"I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."
Franklin D. Roosevelt, campaigning for a third term as US President, October 30, 1940, Boston
"I am fighting to keep our people out of foreign wars. And I will keep on fighting."
Franklin D. Roosevelt, campaigning for a third term as US President, November 1, 1940, Brooklyn, New York
"Your national government ... is equally a government of peace -- a government that intends to retain peace for the American people."
Franklin D. Roosevelt, campaigning for a third term as US President, November 2, 1940, Rochester, New York
"Your President says this country is not going to war."
Franklin D. Roosevelt, campaigning for a third term as US President, November 2, 1940, Buffalo, New York
"The first purpose of our foreign policy is to keep our country out of war."
Franklin D. Roosevelt, campaigning for a third term as US President, November 3, 1940, Cleveland
The election was held on Nov. 5. Within 14 months, the USA entered the war. By war's end, 291,557 American soldiers had been killed and 113,842 injured.
Should I add commentary? The quotes speak for themselves. You can't trust politicians,which is a sobering thought since we elect them to lead us. If we did our homework before electing them, if we gave them our votes for doing something more than being good looking or sounding, if we held them to account for their actions then we might find ourselves led by better people. But we as a group don't do that. FDR is the classic case. He was a liar! Yet, the schools teach us that he was nearly a saint.
FDR was re-elected by a landslide in 1944.
See this article by William Henry Chamberlin in the Institute for Historical Review. He gives a list of all the belligerent actions that FDR took during the next year, not actions that a nation would take if peace were its highest priority. Here are a few of them:
- The exchange of American destroyers for British bases in the Caribbean and in Newfoundland in September, 1940. This was a clear departure from the requirements of neutrality and was also a violation of some specific American laws. Indeed, a conference of top government lawyers at the time decided that the destroyer deal put this country into the war, legally and morally.
- The enactment of the Lend-Lease Act in March, 1941. In complete contradiction of the wording and intent of the Neutrality Act, which remained on the statute books, this made the United States an unlimited partner in the economic war against the Axis Powers all over the world.
- The secret American-British staff talks in Washington in January-March, 1941. Extraordinary care was taken to conceal not only the contents of these talks but the very fact that they were taking place from the knowledge of Congress. At the time when administration spokesmen were offering assurances that there were no warlike implications in the Lend-Lease Act, this staff conference used the revealing phrase, "when the United States becomes involved in war with Germany."
- The inauguration of so-called naval patrols, the purpose of which was to report the presence of German submarines to British warships, in the Atlantic in April, 1941.
- The dispatch of American laborers to Northern Ireland to build a naval base, obviously with the needs of an American expeditionary force in mind.
- The occupation of Iceland by American troops in July, 1941. This was going rather far afield for a government which professed as its main concern the keeping of the United States out of foreign wars.
- The Atlantic Conference of Roosevelt and Churchill, August 9-12, 1941. Besides committing America as a partner in a virtual declaration of war aims, this conference considered the presentation of an ultimatum to Japan and the occupation of the Cape Verde Islands, a Portuguese possession, by United States troops.
- The orders to American warships to shoot at sight at German submarines, formally announced on September 11. The beginning of actual hostilities may be dated from this time rather than from the German declaration of war, which followed Pearl Harbor.
- The authorization for the arming of merchant ships and the sending of these ships into war zones in November, 1941.
He cites Professor Thomas A. Bailey who claims FDR had to lie to the American people because war was necessary and the ignorant masses would never step up to it if asked directly.
However, Chamberlain argues, correctly in my view, that war for the USA was not necessary and claims that Hitler, yimach shemo, was planning to attack the Americas have never been proven. "Not a single serious bit of evidence in proof of these sensational allegations has ever been found, not even when the archives of the Nazi government were at the disposal of the victorious powers." Even Great Britain was not in danger at that time.
Should some 18 year old boy from Ohio have to die in a conflict between European nations? I say no. You can say whatever you like (you of course were not the parent of that boy). Either way, we see what liars politicians can be.
Remember that. It applies to every country, including the state of israel. They lie to you and the state 'historians'/propagandists lie after the fact. Be a fool at your own risk. Trust only the true gadolim.
Source: From The Journal of Historical Review, Nov.-Dec. 1994 (Vol. 14, No. 6), pages 19-21. This piece is excerpted from the anthology, edited by Harry Elmer Barnes, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace (1953), Chapter 8, pages 485-491.
About the Author
William Henry Chamberlin (1897-1969) was an American historian and journalist. He was Moscow correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor in Moscow, 1922-1934, and Far Eastern Correspondent for the Monitor, 1939-1940. He contributed important reports and articles to leading American newspapers and periodicals, and for a time wrote a regular column for The Wall Street Journal. Among his books were Soviet Russia (1930), Russia's Iron Age (1934), The Russian Revolution , 1917-1921 (in two volumes; 1935), Japan Over Asia (1939), The European Cockpit (1947), and America's Second Crusade (1950).
