America first Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the shadow of war

For over two years after the outbreak of WWII in Europe, Americans debated whether or not to enter the conflict. In America First, historian Brands recounts how that debate was carried out between two of the biggest public figures of the era: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and famed aviator Charles Lindbergh. Brands presents the debate over intervention versus isolationism as a personal contest between two men who could not have been more different in temperament or personality. Roosevelt, the consummate politician, sought to shape public opinion without ever revealing his intentions or all the facts. Lindbergh, the son of a congressman, had rejected the political life entirely and spoke his mind with no regard for public opinion or contrary interpretations of facts or circumstances. Brands puts both his strong narrative sense and engaging prose style to good use. The story deftly moves back and forth between the perspectives of the two men, giving room to fully convey the arguments each made as the debate followed events on the ground. Brands' conclusion about foreign policy puts the debate in a broader context, relevant to Americans today.

A cunning "globalist vision" squares off against wrongheaded but earnest isolationism in this head-scratcher from historian Brands (American Colossus). Recapping how President Franklin Roosevelt, in order to support Britain against Nazi Germany in the 1930s, had to outmaneuver isolationist sentiment at home, Brands paints Roosevelt's initiatives, which included calling for peace while playing up German plans for world domination, as patiently devious. Brands contrasts Roosevelt with Charles Lindbergh, the celebrated aviator, whose anti-war activism Brands depicts as principled if misguided; he even casts a speech Lindbergh gave that blamed Jews for warmongering as a matter of "willful political innocen" and not a sign of pro-Nazi sentiment. It was Roosevelt, Brands argues, who, in order to discredit isolationism, caricatured Lindbergh as a Nazi sympathizer. While Brands covers how Nazi cash clandestinely funded America's isolationist politics, he downplays its significance--"The criminality involved was minor," he pointlessly assures, when the money crime is clearly less at issue than the political influence. Similarly off-kilter and opaque assurances appear throughout ("One didn't have to conjure conspiracy--though some people did--or assume political favoritism on the part of the network--though owners certainly had political opinions--to realize that certain views would be favored over others," he writes, clearing up the matter of a radio network's political leanings with such non-specificity that it arouses suspicion). Readers will come away with more questions than answers. (Sept.)

A fine account of one of the most famous opponents to America's entrance into World War II. Historian Brands, bestselling author of numerous books on American history, writes that while nearly everyone today considers Hitler a loathsome figure, this was not the case throughout the 1930s. When Germany's army marched into Austria and Czechoslovakia after 1938 and talk of another war began, U.S. Congress quickly proclaimed neutrality. Two years later, polls showed that most Americans were opposed to getting involved, and Roosevelt, accustomed to telling voters what they wanted to hear, regularly assured Americans that he agreed. Still an international hero, Charles Lindbergh visited Europe that year, receiving red carpet treatment, meeting national leaders, and touring factories that were contributing to the war effort. He came away with a low opinion of Britain and France, but he praised Germany's order, prosperity, and military technology. After its September 1939 invasion of Poland, he spoke on national radio to warn Americans not to interfere. He kept a diary and journalists vacuumed up his opinions, so Brands has no trouble describing the vivid clash of ideas between his two principal subjects. Lindbergh joined the isolationist America First Committee, but his Midwestern "simplicity" often harmed his cause. A fall 1941 speech urging Jewish Americans to stop pushing the nation toward war produced media outrage. During a 25-minute speech in Iowa, Lindbergh "not only destroyed his reputation--he expected this--but simultaneously discredited the antiwar movement and killed any plausible alternative to [Roosevelt's] globalist vision." Toward the end of this gripping, if unedifying tale, Brands adds that Lindbergh was wrong about only "one big thing": that Americans would recoil from the responsibility as they did after World War I. "Lindbergh saw the path ahead and found it appalling," writes the author. "Americans trod the path and found it irresistible." Another winner from Brands. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.