The Washington War
FDR's Inner Circle and the Politics of Power That Won World War II
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4.1 • 17 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A Team of Rivals for World War II—the inside story of how FDR and the towering personalities around him waged war in the corridors of Washington, D.C., to secure ultimate victory on the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific.
The Washington War is the story of how the Second World War was fought and won in the capital’s halls of power—and how the United States, which in December 1941 had a nominal army and a decimated naval fleet, was able in only thirty months to fling huge forces onto the European continent and shortly thereafter shatter Imperial Japan’s Pacific strongholds.
Three quarters of a century after the overwhelming defeat of the totalitarian Axis forces, the terrifying, razor-thin calculus on which so many critical decisions turned has been forgotten—but had any of these debates gone the other way, the outcome of the war could have been far different: The army in August 1941, about to be disbanded, saved by a single vote. Production plans that would have delayed adequate war matériel for years after Pearl Harbor, circumvented by one uncompromising man’s courage and drive. The delicate ballet that precluded a separate peace between Stalin and Hitler. The almost-adopted strategy to stage D-Day at a fatally different time and place. It was all a breathtakingly close-run thing, again and again.
Renowned historian James Lacey takes readers behind the scenes in the cabinet rooms, the Pentagon, the Oval Office, and Hyde Park, and at the pivotal conferences—Campobello Island, Casablanca, Tehran—as these disputes raged. Here are colorful portraits of the great figures—and forgotten geniuses—of the day: New Dealers versus industrialists, political power brokers versus the generals, Churchill and the British high command versus the U.S. chiefs of staff, innovators versus entrenched bureaucrats . . . with the master manipulator, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, at the center, setting his brawling patriots one against the other and promoting and capitalizing on the furious turf wars.
Based on years of research and extensive, previously untapped archival resources, The Washington War is the first integrated, comprehensive chronicle of how all these elements—and towering personalities—clashed and ultimately coalesced at each vital turning point, the definitive account of Washington at real war and the titanic political and bureaucratic infighting that miraculously led to final victory.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Lacey (The First Clash) delves deeply into the bureaucracy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, examining in minute detail the accomplishments of the U.S. military and the successes and limits of American diplomacy before and during WWII. Drawing plentiful information from archival sources and biographies, Lacey goes into exhaustive and sometimes extraneous detail to demonstrate how the numerous conflicts within the administration led to "grudging compromises" that resulted in better outcomes than one person working alone would have. But mostly "the petty took precedence over the crucial" as statesmen argued, backstabbed, cried, lied, leaked unflattering stories to the press, and threw temper tantrums to get their preferred plans across. FDR emerges as "the most Machiavellian of U.S. presidents," a charmer who rarely meant a word of what he said and could ignore any trait in his underlings ineptitude, anti-Semitism, sycophancy as long as he had their loyalty. Moments of humanity or levity are few Gen. George Marshall diverting Prime Minister Winston Churchill by asking him to speak extemporaneously on British history being a welcome exception and Lacey's repetitive prose more often telegraphs than evokes. This volume will likely appeal less to readers of military history than to those who relish tales of Beltway squabbles and bureaucracy gone awry.
Customer Reviews
A compelling and fascinating book
This is a superb book, informative and fascinating. It describes how the federal government organized at the highest levels to revamp the economy to fight the Second World War and how the United States negotiated with the UK and Russia over the strategy to fight it. In both areas, the only useful tactic was hardball, practiced at the highest levels and described here in unflinching detail. You read how those who couldn’t both take it and dish it out faded from the scene and how the supreme masters, the greatest being Franklin Roosevelt, played it. The negotiations over strategy with Churchill and Stalin — two other supreme masters — are of the same game, but at an even higher level. The leading portraits include Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins, George Marshall, Henry Stimson, James Byrnes, and Ernest King, but there are many others. I was startled at the acuity of Stalin, whom Roosevelt thought he could handle but couldn’t. There is plenty of other wonderfully enlightening detail. A choice piece: Admiral William F. Halsey was at sea when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He returned the next day, and when he saw the devastation said that when we were done with them the only place where Japanese would be spoken was in hell.