The Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (review)

The Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. By George McJimsey. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000; pp. xvi + 355. $27.96.

In this 35th installment (covering 38 presidents) of the University of Kansas "American Presidency Series," George McJimsey draws on a voluminous secondary literature and published primary sources (described in some detail in an excellent "Bibliographic Essay") to provide a "concise" and "balanced" account (from the dust jacket) of the longest and one of the most consequential presidencies in American history. The book's first chapter describes the society and times in which FDR grew to political maturity and then covers his political career up to the time of his inauguration as president on March 4, 1933. The final short chapter assesses the nature and importance of FDR's 12 years as chief executive. The 11 chapters in between cover the famous first "Hundred Days," the development of domestic policy and its administrative apparatus in FDR's first term, Roosevelt's political base, the contribution of Eleanor Roosevelt to the New Deal (a separate chapter), FDR's failures in his second term to restructure the Supreme Court and to realign the parties along a liberal-conservative axis, the movement from isolation to war, and the conduct of the Second World War.

Of course, no medium-length book can do justice to the myriad important aspects of Roosevelt's presidency. McJimsey has chosen to give fairly detailed treatment to some of these aspects and a more superficial treatment to others. In the former category are the development of domestic policies and programs mainly in FDR's first term (nearly a third of the book); the particular importance to the New Deal of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins (about whom McJimsey authored a previous book); and Roosevelt's personal diplomacy during the Second World War. On economic and social recovery, for example, readers interested in the "big picture" of FDR's presidency may find their powers of concentration challenged by the sheer quantity of detail--the problems, policies, and agencies--McJimsey presents. Indeed, these chapters read less like a history of Roosevelt's presidency as such than like a history of New Deal policy. Some readers will be disappointed that there is not more coverage here of policy development within the executive branch and of presidential-congressional relations.

"Big picture" enthusiasts, however, will not be disappointed with the final third of the book, which provides an excellent treatment of Roosevelt's maneuverings among the currents of isolationist public and congressional opinion in the late 1930s and his stewardship of America's involvement in World War II. McJimsey particularly emphasizes the importance of FDR's anticolonialism and the tensions this created between him and Churchill. For this and other reasons, Roosevelt often saw himself as less a partner of Churchill in opposing the interests and postwar ambitions of Stalin than as an "honest broker" between Churchill and Stalin. In this largely sympathetic treatment of Roosevelt's diplomacy, McJimsey avoids a serious examination of the relative soundness of Roosevelt's and Churchill's assessments of the Soviet menace. In a way that recalls the lessons that President Jimmy Carter admitted to learning about trusting the Soviet Union after its invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, McJimsey recounts how within weeks after returning from the Yalta conference in February 1945, the results of which the president had described to the American people in the most positive terms, Roosevelt declared to his daughter Anna, "We can't do business with Stalin. . . . He has broken every one of the promises he made at Yalta" (281).

Readers of Rhetoric & Public Affairs in particular will be displeased to discover that in 300 pages of text on FDR's presidency scant attention is paid to Roosevelt's rhetoric. There is a mention or two of the famous "fireside chats," but no systematic treatment of the importance to his presidency and to his leadership of the use of radio to bring his words directly to...