Conclusion: Comparison of Lincoln and Roosevelt

At this point, it is interesting to compare Lincoln and his activity in causing the “enemy” to fire the first shot, as was shown in my earlier essay with Roosevelt’s similar activity Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., a well-known American “court historian,” has written the definitive defenses for both Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt regarding their reprehensible behavior in causing their respective unnecessary American wars. He clearly documents the unconstitutional behavior of both and offers great praise for the same. He attempts to justify the actions of both presidents on grounds that they were acting during a “crisis” pertaining to the “survival of the American government,” and that their unconstitutional actions were thereby made “necessary.” Schlesinger has stated that “Next to the Civil War, World War II was the greatest crisis in American history.”[194] His defense of these two “great” presidents is as follows:

Roosevelt in 1941, like Lincoln in 1861, did what he did under what appeared to be a popular demand and a public necessity. Both presidents took their actions in light of day and to the accompaniment of uninhibited political debate. They did what they thought they had to do to save the republic. They threw themselves in the end on the justice of the country and the rectitude of their motives. Whatever Lincoln and Roosevelt felt compelled to do under the pressure of crisis did not corrupt their essential commitment to constitutional ways and democratic processes.[195]

Schlesinger, however, recognizes the terrible precedents that were created by these presidents’ violations of the clear Constitutional restrictions on their office:

Yet the danger persists that power asserted during authentic emergencies may create precedents for transcendent executive power during emergencies that exist only in the hallucinations of the Oval Office and that remain invisible to most of the nation. The perennial question is: How to distinguish real crises threatening the life of the republic from bad dreams conjured up by paranoid presidents spurred on by paranoid advisers? Necessity, as Milton said, is always “the tyrant’s plea.”[196]

Let us add to John Milton’s statement a more specific warning by William Pitt in his speech to the House of Commons on November 18, 1783: “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants.”[197]

Finally, it is instructive to compare the circumstances for Lincoln at Fort Sumter with those for Roosevelt at Pearl Harbor. In neither case was there an actual “surprise” attack by the enemy. In fact, there was an extended period of time, many months prior to the “first shot,” in which both Lincoln and Roosevelt had ample opportunity to attempt to negotiate with the alleged “enemy,” who was desperately trying to reach a peaceful settlement. In both cases, the presidents refused to negotiate in good faith. Lincoln sent completely false and conflicting statements to the Confederates and to Congress; even refused to talk with the Confederate commissioners. Roosevelt also refused to talk with Japanese Prime Minister Konoye, a refusal that brought down the moderate, peace-seeking Konoye government and caused the rise of the militant Tojo regime. Both Lincoln and Roosevelt repeatedly lied to the American people and to Congress about what they were doing while they were secretly provoking the “enemy” to fire the first shot in their respective wars. Both intentionally subjected their respective armed forces to being bait to get the enemy to fire the first shot.

Also, a comparison of circumstances clearly shows that both Lincoln and Roosevelt had ample opportunity to present their arguments and the question of war to Congress as the Constitution clearly required them to do. In fact, Congress in both cases was desperately trying to find out what the presidents were doing, and in both cases the presidents were hiding evidence from them. In Lincoln’s case, Congress probably would not have declared war for either the real reasons Lincoln went to war or for those he used only for propaganda. Similarly, Roosevelt could have presented the question of war to Congress and attempted to persuade Congress and the American people that we needed to join Soviet Russia and Great Britain to fight tyranny in Germany. This might have been embarrassing to the Roosevelt administration in light of the fact that Congress may not have wanted to declare war and join with Soviet Russia, which was already one of the greatest tyrannies the world had ever known, while Germany was Russia’s main enemy. A majority in Congress surely were aware of the dangers of Communism, while Roosevelt never seemed to grasp the total evil of Stalin or Communism. Roosevelt gave Stalin everything he wanted throughout the war and referred to this mass murderer as “Uncle Joe.” The wartime conferences at Teheran and Yalta clearly demonstrated Roosevelt’s complete and secret capitulation to Communism in Russia and China.[198]

Before World War II started in Europe in 1939, it was widely known that Stalin had already murdered more than ten million innocent, unarmed people, three million of whom were Russian peasants he killed between 1928 and 1935. Communism believed that private property was the main source of evil in the world, and therefore he took the privately owned land from these self-sufficient people.[199] Also, in the period from 1936 through 1938, Stalin murdered millions more during his reign of terror after the “show trials,” purging from the Communist Party those he thought were disloyal.[200] Hitler, on the other hand, before 1939, and primarily from June to July 1934, had murdered fewer than one hundred in his purge of the Storm Troopers.[201] This is not to defend Hitler, or to deny that he was evil, but comparison of these two murderers and tyrants (as Stalin and Hitler were known in the period from 1939 to 1941), shows that Roosevelt could hardly have asked Congress to declare war and to join with Stalin and Communism, yet still argue that he was fighting a noble war against tyranny.

Private Enterprise Compared with Free Enterprise

Another interesting comparison of the situations affecting the decisions of Lincoln and Roosevelt is that economic interests of an elite few played a major role in the decisions of both presidents to instigate a war. It is doubtful that either Lincoln or Roosevelt would have wanted to disclose the influence of these economic interests to the public in a congressional hearing where the question of war was to be decided upon. The study of the history of wars indicates that economic factors have always played a major role in starting wars, but rarely are these economic factors disclosed to the public as the reasons.

Many businessmen and bankers believe in private enterprise but do not believe in free enterprise. In Lincoln’s case, the private-enterprise capitalists wanted Lincoln to have a war in order to prevent the South from establishing a free-trade zone with a low tariff. They wanted Lincoln to protect their special interests by keeping the tariff high, while still forcing the South to remain in the Union to pay the tax. These types of people want a partnership between private enterprise and the government, which is the essence of fascism and the cause of many wars. In the case of Roosevelt, he was greatly influenced, even controlled at times, by the Anglo-American Establishment that was composed of prominent businessmen and bankers who owned or represented large economic interests, both domestically and globally. They also wanted a partnership with government to protect their private businesses and economic interests, especially from formidable industrial and commercial competitors like Germany and Japan. Today the economic establishment in America is much larger than just the Morgan and Rockefeller interests but is just as active in trying to influence government, especially the foreign policy primarily through the president to further their economic interests.

Ludwig von Mises made a clear distinction between private enterprise and free enterprise. Mises wanted a complete separation of the economy from the government, just like separation of church and state, which meant no regulation or control by the government but also no partnership with or help from the government, either economically or militarily. In the free-enterprise system, if any business or any bank wants to transact business globally, it must do so at its own risk and without the help of the government. There would be no foreign aid, especially no aid to prop up dictators in order for them to do business with any particular economic interests. There would be no war in order to create a devastated area like Bosnia or Yugoslavia that needs to be rebuilt by American businesses who have the political influence to get these foreign contracts. Mises thought that separation of the economy from the government was necessary in order to produce peace rather than war.

A major contribution of Mises and the Austrian School of economics is to show that government intervention and regulation of the economy is the actual cause of the boom and bust cycles, while a free market is very stable and self-correcting in a short period of time. Furthermore, Mises showed that coercive monopolies are created by government and not by the free market. Therefore, the economy does not need government regulation or control to stabilize it and will function better by being completely separated.

Mises’s other recommendation, seen in the following statement, is to reduce the size and power of the central government in general in order to protect individual liberty:

Durable peace is only possible under perfect capitalism, hitherto never and nowhere completely tried or achieved. In such a Jeffersonian world of unhampered market economy the scope of government activities is limited to the protection of the lives, health and property of individuals against violence or fraudulent aggression.[202]

Mises goes on to state that:

All the oratory of the advocates of government omnipotence cannot annul the fact that there is but one system that makes for durable peace: a free market economy. Government control leads to economic nationalism and thus results in conflict.[203]

This complete separation of the economy and the government is what Mises meant by “perfect capitalism,” which promotes peace and prosperity rather than war and welfare.

Foreign Influence—The Anglo-American Establishment

In Roosevelt’s case, a foreign government clearly influenced and literally worked secretly and directly with him to cause the U.S. to enter World War II in complete violation of President Washington’s warning in his Farewell Address against allowing the influence of foreign governments to control American policy. This is still a major problem today with America’s foreign policy. American political leaders have not only ignored President Washington’s warning about the dangerous influence of foreign powers, but they have also ignored his excellent advice that we should avoid permanent entangling alliances, such as the United Nations and NATO. Washington advised us to have as little political connection with other governments as possible, while having trade relationships with all and without preferential status. Mises and President Washington are not advocating isolationism; they are advocating global trade with all nations.

President Washington warned emphatically against getting involved in the quarrels of Europe. Under President Clinton, the U.S. readopted the Wilsonian foreign policy of crusading throughout the world as its policeman by disguising imperialism with the term “humanitarianism,” a policy that involves American armed forces in matters which have no relationship to real American interests or the defense of the American people and their homeland. Many members of Congress are now calling for the draft again in order to have enough soldiers to be the world’s policeman. Charles Beard, the famous historian, warned that we would lose our freedom if we adopted a policy of “perpetual war for perpetual peace,”[204] and it was one of our Founders, James Madison, who warned that, “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”[205] War necessarily concentrates political power into the hands of a few—especially the president—and diminishes the liberty of all.

Reclaiming the Dream of Our Founders

If Americans are to reclaim the dream of our Founders and have peace and prosperity instead of war and welfare, we must understand the ideas and institutions that promote those conditions. Americans must appreciate and adopt the free-enterprise system and reject the private-enterprise system. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, we have been on a collision course with disaster by following political leaders who got elected and maintained their power through the war and welfare system of politics. Americans will never reclaim the dream of their Founders if presidents like Lincoln and Roosevelt are held up as examples of “great” presidents. We must impeach those presidents who ignore that the Constitution grants the warmaking power exclusively to Congress, and certainly impeach those who mislead Congress into a declaration of war with false information.

Americans need to oppose and destroy the “imperial presidency” because of what it has already done and will do to our country and to our individual freedom. The first step toward that goal is to recognize Presidents Lincoln and Roosevelt for what they really were: American Caesars.

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[1] Quotation is from the diary of Secretary of War Henry Stimson concerning the meeting with President Roosevelt and his cabinet on November 25, 1941, just prior to the “surprise” attack at Pearl Harbor. See George Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War (Old Greenwich, Conn.: Devin-Adair, 1947), p. 292.

[2] For the tyranny of Stalin and the Soviet Union generally, see R. J. Rummel, Death by Government (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1995) and his more recent book, Power Kills: Democracy as a Method of Nonviolence (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1997). For American help to the Soviet Union during and after the war, see Werner Keller, Are the Russians Ten Feet Tall? Constantine FitzGibbon, trans. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1961) and also Major George R. Jordan (USAF), From Major Jordan’s Diaries (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1952). For British and American assistance to the tyranny of Stalin after the war, see Nicholas Bethell, The Last Secret: The Delivery to Stalin of Over Two Million Russians by Britain and the United States (New York: Basic Books, 1974).

[3] A classic example is the vicious smear tactics used against Pat Buchanan concerning his book, A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America’s Destiny (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1999). See for example the articles about Buchanan and his book by Tucker Carlson, Robert G. Kaufman, and William Kristol in The Weekly Standard 5, no. 2 (September 27, 1999).

[4] Thomas A. Bailey, The Man in the Street: The Impact of American Public Opinion on Foreign Policy (New York: Macmillan, 1948), pp. 11–12; see also Bruce R. Bartlett, Cover-Up: The Politics of Pearl Harbor, 1941–1946 (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1978), p. 64.

[5] Thomas A. Bailey, Presidential Greatness: The Image and the Man from George Washington to the Present (New York: Appleman Century-Crofts, 1966), p. 155.

[6] See John V. Denson, “War and American Freedom” in The Costs of War: America’s Pyrrhic Victories, John V. Denson, ed., 2nd ed. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1999), pp. 1–11.

[7] See Harry Elmer Barnes, “Revisionism and the Historical Blackout,” in Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: A Critical Examination of the Foreign Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and its Aftermath, Harry Elmer Barnes, ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1969), pp. 1–78.

[8] George Washington, George Washington: A Collection, W.B. Allen, ed. (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Classics, 1988), pp. 524–25 (emphasis in the original).

[9] Murray N. Rothbard, Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy (Burlingame, Calif.: Center for Libertarian Studies, 1995), p. 4.

[10] Ibid., p. 5.

[11] A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, 2nd ed. (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, 1961), p. 284.

[12] Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Imperial Presidency (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), p. 129; see also the condemnation of the bipartisan foreign policy by Felix Morley in his excellent book, The Foreign Policy of the United States (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), pp. vi–vii.

[13] Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, pp. 22–23.

[14] Ibid., pp. 32, 277.

[15] Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New York: Macmillan, 1974), p. 950.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Popular American columnist Charley Reese from Orlando, Florida, confirmed this fact in a personal interview with Quigley’s widow. Reese reported, “I verified this myself in a telephone interview with his widow. She said he had been extremely upset when he learned of it. He died not long afterward.” (Charley Reese, The Orlando Sentinel, January 26, 1999).

[18] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment: From Rhodes to Cliveden (New York: Books in Focus, 1981).

[19] Ibid., p. 309.

[20] Ibid., p. 5.

[21] F. William Engdahl, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Concord, Mass.: Paul and Company, 1993), pp. 8–19.

[22] Ibid., p. 38.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Allan Nevins, Henry White: Thirty Years of American Diplomacy (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1930), pp. 257–58.

[25] Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 190.

[26] Engdahl, A Century of War, pp. 37 and 75.

[27] Ibid., p. 36.

[28] Ibid., p. 38.

[29] Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. viii.

[30] Ibid., p. 26.

[31] Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (London: Allen Lane, Penguin Press, 1998).

[32] Ibid., p. 443.

[33] Ibid., pp. 458 and 460.

[34] Ibid., p. 460.

[35] Ibid., p. 462 (emphasis in the original).

[36] Rothbard, Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, pp. 20–21.

[37] Ibid., pp. 15–16.

[38] See Niall Ferguson, ed., Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals (London: Papermac, [1977] 1997).

[39] William C. Bullitt and Sigmund Freud, Woodrow Wilson: A Psychological Study (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, [1967] 1999), pp. 170–71.

[40] Ibid., p. 170.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Ibid., p. 174.

[43] Ibid., p. 173.

[44] Ibid.

[45] Albert Jay Nock, The State of the Union: Essays in Social Criticism (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Press, 1991), p. 89 (emphasis added).

[46] Engdahl, A Century of War, p. 75.

[47] Ibid., p. 102.

[48] Ibid., p. 50.

[49] Ibid., p. 51.

[50] Rothbard, Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, pp. 25–26.

[51] Ibid., pp. 27–37.

[52] Arthur S. Link, ed., The Papers of Woodrow Wilson (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), vol. 63, pp. 45–46. The Wilson administration discovered a silver lining in the cloud caused by the failure of the U.S. Senate to ratify the Versailles treaty, thereby leaving America technically at war until November 1921 when new treaties were signed proclaiming the end of the war. During this interim period, the Wilson administration pushed through legislation which still claimed to be part of the war effort. The Supreme Court, which traditionally had avoided judicial review of wartime measures, saw the danger, broke their long-standing rule, and began to judicially review these power-seeking measures. See Christopher N. May, In the Name of War: Judicial Review and the War Power Since 1918 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989).

[53] Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 237.

[54] Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 33.

[55] Charles Callan Tansill, “The United States and the Road to War in Europe” in Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: A Critical Examination of the Foreign Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and its Aftermath, Harry Elmer Barnes, ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1969), p. 96.

[56] J. Kenneth Brody, The Avoidable War: Lord Cecil and the Policy of Principle—1933–1935 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1999), vol. 1, pp. 1–6, 99–123.

[57] Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, pp. 146–81, 278.

[58] Ibid., p. 50; see also M.H. Cochran, Germany Not Guilty in 1914 (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Ralph Myles, 1972).

[59] Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 189.

[60] Engdahl, A Century of War, p. 81.

[61] Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 47.

[62] Ibid., p. 48.

[63] Bullitt and Freud, Woodrow Wilson, pp. 268–69.

[64] Ibid., pp. 261–63.

[65] Ibid., p. 294.

[66] Ibid., p. 271 (emphasis added).

[67] Ibid., pp. 271–72 (emphasis added). The “special understanding with France” was a proposed collective security agreement to be entered into jointly by the British and the Americans to protect France from a future invasion by Germany. When the U.S. Senate failed to approve this agreement, the British refused to guarantee this security alone and the agreement failed altogether.

[68] Alan Bullock, Hitler, A Study in Tyranny (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 315; also see Brody, The Avoidable War, p. 99.

[69] Ibid., pp. 99–123.

[70] Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 100.

[71] Sir Alfred Milner was the key leader of the British portion of the Anglo-American Establishment, and Jan C. Smuts was an important member who was located in South Africa. Lord Robert Cecil was the leader of another bloc within the British portion of the Anglo-American group. However, Milner became the dominant member, and the group is often referred to as “The Milner Group.” See Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, pp. 15–32, 51–100.

[72] Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 71.

[73] Ibid., p. 292.

[74] Ibid., pp. 239–68.

[75] Ibid., p. 262.

[76] Ibid., p. 267.

[77] See generally, Nicholas Harman, Dunkirk: The Patriotic Myth (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980).

[78] James E. Spaight, Bombing Vindicated (London: G. Bles, 1944); Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris, Bomber Offensive (London: Kimber, 1963).

[79] Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 284.

[80] Ibid., pp. 284–87.

[81] Ibid., p. 70.

[82] R.J. Rummel, Death by Government, pp. 4, 8, 79–89.

[83] Ibid., pp. 8, 91.

[84] Colin Simpson, The Lusitania (New York: Ballantine Books, 1974).

[85] William Stevenson, A Man Called Intrepid: The Secret War (New York: Ballantine Books, 1976), pp. 267–68.

[86] See John W. Wheeler-Bennett, King George VI: His Life and Reign (New York: St. Martin’s, 1958), pp. 390–92; also, see Ralph Raico “Re-Thinking Churchill” in The Costs of War: America’s Pyrrhic Victories, John V. Denson, ed., 2nd ed. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1999), p. 337.

[87] See John Holland Snow, The Case of Tyler Kent (New Canaan, Conn.: The Long House, 1982); also, see David Irving, Churchill’s War: The Struggle for Power (Western Australia: Veritas, 1987), vol. 1, pp. 193–96, 287–88.

[88] Stevenson, A Man Called Intrepid: The Secret War (New York: Ballantine, 1976); H. Montgomery Hyde, The Quiet Canadian: The Secret Service Story of Sir William Stephenson (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1963); Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception: British Covert Operations in the United States, 1939–44 (Washington: Brassey’s, 1998).

[89] Stevenson, A Man Called Intrepid, pp. 30, 47.

[90] Ibid., pp. 317–26.

[91] Mahl, Desperate Deception, pp. 47, 120, 193.

[92] Stevenson, A Man Called Intrepid, pp. 326–28; Mahl, Desperate Deception, pp. 55–56.

[93] Stevenson, A Man Called Intrepid, pp. 326–34.

[94] Mahl, Desperate Deception, pp. 23, 34–35.

[95] Ibid., pp. 107–35.

[96] Ibid., pp. 47–68.

[97] David Gordon, “A Common Design: Propaganda and World War” in The Costs of War: America’s Pyrrhic Victories, John V. Denson, ed., 2nd ed. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1999), pp. 301–19; see also Rothbard’s account of Lippman’s important role in Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, pp. 19–20.

[98] Quoted by Gordon in “A Common Design,” pp. 318–19.

[99] Ibid., p. 319; for a current statement on the idea of Great Britain merging with America as a full voting entity, see the article by popular British historian Paul Johnson, “Why Britain Should Join America,” Forbes, April 5, 1999, pp. 82–87.

[100] Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 303.

[101] Mahl, Desperate Deception, p. 58.

[102] Ibid., pp. 69–86.

[103] Ibid., pp. 155–76.

[104] Ibid., pp. 160–61.

[105] Ibid., pp. 137–54.

[106] Bullitt and Freud, Woodrow Wilson, p. 160; see also Rothbard’s account of the important role played by Wiseman in Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, pp. 19–20.

[107] Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, pp. 68–84; see also Bartlett, Cover-Up, pp. 52–53.

[108] Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, pp. 51–67.

[109] Ibid., p. 53; Bartlett, Cover-Up, pp. 29, 30.

[110] Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, p. 63; Edward L. Beach, Captain, USN Ret., Scapegoats: A Defense of Kimmel and Short at Pearl Harbor (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1995) p. 13; James O. Richardson, On the Treadmill to Pearl Harbor: The Memoirs of Admiral James O. Richardson USN (Ret.) as told to Vice Admiral George C. Dyer, USN (Ret.) (Washington, D.C.: Naval History Division, Department of Navy, 1973).

[111] Benjamin Colby, ’Twas a Famous Victory: Deception and Propaganda in the War Against Germany (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1974), p. 21 (emphasis added).

[112] Ibid.

[113] Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, The Grand Alliance (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950), p. 23 (emphasis added); Colby, ’Twas a Famous Victory, p. 22.

[114]New York Times, January 2, 1972; Colby, ’Twas a Famous Victory, p. 35.

[115] Colby, ’Twas a Famous Victory, p. 36 (emphasis added).

[116] Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, p. 115.

[117] Ibid., p. 116.

[118] Mahl, Desperate Deception, p. 1.

[119] Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, p. 116.

[120] Beach, Scapegoats, p. 26.

[121] Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War, pp. 104–16.

[122] Ibid., p. 115.

[123] Ibid., p. 104.

[124] Ibid., p. 109.

[125] Ibid., p. 290.

[126] Ibid., p. 292.

[127] Ibid. (emphasis in original).

[128] While Roosevelt claimed that the primary aim of America entering World War II was to defend the British from German “aggression,” toward the end of the war, and during the wartime conferences—Yalta in particular—he seemed to have little concern for the British or for western Europe. At the wartime conferences, he was more concerned with his place in history and in achieving what his favorite president and idol Woodrow Wilson could not achieve; that is, creating a world organization with America playing a major role in it. Roosevelt repeatedly made concessions to Stalin in order to get Stalin’s cooperation and agreement to form the United Nations wherein America and the Soviet Union would control the two largest spheres of influence. See also generally Amos Perlmutter, FDR and Stalin: A Not So Grand Alliance, 1943–1944 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993), and Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley, FDR and the Creation of the U.N. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997).

[129] Colby, ’Twas a Famous Victory, p. 17.

[130] Fred I. Greenstein, ed., Leadership in the Modern Presidency (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 35.

[131] Bartlett, Cover-Up, p. 9.

[132] Ibid., p. 29.

[133] Ibid., pp. 29–30.

[134] Robert B. Stinnett, Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor (New York: The Free Press, 2000).

[135] Ibid., p. xiv.

[136] Ibid., pp. 6–10, 13–17, 28–29; see also Appendix A at the end of this volume, which sets out this secret document in full, pp. 261–68.

[137] Ibid., p. 8.

[138] Ibid., p. 265.

[139] Lincoln, McKinley, Wilson, and Lyndon Johnson are good examples.

[140] Stinnett, Day of Deceit, p. 9.

[141] Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, p. 303.

[142] Bartlett, Cover-Up, pp. 56–59; see also Kemp Tolley, Cruise of the Lanikai: Incitement to War (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1973), p. 77f.

[143] Bartlett, Cover-Up, pp. 32, 38–39; and see Beach, Scapegoats, p. 28.

[144] Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, p. 173.

[145] Bartlett, Cover-Up, pp. 39–41; also, see Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, pp. 127–43. This refusal of Roosevelt to meet with the Japanese prime minister is very much like Lincoln’s refusal to meet and discuss peace terms with the Confederate commissioners, with very similar results in regard to preserving the peace.

[146] Beach, Scapegoats, p. 32. A.J.P. Taylor states that Manchuria received “mythical importance” and was “treated as a milestone on the road to war,” when, in fact, the commission designated by the League of Nations investigated the Manchurian incident at the initiative of the Japanese and found that the Japanese grievances were justified and Japan was not condemned as an aggressor, although Japan was condemned for resorting to force before all peaceful means had been exhausted. Taylor states, “The Chinese reconciled themselves to the loss of a province which they had not controlled for some years; and in 1933 peace was restored between China and Japan.” See Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 65.

[147] Beach, Scapegoats, p. 11.

[148] Bartlett, Cover-Up, p. 53.

[149] Beach, Scapegoats, p. 48.

[150] Stinnett, Day of Deceit, p. 21.

[151] Ibid., p. 22.

[152] Ibid., pp. 144–45.

[153] Ibid., p. 151.

[154] Ibid., p. 152 and 154.

[155] James Rusbridger and Eric Nave, Betrayal at Pearl Harbor: How Churchill Lured Roosevelt into World War II (New York: Summit Books, 1991).

[156] Another sensational book published recently describes and quotes verbatim the alleged intercepted radio communications between Churchill and Roosevelt concerning the essential message that the Japanese were headed to Pearl Harbor for a surprise attack. There is a series of books relating to alleged interviews by an American CIA agent with Heinrich Muller, who was the Gestapo chief under Hitler. These interviews with Muller allegedly took place at the end of the war, and Muller states that the Germans were able to intercept the radio communications between Roosevelt and Churchill because the Germans had the identical communications system. The German interception of these comments between Churchill and Roosevelt shows that Churchill gave explicit information to Roosevelt that the Japanese were headed to Pearl Harbor for a surprise attack. See Gregory Douglas, Gestapo Chief: The 1948 Interrogation of Heinrich Muller (San Jose, Calif.: R. James Bender, 1998), vol. 3, pp. 48–99.

[157] William Casey, The Secret War Against Hitler (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1988), p. 7 (emphasis added).

[158] Beach, Scapegoats, p. 34.

[159] Ibid., pp. 35–36, 92.

[160] Kimmel as quoted in Beach, Scapegoats, pp. 57–59.

[161] Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, p. 253.

[162] The bomb-plot messages were not part of the diplomatic intercepts, but were messages from spies in Hawaii.

[163] Ibid., p. 184.

[164] Bartlett, Cover-Up, p. 100; see also Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, pp. 198–211.

[165] Ibid.

[166] Beach, Scapegoats, pp. 87–109.

[167] Ibid., p. 89.

[168] Ibid. (specifically for the letter of Stahlman, see pp. 203–05).

[169] Ibid., p. 95.

[170] Ibid.

[171] Ibid., pp. 96–97.

[172] Richardson, On the Treadmill to Pearl Harbor.

[173] Quoted by Beach, Scapegoats, p. 201.

[174] Ibid., p. 96.

[175] Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, p. 259.

[176] Ibid., p. 308 (emphasis in original).

[177] Ibid., p. 309.

[178] Ibid.

[179] Stimson was a close associate of the Morgan interests, a Wall Street lawyer and a protégé of Morgan’s personal attorney, Elihu Root. He served as secretary of war for Presidents Taft and Franklin Roosevelt and as secretary of state under Herbert Hoover. See Rothbard, Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, p. 18.

[180] Ibid., pp. 27–28 (emphasis in original).

[181] Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, p. 189.

[182] Ibid., p. 298.

[183] Ibid., pp. 223–42.

[184] Ibid., p. 225.

[185] Ibid., p. 226.

[186] Ibid., p. 41; Roosevelt appointed Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts as chairman of this commission. Justice Roberts had made a speech at Madison Square Garden on August 19, 1941, advocating America’s entrance into the war as a means of achieving world government which he strongly supported.

[187] Ibid., pp. 38–50; and see Beach, Scapegoats, pp. 113–17. This is almost the same scenario that occurred with Captain Turner of the Lusitania in World War I, who was blamed for the disaster and made the scapegoat, thereby diverting the attention away from Churchill and the British government.

[188] Stinnett, Day of Deceit, p. 255.

[189] Ibid.

[190] Ibid., pp. 256–57.

[191] See Roth Amendment No. 388 to the Defense Authorization Act passed by the United States Senate for the 106th Congress, First Session May 25, 1999, and the Senate Congressional Record for May 24, 1999, Sec. 582, p. S 5879.

[192] Ibid., Senate Congressional Record, p. 5878.

[193] A new revelation of the treachery of Roosevelt has been disclosed in The Washington Times section entitled “Inside the Beltway” for the April 22, 1999 issue. This newspaper report refers to an article by Daryl S. Borgquist, a Justice Department media affairs officer. The article, Advance Warning: The Red Cross Connection,” appears in the May-June 1999 issue of Naval History magazine, published by the U.S. Naval Institute at Annapolis, Maryland. Borgquist points out that a Mrs. Helen E. Hamman wrote a letter to President Clinton, dated September 5, 1995, when she heard that the families of Admiral Kimmel and General Short were trying to clear their names in the Pearl Harbor matter. She reported that she was the daughter of Mr. Don C. Smith who died in 1990 at the age of 98. Mr. Smith directed the War Service for the Red Cross before World War II, and he informed his daughter during the 1970s that he had worried for years about the fact that he had been called to the White House shortly before the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 and had a personal meeting with President Roosevelt. The letter of Mrs. Hamman states the following account of the meeting:

Shortly before the attack in 1941, President Roosevelt called him [Smith] to the White House for a meeting concerning a Top Secret matter. At this meeting the president advised my father that his intelligence staff had informed him of a pending attack on Pearl Harbor, by the Japanese. He [FDR] anticipated many casualties and much loss; he instructed my father to send workers and supplies to a holding area . . . on the West Coast. When he protested to the president, President Roosevelt told him that the American people would never agree to enter the war in Europe unless they were attack[ed] within their own borders. . . . He followed the orders of the president and spent many years contemplating this action which he considered ethically and morally wrong.

Borgquist reports that the Red Cross records indicate a substantial supply of personnel and medical equipment was sent by the Red Cross to Hawaii shortly before the Pearl Harbor attack.

A huge monument has been erected in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the “greatness” of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. On the monument is a quotation from Roosevelt—“I hate war”—indicating falsely to the public that he was a president who sought peace rather than war. It is the ultimate example of false propaganda that is being perpetrated upon the American people. We learn from the investigation of the Pearl Harbor matter that after the attack ended, some of the crew of the battleship Oklahoma were still alive and trapped inside the hull of the partially sunken ship. The survivors outside could hear the trapped men knocking against the hull with metal objects desperately seeking rescue, but no rescue was possible (Beach, Scapegoats, p. 111). A recording should be made to duplicate their desperate sounds and have it played every hour at the Roosevelt Memorial to remind Americans of the treachery of their commander-in-chief.

[194] Schlesinger, The Imperial Presidency, p. 116.

[195] Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “War and the Constitution: Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt” in Lincoln, the War President: The Gettysburg Lectures, Gabor S. Boritt, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 174 (emphasis added).

[196] Ibid., p. 176 (emphasis added).

[197] John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, Emily Morrison Beck, ed., 14th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), p. 496.

[198] George N. Crocker, Roosevelt’s Road to Russia (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1959); and for an explanation of Roosevelt’s delivery of China to the communists, see Anthony Kubek, How the Far East Was Lost: American Policy and the Creation of Communist China, 1941–1949 (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1963); see also Perlmutter, FDR and Stalin.

[199] Rummel, Death by Government, p. 10; see also Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).

[200] Rummel, Death by Government, p. 10; see generally Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purge of the Thirties (New York: Macmillan, 1968).

[201] Rummel, Death by Government, pp. 111–22.

[202] Ludwig von Mises, Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1969), p. 284 (emphasis added).

[203] Ibid., p. 286.

[204] Harry Elmer Barnes, ed., Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, p. viii.

[205] James Madison, “Political Observations,” Letters and Other Writings of James Madison (1795) (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1865), 4, pp. 491–92; also see further quotations from Madison in John V. Denson, “War and American Freedom” in The Costs of War: America’s Pyrrhic Victories, John V. Denson, ed., 2nd ed. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1999), pp. 6–11.