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vii Acknowledgments x I n a way that is probably unusual for children of the Cold War, I grew up with World War II. My grandfather on my mother’s side served on General George C. Marshall’s staff during the war. As a West Point graduate and career military officer, he and his family were, if not in the class of those who would have gone, as the famous cartoon had it, to the Trans-Luxe to hiss Roosevelt, also not among those who suffered most deeply during those years. My grandmother, though, never forgot the time they didn’t get a paycheck and the anxiety that this event produced. My father’s family lived closer to the bone, but was probably as comfortable as any of their neighbors in Meridian, Mississippi. He joined the military as soon as he was old enough. He was eventually sent to Corregidor , and was there when it fell. He was put on a hellship, sent to China via Korea, and eventually spent the rest of the war in a Japanese viii Acknowledgments prison camp in Manchuria. My childhood was full of stories about my father’s time in prison camp (most of them very funny) and about the military during the Depression and war years. But the president who dominated that era was strangely absent. Partly this was because my father was either too young or too intent on personal survival to spare much thought for his president. My mother was also young during the Roosevelt years, and her parents, like many military families, especially those in command positions, were generally silent about their own politics . But it is strange to me now, thinking back on my childhood, that the war was so present to me and its president so invisible. So when David Cheshier suggested this project to me, I was intrigued. And understanding this presidency helped me understand a great deal more than national history; it led me into my own. My first thanks therefore go to those who share that history. My brother, Steve, who knows more about the military aspects of the Second World War than I ever will, cheerfully answered questions and spent considerable time and energy helping me grasp the complications of American strategy. He was most patient with his younger sibling’s calls from out the blue with demands that he explain Operation This or the strategic implications of Battle That. I’m grateful for his guidance (and for his willingness to watch all those corny old war films with me as well). My mother answered obscure questions with her usual generosity and provided helpful perspective. My sister, Pamela, gave me considerable help in understanding some of the darker elements of that war, especially when it came to the experiences of the Americans abandoned in the Philippines and captured by the Japanese. That material has only a small place in this book, for those Americans and their suffering had only a small place in Roosevelt’s rhetoric, but it was important to me in ways I cannot express. Dwight Rider graciously shared the fruits of his research on the Pacific war with me as well, and I look forward to reading his book when it appears. I have had, and am grateful for, the help of a number of academics as well. I have been spouting off about all things Roosevelt for a long time now, and many people have been party to those conversations . Nate Atkinson spent many an hour discussing the politics of the 1930s and 1940s, and provided enormously helpful insight and advice. Brandon Inabinet was always helpful, as were the various participants in the Southern Colloquium on Rhetoric. I’m especially indebted to Acknowledgments ix Tom Goodnight, Leslie Harris, Tony de Velasco, Carol Winkler, and James Darsey. While never formally one of his students, David Zarefsky teaches me a lot about rhetoric and about writing, so much so that I consider myself one of his more pestiferous advisees, and am endlessly grateful to him. Any improvement I’ve made over the years in these areas is due largely to him and to his influence. Conversations with Tom Hollihan , Robin Rowland, and Sean O’Rourke deepened my understanding of civility. Nancy Kassop and Louis Fisher helped me understand the “sole organ” doctrine. Jason Puckett, one member of Georgia State University ’s valiant team of librarians, is always helpful, and is nice about even the most preposterous requests. Jay Hakes, director of the...

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