Susan Dunn on “FDR’s Third Hundred Days”

Most history textbooks claim that American involvement in World War II began when Congress issued a declaration of war following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, the United States was allegedly fiercely dedicated to staying out of the war, even in the wake of Nazi Germany’s nearly complete takeover of Europe.

Susan Dunn, the Massachusetts Professor of Humanities at Williams College and author of a dozen history books, came to Yale to dispute this isolationist narrative in her three-part Henry L. Stimson lecture series entitled “FDR’s Third Hundred Days – Preparing for War and Global Leadership: November 1940 to March 1941.” (view video) In her three talks, she posited that America committed itself to a wartime path immediately following Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s third re-election in November 1940, over a year before the Pearl Harbor bombing.

 “I want to give the argument that the several months beginning with November 1940 and ending with the signing of the Lend-Lease Act marked the start of U.S. intervention in World War II, during FDR’s third hundred days,” she opened.

Though American participation in World War II commenced during FDR’s presidency, it was not FDR, but his advisors that goaded him into shedding America’s isolationist stance.

 “He was reluctant to move too far ahead of public opinion,” Professor Dunn clarified.

In fact, the statesman that was able to convince FDR to lead the United States into war was none other than Henry L. Stimson, the former Secretary of State under Herbert Hoover, Yale graduate, and namesake of the Henry L. Stimson Lectures. In June 1940, he gave a speech at Yale’s graduation weekend that urged the United States to embrace its role as a moral superpower and protect the world from Nazi Germany.

After reading a text of the speech, FDR phoned Stimson to express his private agreement with the interventionist position. FDR did not understand how the United States could remain idle at a time of unprecedented peril. Just a month later, FDR appointed Stimson to be his Secretary of War.

Stimson would work closely with Navy Secretary Frank Knox, Army Chief of Staff General George, and Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold Stark – all of whom were adamant on defeating Germany.

In the fall of 1940, the team of Stimson, Knox, Marshall, and Stark decided that America should aid its ally, Great Britain, in fighting the Germans in Europe because, according to Marshall, “if we lose in the Atlantic we lose everywhere.” Stark penned this “Atlantic First” strategy in a 26-page report for FDR.

 “While Roosevelt was promising the public that Americans wouldn’t be sent into war, Stark was envisioning full war,” Professor Dunn commented.

The first major step on the wartime path was the proposal and subsequent passage of the Lend-Lease Act, patriotically called “House Resolution 1776” in March 1941. The initiative allowed the United States to supply Great Britain with the guns, planes, and ships it needed to combat and protect itself from Nazi Germany. In return, Great Britain would repay the United States when the war ended. The rationale behind Lend-Lease was that if Great Britain fell to Germany, the United States would be in grave danger of invasion.

Professor Dunn declared that “the future of the whole world depended on the aid the United States gave to Britain.”

Detractors decried Lend-Lease as a mere giveaway program, but FDR responded with his infamous garden hose example. He explained that if you have a garden hose and your neighbor’s house is on fire, you give him the garden hose; you do not demand how much he must pay for it first. Lend-Lease, to FDR, was based on a similar notion of neighborly assistance.

Although the United States assumed the role of the good Samaritan, Professor Dunn emphasized that America was actually getting a better deal than Great Britain.

“FDR exploited Britain to ensure the security of the United States,” she said. “He would send war materials to British soldiers, so they could do the fighting for him.”

In other words, with Lend-Lease, FDR protected American interests without having to deploy American troops.

After the Lend-Lease Acts passage of 60-31 in the Senate and 317-71 in the House, the United States economy transformed. New airplane factories, chemical plants, and textile mills spread throughout the country, and tens of millions of Americans were put to work.

“It was the greatest expansion in industrial capacity in history,” Professor Dunn mused.

An internationalist herself, Professor Dunn lauded FDR for ingeniously using his third hundred days to reject American isolationism and neutrality. She closed her Stimson Lectures by sharing Henry L. Stimson’s vision of America, a vision that encapsulated her own:

“This nation must put away forever any thought that America can again be an island unto herself. No private program and no public policy, in any sector of national life, can now escape from the compelling fact that if it is not framed with reference to the world, it is framed with perfect futility.”