Transcripts For CSPAN2 Today In Washington 20120410

they became allies. >> there was a puppet government. together objectives of invading thailand was we reusing the supply leading the chinese nationals against the japanese and east china and so by going into thailand, you could achieve two goals to control the country and the middle resources and number two, cut the road. >> i was thinking there was also a greater threat perhaps in indonesia would have been more natural resources even to exploit. estimate in which they eventually went after but they had put in french indochina over 100,000 troops. it's really only one place to go from there and that is to go into thailand. estimate the other thing i know i wanted to ask but i forgot without one was. the other thing is i would strongly recommend any young people, and i'm sure you feel the same way who question the use of the atomic bomb. that the nature of the japanese fighting, the way they fought on hiroshima and okinawa which were both japanese soil. they were the soil of japan. but even in the okinawa, the indigenous people were not particularly loyal to the japanese, but the fighting was incredibly intense and that's how the extrapolate that how we might lose 1 million casualties in the invasion of japan. and was a very, very -- >> there's no doubt about it. estimate it would have been a fight back. >> one question over here. >> you mentioned that he was a scapegoat and you also mentioned that the admiral was the cno in 1941, yet the admiral was for most of the war. were their transitions and leadership that kind of the heads were cut off because wrong place, wrong timing that went beyond hawaii? >> as with free few exceptions that the roosevelt cabinet didn't change, the military leadership didn't change, george marshall was the secretary of the army for the entire duration really the only significant change was in the pacific but other than that it wasn't a lot. as it turned out, roosevelt had asked his disposal a lot of capable military men. eisenhower and patent and macarthur and king and others that emerged has great heroes of world war ii. so, these men took leadership positions and roosevelt wisely stuck with them. >> go right ahead. >> stephanie with the heritage foundation. with the war in iraq and afghanistan, we are familiar with the concept of suicide missions and suicide attacks. did you in your research come across any fascinating information about the kamikaze pilot back in japan and how they carried out attacks in december, 1941 and elsewhere? and how much of that was a departure of conventional warfare and what our ideas as how the war should be conducted? >> for the japanese was a departure in the japanese culture to be a prisoner of war and captain was to be the worst thing that you could do preferable than to being a prisoner of war. there were rumors after december 7th but the pilots had been used, but i found no evidence that it had been organized attack at pearl harbor. there were also rumors of the attacks at others battles in the pacific and the setting for more accurate. it was part of their culture and the gentleman made reference over here about how the japanese soldier would fight through the death and was the same thing with a japanese pilot who is a great honor to die in warfare. >> not that he is that important, but he had a great quote in the book if you don't remember if i have in front of me but i want you to comment. the insignificant secretary of the interior. >> is interested to the contrasting he expanded beyond the interior. he was apparently a fabulous public speaker but did take up and justifiably because of the interest of what was happening to jews in europe and was the only member of the roosevelt cabinet who was expressing public outrage and public understand what hitler was doing with his final solution. succumb he was abrasive but also happened to the right and was a good man to the estimate i can't read as a quote census the one you use in the book. the mind of a, sort and the soul of a meat ax as she described history. >> right. >> so, there were some definite characters. let's take one last question of here. >> more a comment i will attribute to the admiral. it was said in the naval war college the war in the pacific was entirely during the 1930's and every move was anticipated with the exception of lacasa kamikaze attack. the difference where americans didn't think that reason they didn't include that in the war planning. >> i'm glad you brought that up because he talked about that in his book he wrote in the 1950's he wrote a book called published by regnery, and he told me about meeting the admiral as a child in his father's house that bush all of the gaming is to consider everything. marcion's from space and all these other things it was a japanese attack on pearl harbor, but they were supposed to think about every aspect of warfare. in the japanese culture there had been novels written about japan attacking pearl harbor. was very popular with the culture about the japanese military attacking pearl harbor. >> i do recommend december, 1951. it's a wonderful guy in the of each day in that particular month back when the national debt was $57 billion. as pointed out a thing on december 20 in the book. are there about and it was the brand new see real of great fame. electric typewriters were just starting out and a few other things are making the world more civilized at the period of time to get please join me in th [applause] schoomaker there are certain dates in history that all of us remember if we are old enough to remember those days at all, and they differed among us. i remember pearl harbor itself. i was in eighth grade school and it was a very important even for me faugh for my friends expected to go of some day in uniform depending on your age you might remember for example the assassination of john kennedy or the assassination of martin luther king bringing the even-steven closer to our time in history of 9/11, 2001. there are all kinds of states that stick in the mind, and that we keep remembering because they have an impact on our lives. i'm not going to talk about pearl harbor accept its aftermath. the book pearl harbor christmas is about what happened after pearl harbor. how different was the world and how different was the united states after pearl harbor. what changes were made, was the holiday season in 1941 for example any different than it had been in 1940 or 1939 rather years just before that in peacetime. this to me tells us about the impact of the war that made a difference and were lives immediately to do that. i was a collector of bubble gum cards, of but as quick as could be, the bubble gum makers came out with war cards and i brought them to show you to give you an idea of what i mean to be a i collected these when i was a kid and one of the heroes of my book is winston churchill. he turns up in the cards and another one less of a hero in my book but nevertheless a major figure in the newspaper was general macarthur, and he became so important. he became a number one among the war cards, so they told us a lot about what was going on. and they also told us a lot about what was not going on. soon after pearl harbor, the philippines were invaded and than they surrendered frequently but since we needed a hero at this time, a hero came around and the person colin kelly who was the pilot of a b-17 fortress that was shot down in the philippine waters just left the coast the story had it that he was shot down after he had bombed and had sunk in the japanese battleship. it turned out that he hadn't bombed anything but his plane was shot down when he tried to parachute out it got caught in the wreckage as it was coming down and he went down with the wreckage and was killed. he had a small son and president roosevelt called the widow and the sun to the white house and he had announced he would be given a mission to west point as soon as he was able to attend. and of course the wife got a medal. it turned out that when the war ended, the battleship was found in the harbor in japan that had never been sunk. as of this is what happens in the wartime propaganda. you learn a lot that we have to unlearn later on. and the newspapers were full of misinformation because it was important that we not be despondent about what was going on at the time. things were bad indeed. and we had seven battleships for example sunk at pearl harbor. no one knew that. they knew about a couple of the battleships that had been sunk, but the reports were made a lot later than they really were because it was necessary for the japanese so the government fought thought to have the japanese need to believe that they hadn't done as much damage as they really had. it turns out that they were too stupid to realize it, that the japanese had cameras aboard the planes that returned to their aircraft carriers, and when the book opens i open with a japanese leading newspaper in tokyo publishing a picture showing the wreckage of pearl harbor taken from the airplanes. the annuity had done and they knew they had committed a tremendous amount of damage but the damage as serious as it was wasn't serious enough because they hadn't been able to down any aircraft carriers, and the aircraft carrier, not the battleship became the leading bottled of world war ii. two of the aircraft carriers were at sea. the lexington and the enterprise going elsewhere in midway island playing plans to defend the islands and they were at the sea when the japanese attacked. the japanese thought they had an aircraft carrier there. at least they looked down and saw what looked like one. .. one other ship that capsized becomes important in my book. men were trapped below the deck and were trapped in compartments that were watertight so that they survived for a wild. it turns out that they were still alive -- a few of them were still alive by christmas eve. december 7 at christmas eve they were still alive and we found that out afterwards when we raided the oklahoma and found marking that -- scratching that indicated into the walls that they were alive until christmas eve and it was not a very pleasant christmas. they did not survive beyond that. the oklahoma, unrated, was towed toward california to be salvaged. it sunk again. it has never been recovered. that is the end of another one of their ships. the war took a very bad turn immediately. we had no way to defend. there was no way we could send troops or ships after them because the japanese controlled the seas. there was no way the british could defend their own colonies in the far east, malaya and singapore. leah was immediately occupied by the japanese, who went down the coast on bicycles. they didn't need tanks. they went down on foot or on bicycles, and they overwhelmed the british who had far more equipment than they had, and the british eventually surrendered and surrendered more men than the japanese had landed on malaya. winston churchill, after pearl harbor, got in touch with the white house and asked if he could come and talk strategy with president roosevelt. president roosevelt really didn't want him to come that soon. he wasn't really to talk strategy. we were surprised by the war. he knew that churchill would 18 year first strategy to be germany first. the united states wanted to beat japan. after all, it was japan who attacked us. if we reciprocated, he told the german people we now have an ally that has never lost a war in 3000 years. he expected to win this one too, and he declared war on. we did not declare on war on germany -- they declared war on us. that was a few days after pearl harbor. we were at war with germany and japan, not having expected to be at war with either one. if at all, we expected to be at war with germany because we had begun con buoying ships to britain, hoping to get supplies to britain, including destroyers which were torpedoed and sunk by the germans. it wasn't enough of a provocation on the part of the germans to convince congress to declare war on germany. we had an isolation -- congress did not want a second war. the war that ended in november november 1918 had not been a success from the standpoint of the peace. it only led to more war. they didn't want one. in october of 1941, when the peace time draft had to be extended, the congress did not want to vote for it. general marshall, the chief of staff of the army had to go to the house of representatives and plead for the extension so that we could keep our army intact. he got the extension by exactly one vote, which gives you an idea how unprepared and how pacifist the country still was when we were attacked at pearl harbor. churchill decided he would come anyway, invitation or not treated and he let president roosevelt know that he was going to come and he would stay at the british embassy and they would have an opportunity to talk. churchill has said afterwards that he slept the sleep of the saved when he knew about pearl harbor. because he knew that america was in the war and that it we would win. roosevelt, realizing that he was stuck with churchill whether he liked it or not, hate him the courtesy of inviting him to the white house. churchill came not by plane, it would've been very difficult in the winter weather in december in the north atlantic to travel by plane, and he might have had to spend days on the ground waiting for decent weather just to get to halifax, nova scotia. he decided to come by battleship. he came on the new battleship the duke of york which was rocked terribly in the north atlantic, but finally made it across. when he got to virginia, he telephoned the white house to say he was sorry they were so late. could they send a plane or a train to meet them, so they wouldn't have to fly the rest of the way to washington? roosevelt sent a plane to get them, and then got into a limousine -- he was carried into a limousine. he was paralyzed from the waist down by polio. he was carried into his limousine and taken to the anacostia flats airport where churchill met him. the limousine, by the way, was an unusual one. it was al capone's armored car that had been seized from al capone when he was put in jail for tax evasion. the only way they could get him into jail. roosevelt did not have an armored vehicle to travel in. it was only after pearl harbor that one of the big car companies made an armored car for him. the two of them went a couple of days went to the white house in al capone's limousine. an interesting way to begin their peace talks. churchill was the man who came to dinner. he stayed and stayed and stayed. he loved being there. it was good food, there was plenty of whiskey, he liked to drink. he told the butler when he arrived at the white house that when he got up in the morning, he wanted a tumbler of sherry right away, and then he wanted some 90-year-old grammy for his breakfast. he didn't even know if the white house was 90 years old. but he said yes, and brandi was brought to churchill for breakfast the next morning. churchill drank his way through the white house. he was a very popular guest, though. he was there with advisers to try to guide the american military and industrial forces into war. we were not nearly prepared. we didn't have enough planes or tanks or anything, and we weren't even prepared to gear up our industry for war. churchill brought with him lord beaverbrook. a former canadian who was a feisty guy, who was good when talking straight to the americans and told them, do you know that the russians lost 3000 tanks in one battle against the germans? in the germans lost nearly as many? how long will it take you to build 3000 tanks? well, this boggled the minds of the americans. they stopped production of cars, they stop production of any kind of leisure equipment, likely refrigerators and air conditioners, and begin building tanks and planes. the british were losing sony ships the german -- two german submarines. churchill pointed out they had to build more than one ship a day to replace with the germans were sinking. that didn't even count the people on the ships. by the end of 1942, we were building thousands of ships. at the end of 1942, the ships became vital to saving britain from starvation in 1942 in 1943. besides, churchill said, we lost aircraft carriers, and we had lost one -- it was the battleship utah. he said he don't need eight aircraft carriers, you need small carriers that can go along quickly with merchant ships to protect them. why don't you just put text on some of your freighters and some of your tankers and turn them into carrier's? and so we did. hundreds of escort carriers were built during the war. many of them would not have been around if it hadn't been for churchill's people who came with advice on how the americans should fight the war. his visit to the white house or not are now to be very crucial, not only to plan attacks against germany, when we could do it, and attacks against japan, when we can do it, but also it raised the morale of americans who have no idea what was going on. churchill appeared at a press conference with president roosevelt on december 23. the first full day he was in america. he was introduced to those and they had heard he was there. he couldn't see him, churchill was short, about 5-foot 6'", roosevelt said that winston should stand up on a chair. churchill stood up on a chair, he saw them and he spoke to them, and they asked churchill how much will it take to win in the war? and he says a longer if we do it badly. he was right. it took long and we did do it badly. especially in singapore where they surrendered about 90,000 men in singapore. they had no ways to get supplies to singapore. there was no way hong kong could survive -- it was an isolated island surrounded by the japanese. hong kong fell very quickly. all the canadians who had been sent over to were either killed or became prisoners -- and the canadians there and the australians in singapore, those who survived helped build the bridge on the river cry. the bridge on the river and highland. those who survive, of course, were never forgotten. they will never forget the bridge on the river. their incarceration in japanese prison camps. we had very few victories at this time. perhaps i'm the only victory i can think of is that of an american bookseller in paris. sylvia beach. she ran to shakespeare and company bookshop in paris. the germans hadn't picked her up yet, although she was down in [inaudible]. she had lived in paris since the 1920s. she had in her window and early copy of james joyce's finnegan's wake which was just published. a german storm trooper officer came into the store and he said, i want that book. and she said he wouldn't understand it. she would not sell it to him. he stormed out, is of course a storm trooper would, and she knew he would be back. but she wasn't going to let him have the book. she called and her friends, they emptied the store of all the books, they painted over the sign, shakespeare and company, and she disappeared into hiding and so did the books, and when the storm trooper came back with others to seize the book and her, there was nothing there. nothing. if you want to call that a victory, that was our only victory in december 1941. our troops at lake island, mostly greens and some working force were trying to extend the air force on the japanese came. they actually drove off the japanese with artillery -- coastal artillery on the first try. they sank a japanese destroyer, and the japanese were terrified that the news would get back and they would all have to commit suicide. in fact, a japanese commander did commit suicide because of it. but they came back and they took lake island, and then were taken -- the men were taken prisoner. there is a famous story about the marines on lake island -- the major was asked, what can we help you with? they could help with anything, really. but he said supposedly, send us more jobs. that became the big headlines in the paper -- it never happened. he never said it. he never said it. eventually he was captured and spent the rest of the war in a japanese prison camp. many of the stories that we here were not true. general macarthur, number one on my picture cards, wrote his own communities. his mutation was all false. he never told anything that happened accurately. he said that they drove off the japanese invasion first, which they hadn't. he said that they were able -- they were holding and by the time the newspapers got the story that he was holding manila, manila had been evacuated and surrendered to the japanese and macarthur was on an island in [inaudible] bay holdup until he could get out of there. terrorism of the tanned peninsula -- our troops were being held up. mcarthur was the hero. later when mcarthur would name his private plane, which he had in australia after he was evacuated -- and he called his own group of cronies, he called them [inaudible]. he was the hero at the beginning of world war ii at christmas time. at christmas, it went on as if there wasn't much change. people let their christmas trees, there was no blackout. churchill helped light the white house christmas tree. the only difference was that churchill and roosevelt had to be secured, and so people were not allowed to bring their christmas bottles onto the white house lawn. they had leave them at the gate. i don't think that would happen anymore. the world has changed. churchill also spoke to both houses of congress. and he told them that although he was there as a guest, if things had been a little different, instead of his mother being american, his mother was the new york society lady jenny jerome, and his bother, -- he said it was the other way around, he might've been there on his own. he was arrogant enough to think that he might have been there as the president, speaking to congress. he had that kind of personality that it could possibly have happened. he went on to speak to the canadian parliament. he went in president roosevelt private train to the capital of ottawa in canada to speak to the canadian parliament. by that time, he was pretty tired. he had had an exhausting trip to the united states, he had drank too much, he had even had a heart attack in the white house that nobody knew about 30 years. he had a heart attack. he tried to put it -- he tried to push open a white house window. he tried to do so because there was too much cigar smoke. he felt a pain in his arm and chest. he sensed there was trouble. he called in his doctor who had traveled with him to america. the doctor said you have had a heart attack, but let's not tell anybody. we will go on as before. so churchill smoked and drank as before, he traveled to canada just after his heart attack. he lived to be 90. i'm not suggesting this is the route you should take, but he went on to canada. he gave a memorable speech in canada. afterwards, he put his cigar back in his mouth. as he was leaving parliament house, a canadian photographer stop him and wanted to take his picture. churchill shook his head. the photographer wouldn't take no for an answer. he pulled his cigar from churchill's mouth and snapped his picture. joseph crash was the photographer. it is most famous teacher of churchill ever. it is known as the bulldog picture of churchill. it is in my book, "pearl harbor christmas." it is fascinating because it is how we remember churchill. a picture taken with the cigar pulled out of his mouth. things were bad all around, even for the germans, it seems. the germans at that time didn't expect to be -- and russia was still trying to take leningrad. the troops had no winter clothes. it was necessary for minister gables and hitler to get on berlin radio and plead with the german people to send winter clothes -- anything you can spare, he said, send winter clothes for christmas to the troops. he made it in terms of christmas presents for the troops. he had never used christmas before. the germans were forgetting to send christmas cards. we were forbidden to have christmas trees because christmas was for ben. it was just not part of the not see religion. suddenly, christmas appeared because he had to send close to the troops. he had a message for the troops on new years day later on. he said, with gods god's help, we will win the war in 1942. he had never used the word god forbid he knew things were getting bad for the germans do, but it took a long time before the germans could be defeated. in the united states, president roosevelt had the problem of replacing his leadership at pearl harbor. he could not leave the generals on duty. they were sacked immediately. he got in touch with another admiral who was there at the atlanta fleet, and was in his office in washington -- he called the office personally and he told the lieutenant on the other end of the line -- i want to talk to chester. they'll lieutenant did not accept that sort of thing. nobody calls and wants to talk to chester. so he refused to put the president on. finally, the president said, this is the president of the united states. i want to talk to chester. and chester was put on, finally, and he told him, you are now in command of pearl harbor. i want to get there as fast as you can, but i don't want to fly. he didn't want him to fly because the previous person he had ordered their along with an army general he had ordered there, had tried to fly there and they're playing crashed and they were both killed. he told him to put on civilian clothes and go by train to california. on christmas day, he arrived at pearl harbor. which was still a mess -- which was still full of oil slick's and bodies floating to the surface and rex -- and he knew for the first time what the reality was of pearl harbor. pearl harbor would remain in our conscience for a long time. it still does. when churchill left, he knew that the antidote to perl harbor had finally been worked out. we knew what we were doing and where we were going. roosevelt said, i want you to go with me to and new year's day ceremony at church. churchill had gone to church with roosevelt on christmas day in washington, and for the first time heard a little town of bethlehem song. it was actually an american carol that was written in philadelphia in 1869. this was all new to him. churchill said, why are we going to a methodist church? you're not a methodist. roosevelt said, i like to sing with a methodist. so they went to the methodist church. they went to alexandria to an episcopal church on new year's day. roosevelt didn't get out of the car when churchill said he wanted to go on to washington's mount vernon and visited washington's tomb. it was a wet day, and roosevelt, after all, was paralyzed. he did not want to make trouble for himself, so eleanor roosevelt accompanied him to lay a wreath at washington's tomb. the newspaper reporters followed. they wondered what was going to be said when he heard them chattering, after all, it must be something memorable. churchill had something memorable to say. he overheard him saying [inaudible]. so there wasn't much for history. last max. >> [laughter] >> the war would go on through 1942 -- 43 -- 1944. on to 19451945 when president roosevelt died on april 12, 1945. churchill saw the end, the churchill saw the end of all things from a distance, because the british had held an election and threw him out of office. they were ungrateful for the man who had led them to victory, because they did not feel he was good for them in peace. so they voted him out of office. that is for another book. thank you. i will leave things open for discussion if you would like to ask any questions. there is much more to be said, but i wanted to give you a deterrent. >> -- but i wanted to give you a turn. >> all the way in the back. >> what role did charles lindbergh have? >> what role did he have? very little. charles lindbergh was the guiding spirit of that america first committee, the isolations committee, but tried to keep us out of the war until pearl harbor destroyed the reason for existence of the america first committee. roosevelt would not let him have his commission back. he had been an air force colonel. roosevelt wouldn't let him back. he felt that this was a mistake to do. henry ford, who is also in isolations before world war ii began, put lindbergh to work, and he quietly put lindbergh to work as a civilian -- a civilian engineer with his [inaudible]. later on, lindbergh actually flew out to the pacific and was a test pilot on some of our new warplanes in the pacific. not as an officer, but quietly as a civilian. so he got back in the war somehow, but roosevelt did not want him in publicly. >> yes, sir? >> according to my recollection, the american intelligence agencies had an idea that pearl harbor was going to happen -- >> yes, there were stories after pearl harbor that we knew pearl harbor was going to happen and we were unprepared for that we wanted it to happen so we could get in the war somehow. none of it is really true. president roosevelt, quite literally, wanted to get into the war to help britain. he sent out destroyers to convoy british ships to britain, hoping they would be attacked by the germans so that he had an excuse to go to war. but even though a couple of our destroyers were sunk and others damaged and sailors killed, that didn't seem to be enough of a probe -- it took the attack on pearl harbor to do it. do we know about the attack on pearl harbor? no, we did not. we did not think the japanese could possibly have traveled that far with such a big strike force, like five aircraft carriers and other ships, to be able to get there without us spotting them. we had had almost -- all those annual exercises to defend pearl harbor against those attacks. we did not have one in 1941 because the admirals and generals thought that it was wasting valuable supplies, wasting wail and aviation gasoline -- and we shouldn't be doing that. after all, we had radar. very primitive radar. we could find a japanese if we wanted to. our primitive radar was turned off on saturday, december 7. it was the weekend. we couldn't listen in, and when somebody came to test the radar on a sunday, he was surprised to find blips on the screen. he called and to chester in a while -- and he said blix were coming in. he said oh, yes, there are complaints coming in from california. and yes they did, they did come in and they were at attacked by the japanese as they came in because the japanese were coming from another direction. there were other sources of information that we didn't take seriously. ambassador joseph grew in japan, told the state department that he had overheard -- at a party, at the peruvian embassy, talk on the part of the japanese that they were going to attack pearl harbor and they were planning for it. this came from a peruvian who had overheard the japanese. the state department didn't take it seriously, because after all, how would a peruvian waiter have any idea what was going on in japan? so they ignored it. we did not have any direct information, but we did know that the japanese did have a consul in honolulu who was trying to figure out where our ships were in pearl harbor. he was making a char. the authorities at pearl harbor felt that this was for sabotage, because they had a big japanese population there. he wanted to know where the ships would be the purposes of sabotage. it turned out there was not a single case of sabotage on the part of the japanese in hawaii. during the war. they were all quite loyal, except for this japanese console, who would've been imported as a spy. do we break the japanese code to learn about pearl harbor? no. we did break the japanese diplomatic code, and we knew that they were going to break relations with us, and we found that out the day before pearl harbor. but we did not know why they were going to break relations with us, because we did not have -- the naval code broken -- that we didn't know about those until well after pearl harbor. breaking the admiral code help is on the midway, which was six months later. but nothing, it seems, but stupidity and blindness was in the way of the japanese attack on pearl harbor itself. >> yes? >> i was wondering how much resistance was there, if any, to fdr's and churchill's attacking germany first versus japan first? there was no resistance on the part of the american public. the american public did not know what the plans would be. there was resistance from our navy, who felt that there was nothing they could do in the atlantic, and they went to the government of the japanese and they were warned that we didn't have enough ability to [inaudible] of the japanese because of our destination of our fleet at pearl harbor. we had to rebuild our fleet. meanwhile, we had to show the germans that we really were serious and go to war in the atlantic. so it became an atlantic war first, until we could rebuild our efforts in the pacific. >> yes. >> do you have a new book in the works, and will it have the same being? >> i have two more books in the works that will deal with president roosevelt. i got fascinated by president roosevelt activities during this period at pearl harbor, and decided that i would write about it more. because this is a president election year coming up, i am preparing a book that will come out during the election year when the wartime campaign of 1944 -- the first wartime campaign in the presidency since the civil war -- when roosevelt won her fourth term against tom dooley of new york state. the book will be entirely about the wartime campaign, though it will include the war itself, because -- he actually went to pearl harbor for the first time after the attack in 1944 to confer with an admiral and general macarthur about what to do next to defeat japan. roosevelt went on to be illusions from pearl harbor and came back from the destroyer to washington state. his adversaries, because this was an election year, spread the story that his little dog followed -- scottie dog had been abandoned and they had to send ships at great expense -- millions of dollars, to go back to an island and find the dog. that was all untrue. roosevelt made it into a good campaign story for his speeches. that would be in the next book, which will be called final victory. i hope you'll see it this year. oh, there will be another one after that. i was interviewing veterans of the war -- world war ii. about whether they voted during the 1944 election. did they vote and how did they vote? many former sailors told me that they voted for president roosevelt because he was a navy man. and i didn't quite figure that out at first. well, he was. he was assistant secretary of the navy at a young age -- age 31. a very effective secretary of the navy. his second book i am working on is -- it will be called young mr. roosevelt. it will be about president roosevelt as assistant secretary of the navy in world war i. i hope then that i will turn to something else if i'm still up to it. are there other questions? yes. >> would you think explains the difference of the treatment of japan as opposed to on the mainland and the west? >> it was a terrible thing. we incarcerated the japanese on the west coast. we sent them to concentration camps, called -- very likely -- relocation camps treated thing that we could not take a chance of security on the west coast because there were so many japanese living there or they had to give up their property, they had to give up their schooling -- they were sent to places like utah and montana and idaho in two very weak circumstances in concentration camps. there were never any problems with the loyalty of the japanese. eventually, the young japanese from the camps were allowed to leave the camps to enlist in the army, and they became one of the bravest forces we had in the army. they were never allowed to go to the pacific, because it was thought that you could not take that chance. they fought bravely in a daily, and they were among our best forces. but the japanese were not least from those camps until 1944 until the end of the war. it was only decades later that the supreme court heard the case and declare that it was an unconstitutional thing to have sent them to prison. it was far too late for them to do any good, and they were given a token sum of money, but would not buy back the land that was taken from them. it was a very bad lot on the american character. >> the japanese on hawaii were not treated that way? >> the japanese on hawaii were not. i don't know what the excuse was, but there were too many japanese on hawaii, and it was totally -- the economy of hawaii, had they been put into prison. there would've been no place to put them. there were just too many of them. it turned out that they were very effective and loyal, good citizens, good workers. many of them went into the army, and navy -- none of them were ever imprisoned. the ones on the west coast of the u.s. went to relocation camps and the same law was not used in hawaii. to me, the greatest irony is that one of our most liberal and respected chief justices of the supreme court -- earl wieden, who was cheap justice at the time -- chief justice at the time, earl was the attorney general of california who was partly responsible for extending the japanese to relocation camps. >> do you know about roosevelt and his attitude toward what happened in hawaii or elsewhere? >> i don't know why roosevelt allowed one and not the other. he was told by the general of command of the army on the west coast, that he was in a panic about the japanese, and they had to do something about it. the general in charge there turned out to be somebody who was a good friend of general marshall, the chief of staff. he was a turbo general. but he got away with it. on the night at pearl harbor, he went on the radio and announced that japanese were flying over seven cisco. everyone turned their lights out. he was scaring people. no one was there. >> how come the german americans were treated similarly? >> the german-american or italian americans were not treated similarly. there was no serious problem except for those germans who were considered disloyal by being members of the german-american nazi party. i don't know anyone who is actually in prison for being german. but in world war i, there was a panic about the germans, and in many places in the united states, the schools were forbidden to teach the german language anymore. my mother was in high school then, and her high school had to stop teaching german. there was more panic over germans in world war i than there was in world war ii. >> the invasion of russia by german -- germany was a major disaster for them. it sounds like that actually started before we got into the war? is that correct? >> the germans were attacked on june 22, 1941. they attacked -- japan attacked us on december 7, 1941. there was a five-month difference between the attack on russia by the germans, and the attack on the u.s. by the japanese. the germans thought that it the communist would fall apart because there was such disloyalty to the communist -- such hatred among the people -- they didn't realize how tough it was to do anything in a police state to somehow upset the equilibrium. they fought for their motherland -- the russians did. whether it was communist or not, it was strong enough -- about 20 million russians died in that war. but the germans could never capture moscow. they got to the gates of moscow, the day before pearl harbor, december 6. but they could never get through. they isolated leningrad. leningrad was under siege for 900 days. literally. 900 days. the people were not near starvation, they were in starvation. they killed the plaster from the walls to eat because they had to have something to eat. there was cannibalism. the dead were literally eaten in leningrad. it was absolutely terrible of a time. but they were loyal to the motherland, and nothing -- the germans could not get through. >> is was of course going on at the time of pearl harbor, and there was nothing we could do to aid the russians at leningrad, which is now saying petersburg. it is now saint petersburg. there was nothing we could do to get supplies to them by other means. at the time, my book is underway -- anthony eden, the minister for britain, was in moscow trying to find a way to get supplies to the russians. how would they accept them? many supplies came in through persia, because it was the southern route. therefore, it it wasn't icebound. we would send planes and trucks to persia, and the russians would not let us take them into russia. the cold war was really going on already. he wouldn't let us take them in. they sent their own pilots and drivers to pick them up and take them to russia. they did not want the americans talking to the russians or seeing what conditions were like in russia. anyone who tells you the cold war began after the war -- not so. >> [inaudible question] >> yes, the germans did not want us to supply the russians. they thought the japanese attack would divert and surprise. they thought this was a good thing to have the japanese in the war, in part because we would have just like germany -- rather supply britain and russia, and also a our own forces at the same time, and we wouldn't have been able to do all of it, but we did. any other questions? yes? >> something i heard. [inaudible] in france -- in world war ii that germans didn't touch it [inaudible question] >> i think there are a lot of things the germans didn't do because they didn't feel it was important enough to bother with. the one symbol that the germans wanted to do something about in world war ii, it was the railway car -- pullman car, in which the armistice of 1918 was signed. the germans actually took the car and route it to germany and put it on display. because they had signed the armistice with france in 1940 defeating the french and used the same card liberally. the british showed on film -- hitler doing a little dance in front of the car, because he was so happy about it. the dance was a phony. what they did was speed of the film. he was just walking. they speeded up the film to make it look as if he was demented and doing this dance in front of the railway car. the car, of course, was soon moved back to france in 1945. >> thank you. i think we have probably finished what we had to do. i appreciate you all coming. mrm to questions during this one-hour forum. >> good afternoon, and welcome to the cato institute in exile -- we are glad to have you here. in about two months, the construction on our building will be complete and we will be back in the auditorium. for now, we are glad to be over here at the auditorium to discuss this book -- fdr goes to war. a long time ago, i went to mayfield high school in mayfield, kentucky. in my senior year, i was the coeditor of the high school newspaper -- the cardinal. i think the features editor that year was my classmate anita printz. she has gone on to bigger things. she got married, for one thing to burt folsom. she worked for presidents reagan and senator mitch mcconnell in kentucky, she was a presidential elector and most recently she has directed hillsdale college forum for two years. her co-author and has been is her husband burton folsom. i actually visited pit for the first time last fall. i saw something that i'm surprised that. the cathedral of learning, which is the second tallest building in the world of college -- the first one is in russia, this is a 42 story university building -- the first two stories which are built like a gothic cathedral. if you are ever in pittsburgh, take a book and go and spend some time in the cathedral of learning. since then, byrd has taught at a couple of different colleges and now holds the charles klein history and management at hillsdale college. he also serves as senior historian at the foundation for economic education, where you can find some of his articles at fde.org did he has published several books in which he had explained the difference between market entrepreneurs and political entrepreneurs, which is good for it today's discussion of crony capitalism and free enterprise. his work on the administration of franklin roosevelt began with his book new deal or roxio, how fdr's legacy has damaged america. that came out in the fall of 2008, just as everybody was saying that we needed to emulate what fdr had done. it got a lot of attention. his newest book is "fdr goes to war", which he co-authored with anita. as i said in my book 15 years ago, libertarianism [inaudible], we are still living in the washington that roosevelt built or the welfare state, our global intervention in foreign policy, the president as the dominant figure in the political system -- all of that goes back to fdr's transformation of politics and policy. it is important to study and understand how fdr governed. how he changed what had gone before. and it also, i think, has an additional importance for libertarians. that is that the libertarian movement arose in opposition to roosevelt new deal and imperial presidency. i think, particularly, if you want to pick a date and say when did the libertarian movement begin? obtusely, political movements have long pre-histories and histories. if you wanted to choose a day, you might say it was 1943 when three women -- rose wilder lane, rose patterson, all published books about individualism, constitution, and limited government. it brought together the nucleus of the movement for those ideas. that is why we occasionally turn from public policy to history, and why we are delighted to present this. please welcome the co-author of "fdr goes to war", professor bert folsom. >> let me just start with some opening remarks. we have franklin roosevelt, the president. world war ii -- the event. you cannot miss for nick -- an exciting book with those events. you have the biggest military event in the world -- world war ii. in covering this, what we were trying to do is give a history of world war ii -- 300 pages, readable for people to grasp the war itself, the president who conducted the war. we have a chapter on pearl harbor, the dramatic attack. anita wrote the section on midway. the turning point for the united states in many ways. you have the generals, eisenhower, patton, marshall -- all conducting enterprises that were essential to victory for the united states. you have the atomic bomb itself. here we have to give roosevelt credit for thinking ahead of what might be developed that would make a pivotal difference in the war. then you have the end -- finally, of the great depression. which dominated the generation of america. coming to an end at the end of world war ii. you have a lot to work with. we work with those elements in the book "fdr goes to war." i would like and needed to start off by commenting on some of these features of world war ii and franklin roosevelt. it is a pleasure to be here today with cato institute and my friend david does. our goal in writing this book was to make it larger than just an economic text, although that is important. it isn't book for everyone that in 300 pages you can read and you get an overview of world war ii. whether you are a young person trying to learn or -- and i can assure you that most of that group knows nothing about world war ii. it is almost amazing. also, we have material that we think you may have never heard before. to get right into it, i want to set the stage about the 1930s and to explain that part of what led to world war ii being such an up evil for the united states or the policies of franklin roosevelt during the 1930s. to give you some statistics -- factory output. the output of american industry increased every decade beginning in 1899 for the following tenures -- actor he output was up 14%. it was up 3.5% every year. 1919 to 1929 -- the roaring 20s, factory production was up 5.1% each year. the 1929 to 1939, a decreased slightly every single year during the 1930s. our industrial complex by 1939 had aged. it is out of touch with cutting edge innovations that are going on in europe and elsewhere. suddenly we are faced with this problem of a military complex in europe, and we don't have anything to compete with them. in the book, i mentioned that army chief of staff douglas macarthur testified before congress in 1935, pleading for enough money so that he would have enough bullets in his armies for 100,000 soldiers. we are not talking about stealth bombers or complex weapons. we are talking literally about enough bullets to man 100,000 men in the army. i can certainly understand if you're not for a strong military -- american presence overseas, which we don't necessarily need, but i do think that a strong defense of america wards off problems. germany was aware of that, and so was japan. that leads to a lot of problems. the war, of course, came along to the united states in late 1941. suddenly, factories have to be converted. what do you do? overnight they restricted products to consumers. overnight in january 1942, you could not buy tires for your car. if your tires had been getting aged and you thought oh, next week, i will run down to sears roebuck and get a new set of tires, you were out of luck. the only way you can could get another set of tires was to go before the government tire board and prove that you had a reason it was essential for getting new tires. radios, bicycles, clocks -- even clocks, the common american could not even purchase them after the spring of 1942. all those mechanisms were used in the war effort. most americans supported the sudden changes. that was, of course, with a wave of patriotism that swept through. everyone wanted to win the war. many people had fighting men overseas. the way in which the war had begun with japan bombing pearl harbor before the declaration of war was given to the secretary of war and secretary of state in washington dc -- that angered everyone. but what did the government do to suddenly help the american economy in the war of emergency? it did what it did a lot of the time. it began regulating everything. the federal war production board took control of the allocation of almost all materials in the united states. they said where they would be used to control the fuel supply, and it took control of industrial production. the war production board is one of the most powerful agencies ever created by the federal government. it employed hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats fighting in the war. the government issued ration books to every american, even babies. in new york city alone, 7 million ration books were issued the very first week that rationing went into effect, which was the spring of 1942. of course, without ration stamps, you couldn't purchase shoes, gasoline, many other items. .. .. to the parking lot after the rally in someone had broken into his car and stolen his gas coupons. as america wasn't quite as solid as sometimes i think the rosy picture that is painted on the war years there were great many struggles but by and large, most americans did support the war and of course wanted the united states to win. entrepreneurs had to come up with new things on the good side such as aircraft manufacturer, that's where we lag behind i would say the most glaring example. for instance 1940 henry ford was asked to get behind the mass production of aircraft. this is before we enter the war but they knew that he was good at assembly lines what can we do to mass produce airplanes. he sent his son and some of his top executives out to california. california, 1940, was one of the main places where aircraft were built. it seems strange today to read to you know why that was so? most of them were put together a slide. that sounds unbelievable but they were putting planes together one at a time in the california sunshine. you can't build a 10,000 bombers during that. would take you forever and a day. ford had to figure out how to do in an assembly line for the be 24 and typical henry ford fashion she owned a farm near michigan. she turned his farm land into a bomber plant called willow run, and the plant had the largest be 24 and had occurred in the assembly line because it was in the county and he didn't want to go over in the county where detroit was because he didn't want to give the democrats any tax money so the assembly line turned around, too. another huge success during world war ii that we often don't realize is the development of penicillin. penicillin wasn't available before world war ii to read it had been developed and was a great breakthrough and as we mentioned in the book after pearl harbor one of the few success stories in the spring of 42 was not one injured man who was injured by the japanese bombing of pearl harbor had had to have an amputation to to infection. this was a new world in military medicine because the soulful had prevented the infection. they used liberally in the work and everyone was thrilled with the problem was it didn't deal with extremely deep wound infections in the abdomen or the chest and those are so common and more so penicillin had to be developed and it was done with the help of the british. the british of course penicillin had been discovered in the 1920's and even before that they knew that certain types of mold killed bacteria but of course the publicized discovery of penicillin in 1920. in 1941 the british brought over the strings of penicillin they had come and with their limited capacity because the restrained by the war effort they have only been unable to devote enough penicillin for five patients. they tried on five ill patients and new would worked very well and they brought it over and said to the american department of agriculture do you think you can grow penicillin and they said we will try and was a great partnership between the department of agriculture and private pharmaceutical companies. gistel took a year and a half, but it revolutionized medicine for the american soldier and the american public because by 1945, penicillin was available for american citizens and we were very soon after a quickly sending it overseas so that's one of the better success stories of world war ii. but overall the american public met the challenge of pulling together in this emergency knowing that the japanese were sailing off the coast of california, and knowing that hitler had overrun europe. they met the challenge and to the entrepreneurship and the spirit of the american people demand these great contributions now burt is going to come and talk a little bit more about the economic and what got us out at the end of the war and the great depression. bert? >> we look at world war ii and franklin roosevelt seemed so long ago seven years since the bombing of pearl harbor. and you don't really realize that much of american politics from foreign policy to domestic policy is shaped by the events that happened in world war ii. franklin roosevelt was very anxious for an active role of government in the american economy. of course world war ii provides that in a big way and has gone into some of those details. but roosevelt wanted it that way after the war, too. that's the important thing. so franklin roosevelt created the national resource planning board to read they were supposed to take ideas for after the war to run the american economy. roosevelt picked this up and the state of the union speech of 1944 he talked about the economic bill of rights. the economic bill of rights, and i quote from parts of it include bear right to a useful clean new narrative job. the right of every family to a decent home. the right to a good education, the right to adequate medical care. these become new rights described as the economic bill of rights. sometimes he called it the second bill of rights and they roll off the tongue so nicely. don't we all want decent homes? the right to a good education, the right to a useful and remember to of job. roosevelt issued visas and they become the plan for after world war ii. when the world is over then these rights can be given for. if you think about it, if anita has the right to av remember to the job, then someone here has an obligation to provide the job. if i have the right to a decent home, taxpayers have an obligation to provide that home. if david has the right to adequate medical care than there are hospitals or through federal funding of some kind of those hospitals and physicians are obligated to supply that medical care. how different this is from the first bill of rights to free speech doesn't impose obligations on you to even listen to the speech or accept or pay for it. the right to freedom of religion, we hear in a church here, the right to freedom of religion doesn't obligate anyone to go to a certain church, it just provides the opportunity for someone to practice freedom of religion. the first bill of rights by the founders are rights. the second bill of rights impose obligations and involve the government in a big way. what we see in the war is a huge tax structure being set up which roosevelt won two years after the war and will be used after to fund more federal programs. the income tax maximum that anybody had to pay was 25%. that's the most anybody had to pay to meet top and comes. most americans didn't pay income tax at all. of course in some ways there is a promise with fat. but we only had about 5% of americans paying any income tax right before the war of 1940. by the end of the war, two-thirds of american families were paying the federal income-tax coming and it started at 24%. the exemption was only $500. if you made over $500, you started paying at 24%. that then increase in a progressive way up to a maximum of 94% on all income over $200,000. that means if you earn $300,000 on your third 100,000 from you keep $600,000 give to the government $94,000. a lot of people flocked that might stifle entrepreneurship. roosevelt believed its essentials providing decent homes, good educations and adequate medical care. this will be the basis of the funding of those kinds of actions. so what we see is a dramatic increase in the taxpayer base and tax revenue. we see withholding introduced for the first time. withholding we have a chapter in there will be introduced the will to commander ackley of the checks so the government can use it right away rather than having to wait for a year. what we see as a defense of franklin roosevelt by many people -- i would like to read from a kentucky senator from a democratic senator from kentucky, the state where david was born and anita but neither of them agrees at least on this point. he said, quote, all of us owe the government for everything we have and that is the basis of obligation and the government can't take everything we have if it needs at. the government can assert its right to have all the taxes it needs for any purpose either now or at any time in the future. the chandler view expressed on the senate floor when we pulled the sort of the congressional record and many other quotations like this are the defense of the idea of the government becoming the main source not only for the economy and providing jobs and providing health care and of the tax revenue than going into the government so the government programs can provide those kinds of jobs, can provide decent homes and good education. when we got to the end of the war, roosevelt died, harry truman comes in, harry truman essentially agrees with roosevelt on many issues. they are different kind of people, very different presidents but on this issue truman is ready to go along with all of this. a true man comes in, the economic planners are wanting to institute -- they think the war is going to go on until 1946. germany's course surrenders and 45. it appears will go on for a long time. truman didn't know about the atomic bomb when he became president. that's one of the shocks. roosevelt never informed him as being developed. in fact and of the odd things is the day truman became president he didn't know he had an atomic bomb, but stalin did. one of the ironies of history, the russians knew we hadn't, the president of the united states did not. happily secretary of war stemson told that to truman early in his presidency, so now he knew and when he made the decision to use it on japan in august, congress had a session. it takes most of america by surprise. august 6th, an atomic bomb on hiroshima august 6, nagasaki. congress is out of session and the war is over. the planners haven't had a chance to come in with their programs and immediately truman wants to get them back into session with by this time some were saying this 94% tax i don't think is kind to get america back on track. the keynesian completely believed it. listen, truman's secretary of treasury gives you an idea where the americans were who favored this kind of intervention. of course lord keynes have come out with his idea that you need public-works to stimulate the aggregate demand. lots of government intervention coming and he will eliminate unemployment through that. so what the secretary of treasury bonds and another kentucky in by the way, the secretary of treasury says right after the war meant the japanese had surrendered and he wants massive government intervention and he says history shows that business, labour, agriculture cannot in themselves assure the maintenance of high levels of production and employment in other words markets don't work. the government must assume responsibility and take measures broad enough to meet the issues pocket fichus. reporter i.f. stone agrees as do many other reporters. he says, quote, new agencies, new ideas, new directions are necessary if we are not to suffer a relapse into the chronic mass unemployment that of the war transfusions are no longer available to an alien capitalism. the ceiling a cabalism no longer has the worst trans reason. 12 million are coming home and immediately we have these programs for them. they predicted without massive government programs of the new wpa, programs to build roads, new programs to train people without these programs roosevelt wanted to build like the tennessee valley authority others all around the country other types of public works programs, other types of building the public works very much in truman's mind and unless these happen they predicted listen we've got 12 million veterans coming home, senator kilgore of west virginia as i predict 18 million unemployed, to be worse than the great depression, worse than the 25% when roosevelt came to office. time magazine. others estimated may be just ten or 12 million unemployed. that will still put it at about 20%. predictions are very high and unemployment. what do we get? to senators, republican and one democrat saying no. the chairman of the senate finance committee senator walter george of georgia said he supported a revenue act of 1945 which cut the tax rates and i will get into that in a minute but he said this revenue has the effect which it is hoped it would had it would stimulate the expansion of business to bring in a greater total of revenue and create more jobs at the same time. in other words i think we can get more revenue into the government and more jobs created if we cut the tax rates and allow businesses to expand. it was a model different from the roosevelt model in the economic dolerites. and we have the republicans agreeing another republican of new jersey said the repeal of the excess profits tax in my opinion may raise more revenue for the united states than would be raised if it were repaid coming and was at 90% to read and 90% corporate tax. and she says if you will cut the tax below 90% i think we can actually not only create more jobs because to stimulate business but he will actually grow the economy and get more revenue at the same time and he added this statement you cannot get a golden egg out of a dead goose. he led in of republicans and senator george led the enough democrats to pass the revenue act of 1945, and the revenue act of 1945 cut the corporate tax from 90% to 38%. imagine that. 90% to 38%. it cut the personal income tax. plus it promised more cuts later. this is the first one. this is all we can get through now and more are coming later. because what was known as the capitol stock tax on every share of stock that you own a. we eliminated that. eliminated the regulations last federal spending and dramatically which of course you can do. we no longer need the tanks, planes and ammunition, so enormous cutting of federal expense. the end result was a mass of economic expansion. businesses had finally -- we've been under these taxes for 13 years and in the hoover had been mr. shom wasn't good either. we've had a great depression for 15 years. now the tax rates are cut it's time to expand. if you look at that post war economy so much that we take for granted today, you get the holiday in, television, copy machines, all of these kinds of entrepreneur is and many more come to the floor after world war ii and we see a tremendous growth one of the most exciting statistics is this we had 39 million people employed in civilian employment, non-military. that goes up to 55 million to rid of the stock market increased by 20% in 1946. private gross national product increased 30% for the first and only time it had done that in u.s. history. and furthermore, the experts with estimating i think $31 million into the federal treasury in 46 and maybe 47, we got 31 billion, we had 43 billion. we increased that by more than 25% because the economy expanded so much more than anybody had anticipated. the end result is that we have 3.9% unemployment in 1946, 3.9% unemployment in 1947. the united states has a burgeoning growth rate and when you're up who is trying the other means to get back on their feet, when they are failing, the united states is able to send tons and tons of food over to feed europeans who at different points in the post war period were dying at the rate of one per second. the deaths were curtailed by the free food that the united states and over after the war. we sent food, the economy to leave the economy recovered and we took the federal deficit during 1946 and 1947 slightly but we did cut it in part because the revenue so much exceeded expectations. so what i'm saying is we have a lot during world war ii that gives lessons for today, what works, what doesn't work in an expanding economy, the taxes we've come to expect today, the economic bill of rights, the right to education which we've seen for a sample of the student loan program and president obama and changes with the housing to a decent home which goes to urban renewal and then to the community reinvestment act in the 1970's which promises lower interest rates to poor people so they can have homes which accelerates the mortgage crisis which comes unhinged in the last five years, the right to medical care we see with president obama and obamacare so i'm simply saying the politics of today heavily shaped by what we saw happening in world war ii but what we saw happening in world war ii if we study it more carefully as the we got out of the great depression by freeing up the economy and cutting tax rates not by following the prescription to increase and perpetuate the high economic growth that we've experienced during world war ii. thank you. [applause] estimates before. we will open this up for questions now. please wait until i call on you and a microphone gets to you so that we get everything. i'm going to ask the first question, and that is i read this book and i found it a more straightforward and sober history the and i might have thought from the title have expanded executive power is spiraling the national debt and the civil liberties should america. i wonder if the marketers at your publisher wrote that subtitle. i would just stay there. actually, that subtitle was developed by our simon and schuster publishers but the person who developed it did it on the basis of saying i deduce this from the content of the book. i think was a very reasonable deduction because we see expanded executive power in the growth of the war production board, the price control, the rationing and all of this, the spiralling national debt. listen, the national debt doubled in the year of roosevelt's presidency or the first two terms of the presidency. then it increased sixfold during world war ii so what you have the end of world war ii is a national debt of $260 billion the interest to pay that is about with the whole national debt was when roosevelt became president. another was we've gone from having an national debt of about 20 billion to having an interest rate of about 20 billion on the national debt that was almost 300 billion, suggesting is the national debt and the growth of that federal spending and the economic bill of rights which was roosevelt hoped would perpetuate that in the future is a big part of the war and the civil liberties we haven't done as much with. the japanese-americans of course most of you know are in turned. we have roosevelt using wiretapping extensively it's essential for the national defence. enemies might be sending messages and. you grant that and pretty soon he is wiretapping republicans and pretty soon his wife, eleanor. so we see an abuse of civil liberties are as well and so as well as shutting down magazines and newspapers so much so that frances' own attorney general was having to fight him on a lot of this, so that is a fair deduction of the content of the book, even though i have to get our publisher simon and schuster credit for the and the subtitle, we did the main title. i think she got the fdr goes to war. >> questions. yes, right there. >> my name is steven short. i was a little bit thrown by the title of the book granted the tax rates had reached the pre-war level but the other instances, the rationing of the direction of production to when the war, the consequences of the expending that i'm not at all convinced that any other president would have ended up at the same after the ocean war tariffs but part of our premise is one of the reasons we wound up in the ocean war is because we were so weak during the 1930's. and we have information in fdr goes to war. fdr cut military spending all during the 1930's in terms of the percentage of military spending in the federal budget. and this was on top of the fact that during herbert hoover' presidency, proceeding president, met three budgets were very, very low. so the american military was just incredibly weak and also just incredibly behind the rest of the world we were something like 17 in terms of military strength and innovation. but fdr as we show during 1940 and 41 before pearl harbor he has already declared mother to the emergency, he's taken over power with lots of executive orders and the thing is he's not putting these agencies under the control of congress or other individuals to get his 15 defense agencies under the president's office. it's called the office of emergency management and it is directly supervised by franklin roosevelt, so we lost some of the grabs for power, and i agree any president faced with a war emergency has to do certain things to the extent to which roosevelt looked at this as an opportunity to really put his big government ideas into action and especially you get this with taxation. he had been wanting high rates of withholding from a huge percentage of americans for his entire life and he used a the war emergency to get that through to the estimate should have given you a little more of a warning. two things quickly. the standard narrative for the post war boom is the spending bills up this enormous demand, and i think the - that he explained as a counter to that because it centers on the reduced legislations and tax rates. the question is if truman was so aligned with roosevelt on this matter, do you believe that roosevelt died, had he still been healthy and mumbai in april 45 that somehow she would have managed to do what truman according to you wanted to do but because of political naivete failed to do what roosevelt do you think have done that he and if he had kept tax rates high and pursue the supply side strategy we wouldn't have had the postwar boom would roosevelt have been more likely to continue the new deal programs, the new deal movement than truman? was it just truman' political naivete? >> that's a good question. roosevelt had vast experience dealing with congress, and fought had enormous confidence that he could get his way on most things. the new deal revival was what we call the new deal revival, his plan for postwar america. of course you point out he died before he could do that. truman buys into this but remember she didn't even know he had an atomic bomb he's sitting there trying to appoint cabinet members and find out what is going on the because roosevelt kicked him in the dark and as a senator he hadn't had that close of access to the branch said he is still learning the job and the essence is because he's still learning the job he hasn't developed the political skills yet to be able to get what roosevelt might have been able to get. then the question is could roosevelt have had achieved this? it's one of these kind of counterfactual questions you think about i wondered if roosevelt had been able to do it. i'm not sure he would have been able to do so. what do you think? >> i think one side of this that is interesting and we point this out in fdr goes to war is fdr had lost a lot of clout in congress in 39 and 40. his court packing scheme in 38 really incurred a lot of people and then he also tried to of course purge of various members of congress and the senate did one of them was the senator from maryland and if you notice in the book it leads the filibuster to defeat several of the proposals fdr once passed before congress adjourns in the summer of 1939 and he's delighted to do that because he sees fdr as an enemy. some people are very suspicious of him and the way that he manipulated. >> he was only working 20 hours a day or 20 hours a week. he'd gone from ten atv 20 hours a day to 20 hours a week. his physician simply said the stress and all of this, he had high blood pressure and he couldn't take that, roosevelt was only working half time so it's hard to be effective and you are only working half time. i don't think he would have been able to do it. the other thing is walter george was the subject of a purge. roosevelt tried to get him out of office which is one of the reasons that george was hostile to roosevelt' attitudes in world war ii so george was always quick to be there to oppose him some of the chairman of the senate finance committee opposing you and a large block of republicans opposing you. i think what roosevelt would have been likely not to have been successful but it's hard to say she would have really tried and the thing is every time you try to think well roosevelt can't pull this off, sometimes he gets something on someone and that person ends up being an ally and he's able to put off. certainly it was easier for senator george dealing with truman than it would have been a healthy roosevelt. >> another political changes the senators that roosevelt tried to purge or democrats, it was the democratic primaries. estimate his own democratic senators, and of course if you are looking at the influence of fdr on truman and other presidents waiting in the wings is lyndon johnson and lyndon johnson is a new member of congress soaking up everything he does in terms of patronage and big government programs and of course as a big help to fdr and the national election of 1940. >> roosevelt has a task of manipulating said liberties which we haven't done as much with. for simple, he wants to put moses annenberg in prison, the editor of the philadelphia inquirer and there's a republican paper that threatens to bring pennsylvania back into the republican column so you go after an irs audit and it turns out it's vulnerable so in an byrd doesn't just pay a fine he goes to prison and then johnson is guilty of all sorts of misuse of campaign contributions and declaring some of his supporters so the irs is going after johnson, too seven johnson comes to roosevelt so roosevelt has to pull the irs off johnson said he can continue to be roosevelt' man in texas and then to make sure annenberg goes to prison you have faith maneuvering will by fdr he pulled both of those off, so he was someone you are dealing with that the executive branch to be very powerful. >> yes, in the back. >> al milliken. you both united and the way that you viewed economic relations with the lack of economic relations between the united states and japan leading up to world war ii and has pressed do you believe the united states was by the attack on pearl harbor? >> i think we were pretty united in our view on that and that is something i did the majority of the work on the book for so i will answer first. we do plan out in the book in the early pages in 1933 this is before fdr is even inaugurated as president he is talking with two of his advisers and they're both big new dealers the will be part of his trust. the above columbia professors and the totally believe in the government directed economy and of course the people directing the economy should be intellectuals so there's the recipe right there. fdr mentions he's always favored china and he thinks the war with japan might work better if it's sooner than later so why not now he had that flem and side to his nature and i will point out he had never been in a foxhole. he'd never been the military to the heat never been shot at. he took all that i think rather lightly, and when you look at the men who died in the pacific and the early days of world war ii i find that really appalling that he let them go into those exposed areas in parts of the philippines with such bad weapons and many of the men that died in the conflict could blame fdr but as far as pearl harbor ghosts, i do think that we cut the japanese off from their resources and i will say an interesting study is to read the papers of ambassador joseph prez in tokyo pleading to put off the embargo. pleading with them saying there is a peace faction in the japanese and we can build that if you put the embargo off. but roosevelt is determined to in barbaro oil and scrap iron and they make it very difficult for the japanese to receive any of that said the japanese party gains ascendancy in tokyo and then of course plans period harbor. people always say do you think fdr knew about pearl harbor? i think fdr knew that an attack was coming and he knew an attack was probably coming first of december, the first two weeks of december but where was it going to be? almost everyone thought that would be on probably singapore and the philippines. the japanese had 50,000 troops in saigon vietnam something from french indochina to the philippines or singapore was an easy thing and fdr and general marshall have had the war department warned the bases to go on high alert. the problem is if i had an hour i could go over what happened at pearl harbor. it's a perfect storm of mistakes and everyone there believes they were in command of the win command with the attitude of it doesn't matter any way because we are really not going to be attacked so why bother and that is a very bad way to do it and other commanders had done that but it was 1932 were 34 or 36 and your commander in hawaii, you could have that attitude and you were fine and you could spend two years out in hawaii and not do a whole lot and who cares but in december of 1941, it was a very poor way to run things. i don't think fdr directly knew would be pearl harbor but he knew an attack was coming, and what i blame him for most is pearl harbor because he had given 1900 anti-aircraft guns to other countries and he given away hundreds of fighter planes and i will give the commanders in hawaii this much credit. they didn't have the weapons either. there were very short-handed >> at marvil richardson got fired and we play this out in the book. he was the pacific fleet commander in 1940 and a realist and i think a very capable officer and he went to the white house finally in october of 1940 and argued for two hours with franklin roosevelt about keeping the fleet at pearl harbor. he said we are vulnerable and we need to move the fleet back to california. finally, he really -- it became pretty heated and he finally told franklin roosevelt mr. president, i have to inform you that most of the leaders of the pacific fleet do not have confidence in you to lead the navy, and fdr didn't do anything at that precise moment but he wouldn't act on what was said, and he finally fdr was reelected the next month november of 1942 and right after he fires joe richardson so i don't know that a movie is ever going into the life of the admiral or not, but he is backed in the united states on the day of pearl harbor' attack and he's sitting their getting all that news and he knows i warned them over a year ago and still haven't. >> did fdr acknowledge any limits on constitutional limits on the power of commander in chief during world war ii? you mentioned the internment of the japanese and i also have read historical accounts when he said the military tribunals to try the nazis out tours that some of the historical accounts that i've read said that he's let it be known to back channels if the supreme court tries to challenge my authority to try to execute these people through the three tribunals i'm going to execute them any way. i just wondered if he acknowledged any limit on the power of the commander in chief during wartime whether the bill of rights had any application. >> i haven't seen any. if he did i haven't run across at. he tended not to like to talk about that kind of thing so it's not something he talked about with a great deal of frequency but judging by his actions and i haven't seen any indication he felt they were those particular restrictions that applied. spaghetti are reminds me sometimes work to bill clinton reminds me of fdr because i think both men are really, really smart and they are careful not to step on land mines as they don't have to so fdr ignored the constitution. spikelet me ask a follow-up on that. we have debated a good bet whether the new deal model getting out of the great depression is a good model for getting out of the great recession today. there's been people on both sides of that. should there be a similar debate on what roosevelt' treatment of civil liberties in wartime is a model for what we've done since 9/11 or should be or is a cautionary model >> roosevelt by putting 110,000 a japanese internment camps has gone way beyond anything we've seen today. but roosevelt keep in mind there's a political angle to that. not only did the governor enthusiastically endorse doing that, it appears to be heavily political. we would talk up as often because the japanese were such good workers and had been so successful that many of the anglo-saxons felt competitive pressures since if you are to uphold california, you would find there was a majority of the non-japanese that thought if we could get these guys out of the way this is a good thing. roosevelt played to that and put them in the internment camps even though jay edgar hoover said they are not dangerous. let's not do this and he did any way as the attorney general didn't like get but roosevelt enjoyed the political success of removing them not only of the removed and the temple against him, they are removed and those people in california and elsewhere are going to be voting. he's been to pick up seats in california. the western coordinator is saying why are they still here? face been here for years. they join the army and they are highly decorated people to rely are we letting this group -- you might invite an individual who shows signs of having made overtures that should cause him to be investigated but you're talking about the whole group of people, the six-year-old, all of these people holden to these camps. was atrocious scene of the people in charge of the can say no, this isn't right. and roosevelt keeps it going, keep it going and finally the secretary at meds and says i've been around roosevelt along time. i have a chilling after the reelection things might change and sure enough, the first cabinet meeting after the 4040 election one roosevelt and safely elected the seats have been gained in california coming and then we work on getting the japanese out of the internment camp so some of it is a civil liberties issue for sure but there are political advantages to roosevelt to choose this and they thought they ought to put the japanese in camps it wasn't just roosevelt but they are suggesting there were many that said no let's not do this and some said let's do and roosevelt said yeah i think i will sign the exit of order. let's put them in there and then he took political the vantage of this and then lifted the restrictions when he was safely be elected. >> we will take one last question here. >> i just want to ask a couple of questions. one is the 90% plus corporate tax of excess profits was that applied across the board to the companies or the progress of corporate tax system. >> really most companies were caught up to 90% level at least pretty close to it and certainly all major corporations were caught in a 90% level so that was in place for getting people the right to decent home or the right to a good education and the right to a job. >> another question? >> just on the politics of truman. could he have vetoed these reductions and taxes if he wanted to? >> he could have and he didn't. he was in the enthusiastic but he went along with it. i'm not sure, but again, roosevelt -- he's gone and you are trying to think what would he have done. truman was willing at least on this first tax cut to go along with it and part of it was his his job, congress was urging him to do it, but when further tax cuts were passed by congress in 1946, 1937 he beat it again and again and again calling the tax cuts for the rich it fundamental basis for the 1948 campaign to respond to the book is fdr goes to war. thank you, burt and

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