the side of wilsons character that says if you disagree with me, its not just that you disagree with me, but theres something wrong with you. He hated lodge. This wasnt just someone who disagreed with him. I look at the criticisms that lodge made with the league covenant, and these were not unreasonable. Theyre very reasonable. Hes saying should we mind ourselves in advance to support, you know, action, you know, in a conflict which we dont yet know what the conflicts going to be. These were reasonable, and indeed, its a debate that goes on. But wilson simply treated lodge as someone whos beyond the pale. It was very, very foolish, and he wouldnt talk to teddy roosevelt. Roosevelt typically wanted to go over to europe leading his own regiment. And wilson wouldnt even talk to him about it. What coe ha what he could have done is said this is wonderful. Roosevelt was not good at dealing with political opponents. He was very skillful at maneuvering. He was a very effective president in many ways. You look at what he got through in the terms of Domestic Legislation in his first term, its extraordinary. And you can only do that by being a great compromiser and leader. Yeah, but whether it came to making the peace he sort of had this vision and believed that anybody who didnt have the vision was worth listening to. And this is where fdr was so right. He made it bipartisan, the making of the peace, right from the beginning. And wilson didnt, and he, you know, he came back to the United States briefly during the peace conference, and he was out of the United States until, he came back on february 14th for a month. And he didnt make any, he wouldnt see lodge. He wouldnt, he went to boston, which is lodges hometown and made a sort of speech about his vision about those who dont agree with him, which is stupid. It was antagonistic. And he did even silly things. One of his daughters had had a grandson and he looked at this tiny infant and said its just like a senator. It keeps its mouth open the whole team and keeps its eyes shut. This is stupid. This is important for americans to think about. We tend to think that contemporary partisan acrimony is unique, and what we forget, for example, is in this critical period of time just how ang acrimonious and poisonous politics was in the United States and also how dismal the consequences were as a result of it, because there was possibility for compromise. Most americans wanted, in some form, the United States to participate in the league. Or in an international organization. It didnt come about because of the intransigence and inflexibility of these people. Its true, you know, as youre suggesting, of course, that wilson had utmost contempt for lodge. But its also true that that contempt was fully reciprocated. Lodge detested wilson. These are two men who really loathed one another. I want to sort of shift the context of this conversation just for a few minutes. In the aftermath of world war ii, the treaty of versailles, of course, was blamed for world war ii. Nowadays, the treaty of versailles, and not the treaty of versailles, but the peacemakers of 1919 and 1920 are usually cit siriticized for the problems in the middle east and persian gulf today. And that theres a huge amount of literature saying the problems in iraq, for example, and in syria today, go back to the First World War. Yeah. Would you be kind enough to sort of elaborate upon that and tell us what you think . Well, i tend to think that events in the past cast a shadow, but you cant look at the event and then subtract everything that happens in between. So, you know, the argument just to talk about europe for a second, that the treaty of versailles led directly to 1939. My question is, what was everyone doing for 20 years . Other things are happening. And in the middle east, it certainly is true that the settlement made in the middle east enraged a lot of opinion. Mostly in egypt where there was a deeplyrooted nationalist movement. But otherwise it was mostly elite movement. But there was a sense among the arabs that they had been promised independent arab states and theyd been betrayed. And that of course gets fatally mixed up with a jewish homeland in palestine, so the presence of the jews in palestine comes in. And so i do think what was done in 1919 and subsequent years, because the peace settlement in the middle east took a while to work out and the u. S. Wasnt much part of the withdrawal. The u. S. No longer had strong interest there. It wasnt an ideal settlement. Again, you know, its difficult. This was a time of empire. And people making decisions in the west tended to think they could dispose of peoples around the world as they wished. And it would have perhaps taken more enlightened leaders. More 20th century leaders rather than 19th century leaders, to recognize that you couldnt go on parsing out people like this. One of the things wilson did do was three got written into the league of nations the issue, the mandates that, and this is something he said also in the 14 points and subsequent speech is that you cannot parcel out people and hand them out without thinking of their interests. So when the middle east territories and so on were disposed of. They were handed over as mandates of the league of nations. In other words, britain and france were given mandates to run these bits of territory so they had to report to the league of nations. Those territories have to be administered in some sort of a system for the benefit of the People Living there. A lot of people thought it was cynical imperialism. And a lot of it was. The problem with the middle east, i think, and its something i keep thinking about. Is again, it was a sort of problem you had. How could you draw rational boundaries to make rational states. The people were mixed. You couldnt have ethnic states. The peoples are so mixed. In what became iraq you had persians, kurds, arabs, jews. Baghdad was a very jewish city in 1919. So you couldnt draw, you couldnt make ethnically based states. What could you make . And in iraq, i think iraq is more defensible than the borders of syria. It was three provinces of the Ottoman Empire which had sometimes been treated, baghdad was seen as a senior province. And geographically, theres a sort of unity there. You come down the valleys of the tigress and euphrates. And there was a possibility, i think, and ive talked to people who know iraqi history better than i do. There were accidents, as often happens in history. Fiesle, who turned out to be a very good king died early. His son was a useless playboy who killed himself in a car accident. And there was another boy with a not very good regent. So that was a problem. Then you have a series of politic political movement. Then you had a series of military coup thscoups. Given a few accidents iraq may have developed in a different way. If you look at the boundaries of canada, they couldnt be more artificial. Its just one Straight Line from the end of the great lakes out to the west coast. But a country has grown within those borders, and you look at many african countries, and National Feeling has developed. So i, whether things could have turned out differently, iraq, i think, was hopeful. Syria was cursed from the beginning because the french took a lot and populated leba n lebanon. Egypt has become a functioning country. God knows its got problems, but it geographically made sense. Libya never made sense. So yes, you can blame a lot on what happened in 1919, but i dont think you can blame everything. And of course the trouble with the middle east is where it is. It is at a crossroads. Its constantly being meddled with by outside powers. The cold war didnt help, you know . One of the things we so admire about your work is that youre able to put policymakers in the context of their time and really understand the constraints under which they operate and the limits of the options. So i think we should take ten minutes or so, now, to open it up for questions. I know there are some people here who yeah. One second, theres a microphone here. Oh, thank you. Im fred hitts. And what i wanted to ask you about and have a chance to chat with you before the lecture is this issue of, and you said a lot about it, i think, quite, in quite graphic terms, was wilson ill when he went to the conference . You make a point of the fact that he had, although he did not choose a republican to be member of the delegation, he had some pretty fancy people. Some pretty fancy minds on board the boat. And he didnt really meet with them much. And then when he got to europe, he was caught up in the celebration of the 14 points and the league. That sort of thing. Was he, was he somebody whod had a heart event or something before it really collapsed later in the spring, do you think . I dont know. Theres a lot of speculation. Its a good question. Theres a lot of speculation about wilsons health, and he continued to have these moments of total collapse. This was even before he became president. You know, there would be times when hed suddenly have terrible trouble with his vision, not be able to see. Doctors werent quite sure what it was. Im not a doctor. But whether this was a thrombosis, his health was always something of an issue. And in paris, i mean, the work would have, really, done it for most of us. Because i mean, they were at it from morning till night. And the pressures on them were absolutely huge. And theres a real sense of urgency. If we dont get a deal cobbled together the world could get in a worse state. He had what was described as flu, and, you know that could have cover add number of things, and was very, very sick. And there is some speculation and arthur link in editing the wilson papers at princeton got doctors to look at the evidence. And theres a one sort of thing in one of the many volumes which i cant recall the details of now. But said it could have been a stroke. He did begin to behave a bit erratically after that episode. There was this one episode when he came into the room with one of his secretaries and said i dont like the way these chairs are arranged. We should put all the red ones this way and the green ones there. And the secretary sort of moved them around. So it may be that he had some sort of they think what the doctors at the time, it could have been a stroke, a sort of milder stroke than the one that actually felled him in the fall of 1919. Very difficult to know. But he was someone who was prone to sudden attacks, which would really lay him low. I think the general view now is that he did have two minor strokes while he was in paris, and of course, he had had one in 1905 when he was president of prince ton as well. Yeah, another question . Please. Barbara . Theres a microphone, barbara, yeah. Im Barbara Perry and the cochair. Let us say we would res rent Woodrow Wilson from his National Resting Place in the National Cathedral and bring him to the moiler center and we would have you and melon the panel to ask questions. What would be the first question you would ask him . Oh. Do you want to go first . Id ask him, are you sorry you didnt compromise with the reservationists. I think that would be the first question i would put to him. Yeah, and just on that, the interesting thing, this is not answering your question, but on the reservations that came attached to the treaty, the european leaders later said they could have worked with them. You know, whether or not they would have done, is another matter. But lloyd george said we would have accepted them because we wanted the United States in the league. I dont know. I might have liked to have pushed him on why he allowed more segregation rather than less in the federal service. I know he was a southerner. But this was a man who expressed high moral principles. Was a great liberal. Why did he allow it . You know, the federal post office. They began to segregate the offices, and this was happening elsewhere in washington. So id like to know what his rationale was for allowing that to happen. Id go even further than that along the same lines. I think one would ask him, do you think you went too far in terms of your i am membertation of the alien and sedition laws that were passed at the time. Because one of the principal books thats been written about wilson and world war i by a historian named tom knock makes the notion that wilsons principles undid his agenda. He very much alienated them and could no longer rely upon them for support afterwards. And they fell incredibly alienated by wilson at that time. Yeah. Yes, please. Thank you. Mary j. Abbott, retired. Foreign service officer. Could you just very briefly compare and contrast. Is this going out . Yes. Very briefly compare and contrast the league of nations and the United Nations. What one has the other one does or doesnt have. A couple of the articles perhaps, and how one developed from the other, if that was the case. Yeah. Well, i think the u. N. Certainly develops from the league of nations. In fact, initially, and the league still existed until 1945. And initially there was some talk of resurrecting the league and redoing it, and then they decided it was so much identified with the outbreak of the Second World War that it wouldnt be worth doing, so they decided to set up a new United Nations. But many of the League Organizations like the International Labor organization were carried over into the United Nations. So some of the associated bodies of the United Nations that we see, in fact, have a much longer history than the United Nations itself. And many of the personnel, actually, are carried over into the United Nations. I mean, i suppose the key difference with the United Nations is that the Security Council has five members with permanent members with vetoes, and that was to reassure the great powers that their interests would always be listened to. But the problem is now they reflect the wrong people. Buff i think that was one of the key differences. What happened with the league is that there would be, i think, what, four permanent members . Five permanent members and four elected, but theyd all have equal votes. And then of course when the United States didnt join, you had only, you had fewer permanent members. And there was always the danger of deadlock. And i think roosevelt was very concerned that this, that the powers should be reassured that their voice would be heard in the United Nations. Which is why the Security Council still has so much power. I would say thats the key difference with the league. I think, also, if you look at the United Nations, it was not as ambitious in what it, i mean, it has some of the same provisions, but it is, i think, more cautious in its approach to conflicts than the league of nations was, so there for, i think the possibility of disappointment is less, but, you know, in many ways, i think the league was a useful, exercise is the wrong word, but it was a useful forerunner of the United Nations. And it introduced into our understanding, into the public, the idea that we could have actual International Organizations like this, which i think are useful. I think if we didnt have them, wed be wanting to invent them. So thats a short answer to a complicated question. One last question. Up here. Stephanie . John waterson. Do you think it really mattered that the United States did not join the league of nations, especially considering the pacifism and antiwar sentiment that generally and rejection of american participation in world war i that you see in the 1930s . Its an interesting question. I mean, well never know. I think if the United States joined the league it would have been a stronger institution, and it would have given a very important noneuropean voice to the league. As it was, the United States was so involved in what was going on in europe anyway. When they tried to broker an end to the endless reparations, twice it was done by the United States. At league disarmament conferences, the United States was there. The United States was often involved. And i think if theyd been more formally involved it would have been good. I think it would have made the league stronger, and it might have served to educate american Public Opinion. If by the time the 30s hit, would you have had the same isolationist sentiment . I mean, there was a lot of sentiment in europe for peace. There was this huge peace ballot in britain in the 1930s, where i think half the Adult Population voted in favor of peace. But wanting peace doesnt necessarily translate into isolationist. It might be that failing to join the league formed isolationism in a way that didnt happen in europe. You can want peace but still recognize that you have to be engaged in the world. I doesnt know. And you can argue, and i think historians are now arguing that even in the 1930s, the United States was not as isolationist as we might think. If you look at what the United States is doing, its still involved a lot. And its particularly involved on its own doorstep. The Good Neighbor policies in the 1930s, and the United States is still very concerned about whats going on in the pacific. There was isolationist sentiment of the and it was fueled, i think, by a sense, and this is where historians came in, a lot of historians argue that the United States should never have gotten involved in the war. That it was lured into it by wilson or unscrupulous europeans. So i think for a lot of reasons, people thought we should never get involved again. But you cannot always choose your fate, can you . So. That was a terrific last question and wonderful discussion here. We all want to thank you, margaret, for coming and visiting us and for a stimulating talk. Come again, thank you. [ applause ] this sunday night on q a, Brookings Institution senior fell low, velda brown talks about the u. S. s counter insurgentsy m ssy mom. We dont know thousand will end. It is a moment of opportunity now. Its also possible that still, two, three, five years down the road well be back in a new civil war in afghanistan. Isis is now slowly emerging in the country, terrifying prospect that it is. Much worse than the taliban. The taliban is deeply entrenched and hardly defeated. So if we end up five years down the road in a new civil war in afghanistan and new safe havens for the taliban and isis, then time member congressman john coniers. Next, a discussion on u. S. Humanitarian aid to belgium in the early years of world war i led by Herbert Hoover. Prior to serving as the 31st president , Herbert Hoover headed the commission for relief in belgium. It provided humanitarian aid to germanoccupied belgium during the early years of world war i. Coming up next, a Panel Discusses the history of the commission, Herbert Hoovers leadership, and the ameran