FDR (2023) s01e02 Episode Script

1
We are in the midst
of an emergency
at least equal to that of war.
When you talk like that, you
sound like a president, Frank.
Franklin Roosevelt was
elected in an hour of crisis.
Our fundamental
economic infrastructure
had fallen apart.
This nation asks for
action and action now.
FDR believed in bold
experimentation.
Big programs were being
passed, boom, boom, boom, boom.
We all know what
we're up against,
but now it's our turn to fix it.
Franklin Roosevelt
was the president
who had to face the Great
Depression and World War II.
The only thing we have
to fear is fear itself.
He was ambitious and active,
incredibly privileged,
but he suffered.
You've contracted
infantile paralysis.
And he's had setbacks.
But through pain
can come wisdom.
The country's on
the edge of a cliff,
but we're not going
to let it fall.
What do you plan to
do with this power?
He has a vision to change
the very soul of America.
I pledge myself to a New
Deal for the American people.
American democracy was literally
resting on his shoulders.
This was zero hour.
[speaking german]
Get everybody in here.
He knew that he needed
to project real strength.
He is the dealer and hope
for the entire free world.
An invasion of France
is courting disaster.
He took risks.
Again and again you see these
moments of great daring.
ROOSEVELT: Success may not
come with rushing speed,
but we shall return
again and again.
Roosevelt led the grand
alliance to victory
over fascism.
This was a tumultuous,
complicated period of time.
It's a mistake to think that he
somehow got everything right,
but there was something
about that voice,
there was something
about that smile.
That empathy, that
humility, that resilience,
all those qualities that
FDR just had triumphantly
built into his character.
By 1935, FDR is fighting the
great economic depression
with the New Deal.
Well, did they start
construction for the housing
yet?
He pushes forward with a whole
new set of New Deal policies.
The White House
had become the most
exclusive residential hotel
you could possibly imagine.
Missy LeHand, his
secretary, lived right there
with the family in
the White House.
Tell the boss I'll
be right there.
Louis Howe did as well.
Congress vote yet?
Not yet.
He wants you to rest.
People saw Louis Howe as a
rumpled, gruff, unimpressive
person, but inside that
person was political genius,
and FDR really relied on him.
The Senate is voting on the
Social Security Bill now.
We'll know any moment.
Missy LeHand is his
close confidant.
She basically comes to control
access to the president
like a chief of staff.
Still waiting on
the Senate, Boss.
The house did their job.
Now the Senate better
not drop the ball.
Some of them have it in for me.
Harry Hopkins is
involved with starting
a number of the big
New Deal agencies,
and he became FDR's
closest advisor.
Up until that point, people
were essentially on their own.
Private charities, states could
attend to the most vulnerable,
but the government was really
there to get out of the way.
FDR is challenging
the core assumption
that government has no role
in helping the common man.
The federal government is now
going to take responsibility
for helping people, for helping
farmers, for helping banks,
for helping individuals,
putting them back to work.
The New Deal rebuilt the
infrastructure of America
at the same time as
providing work for people
and giving them back the
dignity and mastery of work.
It was an incredible
accomplishment.
He created a sense of energy.
There was a sense of
possibility, a sense of we're
trying this, that,
and the other thing.
And Social Security was
really important for FDR.
He felt enormous empathy
for the older people
in that stage of their lives.
He's basically saying, we're
going to create a system that
when you're old.
You're not going to be
destitute an enormous percentage
of the population who
were over 65 at that point
lived in abject poverty.
But that Social Security Act
was pretty radical at its time.
Many people denounced
it as socialism.
They vote yet?
Louis, you should be in bed.
I'm fine.
Passed on a voice vote.
Ready to sign.
Congratulations, sir.
Thank you, sir.
That's it, Frank.
Social Security is law.
It'll change the lives
of millions of Americans.
It's only the beginning.
The Republicans are going to
beat you over the head with
this in '36.
And the Supreme Court wants
to throw out the New Deal.
Oh, they'll have
to wait in line.
It's going to be
a tough campaign.
You know what to do.
Let them have it.
FDR changes the very character
of what government should
be responsible for in the
creation of a social safety
net.
He says, if the
American people fall,
the government will catch you.
This is a vision that changes
the very soul of America
and persists to this day.
Social Security almost
entirely eliminated poverty
among the elderly.
It instantly reoriented the
covenant between the state
and the people.
As the American people are
benefiting from a stronger,
bigger American
government and presidency
than they have in the past,
there's also this concern of,
is he going to be too big?
Is he going to be too powerful?
It's a mistake to think
that Franklin Roosevelt was
this majestic figure who
somehow got everything right.
He was an active,
tough politician.
He had active, tough opponents.
Newspaper publishers
didn't like him.
The elite felt that
FDR wasn't doing what
an American government
is supposed to do,
which is help the wealthy.
Roosevelt was allowing a
portion of the population
that they had very little
respect for to gain power,
to gain a voice.
They called him a
traitor to his class
and this sort of thing,
because Roosevelt
should have been one of them.
He was born into money.
I think polio changed
him fundamentally.
It taught him some of the
virtues that he may not
have had naturally.
It taught him humility,
as he himself said.
He began to feel that he
could connect to other people
to whom fate had also
dealt and unkind hand.
He was somebody who
loved people, who
had a sense of social
justice, and he gravitated
towards ordinary people.
It was just his heart and soul.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, the
former Supreme Court justice,
famously said, FDR has
a second class intellect
but a first rate temperament.
And he meant temperament
is character.
Temperament's the way
you treat other people.
It's the way you
relate to problems.
It's your confidence.
It's your optimism.
Which is another case
of a dream coming true.
It's all those qualities that
FDR just had triumphantly
built into his character.
In the 1930s, as Americans are
still dealing with the Great
Depression at
home, things abroad
seem to be getting
quite perilous.
Hitler has seized the Rhineland.
Italy under Mussolini
has invaded Ethiopia.
Japan over in the Pacific
has invaded China.
And all the while also, the
Spanish Civil War is raging.
Franklin Roosevelt understood
the Great Depression
as a crisis for democracy.
He is looking across
the ocean and he's
seeing that when
people have nothing
and they're not
being given anything,
it is very easy to
slide into dictatorship.
So for him, getting the
state to take action
really is about
saving democracy.
It's not about
obliterating capitalism.
It's about saving it.
NEWSREADER: As election
time draws near,
President Roosevelt
speeds up his campaign
with a whirlwind trip covering
5,000 miles and 11 states.
During the 1936 presidential
campaign for his second term,
FDR believed we needed
a whole new partnership
between government
and the people,
and it had come partway, but it
had to outlast the Depression.
It had to be the permanent
part of American life.
Big business was very actively
campaigning against him.
They were trying to find ways
to undermine him because they
feared that he was going to
shift the balance of power.
They attack him personally,
they attack his wife,
they attack everything
he tries to do.
During this campaign, FDR talks
about these economic royalists,
how they hate him,
that there has never
been such a powerful coalition
directing their hatred
towards a candidate before.
And I welcome their hatred.
He is mad at what
they're saying about him,
he's mad at the
criticisms being called,
Franklin Stalino
Roosevelt, and being called
a communist and a socialist.
And at the Democratic
National Convention,
he is really loaded for bear.
He's saying, I
welcome the challenge.
Let's have this fight.
You want to fight with me?
Let's have this fight.
[cheering]
Hi, Jim.
FDR was giving the
acceptance speech
at the Democratic
convention, and he
had to be helped by his son
Jimmy holding on to his arm.
There are all these fears that
if people saw weakness in him,
they might discredit
everything that he could do,
that any challenge to
his physical strength
means the country is not strong.
Mr. President.
Adwell, how lovely to see you.
Pick me up.
Clean me up.
Don't step on my goddamn speech.
You OK?
I'm fine.
[cheering]
He said that that fall was
the hardest few moments
in his life.
It was one of the few moments
where you really see that anger
and frustration come out.
There's an outer FDR that the
public sees as he's waving
and smiling, and then there's
the inner FDR who's terrified
that at any moment
he could fall over.
He was in pain from these
steel braces on his leg.
But he got up, gets to
the podium, and not a word
was said about
his having fallen.
Not a picture was
taken of him falling.
Photographers had
a code of honor
that they would never
show him in his wheelchair
with his braces.
I mean, here he's now
president of the United States,
sprawled on the floor,
speech rolled out,
and somehow able to put
that together and get up
there and deliver one
of the famous speeches
of American history.
To some generations,
much is given.
Of the generations,
much is expected.
This generation of Americans
has a rendezvous with destiny.
[cheering]
There was a huge challenge that
was facing this generation,
and it wasn't simply getting
through the Depression.
He wanted to make an economy
that would work from the ground
up rather than the top
down, and that meant
changing the rules of the game.
It meant expanding
the New Deal programs
and creating an economic system
that was fairer, that would
have a safety net put under it.
We are fighting, fighting to
save a great and precious form
of government for ourselves
and for the world.
And so I join with you.
I am enlisted for for
the duration of the war.
There's no question I think,
when you read oral histories,
people felt that FDR
had saved their lives,
saved their children's
life, given them a chance
to go forward.
The public showed
their gratitude in 1936
when he won it
overwhelming victory.
Roosevelt wins everything
except for two states.
It is the most dominant win
of any modern president.
That we've seen thus far
After this huge
victory, he feels
like I've got to be able to
do whatever I need to do now
to keep the country
moving forward.
When you feel that you are the
person who's leading the people
and that you have a destiny,
hubris can result from that.
And he decides to change the
nature of the Supreme Court,
which had, in fact, been
throwing out a lot of his New
Deal legislation.
And FDR was furious.
He called in a bunch of old
men who weren't aware of what
was happening in this country.
Roosevelt's philosophy
of political life
was you figure out your way
around the obstacles in front
of you.
And at that point at
the beginning of 1937,
the principal obstacle
is the Supreme Court.
So Roosevelt began to talk
in earnest with his attorney
general, Homer Cummings.
What could be done
about the Supreme Court,
given that they are
appointed for life?
So Cummings secretly within
the Justice Department
began what he would refer to as
a project of great importance
to push the old
fossils off the court.
He's going to add five or
six new justices to it.
Any justice who's
over the age of 70
is going to have
another judge appointed
to help with his workload.
The balance would be
righted on the Supreme Court
and he could move
on with the New Deal
and on with the recovery.
Very few people knew that he
had been planning on this.
The proposal had been
drafted in secret.
Big story for you today.
It's all spelled out
in that document,
but no one leaves
with it till I'm done.
It's a good thing we
brought our lunches, sir.
Oh, I wouldn't want
you to starve, Joe.
Oh, wait a minute.
Mr. President, this bill
changes the entire makeup
of the Supreme Court.
Mr. President, this bill
changes the entire makeup
of the Supreme Court.
The benefit of keeping
things close to the vest
is that you don't have everybody
in the world picking at it,
pulling it apart, and it keeps
people interested in what you
have to say when you
finally do say something.
But the Supreme Court, it's
like, well, wait a minute.
Isn't this just another way
for you to get more justices
on your side?
Is it even legal?
I'm not proposing anything
that has not been done before.
Congress has changed the
number of justices six times.
So you're going to
force them to retire?
People aren't
going to like this.
Look here, people voted for
me because I have new ideas.
All I want to do is
give people a chance
to get what they voted for.
Who's really behind this?
[people shouting questions]
What do you plan to
do with this power?
The court packing episode was
the biggest political mistake
of his life.
The problem was when he
sprung it on the Congress
and sprung it on the American
people, no one bought it.
For the first time,
Roosevelt's golden touch
failed him, and
Congress pushed back.
They did not let him
pack the Supreme Court.
He'd gone a bridge too far.
He'd really become arrogant in
a way that he had not before,
and this was a blow to him.
His power comes from the people,
and he can't outrun his supply
lines, and he became
more politically cautious
as a result.
It is really
astonishing, when you
look at the political
critique of FDR
in the late 1930s, the
number of his critics
that referred to him as
a dictator in the making.
He is going to
make himself king,
he's going to seize all
power if we don't stop him.
By this time, the
economic instability
that had been felt in America
had, of course, been shared
by countries all over
the world, leading
in those other countries to
political instability as well,
and Roosevelt is aware that
this is looming abroad.
HITLER: [speaking german]
FDR spoke German and he
could understand what Hitler
was actually saying.
And he was horrified by his
vision for what the Third
Reich was going to do.
Adolf Hitler believed
freedom was irrelevant.
He believed in the
militarization of the economy.
He believed in the
oppression of people
like the Jewish
population in Germany.
He believed in the
expansion, of taking control
of other countries to
get more resources.
He believed that he was the
only person who could accomplish
the great 1,000 year Reich.
Franklin Roosevelt believed
the exact opposite.
He believed that the American
people had a right to freedom
and democracy and that
the American economy had
to be rebuilt to protect
democracy itself.
The future of
democracy was at risk,
and FDR was
determined to save it.
Roosevelt was, by conviction,
an internationalist.
He believed that what
happened in the world
beyond American shores would
have an effect on what happened
in the United States.
But he couldn't bring the
American people yet along
to care.
They felt protected
by their oceans.
They just wanted to focus on
the problems that were here.
They'd been burned by World
War I, what had come out
of that presumed war to save
democracy when things only
seemed to have gotten worse.
And he said, it's a scary thing
to see you're leading a parade
and you look back and
nobody's following.
In the late 1930s, at
the peak of isolationism,
Congress passed several
neutrality acts that really
bound the hands of any president
that they couldn't unilaterally
do things that would tend to
pull the United States back
into another world war.
Europe has been hoping that
Hitler will just go away.
The British and the
French allow Hitler
to reoccupy the Rhineland, they
allow him to occupy Austria.
So in 1938, as Hitler
is expanding the Reich
and taking over
neighboring countries,
the prime minister of
England, Neville Chamberlain,
decides that the best
policy is to appease Hitler.
If they can just sort of
give him these territories
that he claims he
wants, he's promised
that he won't take any more.
We regard the agreement
signed last night as symbolic
of the desire of our
two peoples never
to go to war with
one another again.
[cheering]
Of course, Hitler has
made promises in the past.
Winston Churchill
has been telling
everyone who would listen,
and even those who wouldn't,
about the threat he sees
in Germany for years.
Winston Churchill had been the
first Lord of the Admiralty
in World War I, but
had been forced out
and had essentially
been in political exile
for a number of years.
Churchill's regarded
as eccentric.
People see Churchill as being
this very bellicose, verbose
guy who always
wants to go to war.
And even though Roosevelt did
not especially like Churchill
the first time he met
him during World War I,
he recognizes that Churchill has
had great courage in speaking
up for what he believed
was right for years.
FDR hated these dictatorships
and what they were doing,
but he was the president
of a country that was still
in the Great Depression.
This was nowhere near
his priority number one.
But, by 1938, it was
clear that Hitler might
want to dominate the world.
And the most horrific
aspect of Hitler's regime
is his persecution of the Jews.
And Germany, the
loser in World War I,
had been stuck with an
enormous reparations bill,
and that was a perfect
opportunity for somebody
to come in and say,
who do you resent?
Who's to blame for this?
And Adolf Hitler said,
the Jews were to blame.
In November 1938, Hitler
launches Kristallnacht,
where his brown-shirted
thugs destroyed synagogues,
businesses, incarcerate
hundreds of Jews,
and send them off to ghettos.
But nobody wants to
allow the Jewish refugees
into their country.
You cannot overstate how
antisemitic America was at this
point.
Despite FDR's direct
instructions to the State
Department to expedite
Jewish visa requests
in these countries
under German control,
the State Department, filled
with antisemites, slow
walks it.
Without a question,
it's heartbreaking
to imagine what might have
happened if FDR had earlier
on been able to get more Jewish
refugees into the country
before Hitler closed
the doors forever.
The plight of refugees really
tugged at the heartstrings
of Eleanor Roosevelt. She
was always the champion
of the underdog, the
champion of those
who were suffering the most.
She could be the agitator,
always pushing him to do what
he couldn't do
pragmatically because he
had to be the politician.
I don't think
Franklin would have
been the kind of politician
he was without Eleanor.
She would push the envelope.
He always said
about her that she
was a welcome thorn in his
side, always willing to argue
with him, always willing to
question his assumptions.
But men would write
in to Franklin,
can't you muzzle
that wife of yours?
Can't you put her on a chain?
What's the matter with you?
She is constantly moving
about the country,
supporting various
causes, speaking
to women's organizations,
reform organizations.
She gives public
radio addresses.
These are all firsts.
No first lady has ever
done anything like this,
and she takes
controversial positions.
At this point, she's engaged
with the African-American
community in ways that a lot of
people did not expect her to be
or want her to be.
FDR was glad to have
Eleanor in public talking
about civil rights.
It diverted attention
from the fact
that FDR himself was never
willing to antagonize the White
South to the point that he
would never support even a bill
against lynching.
He needs Southern
segregationist Democrats
in his corner if he's going to
get the United States on a more
prepared footing for
what appears to be
an impending war in Europe.
In 1938, Eleanor travels to
Birmingham for the opening
of the Southern Conference
on Human Welfare,
and the public
safety official is
none other than the violent
segregationist Eugene Bull
Connor.
Birmingham is segregated, ma'am.
You should take your
seat on that side.
Mrs. Roosevelt, ma'am,
you can't sit here.
I already am, Officer.
Ma'am, the law says I've got
to arrest anybody who doesn't
comply, even you?
Really?
Appreciate it.
You've got to move
to the White section.
I'm fine where I am.
Because she is a lightning rod
and unapologetic about being
a lightning rod,
it makes the work
that FDR does particularly as
he is negotiating with Southern
Democrats all the
more difficult.
Welcoming the Southern
Conference for Human Welfare.
In the summer of
1939, FDR would still
like to stay out of war.
But it's becoming clear that
appeasing Hitler doesn't work,
that Hitler is insatiable, and
that the next step is going
to be into Poland.
And that's where Britain
and France draw the line
and say, well, if
you invade Poland
and try to take that territory
back, we'll declare war.
Roosevelt is deeply concerned
about the rising tension
in Europe and the
inevitability of a big war.
[speaking german]
So one of the things he decides
to do is to invite the
king and queen of England
to come to the United States,
because if Hitler does,
in fact, take over
Europe, then England will
be the last bulwark of defense.
At this point, the Americans
are not particularly
fond of the royal family.
There's a large body of
opinion in the United States
that's anti-British, that
basically says the British
sucked us into World War I.
We had been duped.
We had been lured
into a European war
and now they're
back at it again.
So in a stroke of absolute
brilliant political theater,
FDR invites the king and
queen of England, the epitome
of aristocratic
formality, to his home
in Hyde Park, New York.
Your Majesty, I wonder if you
might swap partners so you can
meet a few of our neighbors.
Of course.
And he arranges
a hot dog picnic.
My second.
Excellent.
And beer is perfect with it.
He wants to show a more human
side of the royal family.
He also, of course,
invites the press.
Might I say something
dreadfully honest?
Nothing would make me happier.
I don't care for hot dogs.
Your secret is safe with me.
You know, Mr. President, I
have been tasked with telling
you that we are going to need
a great deal of assistance
if things go poorly, especially
these devilish u-boats
threatening our ships.
Don't think I don't want to
give you all we have, show
Hitler we intend to back you,
but first I've got to tackle
the Congress, make them see
we have to choose a side,
your side.
Mr. President, Your Majesty,
how do you like our hot dogs?
They're delicious.
I've had two.
Roosevelt understood where
the cameras were going to be
and they understood how this
would play in the press.
So if the president
of the United States
is smiling it up with the
monarch of the United Kingdom,
that's going to play.
Roosevelt managed to weaponize
for good his essential
deviousness.
He was very skilled at
suggesting that he was in tune
with an isolationist nation
while nudging us ever closer
to an interventionist stance.
The polling shows that popular
support for the king and queen,
the increased and
popular support
for the anti fascist
forces also increased.
In August of 1939, Stalin
agrees to a non-aggression pact
with Hitler.
They secretly agree to
split Poland in exchange
for not invading each other.
Russia will take
the eastern half
and Germany will take
the western half.
Everybody is stunned by
the Hitler-Stalin pact.
Now we're faced with possibly
this sort of Soviet-German
juggernaut.
If not in alliance
with each other,
at least they're going
to let each other run.
The call came on
September 1st, 1939
when Hitler invaded Poland.
On that occasion, FDR said,
well, it's come at last,
God help us all.
And two days later,
England and France
will declare war on Germany.
This is the start of the
worst, most cataclysmic
military conflict
in human history.
Germany has come up with a
new form of war, blitzkrieg,
this lightning war.
And the blitzkrieg gave way to
what was called the Sitzkrieg.
Germany is in
occupation of Poland,
but nothing is happening, and
everybody is waiting to see
what's going to happen next.
The phoney war, which is what
they call the period of time
between September 1st
and May 10th, 1940
came to a sudden end.
In one week's time, Germany
rolled through Western Europe.
Holland, Luxembourg,
Belgium all surrendered.
Hitler invades France
on May 10th, 1940,
the same day that Churchill
is named prime minister.
Even though the British
throw an expeditionary army
onto the continent, soon
they are overwhelmed
and the Germans will drive
them to the coastline.
As the war in Europe is
turning increasingly dismal,
FDR is confronted with a choice.
Does he step down
as president or does
he run for an
unprecedented third term?
Bad, all bad.
Calle fell last night.
Is there no hope for France?
If the British regroup
France will still fall.
So what are you going to do?
Everybody needs
to know, Franklin.
Will you run again?
Surely you know if
you're going to run.
The situation in France
changes everything.
There's no guarantee the
British can hang on alone.
Why don't you say what you mean?
You want to run.
Why does it have to be you?
Babs, it's not as simple as
Let me at least say what I mean.
I don't want you to.
Eight years is enough.
I've taken the country this far.
If the people want me,
I'll not abandon them now.
In May of 1940, the
Germans push across Europe
and they drive the British
to the French coastline
and then to just a few pockets,
one of which is Dunkirk.
NEWSREADER: Here in these scenes
off the beaches of Dunkirk,
you have one of the dramatic
pictures of the war.
The British and French
armies of the north
were facing annihilation.
The English troops evacuated
successfully from Dunkirk.
The German blitzkrieg
had swept across Europe,
leaving England standing alone.
So it was a totally
rational question
to wonder whether democracy
could triumph over autocracy.
And Churchill said,
never has a nation
been so naked before its foe.
CHURCHILL: I have nothing to
offer but blood, toil, tears,
and sweat.
FDR's heart is very much
with Churchill and very much
with England, and he wants
to do something to help them.
So he turns to George Marshall,
chief of the general staff.
Marshall is seen as being
sincere, honest, credible,
trustworthy.
If Britain falls, we believe
Hitler could try for Greenland.
And we are next.
Yes, sir, and we're not ready.
Germany has 7 million
men in uniform.
We have a fraction of that.
And it's not just
about men, sir.
It's planes and tanks and guns.
We've got a long way
to go and no time.
President Roosevelt knew
that in May of 1940,
the US stood only 18th
in military power.
It became 17th only when
Holland surrendered to Germany.
We had 500 fighter
planes compared
to 5,000 in the German army.
We had more horses than tanks.
We had let the military
establishment deteriorate
after World War I with the
focus on the Depression.
We have to start producing
more arms immediately.
But the way I see it,
we need to send more
of what we produce to Britain.
No, sir.
We'd be throwing our
guns away, and our boys
will be fighting storm
troopers with broomsticks.
It would be a disaster
of our making.
You mean of my own making?
I appreciate your
point, General,
but we have to help Britain.
We can't.
The law is clear.
We can sell them arms for
cash, and we can only give them
military gear if it's surplus,
and we have no surplus to give.
Well, that's it, General.
That's it.
Surplus.
I want you to declare every gun
and bullet you can a surplus
and get it over there.
You mean to say it's surplus?
Yes.
I'd have to go to
church for a week
if I declared our weapons
surplus when they're not.
Go to church for a
month if you have to,
General, but get it done.
Franklin Roosevelt's
particular strength as a leader
was his ability to
assess a situation
and figure out what he could do,
what incremental steps he could
make to move things forward.
So what he did was to
designate a lot of weapons
as surplus and get
them sent to England,
but several of his
generals told him,
if those weapons are found
after Germany captures England,
which we think they will
in six months' time,
you will be not only impeached,
you'll be hung by a lamppost.
That's what he had
to fight against.
He knew he had to get
America mobilized to produce
the ships and the tanks and
the weapons and the planes
that we needed.
By 1940, he has
gotten the machinery
rolling so that factories
are transforming from cars
into planes and tanks.
We had that vision that
something had to be done.
By this time, Hitler
has crushed France.
The Germans, the
Japanese, and the Italians
signed the Tripartite
Pact in September 1940.
So after knocking out France,
Hitler turns his attention
to Britain.
NEWSREADER: Everyone is anxious
to get home before darkness
falls, before our
nightly visitors arrive.
[siren blaring]
The Germans launched this
air assault against Britain,
the so-called Battle of Britain.
It's continuous bombing
in the city of London
to try to destroy
British morale.
And Churchill, of course,
emerges as this great leader
with some of the greatest
wartime speeches ever given.
CHURCHILL: We shall
fight on the beaches.
We shall fight on
the landing grounds.
We shall fight in the
fields and in the streets.
We shall never surrender.
And FDR sees in Churchill
a kindred spirit, knowing
that I can work with him.
Together we can be a partnership
that will defeat Hitler.
It's hard to imagine whether FDR
would have run for a third
term had war not broken out
in Europe.
There's real concern
about whether or not
he wants to look like the
authoritarian figure they're
fighting against.
The framers did not want a king.
Washington himself was concerned
about serving more than two
terms, and now we're
talking about three terms.
He had seen what happened
to Teddy Roosevelt
when he went for
that third term,
that there was a
wall against that.
But I think he thought that
he was the only one who
had the experience of
knowing how to mobilize
the American people at home
through the Depression to get
the weapons and the tanks
and the ships and the planes
ready to prepare us for war and
to help England in the struggle
against Nazi Germany.
The news of FDR's decision
to run for a third term
is not well received.
Even many Democrats
turned against him,
and the Republicans
were undermining
the people's confidence in FDR.
The president has courted a
war for which this country is
hopelessly unprepared and which
it emphatically does not want.
At the time of
the 1940 election,
almost every American household
was divided about FDR.
Was he someone who
would keep us out of war
or was this someone
who, as one critic said,
will plow under every
fourth American boy
after election day?
Charles Lindbergh the
great aviator that
flew across the Atlantic Ocean
becomes the face of what's
called the America
First movement.
The doctrine that we must
enter the wars of Europe
in order to defend America
will be fatal to our nation.
Some of them are
German Americans who
are part of the American Bund.
Many of them are Americans who
have latched on to this idea
that fascism is the
wave of the future.
In the late 1930s, there was
a pro-Hitler rally right there
in the heart of New York City
at Madison Square Garden.
That's how perilous things were.
There's a real sense
that FDR could lose,
and it affects him deeply
because he feels, I think,
a deep responsibility.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
decides, I will break precedent
because it is necessary.
This is about the fate of
humanity, Western civilization,
and democracy in particular.
The Japanese are sweeping
through the Pacific,
Europe is in chaos, England
is on the verge of collapse.
It's a real dangerous moment,
and FDR fears that he's not
going to win the election.
He had real doubts that night.
You really don't
need to worry, FD.
You're going to win.
What if I don't?
[cheering]
That's it.
He's done it.
Four years.
Sounds like you've
gotten your wish.
I have.
God help me.
After Roosevelt is successfully
reelected for a third
term, he decides
he's going to take a
vacation aboard a Naval ship,
and so he goes out
in the Caribbean
and he sits on the deck
and he goes fishing
and he looks out at the
water and he just thinks.
By then England desperately
needed our weapons
to fight back against Germany.
And it looks as though
Hitler might very well win,
and if the Germans take
control of Britain,
then Germany will reign
supreme basically from Poland
to the Atlantic Ocean.
Thank you.
From Churchill.
"We can't hold out much longer."
They're broke.
Winston always exaggerates.
Yes, but this feels different.
That damn neutrality
law has us in a box.
Dammit.
Lend me yours, Hank.
A moment ago, I
was out of fluid,
so you let me use your lighter.
I needed it.
You let me use it.
So we give Churchill tanks and
planes instead of selling them.
Last time I checked, that
would be illegal too.
No, we don't give
them tanks and planes.
We lend them.
FDR was canny and cunning, and
he knew how to get things done
through sleight of hand, and
this worked for him perfectly
on what we came to
call lend-lease.
Because the Allies
can't pay for anything,
we can lend them
military hardware,
we can lend them supplies,
and at some unspecified point
in the future, they
can pay for them.
And he has a wonderful
metaphor for it.
He says, if your neighbor's
house catches on fire,
you're going to loan him your
garden hose to put it out,
and you're not going
to charge for it.
When they started
the lend-lease debate
in the Congress, it wasn't
clear it could get through,
but Roosevelt was always
moving step by step to get
the American public educated
as to where they had to go.
First, in late December,
he gives a fireside chat.
We must have more ships,
more guns, more planes,
more of everything.
We must be the great
arsenal of democracy.
He said, if we produce these
ships and tanks and weapons
and planes and got
them to England
and England was able to fight
back against Germany, maybe
that would prevent us
from getting into the war.
And then on January 6 1941, FDR
is delivering a
State of the Union,
and he centers his speech around
values, these four principles,
these four freedoms.
And he says, everyone is
entitled to freedom of speech,
freedom of worship, freedom from
want, and freedom from fear.
Where do you stand?
Who are we going to be?
And when you put it
that way, then of course
you're going to bring
the country with you.
And it worked.
Congress said yes.
And so this allows for
billions of dollars of greatly
needed supplies not only
to go to Great Britain
but go to many
other Allied powers
to be able to withstand the
onslaught from the Axis powers.
Because of FDR's leadership,
lend-lease was able to really
have an enormous
impact in that war.
June of 1941, Hitler
orders German troops
to attack the Soviet Union.
NEWSREADER: More than 2 million
men plunged into a front 2,000
miles long.
Before all this began,
the United States
was suspicious of the
communists of the Soviet Union,
but now the Soviet Union is
fighting against Germany,
and that changes things.
Churchill famously says,
if Hitler invaded hell,
I'd support the devil.
But how can we give arms or aid
to Soviet Russia, where Joseph
Stalin purges, kills,
exiles hundreds of thousands
so he'd reign supreme?
FDR doesn't know
much about Stalin.
Stalin's crimes are
not well publicized.
And so FDR sends Harry Hopkins,
his great friend and envoy
and all purpose aide to meet
Stalin and take the measure
of him, and Hopkins comes
back and reports to FDR
that Stalin is somebody
you can do business with.
He's not presenting him
as the great terrorist,
the great killer.
And so FDR is going to
argue immediately to extend
lend-lease aid to
the Soviet Union.
As German armies advanced east,
they committed unspeakable
genocidal war crimes
against Jews as they found them
in Poland, Belarus, Ukraine,
parts of the Soviet Union,
and most of these killings
were done by special units
of SS Gestapo personnel, who
were killing Jews with bullets,
killing them any way that they
could.
At a meeting outside
of Berlin, which
takes all of about 90
minutes including breakfast,
the Germans decide
that the final solution
to the Jewish question will
be the mass murders of Jews.
From the summer of
1941, FDR and Churchill
decide it's time for them
to meet face to face,
so he announces at
a press conference
that he's going to be cruising
up the Atlantic seaboard
in the presidential yacht.
Sure enough, he waves to
the people on the shoreline,
and that night he's
transferred to the USS Augusta
and heads up for a secret
rendezvous with Winston
Churchill in Placentia
Bay, Newfoundland.
Churchill, meanwhile, crosses
the German submarine-infested
North Atlantic to meet with
Roosevelt. The Augusta is
at anchor, and
literally out of the fog
emerges this great British
battleship, the HMS Prince
of Wales.
It was an incredible moment
that these two leaders were
in this place at that time.
Glad to have you
aboard, Mr. Churchill.
At long last, Mr. President.
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
The fate of the world
did depend on this relationship
between the two men.
We're ready to carry
on the load if we must.
I'm committed to sending
everything you need.
In my view, you're
fighting for all of us now.
Of course, I'd rather have a
declaration of war from America
now and no supplies for six
months than double the supply
and no declaration.
You know, Winston, that
Congress declares war, not me,
and I'm on thin ice with them.
There's nothing I'd like
better than to kick Hitler
in the teeth, you know that,
but timing is everything.
Yes.
I know.
Churchill was the suitor.
FDR was the pursued.
Winston Churchill once
said, "No lover ever
studied the whims
of his mistress
as I did those of
Franklin Roosevelt."
Churchill was not
an elusive figure.
You knew what he was thinking,
sometimes to a fault.
FDR was ironic, flexible,
slippery in a way,
but they needed each other.
What about Japan?
Suppose they could attack
one of our colonies in Asia?
Or one of yours/
America doesn't have colonies.
The Philippines, Guam.
Call them what you like.
Territory under your control.
And FDR was incredibly
frustrating to Churchill.
Churchill is fighting
for his life,
for the life of
constitutional democracy,
and FDR is incredibly elusive.
If Japan does
something like that,
I'll have to respond,
of course, but it's
my opinion that would be the
wrong war at the wrong time
and the wrong place.
I agree.
Europe comes first.
Churchill's dream since he
was a little boy and his ideas
of heroism are often about
saving something from collapse,
about saving the world as
he knows it from disaster.
Meanwhile, Roosevelt
is not an imperialist.
He is someone who is extremely
idealistic politically,
and rather than wanting to save
something historic in the past,
he really is looking
to the future
and he wants to
build something new.
Then the next morning,
Roosevelt gets himself over
to the Prince of Wales ship.
The sailors are all there, the
British and American sailors.
It's an incredible moment.
[singing]
And they sing hymns
together, and somehow that
got to Roosevelt.
The same language,
the same values, the same hymns.
Afterward, he turns
to his son and said,
if nothing else had
happened while we were here,
that would have cemented us.
The two of them become
more than partners,
more than allies.
They become friends
in a very deep way.
They share this passion
for Naval history.
They share this ability to
understand the global picture.
FDR said to Churchill, it's fun
to be in the same
decade with you.
Churchill said
about FDR, meeting
him was like opening your
first bottle of champagne,
in Churchill's case of the day.
They disagree fundamentally
on colonialism and the fate
of the British Empire, but they
draft the Atlantic Charter,
which is this extraordinary
statement that says,
here are the values that we
believe are worth fighting for.
I think it was the most
important diplomatic friendship
in the history of the world.
Roosevelt and
Churchill were unique.
Their challenges were unique,
and they rose to the occasion
together.
Summer of 1941 is a
difficult time for FDR
because Miss LeHand,
his closest assistant,
suffers a terrible stroke and
has to leave the White House
and go into recuperation.
She'd been with him since he
ran for vice president in 1920.
Then in September, his
beloved mother Sara dies,
and this is an
enormous blow to FDR.
Sara had been the rock for
him for his entire life.
And he was with
her when she died.
And the extraordinary thing
is that five minutes later,
a giant oak at the Hyde Park
estate collapsed on the ground.
Nobody knew why.
There was no wind.
And the thought was that
giant oak was Sara Roosevelt.
And the thought was that
giant oak was Sara Roosevelt.
We found it in
your mother's room.
Thought you'd want to see.
She kept everything.
There's this
extraordinary moment
when he's going through
all the mementos
that she had kept for
him over the years,
remembering, I'm sure, all
those days that she had been
the center of his life.
I think she was the source of
the confidence that he had,
and now she was gone.
He needed companionship.
Here's somebody who can't
go out into the world
and he can't relax by playing
golf or playing tennis.
He has to bring
that world to him.
FDR loved and needed
female adoration
throughout his adult life.
He was very dependent and
very in need of people
like Missy LeHand,
who idolized him.
So eventually this is when
Lucy Mercer starts coming back
to the White House.
FDR broke his
promise to Eleanor.
He continued to see Lucy.
She came to the White
House under a pseudonym
when Eleanor was not there.
Not often, but to see her in
the company of other people
as the pressures
on him escalated.
People often focus
on what was going on
in Europe, the rise of
Mussolini, the rise of Hitler.
But while all this
was happening,
there was a war playing
out in the Pacific.
Japan had gone into Chinese
Manchuria in 1931, turned it
into a puppet state.
They'd invaded China
proper in 1937.
And then in 1940, they
started pressing down
into French Indo-China.
The United States definitely
does not want to provoke Japan
militarily, but they also want
to be able to sanction Japan
for its behavior.
And so by 1941, they
freeze Japanese assets
in the United States.
They also embargo
supplies of gasoline.
These are pretty
serious sanctions,
especially for an
island nation like Japan
that depends on
almost all of its fuel
coming in from the outside.
The tensions between Japan
and America are very high,
and FDR is desperate to
prevent this war from happening
because he feels Hitler
is the greater threat.
Gentlemen, what
have you got for me?
Mr. President, we
have intelligence
which suggests the Japanese
fleet is on the move.
What's the target?
It could be Thailand,
Malaysia, Singapore.
Will they hit any of our bases?
If they go for us, it'd probably
be our base in the Philippines.
Let's make one more offer.
If they stop the
aggression in Indo-China
and withdraw their
troops on the mainland,
we'll end the embargo.
I want it clear that we made
every effort to stop this.
All clear.
Keep watching.
I'll get coffee.
It's a beautiful day.
It's an early morning.
It's a Sunday.
Most people, either military
or civilian, are still in bed.
And it seems like another placid
day in Hawaii in the Pacific.
The United States does have
many indications that something
is going to happen.
They've broken the
Japanese codes.
They know that the Japanese
ambassadors are going
to come to Washington at a very
specific time on December 7th
to present their rejection
of FDR's final proposal.
And therefore we should be
on alert, because something's
going to happen.
But the Japanese start planning
the attack on Pearl Harbor
long before the
breakdown in relations.
They're going to
keep radio silence.
Six aircraft carriers,
33 ships, 414 aircraft.
They're going to cover 3,500
miles worth of northern Pacific
Ocean and arrive about 200 miles
off the northern part of Hawaii
on the morning of December 7th.
6 o'clock in the
morning, they're
going to launch 189
planes in a first wave.
Lieutenant,
something's happening.
They keep coming, sir.
There's a squadron of
B-17 replacements due from
California.
This must be them.
Relax.
Pearl Harbor at this point
houses the great majority
of the Pacific fleet.
Its majority of its
destroyers, its battleships.
Jeez, you guys hear that?
[plane engines approaching]
FDR is sitting in his
study with his stamps.
He's there with
his close advisor
Harry Hopkins, who lives
in the White House.
[phone rings]
Yes?
Knox, what is it?
No.
They've attacked Pearl Harbor.
That can't be right.
[siren wailing]
It must be a mistake.
The Japanese do
not have the guts.
Or they have while their
so-called diplomats sitting
with our secretary of state.
Get everybody in here.
There were so many
blunders at Pearl Harbor,
like we bumped into a
Japanese midget submarine
before the attack and
thought nothing of it.
Our radar stations
on Pearl Harbor
picked up the incoming first
wave of Japanese fighters
and dismissed it.
The Japanese see that the
harbor is filled with sitting
ducks, these great vessels
filled with crewmembers, filled
with ammunition, and
they're all tied up
and they're all right
next to each other.
So it's like shooting
fish in a barrel.
They're attacking with
a second wave right now.
How many?
It's battleship row.
They hit them all.
Eight sunk or incapacitated.
The Arizona lost with all hands.
Why in god's name were
they all tied up in dock?
Given how surprised they were
and how ill-prepared they were,
the Americans really put
up a pretty brave fight.
The one great failure
of Japanese intelligence
is that they don't know the
aircraft carriers aren't there,
so the three American carriers
end up escaping this attack.
But it's too little too late.
18 ships are sunk
or heavily damaged.
2,402 military
personnel are killed.
Another 1,247 are wounded.
Nearly 60 civilians are killed.
They take out hundreds
of American aircraft
and they destroyed critical
airfields and wharves.
The shock was then amplified
by the series of attacks.
Pearl Harbor was just one
of more than 10 invasions
and attacks that happened
all across the Pacific,
including Singapore and Malay
and eventually the Philippines.
The Japanese seemed unstoppable.
This is the worst
day in FDR's life.
He was so committed
to the US Navy.
When he was Assistant
Secretary of the Navy,
he was actually at the keel
laying ceremony for the USS
Arizona, and now it lay on
the bottom of Pearl Harbor.
After Pearl Harbor, everyone who
was in the White
House on that day
said FDR exhibited
a deadly calm.
While aides are running in
and out with one report worse
than the next report in a
panic, he just remained calm.
Eleanor said that at
times of great crisis,
he could actually be an
iceberg, but that anger
and those feelings were inside.
Maybe 2,000 of our boys dead.
More than 100 planes lost.
God knows how many ships.
You cannot blame yourself.
It was on my watch.
[phone rings]
Hello?
Prime Minister Churchill.
Winston.
CHURCHILL (ON
PHONE): President,
what's this about Japan?
They've attacked
us at Pearl Harbor.
We're all in the same boat now.
Well, this simplifies things.
It certainly does.
Sunday, December 7th, 1941.
Late in the afternoon,
he lights a cigarette,
calls Grace Tully,
his secretary,
and dictates the great
speech with punctuation.
Yesterday, comma,
December 7th, 1941, comma,
a date which will live in world
history was the first line.
And he makes one of the
most extraordinary edits
and he crosses
out world history.
Yesterday, December
7th, 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.
When he goes to the joint
session of Congress,
that anger and fury are
underneath the resolve
and determination, and it
was just exactly what people
needed to hear.
This is treachery.
This will not stand.
I ask that the Congress declare
that since the unprovoked and
dastardly attack by Japan,
a state of war has
existed between the United
States and the Japanese empire.
[applause]
Most people are completely
shocked by crisis,
either economic crisis or war.
FDR was not shocked.
He'd been through the crisis
of his own loss of his limbs.
Most people think they don't
have the confidence to deal
with these terrible things.
FDR had a lot of confidence.
The average American went to
bed on December 6th lukewarm
about the prospect
of going to war.
By the afternoon of
December 7th, many of them
believed what Admiral Nimitz
says as he steams back
into Pearl Harbor.
When we're done
with those people,
the only place that they will
speak the Japanese language
is in hell.
And effectively what they do
is they wake a sleeping giant.
December 8th, we
declare war on Japan.
Ironically, on the
11th of December,
Germany declares war
on the United States.
And then finally we can
declare war on them.
That was the war he knew
he needed to happen.
Roosevelt can take
off the gloves
and he can lead Americans
openly and honestly into war
against fascism, which was
the greatest threat democracy
had ever faced.
All of our allies, they're
looking at us for leadership.
It's not just about
leadership within the country.
It's now leadership
in the world.
Looking all around
him, it would have
been easy to be pessimistic.
But Napoleon reminds us all
leaders are dealers in hope,
and as an optimist,
it's his responsibility
to give not only the United
States hope, but also England
and the Soviet Union,
who are fighting Germany.
He is the dealer in hope for
the entire free world, not
an inconsequential
responsibility.
One very important
feature of World War II
is the sense of
shared sacrifice.
It's the same spirit during
the Great Depression,
that same idea that we're
all in this together.
The story of America's
mobilization in World War II
is really astonishing, taking
an army of just a couple 100,000
and building it up to 12
million people in uniform.
It was considered cowardly
and shameful and unpatriotic
for someone of
military age not to try
to serve in the military,
and that kind of sensibility
reached sons of very wealthy,
prominent people, who all enter
the military in
incredible numbers.
A large percentage
of people in Congress
have sons who are fighting.
And presidents have to set
an example for the country,
and I think it was
important for him
to know that his four boys
wanted to go into World War II.
So Elliott joins the Air
Force and Franklin and John
join the Navy, and then
James joins the Marines.
Franklin was particularly
close to James his oldest son,
and James played a critical
role during Franklin's recovery
from polio.
When do you start
this new assignment?
Marine Raiders, Pa, in January.
So you ought to be
a guerrilla fighter.
When you ship out,
I'll keep track of you.
I don't see how.
I don't even know
where I'll be sent.
Jimmy, he is the president.
I intend to keep my eye on the
whereabouts of all of my sons.
There's coffee in the study.
You're all allowed one cup.
It'll be rationed soon, so
you'd better get used to it.
They all want to be
like their Uncle Ted,
go charging into battle.
Babs, you should be proud.
Each of our boys
is doing that part.
Oh, I am proud.
What are the odds of
all four coming home?
I refuse to think that way.
It's Christmastime 1941.
The United States has just
suffered enormous losses
with the attack on Pearl
Harbor, and Churchill
has come to meet FDR in person
to have a conference together
in Washington.
Winston, are you here?
I think I've got it.
We'll call it the
United Nations.
Yes, sounds good.
I like it.
Winston.
Oh, Franklin, my dear,
I do beg your pardon.
No need to go.
The prime minister
of Great Britain
has nothing to hide from the
president of the United States.
Join me for a drink.
Churchill's coming just set
everything in an uproar.
Churchill would stay up late
at night with Roosevelt. They'd
stay up drinking and
smoking until 2:00 AM,
and then Roosevelt would
have to get up in the morning
and run the country, and
Churchill would go take a nap.
They have these long
hours spent together
talking about the world,
two men speaking heart
to heart about the war.
Japan's main force just
landed in the Philippines.
Our boys are being pushed back.
Manila's in jeopardy.
Franklin, I need your assurance
that you won't divert
resources to the Pacific
from us in Europe.
I have no intention of
stopping aid to Britain.
In fact, I want American
forces on the ground as soon
as possible.
Hitler could take
Moscow any day,
so the sooner we give
Stalin relief, the better.
We'll open up a second front in
France in the north or perhaps
through the Mediterranean.
What about here?
North Africa.
We're already toe to toe
with the Germans there.
Where your colonies are.
Yes, but also where
the Suez Canal is.
We've got to keep that
pipeline out of Nazi hands.
During the last war,
leadership was a muddle.
We lost time and lives.
This time, someone has
got to be in charge.
We've been in this longer.
The British Empire should lead.
Winston, they're our
tanks and planes.
America will lead.
And what comes out of that
is the Germany first policy.
We're going to fight Germany.
That's the major
threat to civilization.
But once Japan strikes Pearl
Harbor, that's US territory.
If they could strike
Pearl Harbor then
surely the next place
is the West Coast,
so there's panic
across the West Coast.
There will be a report of
imminent attacks against San
Diego and Los Angeles.
There was all this prejudice
against Japanese-Americans,
and when Pearl Harbor came,
the reaction was intensified.
On the street, they
were yelled at, spat at,
called horrible names.
Eleanor flies to San Francisco,
and she walks without military
escort, without Secret Service,
in Japanese-American
communities.
She said, we must
not be stampeded
by the hysteria of the times.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT: America
is a nation of nations,
and therein lies our strength.
When she comes back to D.C.,
it's very clear that FDR is
determined to issue an executive
order interning the Japanese.
Eleanor is absolutely
adamantly against it.
That morning of terror
I will never forget.
I was by the front window when
suddenly we saw two soldiers
marching up our driveway.
They carried rifles with
shiny bayonets on them.
They stomped up the front
porch and with their fists
began banging on the door.
We were loaded onto trucks
with other Japanese-American
families that had been
gathered, and we were driven out
to Santa Anita racetrack in the
outer fringes of Los Angeles.
President Roosevelt signed
Executive Order 9066
and we were taken away.
Eleanor, how's New York?
I need to speak to Franklin.
You signed it.
Yes.
Everyone advised I should.
Not everyone.
I was just on the radio
boasting like a fool
that we here in America protect
the rights of all people.
This is a matter of
national security.
I had no choice.
You're the president.
And I don't see you locking
up any German Americans.
There are 5 million of them.
Where would I put them?
These are families you're
targeting, American citizens.
Innocent people are going to
be deeply affected by this.
They did this to themselves.
Look what they did to Pearl.
They pretended to negotiate
while they bombed us.
But how can you shout
about freedom out there
and do this at home?
It's done.
I'm going back to
New York tomorrow
to see Franklin Jr.
At the hospital.
Yes.
He called to let me know he
doesn't miss his appendix
at all.
Yes, that sounds like him.
I expect he'll be back
at sea soon enough.
The beginning of 1942, if you
looked across the Pacific,
there's nothing going well.
The Japanese have taken most
of the Dutch East Indies
as well as Singapore,
Wake Island, Guam.
As the Japanese attack
the Philippines,
the US forces will retreat
down the Bataan Peninsula.
Disease is rampant.
Men are underfed.
[cheering]
There's a real
problem with morale
in the country at that point.
FDR had to explain that this
was a different kind of war
and that the oceans no
longer protected us.
So he gave a fireside chat where
he asks everybody to get a map
and spread it before
them so they can follow
the progress of the
war, and it's incredible
how they respond.
I mean, the guy who was
the head of CS Maps Store
said he sold more
maps in that one week
than he had sold
in an entire year.
5, 4, 3.
This war is a new kind of war.
It is warfare in terms of
every continent, every island,
every sea, every
airlane in the world.
That is why I have asked you to
take out and spread before you
a map of the whole Earth
and follow with me.
Everybody's listening
on the radio,
having their maps
in front of them.
He's saying, we've been through
these tough times in America
before. We've come through.
Them we're going to
come to them again.
From Berlin, Rome, and Tokyo, we
have been described as
a nation of weaklings.
Let them repeat that now.
Let them tell that to General
MacArthur and his men.
Let them tell that to the
sailors who today are hitting
hard in the far
waters of the Pacific.
Let them tell that
to the Marines.
And then the spirit rose.
The people believed in him.
They believed in his word.
He would say to them, you've got
to trust that the government is
giving you the
right information,
and I have to trust that you
will hear it without flinching.
So that was the
reciprocal bond that he
created with the people.
FDR knew that waiting month
after month after month
with nothing but bad news
coming out of the Pacific
was going to be deeply
demoralizing to the American
people, and so FDR presses
the military for some way
to strike at Japan, even if
it's just a symbolic strike,
and that leads to the
famous Doolittle Raid.
Named for Lieutenant
Colonel James Doolittle, one
of the great pilots
in American history,
the plan is they're
going to take B-25s,
these massive bombers, and
they're going to fly them off
of an aircraft carrier in
the middle of the Pacific
and hit Tokyo during training.
It's so secret, the
men involved do not
know what their mission is.
They're going to
fly treetop level,
they're going to strike
Tokyo and four other cities.
They don't do much
material damage.
But psychologically
it's a game changer.
Maybe more psychologically
damaging on the Japanese side
is Japan home island and
Tokyo had been struck.
He has a press conference
afterward to explain what had
happened and the
reporters asked,
where do these
B-25s 25s come from?
And of course he's not going
to reveal that because that's
top secret information,
so he rather impishly
says, Shangri-La.
He's poking fun at the Japanese,
and the Americans love it.
FDR knows a small but
symbolically powerful
strike like the Doolittle Raid
will have immense benefits
for the war effort.
For the Japanese,
the chief impact
is they realize just
how vulnerable they are.
This makes Japan more
determined than ever
to keep the Americans
at arm's length
so they can't penetrate into
Japanese airspace and rain
bombs on Tokyo and
the other cities
as they did during
the Doolittle Raid.
Japan is looking for ways to
finish the job that it began
at Pearl Harbor.
Midway Island, it's halfway
between America and Asia,
and it was like critical
base for the US Navy
to be able to provide
supplies for American vessels
in the Pacific.
Japanese Admiral Yamamoto
forms a huge flotilla
of about 200 vessels and
sends them to Midway Island.
The Japanese believe that
if they can threaten it,
it will bring those US carriers
that weren't at Pearl Harbor
out and they can destroy
them in one climactic battle.
Good afternoon, Mr. President.
General Marshall, what
have you got for me?
Our team cracked it.
They fooled the Japanese into
identifying their target.
They're going to hit
us at Midway, sir.
So what are we looking at?
They'll move a task force
in, carriers, the works.
We have to expect an
invasion force of 60,000.
60,000?
But, sir, we know where
they're going to be,
so we can lay a trap.
If we move our carriers in
here, we can hit the Japanese
from the air.
Admiral Yamamoto does not know
that the Americans have broken
the Japanese code.
Admiral Chester Nimitz,
leading the American forces
in the Pacific, knows that
Yamamoto's force is heading
towards Midway Island, and
he begins to set a trap.
But the American forces
could lose Midway Island
and untold assets in terms of
airplanes and Naval vessels.
He took risks.
Again and again, you see
these moments of great daring.
So we've got a chance to even
up the odds in the Pacific.
If we do not succeed, they
will overrun our base,
but we have Marine
reinforcements come in Midway
as we speak.
Whatever happens, we'll
put up a hell of a fight.
See this ship, General?
It's got Marines aboard
heading for Midway.
My son Jimmy is one of them.
So he's with Carlson then?
He's going to be in the
thick of it, isn't he?
Yes, sir.
He will.
God bless them all.
Summer of '42, the Battle
of the Atlantic still rages.
The Germans are 500 miles into
the Soviet Union at this point.
The Mediterranean is
still a battleground.
How could this happen?
It's one defeat.
It's not over.
FDR's responsibility is
to be the global optimist
for Western civilization.
Marshal Stalin,
what's he really like?
[non-english], President.
We need to strike in France now.
I'm not certain your
Yanks are ready for that.
To say that there's a lot
riding on D-Day is a massive
understatement.
Our sons, pride of
our nation, this day
have set upon a mighty
endeavor, a struggle
to preserve our republic
and our civilization.