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57 chapter five Understanding FDR On a cold weekend in January 1938, French senator Amaury de la Grange, President Roosevelt’s old friend from World War I days, was a guest at the White House. A distraught La Grange gave a dismal appraisal of the situation in Europe, expressing alarm over the extent of German air strength and the complete lack of French air power.1 Throughout the spring and into the summer, similar reports, primarily from the State Department, reached the Oval Of¤ce. To test the validity of such reports, the president encouraged private American manufacturers to visit Europe and form their independent assessments of German air power.2 One person who undertook such a trip was Johnson’s good friend Glenn L. Martin, a major producer of military aircraft. Martin, who had taken advantage of numerous personal contacts to gain an accurate picture of the situation, reported to Johnson that Germany was producing 9,000 planes per year. Their speed and quality, he warned, “compared favorably with the best that others are producing.” He concluded that “Germany is greatly superior to England and France insofar as air power is concerned and that superiority is rapidly increasing.”3 On June 23, Johnson forwarded Martin’s assessment to Roosevelt, telling him that Martin agreed with the pessimistic reports from other American manufacturers .4 Those reports came from such respected men as Lawrence D. Bell of Bell Aircraft and Burdett Wright of the Curtis-Wright Corporation.5 Then on July 3, 1938, the president received a frightening letter from the American ambassador to Germany, Hugh R. Wilson, which concluded that without question Germany had “an air arm second to none in number and quality of ¤rst-line¤ghting planes.”6 58 louis johnson and the arming of america The worst fears that such reports could conjure in the president’s mind were borne out by the Munich crisis in September 1938, when Hitler secured the Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia because England and France were unwilling or unable to stand up to Germany. As information on the Munich deal ¤ltered into the White House in late September and early October, it became increasingly clear to the president that the Allies had capitulated because they could not come close to matching Hitler’s air power. At Roosevelt’s request, the U.S. ambassador to France, William C. Bullitt, came back from Paris to brief the president in person on October 13. Bullitt’s¤rsthand observations helped FDR understand that negotiating with Hitler would be impossible. In addition, by conveying to the president that the Luftwaffe was an instrument of terror and that the fear of destruction by air which gripped Europe’s capitals had led to the Munich capitulation, Bullitt convinced him thatthe United States needed to substantially increase its production ofmilitary aircraft.7 It needed to do this, Roosevelt believed, not only to defend against possible attack but, far more important, so that American airplanes could be sold or otherwise conveyed to the Allies, thus altering the balance of air power in Europe in the interests of American security. By mid-October of 1938, President Roosevelt had come to the conclusion that it would be necessary “to build the one type of armed force with which he could henceforth in¶uence European affairs: air power.”8 FDR knew that he was bucking prevailing American public opinion and that he would be criticized by the noninterventionists and isolationists. Nevertheless, once his decision was made, there was no doubt in his mind that Louis Johnson was the man at the War Department who should lead the air rearmament program. The assistant secretary had all the prerequisites to undertake air rearmament. First, he was in charge of all procurement for the army air corps; the task he would be undertaking would essentially be one of procuring aircraft. Second, he was an outspoken advocate and longtime champion of air power, especially heavy bombers. Third, he had the enthusiasm, dynamism, and aggressiveness to get things done. Fourth, he was a supersalesman who could convince Congress and the American people of the need for massive air rearmament. How Many Planes? Louis Johnson’s direct involvement in the air rearmament program actually began on September 11, 1938, a month before Bullitt’s meeting with the president . On that day the assistant secretary sent a memorandum to FDR calling attention to the fact that the nation’s aircraft production was near its capacity and therefore incapable of further expansion...

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