2 July 2022 - FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT - 'BRITAIN'S GREATEST FRIEND'

 

FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT 

- 'BRITAIN'S GREATEST FRIEND' -

 

G'day folks,

Although born 24 years apart, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt had much in common. As well as being distant cousins, they both had wealthy parents, they both went to Harvard University, they both went to Columbia Law School and they both became President of the United States.

But Franklin chalked up a record that no President has matched before or since: he served in office for four consecutive terms and on this day he was nominated by the Democratic Party for his unprecedented third occupancy of the White House.

Like Theodore, Franklin was a descendant of Dutch colonists who settled in America in the mid-17th century. He was born in 1882 at the family’s Hyde Park estate just outside the city of New York, the only child of very wealthy parents.

He was educated mainly by private tutors, then Harvard University before going to the law school at Columbia University. Early on, Franklin began to admire his distant cousin Theodore and their ties were strengthened in 1905 when he married the former President’s niece, Eleanor Roosevelt.

He worked for several years as a clerk in a Wall Street law firm but wanted to enter politics and Theodore's vigorous leadership style with his reforming zeal made him Franklin's role model and hero. A chance came in 1910 when Democratic Party leaders urged Franklin to stand for a seemingly unwinnable State Senate seat.

His branch of the family had always been Democrats so, once he had made sure popular Republican Theodore would not speak against him he accepted the challenge, campaigned strenuously, won, and took his seat, aged just 29.

In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Roosevelt Assistant Secretary of the US Navy and it seemed that his political star was rising brightly. But fate intervened.

In 1921, at the age of 39, Roosevelt was stricken with poliomyelitis and – in intense pain – he was almost completely paralysed. As he slowly (but never completely) recovered, the torch was taken up by Eleanor. Initially very shy, she turned into an effective public speaker and kept Franklin’s name alive in political circles until he could return.

A limping Roosevelt was elected Governor of New York in 1928 and he went on to win the Democratic Party nomination for President in 1932.

By the time he was inaugurated on March 4, 1933, America was deep into the Great Depression. Most banks had shut down, industrial production had fallen to 56 per cent of its 1929 level, at least 13 million people were unemployed, and farmers were in desperate straits.

But the new President exuded confidence. Millions of Americans listened on the radio to his inaugural address in which he told them: “This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and prosper. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Just as, years before, Theodore had offered the nation a Square Deal, Franklin was to produce the New Deal – a broad array of measures to achieve economic recovery, provide relief to the poor and unemployed, and reform aspects of the economy that Roosevelt believed had caused the collapse.

FDR, as he became known, ran for re-election in 1936 and received the solid backing of farmers, labourers and the poor with 27 million votes. His Republican rival managed fewer than 17 million.

And then came the Second World War . . .

Roosevelt’s second term was due to end in 1941, but with the war under way he wanted to remain as Commander-in-Chief and decided to go for a third term. He stood again in 1944 for the same reason.

(At the time it was traditional not to run for a third term but there was no constitutional law against it. However, in 1947 Congress passed the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution, which stated that no person could be elected to the office of President more than twice.)

By June 1940, Great Britain stood as the only barrier against total domination of Europe by the Nazis. In less than a year Hitler’s war machine had crushed Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway and France.

As Britain stood alone, Prime Minister Winston Churchill made his famous speech declaring: “We shall fight on the beaches; we shall fight in the streets . . .” Afterwards, he reportedly muttered to a colleague: “And we’ll fight them with the butt ends of broken beer bottles because that’s bloody well all we’ve got!”

The truth is Churchill knew that the greatest hope for survival lay in the hands of his friend Franklin Roosevelt.

FDR had promised the American people that the country would be kept out of the war but he never stopped fighting against the forces of isolationism and he tried subtly to prepare Americans for the possibility of fighting Germany at some stage.

Less than two months after his re-election in 1940 he gave one of his famous radio “fireside chats”. In it he warned the American people that “if Great Britain goes down, [Hitler] will be in a position to bring enormous military and naval resources against this hemisphere.”

But knowing that a big majority of his countrymen wanted to keep out of the war, FDR instead stressed the importance of helping Britain as it struggled alone. “We are the Arsenal of Democracy,” he said.

And so it was that in March 1941, vast military supplies – including ships and planes – began to be sent to the UK under a Lend-Lease arrangement brokered by Roosevelt. 

The question of whether the United States should be directly involved in the conflict was settled nine months later when, on December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. FDR famously described it as “a date which will live in infamy” and the US immediately declared war.

The end came for Franklin Roosevelt just three months into his fourth term. He suffered a massive cerebral haemorrhage and died on April 12, 1945 at the age of 63. The war in Europe ended a few weeks later.

Winston Churchill once said of his friend: “Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne. Knowing him was like drinking it.”

Writing at the time of FDR’s death, Churchill said: “It is cruel that he will not see the victory which he did so much to achieve.” The war with Japan concluded in August after Roosevelt’s successor, President Harry Truman, decided to use the atomic bomb at Hiroshima.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill forged a bond that historians say saved the world. In his eulogy to the President, the British Prime Minister said: "In FDR there died the greatest American friend we have ever known.”

9 February 2022 - FIRST U.S. PRESIDENT TO RESIGN - RICHARD NIXON

 

FIRST U.S. 

PRESIDENT TO RESIGN

 - RICHARD NIXON -

G'day folks,

Richard Nixon  will always be remembered for the Watergate scandal, and for being the only US President ever to resign from office.

Both events overshadowed his achievements, which in foreign affairs included ending the war against Vietnam, establishing diplomatic relations with China, and setting up the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.

At home he ended the military draft, enforced desegregation of schools in the southern states, established the Environmental Protection Agency, and signed the National Cancer Act, which set up the ongoing “war on cancer”.

It all seemed like a presidency of which he could be proud and in 1972 he was re-elected for a second term in one of the largest electoral landslides in American history. He won more than 60 percent of the popular vote, taking every state in the union except for two – Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. Then came the Watergate revelations . . .

Richard Milhous Nixon was born in 1913 to a poor farming family in California. He achieved excellent grades at school but had to turn down a scholarship from Harvard because his family could not afford to send him there by train.

He went on to graduate from law school in 1937 and then began to practise law.

He saw active duty in the Navy during the Second World War and was elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican in 1946. In 1950 he was elected to the Senate and was chosen as Dwight D. Eisenhower’s running mate in the 1952 presidential election.

After serving for eight years as Vice-President he ran for the top job himself in 1960 but was narrowly defeated by the charismatic John F. Kennedy. Nixon’s chance came again in 1968, a tumultuous year which saw President Lyndon B. Johnson withdraw from the presidential race, the assassination of both Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, and widespread anti-Vietnam war riots across the country.

Nixon defeated both the Democrat Hubert Humphrey and Alabama governor George Wallace who represented the American Independent Party, campaigning for racial segregation. (Wallace won five states in the Deep South).

As Nixon’s first term of office was coming to a close, the White House became focused on re-election. And on June 17, 1972, five men broke into the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington DC where they were caught wiretapping phones and stealing documents.

One of them was James W. McCord, the security chief of the Committee to Re-elect the President. His arrest was reported in the next morning’s Washington Post by two young reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.

Dismissing the story as inconsequential, Nixon’s Press Secretary, Ron Ziegler, said at a routine White House Press conference that the President would have no comment on a “third-rate burglary attempt.”

Bernstein and Woodward, though, began to be fed information by an anonymous source whom they referred to as “Deep Throat.” His identity would be kept secret for over 30 years until in 2005 William Mark Felt, who at the time of the scandal was associate director of the FBI – the bureau’s second-highest ranking post – revealed himself to be the source.

With Felt’s guidance Woodward and Bernstein produced one explosive story after another. They revealed the direct involvement in Watergate of Nixon’s close associates and that the break-in and wiretapping had been financed by illegally laundered campaign contributions.

Then on October 10 came a sensational front-page article revealing that the Watergate break-in “stemmed from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of President Nixon’s re-election and directed by officials of the White House.”

Rumors and revelations continued almost daily until on February 7, 1973, the Senate Watergate Committee was set up to investigate the scandal.

Richard Nixon was an insecure man handicapped by a persecution complex, and in February 1971, he had arranged for a secret voice-activated bugging system using telephone taps and concealed microphones to be installed in the White House, including the Oval Office.

Its existence was revealed in July, 1973 during testimony to the Senate committee by White House aide Alexander Butterfield. It later emerged that up to that point Nixon had tape-recorded 3,700 hours of conversations. His rejection of a congressional subpoena to release the tapes constituted an article of impeachment that led to his downfall.

Under enormous pressure, the White House released some subpoenaed tapes on August 5. One of them, later known as the "smoking gun" tape, revealed the initial stages of the Watergate cover-up, with Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. (Bob) Haldeman, discussing how to block investigations. It demonstrated that the President knew of the Watergate break-in shortly after it took place and that he had approved plans to thwart official scrutiny.

Facing certain impeachment in the House of Representatives and equally certain conviction in the Senate, Nixon announced his resignation on the evening of August 8, 1974.

In a televised broadcast he said: “I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body. But as President I must put the interests of America first. Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.”

Gerald Ford, the Vice-President, immediately took charge and a month later granted Nixon "a full, free, and absolute pardon” for all crimes associated with Watergate.

Richard Nixon died after a stroke on April 22, 1994, aged 81. World leaders attended his funeral, as did every living President. In his eulogy, Bill Clinton praised Nixon's accomplishments, particularly in foreign affairs, and pleaded: "May the day of judging President Nixon on anything less than his entire life and career come to a close.”

Interviewed by David Frost in 1977, the man himself reflected: “I gave 'em a sword. And they stuck it in, and they twisted it with relish. And I guess if I had been in their position, I'd have done the same thing.”

A few years later he gave a more considered view of his resignation: “I think the best description of how I felt then was a little poem that read,

‘I am hurt, but I am not slain.
I shall lay me down and bleed a while
And I shall rise and fight again.’

“That’s the story of my life,” he commented with a wry grin.

Nixon fought for the rest of his days to prevent the release of his recorded conversations. The Government began releasing the secret tapes after his death, the final tape being made public in 2013.

Clancy's comment: I worked in Washington DC during these wild times, and maybe should write a book about it.

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14 June 2021 - EXECUTION OF LINCOLN'S ASSASSINS

 

EXECUTION OF 

LINCOLN'S ASSASSINS

 

G'day folks,

After the assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, there was a national manhunt for his killers and those involved in the conspiracy to kill the president.

 John Wilkes Booth, the man who pulled the trigger, was killed in a shootout with government troops 12 days after the murder.

Four of the eight people put on trial by a military tribunal for their part in the conspiracy to assassinate the president were sentenced to hang. They were Mary Surratt, whose boardinghouse had been frequented by the conspirators and her tavern had been visited by Booth and David Herold after killing Lincoln; Lewis Powell, who had been tasked with killing Secretary of State William H. Seward on the night of the assassination; George Atzerodt, who was assigned to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson, but lost his nerve; and Herold, who was also tasked with killing Seward.

The conspirators were executed on July 7, 1865, at Fort McNair in Washington D.C. Mary Surratt thus became the first woman to be executed by the United States government, though after her conviction five jurors recommended clemency; President Andrew Johnson claimed he never received the letter. Her son, John Surratt, was the only person on trial who was not convicted and released.

Clancy's comment: Interesting story. A sad way to die.

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20 May 2021 - SOME FACTS ABOUT THEODORE ROOSEVELT

 

SOME FACTS ABOUT 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

 

G'day folks,

 May 17, 1903 — President Theodore Roosevelt sat at a campfire with naturalist John Muir on this day and discussed conservation – a matter of deep concern to both men.

It was part of a three-night camping trip that helped shape Roosevelt’s conservation policies. During his presidency he placed 230 million acres of public land under government protection, including iconic landmarks such as the Yosemite Valley and the Grand Canyon.

He became a close friend of Muir who had written: “Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.”

Theodore was the first of the two Roosevelts to become President of the United States. Although born 24 years apart, he and Franklin D. Roosevelt had much in common. As well as being distant cousins, they both had wealthy parents, they both went to Harvard University and they both went to Columbia Law School.

But Theodore chalked up one achievement that his cousin could not match: he had the Teddy Bear named after him. It happened when, as President in 1902, he went on a hunting trip in Mississippi and was invited to shoot a bear that had been tied to a tree. Considering this cruel and unsportsmanlike, the President refused.

After reading a newspaper report of the incident a toy maker in New York created a stuffed bear which he named “Teddy’s Bear”, using Roosevelt’s nickname. It led to a “teddy bear” fad that swept across the nation and then the world.

Like Franklin, Theodore was a descendant of Dutch colonists who settled in America in the mid-17th century. He was born in New York City in 1858, his father being a glass importer and one of New York's leading philanthropists.

Theodore was a sickly child, suffering from asthma and to escape his health problems he exercised in a home gym. He also spent hours in his father’s library reading about wild animals, hunting trips and frontier adventure.

At the age of seven, enterprising Theodore created the “Roosevelt Museum of Natural History” and charged visitors one cent to view it in the parlour of the family home.

By now he was firmly gripped by a fascination with the great outdoors. Fast forward to Roosevelt in his 20s and his first hunting trip in the Dakota Territory. He ended up buying land and a ranch in what would become North Dakota.

It was here one day in 1886 that Roosevelt’s boat, moored outside his ranch, was stolen and taken down the Little Missouri River. The thieves obviously had no idea of the kind of man they were dealing with. Roosevelt and two ranch hands quickly built a replacement boat, then set off in pursuit.

Knowing the expedition could be long he packed essentials such as coffee and flour and also took a copy of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina to read if there were any spare moments.

Roosevelt wrote about the episode later, revealing that it was late winter and the river had become icy and treacherous. But after three days of bumping along the water in freezing weather his group caught sight of their quarry.

They crept up on the thieves – who were armed – and apprehended them all on the river bank. The future president was angry about the theft of his boat but not enough to endanger the lives of the culprits.

Fearing that tying them up might cut off their circulation, he ordered the men to take off their boots. This was cactus country and without footwear the men would be going nowhere. Roosevelt spent the long journey back reading Anna Karenina.

While maintaining his passion for the Great Outdoors Roosevelt took a keen interest in politics and was elected as a Republican to the New York State Assembly at the age of 23. President William McKinley appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy when he was 29.

But he did not stay long in the post because war was looming between the United States and Spain over Cuba and he wanted to fight. So Roosevelt resigned then helped organise the 1st Volunteer Cavalry, known as the Rough Riders, and led them into battle.

He emerged from the Spanish-American war as a national hero, became Governor of New York, then McKinley made him his running mate for the 1900 presidential re-election campaign, which they won.

All was to change the following year when an assassin shot and killed McKinley and Roosevelt, as Vice-President, automatically took over the White House. Six weeks short of his 43rd birthday, he was the youngest person ever to enter the presidency (although John F Kennedy, at 43, remains the youngest person to be ELECTED President).

Domestically, he promised the American people a “Square Deal” – “a square deal politically, a square deal in matters social and industrial.” He also took on powerful corporations and earned the nick-name of ‘trust-buster.’ “Our government, national and state, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests,” he said, adding:

“Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics.”

Roosevelt established the US as a major player in world affairs, believing the right way to conduct foreign policy was to “speak softly and carry a big stick.” He mediated an end to the war between Russia and Japan, a triumph that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.

But he considered his greatest accomplishment as President was helping Panama to secede from Columbia, leading to the construction by America of the Panama Canal, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It was seen as a symbol of American determination and technological know-how, taking ten years to build from 1904 to 1914.

Theodore Roosevelt was America’s first “cowboy President” and was happy to be photographed in a buckskin shirt, a gun at his side. Larger than life more than any other occupant of the White House, he had been an amateur boxer. He was the first American politician to learn judo. He was a rancher. During his honeymoon he scaled the Matterhorn, reaching its summit. And he joined an expedition to log data about an unchartered river in the Amazon.

He also produced many memorable quotes, not least his reflection on his presidency:

“I believe in a strong executive; I believe in power. While President, I have used every ounce of power there was in the office . . . I do not believe that any President ever had as thoroughly good a time as I have had, or has ever enjoyed himself as much.”

There was tragedy as well as the good times. On February 14, 1884 Roosevelt's mother died, then hours later, so did his wife of four years, Alice Lee. The former from typhoid, the latter from Bright's disease, a severe kidney ailment. At the time Roosevelt was 25 and he had a two-day-old daughter. He wrote in his diary: "The light has gone out of my life."

Like his father, Roosevelt’s youngest son Quentin enjoyed a scrap and served as a pilot in the United States Air Service in the First World War.

Tragically, as the conflict was nearing its end in 1918, 20-year-old Quentin’s plane was shot down in France and he was killed.

Six months later on January 6, 1919, sick with illness and grief over the loss of his favourite son, Theodore Roosevelt died in his sleep. He was 60 years old.

Alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, his features form one of the four presidents carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore at the national memorial in South Dakota.

 

Clancy's comment: Another interesting president. Many thanks to Ray Setterfield, depicted in the photograph above.

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