Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion Of Freedom [Paperback]

On the back cover of this fine book by Conrad Black are these comments about this book by CONSERVATIVE intellectuals I generally admire:

George F. Will: "Conrad Black skillfully assembles powerful arguments to support strong and sometimes surprising judgements. This spirited defense of Roosevelt as a savior of America's enterprise system, and geopolitical realist, is a delight to read."

John Lukacs: "Conrad Black's FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT is extraordinary. It is something different from the dim and flickering lamp of academic retrospect. A new - and generous - light is poured on its subject: an illumination directed by a conviction of Roosevelt's place in the history of an entire century."

William F. Buckley Jr.: "An enormous accomplishment, a learned volume on FDR by a vital critical mind, which will absorb critics and the reading public."

Henry Kissinger: "No Biography of Roosevelt is more thoughtful and readable. None is as comprehensive."

I really enjoyed Conrad Black's writing style, which adds life to the words with his own colorful descriptors. This is the best single-volume biography of FDR. He presents an accurate and living picture of Roosevelt in his presidency and not a dry summary of the events. For example, I chuckled when Black says that FDR correctly judged Hitler to be the real concern while Mussolini was, in comparison, a buffoon.

My own criticism of the book is that it skips over the human suffering of the period. The Great Depression was devestating. I suggest the book "The Grapes of Wrath" or any of the many documentaries on the Great Depression.

Read this book and you will get to know and appreciate President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. You may not agree with some things, but you will at least understand FDR in the context of the times.

The world was in depression. America was in the Great Depression and heading to what would have been, without Roosevelt's intervention, a complete collapse of America's economic system. Capitalism and democracy fell out of favor around the world. Hitler and other dictators came to power around the world, and radicals gained followers in America. This climaxed in the clash of World War II.

The world we live today in is not a world of Hitler's Third Reich and fascism. It is not a world of Stalinism. It is not a world of colonial empires. It is not a world of radical laissez-faire capitalism. It is a world of Roosevelt's pragmatic ideas for a more stable economy and international security.

Roosevelt was a great president for everyone, and his ideas today seem very pragmatic and sensible. It is refreshing that several notable conservatives have had the guts to praise this book for what it is - a very good book about a great president.

Conrad Black's enormous one volume biography attempts to answer this question in a new way. To summarize Black's view of Roosevelt's character, FDR was cunning, manipulative, callous, vindictive, sometimes cruel and always inscrutable. Indeed, in Black's view he bore some of the traits associated with the enemies of freedom, Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini. But to Black, these traits of character were always applied to benign ends and a personality like Roosevelt's was vitally necessary to carry out the tasks the times demanded. Although he is a staunch conservative, Black acknowledges Roosevelt's greatness without hesitation.

The first few hundred pages or so runs through the narrative of Roosevelt's life, including his over-indulgent childhood as the son of wealth and privilege in Hyde Park, New York. Black moves through these early years quickly. In comparison to other biographers, he does not give all that much credence to Roosevelt's early life as providing much insight into the development of his character. The seminal moment of FDR's first forty years was of course the attack of Polio, which left him with withered legs, unable to walk or even stand without heavy leg braces. The traditional narrative of Roosevelt's life holds that the crucible of the battle with serious illness represented a turning point from lighthearted unserious young man, to serious man of gravitas. Black rejects this view, instead arguing that Roosevelt always had the characteristics of stubbornness and determination and it is these traits that enabled him to overcome a disease and a disability that might have ruined his life but did not. The polio did not fundamentally change him.

After a reasonably small section on Roosevelt's political career in New York and his rivalry with fellow Democrat, Al Smith, Black begins his discussion on Roosevelt's presidency. This discussion proceeds in chronological order and has a fairly detailed narrative of all the major and minor events in FDR's presidency, as well as profiles of all the major figures around Roosevelt. These include his original political ax man, Louis Howe, who died early on in Roosevelt's first term and Harry Hopkins, a social worker by training who ran several of the New Deal's important projects and later became the President's closest confidante during the Second World War. Black accepts the conventional wisdom that the New Deal did not "cure" the Depression. But in his view, this is beside the point. The major intervention of the Federal government into the engine of the private sector economy was absolutely vital as a means of restoring confidence to the free-enterprise system. Roosevelt instinctively grasped this and so acted, as Black demonstrates, boldly and without any real ideology except a willingness to try anything and everything. This is the vital role Roosevelt played in his first six years as president. Without his actions, it is doubtful the American liberal system would have survived in its present form. The alternatives of leftist socialism/communism and right-wing fascism loomed large and appeared attractive to millions of people in 1933.

The largest part of the book is reserved for a discussion of Roosevelt's final seven years, when he maneuvered the United States from its traditional isolationism, into an active alliance with Great Britain and eventually in to the war itself. It is here that Black shines the most as he acknowledges the greatness of Roosevelt's leadership. As Black shows, FDR always stayed just ahead of American public opinion while constantly advancing and then tactically retreating from his vision of foreign policy, namely the robust defense of Western style liberalism and fierce opposition to fascism and Nazism. At a time when few in the United States acknowledged any American interest in the turmoil of Europe, Roosevelt knew the menace Hitler posed. Indeed, Black argues that Roosevelt always saw Germany as the graver threat and may have actually underestimated the threat from Japan. Nevertheless, FDR's policy towards Japan made an attack inevitable. And his open venomous hostility towards Nazi Germany, prior to Pearl Harbor, was designed to goad Hitler into declaring war on the United States. It worked like a charm and Roosevelt had a united country willing and able to do whatever it took to destroy the Nazi and Japanese menace.

In the final section, Black punctures the myth that Roosevelt's deteriorating condition made him an easy mark for Stalin at Yalta. To the contrary, almost to the end, a tired and sick but commanding Roosevelt, used his Machiavellian skills to secure the post war settlement he favored. He definitely harbored no illusions about Stalin's duplicity. On his death on April 12 1945, the German war was weeks from its ending and American forces were preparing to land on Okinawa. Although' like Moses, FDR was not destined to see the promised land, his leadership ensured that it was reached. America's emergence as a global superpower and robust receptacle of free enterprise is a tribute to his greatness. The man was not without flaws, some considerable and in this enormous work, Black does not scrimp on detailing them. But these flaws of character simply formed part of a whole that proved greater than the sum of its parts. The only conclusion a fair minded person can reach is that the United States, always a lucky nation, was fortunate to have such a great president at such a crucial time.