Foreign policy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration

Prelude to war: 1941

After his reelection in 1940, the world war dominated FDR's attention, with far more time devoted to world affairs than ever before. Domestic politics and relations with Congress were largely shaped by his efforts to achieve total mobilization of the nation's economic, financial, and institutional resources for the war effort. Even relationships with Latin America and Canada were structured by wartime demands. Roosevelt maintained tight personal control of all major diplomatic and military decisions, working closely with his generals and admirals, the war and Navy departments, Churchill and the British, and even with the Soviet Union. His key advisors on diplomacy were Harry Hopkins (who was based in the White House), Sumner Welles (based in the State Department), and Henry Morgenthau Jr. at Treasury. In military affairs FDR worked most closely with Secretary Henry L. Stimson at the War Department, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, and Admiral William D. Leahy.

Intelligence and espionage

Roosevelt had long been interested in intelligence, but the U.S. in the 1930s lacked spy agencies comparable to European ones. The small intelligence services of the Army, Navy, and State Departments did not cooperate with one another. According to British historian Donald Cameron Watt, Roosevelt browsed and trusted a variety of sources, including the French Deuxième Bureau; the Polish Intelligence bureau; snippets from the German opposition to Hitler; selected items passed by British Intelligence; journalist reports; and "The Week", a British newsletter edited by Claud Cockburn, a Communist journalist. This left an opening for the British to supply Roosevelt with fake documents indicating the Germans were planning to build up their power in Latin America. Roosevelt believed the falsehoods he was fed, and made defense of Latin America against Germany a high priority. During the war, he set up a new agency, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), headed by an old personal friend, William J. Donovan. OSS engaged in numerous espionage operations and sabotage efforts against Germany and played a minor role in support of the Chinese theater. It was shut down at the end of the war, and partly reassembled later in the Central Intelligence Agency. Roosevelt appointed one of his original brain trusters, Adolf A. Berle, to a senior position in the State Department coordinating intelligence. FDR now relied on daily briefings from Army and Navy intelligence, and also paid attention to reports from the Office of War Information and from J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Meanwhile, none of his agencies realized the scope of Soviet spying during the war. The agencies were feuding with each other, demonstrating a weakness in Roosevelt's decision to be his own coordinator of information.

Early 1941

After defeating Wendell Willkie in the 1940 presidential election, Roosevelt embarked on a public campaign to win congressional support for aid to the British. In December 1940, he received a letter from Churchill asking the U.S. to repeal the Neutrality Act's cash and carry provision. With British forces committed to defending against Germany, Churchill asked the U.S. to provide loans and shipping for American goods. In response, Roosevelt delivered a speech in which he called for the United States to be the "Arsenal of Democracy", supplying aid to those resisting Germany and other aggressors. He said, "if Great Britain goes down, the Axis Powers will control the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia, and the high seas–and they will be in a position to bring enormous military and naval resources against this hemisphere."

In his January 1941 Four Freedoms speech, Roosevelt laid out the case for an American defense of basic rights throughout the world. In the same speech, he asked Congress to approve a Lend-Lease program designed to provide military aid to Britain. With Willkie's backing, the Lend-Lease bill passed both houses of Congress by large margins, with most of the opposition from Midwestern Republicans. But isolationists did prevent the U.S. from providing naval escorts to merchant ships heading to Britain. Roosevelt also requested, and Congress granted, a major boost in military expenditures. With this boost in spending, the unemployment rate dropped below 10% for the first time in over a decade. To oversee mobilization efforts, Roosevelt created the Office of Production Management, the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply, and the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board.

In late 1940, Admiral Harold Stark sent Roosevelt the Plan Dog memo, which set forth four strategic war plans for fighting an anticipated two-front war against Japan and Germany. Of the four strategies, Stark advocated the so-called "Plan Dog", which contemplated a Europe first strategy and avoidance of conflict with Japan for as long as possible. A key part of this strategy was to ensure that Britain remained in the fight against Germany until the U.S., potentially with other countries' help, could launch a land offensive into Europe. Roosevelt did not publicly commit to Plan Dog, but it motivated him to launch talks between U.S. and British military staff, codenamed "ABC–1". In early 1941, U.S. and British military planners jointly agreed to pursue a Europe first strategy. In July, Roosevelt ordered Secretary of War Stimson to begin planning for total American military involvement. The resulting "Victory Program" provided the army's estimates of the mobilization of manpower, industry, and logistics necessary to defeat Germany and Japan. The program planned to dramatically increase aid to the Allied nations and to prepare a force of ten million men in arms, half of whom would be ready for deployment abroad in 1943.

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Roosevelt agreed to extend Lend-Lease to the Soviets. Thus he had committed the U.S. to the Allied side with a policy of "all aid short of war." Some Americans were reluctant to aid the Soviet Union, but Roosevelt believed the Soviets would be indispensable in defeating Germany. Execution of the aid fell victim to foot dragging in the administration, so FDR appointed a special assistant, Wayne Coy, to expedite matters.

Late 1941

In February 1941, Hitler refocused the war against Britain from air operations to naval operations, specifically U-boat (German submarine) raids against convoys headed to Britain. In response, Churchill requested that the United States provide convoy escorts, but Roosevelt was still reluctant to challenge anti-war sentiment. In May, German Kriegsmarine submarines sank the SS Robin Moor, an American freighter, but Roosevelt declined to use the incident as a pretext to increase the navy's role in the Atlantic. Meanwhile, the Axis Powers had success in their campaigns against the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Greece, and British forces in North Africa.

In August 1941, Roosevelt and Churchill conducted a top-secret meeting in Argentia, Newfoundland. This meeting announced to the world the Atlantic Charter, which conceptually outlined global wartime and postwar goals. Each leader pledged to support democracy, free trade, and principles of non-aggression. Whether self-determination applied to the British colonies became highly controversial.

Naval confrontations escalated in the North Atlantic, as German U-boats tried to sink British ships while avoiding contact with the U.S. Navy. American destroyers started hunting and tracking German submarines, passing information to the British Royal Navy, which tried to sink them. Roosevelt insisted that American actions were defensive, as isolationists denounced a deceitful plan to go to war.

On 4 September 1941 an American destroyer, the USS Greer (DD-145), which was carrying mail and passengers to Allied-occupied Iceland, tracked a German submarine but did not fire on it. The German U-boat U-652 fired two torpedoes at the Greer, which evaded them. Neither warship was damaged. In response, Roosevelt announced a new policy whereby the U.S. would attack German or Italian ships that entered U.S. naval zones. This "shoot on sight" policy effectively declared naval war on Germany and was favored by Americans by a margin of 2 to 1. This episode did not escalate into all-out war because both Hitler and Roosevelt were very cautious. Hitler needed to devote all his military resources to his invasion of the Soviet Union, and Roosevelt wanted to build up public support for an aggressive policy to control the North Atlantic. Roosevelt sent the military to establish American bases in Greenland and Iceland. Seeking to head off a possible German invasion, the Roosevelt administration increased military, commercial, and cultural engagement with Latin America.

In October 1941, the USS Kearny, along with other ships, engaged a number of U-boats south of Iceland; the Kearny took fire and lost eleven crewmen. After the attack, Congress amended the Neutrality Act to allow American merchant ships to transport war supplies to Britain, effectively repealing the last provision of the cash and carry policy. But neither the Kearny incident nor an attack on the USS Reuben James changed public opinion as much as Roosevelt hoped they might.

War threatens in the Pacific

By 1940, Japan had conquered much of the Chinese coast and major river valleys but had been unable to defeat either the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek or the Communist forces under Mao Zedong. Though Japan's government was nominally led by the civilian government of Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye, Minister of War Hideki Tojo and other military leaders held immense power. At Tojo's insistence, Japan moved to take control of lightly defended European colonies in Southeast Asia, which provided important resources as well as a conduit of supply to Chinese forces. When Japan occupied northern French Indochina in late 1940, Roosevelt authorized increased aid to the Republic of China, a policy that won widespread popular support. He also implemented a partial embargo on Japan, preventing the export of iron and steel. Over the next year, the Roosevelt administration debated imposing an embargo on oil, the key U.S. export to Japan. Though some in the administration wanted to do everything possible to prevent Japanese expansion, Secretary of State Hull feared that cutting off trade would encourage Japan to meet its needs for natural resources through conquest of the Dutch East Indies, British Malaya, British Burma, or the Philippines.

With Roosevelt's attention focused on Europe, Hull took the lead in setting Asian policy and negotiating with Japan. Beginning in March 1941, he and Japanese ambassador Kichisaburō Nomura sought to reach an accommodation between their governments. As the U.S. did not accept the Japanese occupation of China, and Japan would not end it, the two positions were irreconcilable. After Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Japanese decided not to avoid war in Siberia—its first priority had to be oil. In July, Japan took control of southern French Indochina, a potential staging ground for an attack on British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, with their rich oil fields. In response, the U.S. cut off the sale of oil to Japan, which thus lost more than 95% of its supply.

Following the American embargo, Japanese leaders turned their attention to the conquest of the Dutch East Indies, which had a large oil supply. To consolidate control of the Dutch East Indies, Imperial Japanese Armed Forces planners believed they needed to capture the Philippines, take control of the British base at Singapore, and defeat the United States Pacific Fleet, stationed at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. No Japanese leader saw total defeat of the United States as feasible, but many hoped that a decisive naval victory would convince the Americans to leave control of the Pacific to Japan. Prime Minister Konoye sought a summit with Roosevelt to avoid war, but continued U.S. insistence on Japanese withdrawal from China scuttled those plans. Tojo succeeded Konoye as prime minister in October, and the Japanese began preparations for an attack on the United States. In November, Nomura made a final offer, asking for reopened trade and acceptance of the Japanese campaign in China in return for Japan's pledge not to attack Southeast Asia. In large part because the U.S. feared that Japan would attack the Soviet Union after conquering China, Roosevelt declined the offer, and negotiations collapsed on November 26.

Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941

On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Japanese struck the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor with a surprise attack, knocking out the main United States Pacific Fleet battleship fleet and killing 2,403 American servicemen and civilians. The great majority of scholars have rejected a variety of conspiracy theories that Washington knew in advance. The Japanese guarded their secrets closely, and while senior American officials were aware that war was imminent, they did not expect an attack on Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt had anticipated that the first attack would take place in the Dutch East Indies, Thailand, or the Philippines.

World War II 1941–1945

After Pearl Harbor, antiwar sentiment in the United States evaporated overnight. For the first time since the early 19th century, foreign policy became the American public's top priority. Roosevelt called for war in his "Infamy Speech" to Congress, in which he said: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." On December 8, Congress voted almost unanimously to declare war against Japan. On December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, which responded in kind.

Roosevelt portrayed the war as a crusade against aggressive dictatorships that threatened peace and democracy throughout the world. He and his military advisers implemented a war strategy with the objectives of halting the German advances in the Soviet Union and in North Africa; launching an invasion of western Europe to crush Nazi Germany between two fronts; saving China; and defeating Japan. But public opinion gave priority to the destruction of Japan, so American forces were sent chiefly to the Pacific in 1942. Japan launched an aerial attack on U.S. forces in the Philippines just hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. By the end of the month, the Japanese had launched an invasion of the Philippines. General Douglas MacArthur led U.S. resistance in the Philippines until March 1942, when Roosevelt ordered him to evacuate to Australia. American forces on the Philippines surrendered in May 1942, leaving Japan with approximately 10,000 American prisoners. While it was subduing the Philippines, Japan also conquered Thailand, British Malaya, Singapore, much of Burma, and the Dutch East Indies.

In his role as the leader of the United States before and during World War II, Roosevelt tried to avoid repeating what he saw as Woodrow Wilson's mistakes in World War I. He often made exactly the opposite decisions. Wilson called for neutrality in thought and deed, while Roosevelt made clear that his administration strongly favored Britain and China. Unlike the loans in World War I, the United States made large-scale grants of military and economic aid to the Allies through Lend-Lease, with little expectation of repayment. Wilson did not greatly expand war production before the declaration of war; Roosevelt did. Wilson waited for the declaration to begin a draft; Roosevelt started one in 1940. Wilson never made the United States an official ally; Roosevelt did. Wilson never met with top Allied leaders; Roosevelt did. Wilson proclaimed independent policy, as seen in the 14 Points, while Roosevelt sought a collaborative policy with the Allies. In 1917, the United States declared war on Germany; in 1941, Roosevelt waited until the enemy attacked at Pearl Harbor. Wilson refused to collaborate with the Republican Party; Roosevelt named leading Republicans to head the War Department and the Navy Department. Wilson let General John J. Pershing make major military decisions; Roosevelt made the major decisions in his war, including the "Europe first" strategy. He rejected the idea of an armistice, demanding unconditional surrender. Roosevelt often mentioned his role as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Wilson administration, but added that he had learned more from Wilson's errors than from his successes. Robert E. Sherwood argues:

Roosevelt could never forget Wilson's mistakes....there was no motivating force in all of Roosevelt's wartime political policy stronger than the determination to prevent repetition of the same mistakes.

Alliances, economic warfare, and other wartime issues

Four Policemen

In late December 1941 Churchill and Roosevelt met at the Arcadia Conference, which established a joint strategy between the U.S. and Britain. Both agreed on a Europe first strategy that would prioritize the defeat of Germany before Japan. With British forces focused on the war in Europe, and with the Soviet Union not at war with Japan, the United States would take the lead in the Pacific War despite its own focus on Germany. The U.S. and Britain established the Combined Chiefs of Staff to coordinate military policy and the Combined Munitions Assignments Board to coordinate the allocation of supplies. An agreement was also reached to establish a centralized command in the Pacific theater called ABDA, named for the American, British, Dutch, and Australian forces in the theater. On January 1, 1942, the United States, Britain, China, the Soviet Union, and twenty-two other countries issued the Declaration by United Nations, in which each nation pledged to defeat the Axis powers. These countries opposed to the Axis would be known as the Allied Powers.

Roosevelt coined the term "Four Policemen" to refer the "Big Four" Allied powers of World War II, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and China. Roosevelt, Churchill, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek cooperated informally on a plan in which American and British troops concentrated in the West; Soviet troops fought on the Eastern front; and Chinese, British and American troops fought in Asia and the Pacific. The Allies formulated strategy in a series of high-profile conferences as well as contact through diplomatic and military channels. Roosevelt had a close relationship with Churchill, but he and his advisers quickly lost respect for Chiang's government, viewing it as hopelessly corrupt. General Joseph Stilwell, who was assigned to lead U.S. forces in the China Burma India Theater, came to believe that Chiang was more concerned with defeating Mao's Communists than with defeating the Japanese. U.S. and Soviet leaders distrusted each other throughout the war, and relations further suffered after 1943 as both sides supported sympathetic governments in liberated territories.

Roosevelt opposes European colonies in Asia

Roosevelt was strongly committed to terminating European colonialism in Asia. He tried to pressure Churchill regarding independence of India, but Churchill fought back vociferously, forcing Roosevelt to drop that kind of attack. Roosevelt then turned to French Indochina. He wanted to put it under an international trusteeship. He wanted the United States to work closely with China to become the policeman for the region and stabilize it; the U.S. would provide suitable financing. The scheme was directly contrary to the Free French, for Charles de Gaulle had a grand vision of the French overseas empire as the base for his return to defeat Vichy France. Roosevelt could not abide de Gaulle, but Winston Churchill realized that Britain needed French help to reestablish its position in Europe after the war. He and the British foreign office decided to work closely with de Gaulle to achieve that goal, and therefore they had to frustrate Roosevelt's decolonization scheme. In doing so, they had considerable support from like-minded American officials. The basic weakness of Roosevelt's scheme was its dependence on Chiang Kai-shek the ruler of China. Chiang's regime virtually collapsed under Japanese pressure in 1944, and Japan overran the American airbases that were built to attack Japan. The Pentagon's plans to use China as a base to destroy Japan collapsed, so the United States Army Air Forces turned its attention to attacking Japan with very long-range B-29 bombers based in the Pacific. The American military no longer needed China or Southeast Asia. China clearly was too weak to be a policeman. With the defeat of Japan, Britain took over Southeast Asia and returned Indochina to France. Roosevelt realized his trusteeship plan was dead, and accepted the British-French actions as necessary to stabilize Southeast Asia.

Other allies

By the end of the war, several states, including all of Latin America, had joined the Allies. Roosevelt's appointment of young Nelson Rockefeller to head the new, well-funded Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs provided energetic leadership. Under Rockefeller's leadership, the U.S. spent millions on radio broadcasts, motion pictures, and other anti-fascist propaganda. American advertising techniques generated a push back in Mexico, especially, where well-informed locals resisted heavy-handed American influence. Nevertheless, Mexico was a valuable ally in the war. A deal was reached whereby 250,000 Mexican citizens living in the United States served in the American forces; over 1000 were killed in combat. In addition to propaganda, large sums were allocated for economic support and development. On the whole the Roosevelt policy in Latin America was a political success, except in Argentina, which tolerated German influence, and refused to follow Washington's lead until the war was practically over. Outside of Latin America, the U.S. paid particularly close attention to its oil-rich allies in the Middle East, marking the start of sustained American engagement in the region.

Lend-Lease and economic warfare

The main American role in the war, beyond the military mission itself, was financing the war and providing large quantities of munitions and civilian goods. Lend lease, as passed by Congress in 1941, was a declaration of economic warfare, and that economic warfare continued after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt believed that the financing of World War I through loans to the Allies, with the demand for repayment after the war, had been a mistake. He set up the Lend Lease system as a war program, financed through the military budget. As soon as the war with Japan ended it was terminated. The president chose the leadership—Harry Hopkins and Edward Stettinius Jr. played major roles—and exercised close oversight and control. One problem that bedeviled the program in 1942 was the strictly limited supply of munitions that had to be divided between Lend Lease and American forces. Roosevelt insisted to the military that the Soviet Union was to get all the supplies he had promised it. Lend-lease aid to the Soviet Union declined somewhat in mid-1942 after the United States began to prepare for military operations in North Africa.

The U.S. spent about $40 billion on Lend Lease aid to the British Empire, the Soviet Union, France, China, and some smaller countries. That amounted to about 11% of the cost of the war to the U.S. It received back about $7.8 billion in goods and services provided by the recipients to the United States, especially the cost of food and rent for American installations abroad. Britain received $30 billion, Russia received $10.7 billion, and all other countries $2.9 billion. When the question of repayment arose, Roosevelt insisted the United States did not want a postwar debt problem of the sort that had troubled relations after the first world war. The recipients provided bases and supplies to American forces on their own soil; this was referred informally as "Reverse Lend Lease," and the combined total of this aid came to approximately $7.8 billion overall. In the end, none of the Allied Powers paid for the goods received during the war, although they did pay for goods in transit that were received after the program ended. Roosevelt told Congress in June 1942:

The real costs of the war cannot be measured, nor compared, nor paid for in money. They must and are being met in blood and toil... If each country devotes roughly the same fraction of its national production to the war, then the financial burden of war is distributed equally among the United Nations in accordance with their ability to pay.

A major issue in the economic war was the transportation of supplies. After Germany declared war on the United States, Hitler removed all restrictions on the German submarine fleet. German submarines ravaged Allied shipping in the Atlantic, with many of the attacks taking place within ten miles of the East Coast of the United States in early 1942. The U.S. Navy faced difficulties in simultaneously protecting Atlantic shipping while also prosecuting the war against Japan, and over one millions tons of Allied shipping was lost in 1942. The cracking of the German Enigma code, along with the construction and deployment of American naval escorts and maritime patrol aircraft helped give the Allied Powers the upper hand in the Battle of the Atlantic after 1942. After the Allies sank dozens of U-boats early 1943, most German submarines were withdrawn from the North Atlantic.

The United States began a strategic bombing campaign against Axis forces in Europe in mid-1942. Attacks initially targeted locations in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands; U.S. bombers launched their first attack against a target in Germany in January 1943. In an attempt to destroy Germany's industrial capacity, Allied bombers struck targets such as oil refineries and ball-bearing factories. After taking heavy losses in Operation Tidal Wave and the Second Raid on Schweinfurt, the U.S. significantly scaled back the strategic bombing of Germany. General Carl Andrew Spaatz re-directed U.S. strategic bombing efforts to focus on the German aircraft production facilities, and the Allies enjoyed air superiority in Europe after February 1944. Allied strategic bombing escalated in late 1944, with an emphasis placed on Germany's transportation infrastructure and oil resources. With the goal of forcing a quick German surrender, in 1945 the Allies launched attacks on Berlin and Dresden that killed tens of thousands of civilians.

Reaction to the Holocaust

Public opinion in the 1930s was very hostile to new immigration to the United States. Compounded by anti-Semitism, and the reluctance of Jewish newspapers and film producers to become involved, very little was done to rescue European Jews threatened by the Nazis. After Kristallnacht in 1938, Roosevelt helped expedite Jewish immigration from Germany and allowed Austrian and German citizens already in the United States to stay indefinitely. He was prevented from accepting more Jewish immigrants by the prevalence of nativism and antisemitism among voters and members of Congress, resistance in the American Jewish community to the acceptance of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, and the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924. The Immigration Act of 1924 allowed only 150,000 immigrants to the United States per year and set firm quotas for each country, and in midst of the Great Depression there was little popular support for revisions to the law that would allow for a more liberal immigration policy. In 1938 Roosevelt pushed the limits of his executive authority to allow 50,000 German Jews, to escape from Europe or remain in the United States past their visa expiration. Roosevelt's State Department, however, was very hostile to the numerous proposals made it to rescue more Jews by bringing them to the United States.

Germany in January 1942 implemented the "Final Solution"–the extermination of all Jews. American officials learned of the scale of the Nazi extermination campaign in the following months. Against the objections of his State Department, Roosevelt convinced the other Allied leaders to jointly issue the Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations, which condemned the ongoing Holocaust and promised to try its perpetrators as war criminals. In January 1944, Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board to aid Jews and other victims of Axis atrocities. Aside from these actions, Roosevelt believed that the best way to help the persecuted populations of Europe was to win the war as quickly as possible. Top military leaders and War Department leaders rejected any campaign to bomb the extermination camps or the rail lines leading to the camps, fearing it would be a diversion from the war effort. According to biographer Jean Edward Smith, there is no evidence that anyone ever proposed such a campaign to Roosevelt himself. In sum, Roosevelt took significant but limited action regarding the persecution in Germany, the refugee crisis in the 1930s, and the systematic killing of six million Jews in gas chambers after 1941. Public and elite opinion, including the Jewish-American leadership, generated little pressure to take action. Roosevelt's legacy remains highly controversial among historians and the general public. Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman state:, "This ongoing quarrel is unforgiving, passionate, and politically charged." They conclude that Roosevelt:

did more for the Jews than any other world figure, even if his efforts seem deficient in retrospect. He was a far better president for Jews than any of his political adversaries would have been. Roosevelt defied most Republican opponents and some isolationist Democrats to lead political and military opposition to Nazi Germany's plan for expansion and world domination.

Course of the war

Mediterranean and European theater

The Soviets urged an Anglo-American invasion of France in order to divert German troops and munitions from the Eastern front. Churchill in particular was reluctant to commit troops in Europe in 1942, and strongly favored launching a campaign designed to expel the Axis Powers from North Africa and to consolidate Allied power in the Mediterranean. General George Marshall and Admiral Ernest King opposed the decision to prioritize North Africa, which they saw as relatively unimportant to the overall war. Roosevelt overrode their objections, as he wanted the U.S. to commit ground forces in the European theater, in 1942, and with British cooperation.

The Allies invaded French North Africa in November 1942, securing the quick surrender of local Vichy French forces. That surrender was arranged through a deal between General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the Allied invasion of North Africa, and Vichy Admiral François Darlan. The cooperation with Darlan allowed the Allies to quickly gain control of much of North Africa, but it also alienated Free French leader Charles de Gaulle and other opponents of the Vichy regime. Darlan was assassinated in December 1942, while Vichy France broke relations with the United States and requested that German forces prevent the Allies from gaining control of French Tunisia. The experience with de Gaulle, Darlan, and another French leader, Henri Giraud, convinced Roosevelt of the necessity to avoid becoming closely associated with any French faction for the remainder of the war. In the Tunisian Campaign, Eisenhower initially faced great difficulties in leading his inexperienced force to success, but Allied forces eventually gained the upper hand. 250,000 Axis soldiers surrendered in May 1943, bringing an end to the North African Campaign.

At the January 1943 Casablanca Conference, the U.S. and Britain agreed to defeat Axis forces in North Africa and then launch an invasion of Sicily after the North African campaign, with an attack on France to follow in 1944. At the conference, Roosevelt also announced that he would only accept the unconditional surrender of Germany, Japan, and Italy. The demand for unconditional surrender was calculated to reassure the Soviets, who were still insisting on an immediate attack on German-occupied France, that the United States would not seek a negotiated peace with Germany. In February 1943, the Soviet Union turned the tide on the Eastern Front by winning a decisive victory at the Battle of Stalingrad. The Allies launched an invasion of Sicily in July 1943, capturing the island by the end of the following month. During the campaign in Sicily, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy arrested Benito Mussolini and replaced him with Pietro Badoglio, who secretly negotiated a surrender with the Allies. Despite his earlier insistence on unconditional surrender, Roosevelt accepted armistice terms that allowed Badoglio to remain in power. Germany quickly restored Mussolini to power and set up a puppet state in northern Italy. The Allied invasion of mainland Italy commenced in September 1943, but the Italian Campaign moved slowly until 1945. Roosevelt consented to the campaign only on the condition that the British commit to an invasion of France in mid-1944, and the Allied Powers began to build up a force for that operation, diverting soldiers from the Italian Campaign.

To command the invasion of France, Roosevelt passed over Marshall and in favor of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Roosevelt had originally wanted to appoint Marshall to the command, but top military leaders argued that Marshall was indispensable in his role in Washington. While building up forces in Britain, the Allied Powers engaged in Operation Bodyguard, an elaborate campaign designed to mask where the Allies would land in Northwestern Europe. Eisenhower launched Operation Overlord, a landing in the Northern French region of Normandy, on June 6, 1944. Supported by 12,000 aircraft that provided complete control of the air, and the largest naval force ever assembled, the Allies successfully established a beachhead in Normandy and then advanced further into France. Though reluctant to back an unelected government, Roosevelt recognized Charles de Gaulle's Provisional Government of the French Republic as the de facto government of France in July 1944.

After the Battle of the Falaise Pocket, the Allies pushed Axis forces back towards Germany, capturing Paris in August 1944. That same month, the Allies launched Operation Dragoon, an invasion of Southern France. Facing logistical issues, Allied forces attempted to secure the Belgian port of Antwerp before moving on Germany's Ruhr region, but the failure of Operation Market Garden delayed the Western Allied invasion of Germany. In late 1944, Hitler began to amass forces for a major offensive designed to convince the United States and Britain to seek a negotiated peace. A surprise German attack in December 1944 marked the start of the Battle of the Bulge, but the Allies were able to beat back the attack in the following weeks. The Allies advanced across the Rhine River in March 1945, and took control of the Ruhr and the Saarland, another key industrial region. By April 1945, Nazi resistance was crumbling in the face of advances by both the Western Allies and the Soviet Union.

Pacific theater

After sweeping across Maritime Southeast Asia in the months following Pearl Harbor, Japan looked to further expand its territory, taking control of the Solomon Islands and parts of New Guinea. In May 1942, the United States Navy and Royal Australian Navy defeated the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Battle of the Coral Sea, prompting an Imperial Japanese Army land campaign across the island of New Guinea. Seeking to seize control of a strategically placed island and destroy the U.S. fleet in the Pacific, Japan also launched an attack on the American-held Midway Atoll. With the assistance of the Magic cryptanalysis project, Admiral Chester Nimitz led an American force that defeated the Japanese navy at the Battle of Midway. The Battle of Midway resulted in the Japanese fleet's loss of four crucial aircraft carriers, and the battle marked a major reversal of fortune in the Pacific War. In August 1942, the United States launched an invasion of the Japanese-held South Pacific island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands; Japanese and American forces contested control of Guadalcanal until February 1943. After the Battle of Guadalcanal, the U.S. adopted an island hopping strategy in order to avoid entrenched Japanese garrisons. By early 1944, Allied forces had established control over much of New Guinea and had landed on the adjacent island of New Britain.

While the campaign in the Southwest Pacific continued, U.S. forces launched an offensive in the Central Pacific, beginning with the November 1943 Battle of Tarawa. The U.S. next captured Japanese positions in the Marshall Islands and the Caroline Islands. In June 1944, the U.S. launched an attack on Saipan, in the Mariana Islands, gaining control of the island in early July at the cost of fourteen thousand casualties. As the Battle of Saipan continued, the U.S. won a major naval victory in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, sinking three Japanese aircraft carriers. In July 1944, Roosevelt met with Nimitz and MacArthur, where he authorized the continuation of the campaigns in the Southwest Pacific and the Central Pacific. MacArthur's force would continue its advance towards the Philippines, while the Central Pacific campaign would work its way towards Japan. The U.S. landed on the Philippine island of Leyte in October 1944, provoking a Japanese naval response, as the Philippine Islands maintained a critical position on the Japanese oil supply route from the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese navy was decimated in the resulting Battle of Leyte Gulf, which is sometimes claimed to be the "largest naval battle in history." MacArthur's forces secured control of Leyte in December and had largely re-taken control of the Philippines by March 1945.

The U.S. began launching strategic bombing raids on Japan from the Mariana Islands in November 1944, but Japan still controlled several islands that provided defense for the Japanese archipelago. In February 1945, the U.S. launched an invasion of the well-defended island of Iwo Jima, taking control of that island the following month. On April 1, the U.S. landed on Okinawa Island, the largest of the Ryukyu Islands. The Japanese allowed the Americans to land on the island before launching a fierce attack that included kamikaze suicide attacks by Japanese aircraft. Japanese forces on Okinawa held out until June 1945; U.S. forces suffered over 60,000 casualties during the operation.

Post-war planning

In late 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed to meet to discuss strategy and post-war plans at the Tehran Conference, which marked Roosevelt's first face-to-face meeting with Stalin. At the conference, Britain and the United States committed to opening a second front against Germany in 1944, while Stalin committed to entering the war against Japan at an unspecified date. Roosevelt also privately indicated acceptance of Soviet control of the Baltic states and Soviet plans to shift Poland's borders to the west. Stalin, meanwhile, committed to joining the war against Japan after the defeat of Germany.

Post-war plans increasingly came to the fore as the Allies scored major victories in 1944. Taking up the Wilsonian mantle, Roosevelt made his highest priority the establishment of the United Nations. It would be a permanent intergovernmental organization that would succeed the League of Nations. Roosevelt expected it would be controlled by Washington, Moscow, London and Beijing, and would resolve all major world problems. The wartime economic boom and the experience of the Great Depression convinced many Americans of the need to lower trade barriers. Lend-Lease agreements included provisions for eliminating tariffs, and the U.S. especially desired the dismantlement of the British Imperial Preference system of tariffs. At the Bretton Woods Conference, the Allies agreed to the creation of the International Monetary Fund, which would provide for currency stabilization, and the World Bank, which would fund post-war rebuilding.

Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met for a second time at the February 1945 Yalta Conference. With the end of the war in Europe approaching, Roosevelt's primary focus was on convincing Stalin to enter the war against Japan, because casualty estimates, depending on their assumptions, ranged from hundreds of thousands to millions for an Allied invasion of Japan. In return for its entrance into the war against Japan, the Soviet Union was promised control of Asian territories such as Sakhalin Island. With the Soviet Union in control of much of Eastern Europe by early 1945, Roosevelt had little leverage over Soviet actions in Central and Eastern Europe. He did not push for the immediate evacuation of Soviet Red Army soldiers from Poland, but he did win the issuance of the Declaration on Liberated Europe, which promised free elections in countries that had been occupied by Germany. Against Soviet pressure, Roosevelt and Churchill refused to consent to imposing huge reparations and deindustrialization on Germany after the war. Roosevelt's role in the Yalta Conference has been controversial; critics charge that he naively trusted the Soviet Union to allow free elections in Eastern Europe, while supporters argue that there was little more that Roosevelt could have done for the Eastern European countries given the Soviet occupation and the need for cooperation with the Soviet Union during and after the war.

Founding the United Nations

Roosevelt had been a strong supporter of the League of Nations back in 1919–20, but was determined to avoid the mistakes Wilson had made. The United Nations was FDR's highest postwar priority. He insisted on full coordination with the Republican leadership. He made sure that leading Republicans were on board, especially Senators Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, and Warren Austin of Vermont. In a broad sense, Roosevelt believed that the UN could solve the minor problems and provide the chief mechanism to resolve any major Issues that arose among the great powers, all of whom had a veto. For FDR creating the UN was the most important goal for the entire war effort. Roosevelt was especially interested in international protection of human right, and in this area his wife played a major role as well.

The Allies had agreed to the basic structure of the new body at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944. At Yalta, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed to the establishment of the United Nations, as well as the structure of the United Nations Security Council. Stalin insisted on having a veto and FDR finally agreed. The participants at Yalta also agreed that the United Nations would convene for the first time in San Francisco in April 1945 in the United Nations Conference on International Organization. Roosevelt considered the United Nations to be his most important legacy. He provided continuous backstage political support at home and with Churchill and Stalin abroad. The Big Four of the United States, Britain, Soviet Union and China would make the major decisions, with France added later to provide permanent members of the all-powerful Security Council. Each had a veto power, thus avoiding the fatal weakness of the League of Nations, which had theoretically been able to order its members to act in defiance of their own parliaments.

Anti-imperialism

British, French, and Dutch leaders all hoped to retain or reclaim their colonial possessions after the war. The U.S. was committed to granting independence to the Commonwealth of the Philippines following the end of the war, and Roosevelt frequently pressured Churchill to similarly commit to the independence of India, Burma, Malaya, and Hong Kong. His motives included principled opposition to colonialism, practical concern for the outcome of the war, and the need to build support for the U.S. in a future independent India. Churchill was deeply committed to imperialism and pushed back hard. Because the U.S. needed British cooperation in India to support China, Roosevelt had to draw back on his anti-colonialism. That annoyed Indian nationalist leaders, though most of those leaders were in British prisons for the duration because they would not support the war against Japan. Roosevelt also believed that France had performed the poorest in governing its colonies and resisting the Axis. He advocated for the placement of French Indochina under an international trusteeship once the war ended. This was opposed by the British, who was afraid of losing its own colonies if the idea of trusteeship gathered further momentum. Roosevelt also promised to return Chinese territories seized by Japan since 1895, and ended the practice of American special rights in China.

Roosevelt's health

According to reviewer Dennis Dunn, the book The Dying President: Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1944–1945 (1998):

argues persuasively that FDR was too ill (of cardiovascular disease) to be president and that his physical disability led to a series of misjudgments and mistakes in 1944-45, including a lack of study of the need for the use of the atomic bomb against Japan, a nonchalance regarding the evidence of the Holocaust crime, an inattention to China and Chinese Communism, a casual support of French involvement in Vietnam with all of the attendant consequences of that fatal mistake for American foreign policy in the postwar period, an inadvertent backing of the ridiculous Morgenthau Plan, and an unconscionable isolation of Truman.

Timeline

• 1933 – Montevideo Convention. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares the "Good Neighbor policy", US opposition to armed intervention in inter-American affairs.
• 1933 – London Economic Conference, to deal with Great Depression, collapses after US withdraws.
• 1933 – US extends diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union.
• 1935 – Neutrality Act of 1935; when war breaks out prohibits all arms shipments (allowing shipment of oil, steel, chemicals); US citizens can travel on belligerent ships only at their own risk
• 1936 – Neutrality Act of 1936; no loans to belligerents
• 1936 – Spanish Civil War; US neutral; American Catholics support Nationalist forces; left-wing elements support Republican forces
• 1937 – Neutrality Act of 1937; 1935 laws apply to civil wars
• 1937 – Japan invades China, with full-scale war and many atrocities against Chinese; Japan conquers major cities and seacoast; Americans strongly sympathetic to China; Roosevelt does not invoke neutrality laws
• 1937 – Japanese planes sink the American gunboat, USS Panay along with three Standard Oil takers on the Yangtze River during the Battle of Nanking
• 1938 – Munich Pact sacrifices Czechoslovakia in the name of appeasement; US not involved but does not object
• 1939 – World War II begins in Europe, America initially neutral.
• 1940 – American intelligence breaks the Japanese diplomatic code with MAGIC.
• 1941 –

— July 29 Japan occupies the southern half of French Indochina, seen as a threatening move.

— July 30 US together with Britain and the Dutch government-in-exile imposes trade embargo against Japan, most crucially in oil.

— August 13 Atlantic Charter. Anglo-American summit off the coast of Newfoundland. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill agree (1) no territorial gains sought by America or Great Britain, (2) territorial adjustments must conform to people involved, (3) people have right to choose their own govt. (4) trade barriers lowered, (5) there must be disarmament, (6) there must be freedom from want and fear ("Four Freedoms" of FDR), (7) there must be freedom of the seas, (8) there must be an association of nations. Charter is accepted by Allies, who call themselves "the United Nations".

— October 31 American destroyer USS Reuben James sunk by a U-boat. Rise in German-American tensions.

— December 6 American intelligence fails to predict attack on Pearl Harbor.

— December 7 Attack on Pearl Harbor. United States is hit by surprise by Japanese Navy.

— December 11 Germany and Italy declare war on the U.S.

• 1942

— August 8 Riegner Telegram received in Washington. Gerhart M. Riegner of the World Jewish Congress has received reliable information that Germany is engaged in a campaign of extermination against the Jews of Europe.

• 1943 –

— January Casablanca Conference. Roosevelt and Churchill meet to plan European strategy. Unconditional surrender of Axis countries demanded, Soviet aid and participation, invasion of Sicily and Italy planned

— October 30 Moscow Declaration. Joint statement by the United States, United Kingdom and the Soviet Union promises that German leaders will be tried for war crimes after the Allied victory.

— November Cairo Conference. Roosevelt, Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek meet to make decisions about postwar Asia: Japan returns all territory, independent Korea.

— November Tehran Conference. Roosevelt and Churchill meet with Stalin.

• 1944 – Monetary and Financial Conference held in July in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire; International Monetary Fund and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) created to aid nations devastated by the war and to stabilize the international monetary system.
• 1944 – Dumbarton Oaks Conference held in August in Washington;
• 1945 – February 4–11 Yalta Conference with Joseph Stalin and Churchill; agreement on division of Eastern Europe
• 1945 – Surrender of Germany (V-E Day)
• 1945 – July 17 – August 2 Potsdam Conference; President Harry S. Truman meets with Stalin and British Prime Minister Clement Attlee; tells Stalin of atomic bomb; gives Japan last warning to surrender; Germany (and Austria) divided into 4 zones of occupation