Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941

by Lynne Olson

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND KIRKUS REVIEWS

From the acclaimed author of Citizens of London comes the definitive account of the debate over American intervention in World War II—a bitter, sometimes violent clash of personalities and ideas that divided the nation and ultimately determined the fate of the free world.

At the center of this controversy stood the two most famous men in America: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who championed the interventionist cause, and aviator Charles Lindbergh, who as unofficial leader and spokesman for America’s isolationists emerged as the president’s most formidable adversary. Their contest of wills personified the divisions within the country at large, and Lynne Olson makes masterly use of their dramatic personal stories to create a poignant and riveting narrative. While FDR, buffeted by political pressures on all sides, struggled to marshal public support for aid to Winston Churchill’s Britain, Lindbergh saw his heroic reputation besmirched—and his marriage thrown into turmoil—by allegations that he was a Nazi sympathizer.

Spanning the years 1939 to 1941, Those Angry Days vividly re-creates the rancorous internal squabbles that gripped the United States in the period leading up to Pearl Harbor. After Germany vanquished most of Europe, America found itself torn between its traditional isolationism and the urgent need to come to the aid of Britain, the only country still battling Hitler. The conflict over intervention was, as FDR noted, “a dirty fight,” rife with chicanery and intrigue, and Those Angry Days recounts every bruising detail. In Washington, a group of high-ranking military officers, including the Air Force chief of staff, worked to sabotage FDR’s pro-British policies. Roosevelt, meanwhile, authorized FBI wiretaps of Lindbergh and other opponents of intervention. At the same time, a covert British operation, approved by the president, spied on antiwar groups, dug up dirt on congressional isolationists, and planted propaganda in U.S. newspapers.

The stakes could not have been higher. The combatants were larger than life. With the immediacy of a great novel, Those Angry Days brilliantly recalls a time fraught with danger when the future of democracy and America’s role in the world hung in the balance.

Praise for Those Angry Days

“Powerfully [re-creates] this tenebrous era . . . Olson captures in spellbinding detail the key figures in the battle between the Roosevelt administration and the isolationist movement.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Popular history at its most riveting . . . In Those Angry Days, journalist-turned-historian Lynne Olson captures [the] period in a fast-moving, highly readable narrative punctuated by high drama.”—Associated Press

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812982145
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/14/2014
Pages:	576
Sales rank:	212,442
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Lynne Olson is the author of Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in its Darkest, Finest Hour; Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England; and Freedom’s Daughters: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830 to 1970, and co-author of two other books. She lives with her husband in Washington, D.C.

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Table of Contents

Introduction xiii

1 "A Modern Galahad" 3

2 "We were Fools" 24

3 "Where is My World?" 35

4 "You Haven't Got the Votes" 53

5 "This War Has Come Home to Me" 69

6 "I am Almost Literally Walking on Eggs" 87

7 "Paranoia can be Catching" 94

8 "The Art of Manipulation" 115

9 "Is This War Our Concern?" 126

10 "Why do we Not Defend Her?" 139

11 "The Greatest of All our Ambassadors" 151

12 "The People Saved the Day" 170

13 "Congress is Going to Raise Hell" 184

14 "An American First, and a Republican Afterward" 196

15 "The Yanks are Not Coming" 220

16 "The Bubonic Plague Among Writers" 242

17 "A National Disgrace" 252

18 "Well, Boys, Britain's Broke" 264

19 'A Race Against Time" 288

20 'A Traitorous Point of View" 309

21 "Der Führer Thanks You for Your Loyalty" 330

22 "Where is this Crisis?" 341

23 "Propaganda … with a Very Thick Coating of Sugar" 359

24 "Setting the Ground for Anti-Semitism" 375

25 "He Was Not Going to Lead the Country into War" 393

26 "The Greatest Scoop in History" 408

27 "Let's Lick Hell Out of Them" 424

28 Aftermath 438

Acknowledgments 463

Notes 465

Bibliography 509

Index 519

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Advance praise for Those Angry Days
 
“With this stirring book, Lynne Olson confirms her status as our era’s foremost chronicler of World War II politics and diplomacy. Those Angry Days tells the extraordinary tale of America’s internal debate about whether and how to stop Hitler. Filled with fascinating anecdotes and surprising twists, the text raises moral and practical questions that we still struggle with today. Compelling for students of history and casual readers alike.”—Madeleine K. Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State
 
“Lynne Olson has done it again. Those Angry Days is a riveting account of the political tensions and cast of historic figures engaged in an epic battle over the role of the United States in the early years of World War II. It’s all here: FDR, Lindbergh, Churchill, Hitler, war in Europe and the Pacific. The stakes could not have been higher and the outcome was never certain. Modern leaders and citizens alike can learn so much from Those Angry Days.”—Tom Brokaw, author of The Greatest Generation
 
“Deeply researched and scrupulously evenhanded, Lynne Olson’s groundbreaking history vividly captures a previously unexplored period of twentieth-century America. At its heart, Those Angry Days is a gripping tale of the brutal battle between two larger-than-life antagonists, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Charles Lindbergh, but Olson’s compelling cast of characters includes numerous unsung heroes such as Britain’s Lord Lothian and defeated Republican presidential candidate Wendell Willkie. With fresh insights and riveting new details, Olson examines the shifting alliances and intrigues, the passions that divided families, and the compromises and campaigns that galvanized America to give vital assistance to Britain when it was threatened with massive defeat by Nazi Germany.”—Sally Bedell Smith, author of Elizabeth the Queen

“An exhilarating portrait of America’s growing pains in the years leading to World War II, Lynne Olson’s Those Angry Days makes a fine bookend to her Citizens of London. It shows a great democracy rallying to a great debate, one truly worthy of the stakes.”—Chris Matthews, anchor, MSNBC’s Hardball, and author of Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero
 
“I have been hugely impressed by Lynne Olson’s last two books, both of which were concerned more with Britain than America. With Those Angry Days she is back on home ground, and has once again held me spellbound with her account of the terrifying days when the future of the free world depended on the U.S.A. She is incapable of writing a boring sentence; I would follow her anywhere.”—John Julius Norwich, author of Absolute Monarchs

Interviews

Q. Most of your books have focused on World War II. In Those Angry Days, you look at the two years before America got into the war. Why was this period so important for the country? Why should we care about what happened then?

A. During those years, there was a hard-fought debate in America about what its role should be in World War II. Should the country forsake its traditional isolationism and come to the aid of Britain, which by 1940 was on the brink of defeat by Hitler? Or should it go further and enter the war? That debate, as it turned out, was crucial in deciding the future of America and the role it would play in the world from then on. Millions of people, from college students to housewives to Wall Street lawyers, were swept up in what turned out to be an extraordinarily tumultuous struggle involving the whole country.

Q. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Charles Lindbergh are the main characters in Those Angry Days. Why did you put them at the center of the story?

A. They were the two most important figures in the debate. FDR wanted America to aid Britain, while Lindbergh, who became the unofficial leader and spokesman for the country's isolationists, was vehemently against the idea and accused the president of trying to lead America into war. As the two most famous men in the U.S., they both had a huge impact on public opinion. Their rivalry was personal as well as political, and it turned very bitter. Roosevelt did everything he could to destroy Lindbergh's reputation, while Lindbergh accused Roosevelt of working to undermine democracy and representative government.

Q. Are there any parallels between the United States now and during the time you write about?

A. Absolutely. The period I describe in Those Angry Days is eerily similar to these angry days we're experiencing today. Just like now, the country was in the midst of facing critical challenges and was deeply divided politically. The polarization inWashington was extraordinary. The same bitter split that currently separates certain sections of America — the "red-state, blue-state" divide — was very much a factor at that time, too: the East Coast was the main bastion of interventionist sentiment, while the center of isolationism was America's conservative rural heartland.

At the same time, it's important to point out a key difference between then and now. First of all, even with all the polarization, there were politicians who were willing to do what they thought was right, who defied their party and put the interests of their nation —and its survival—ahead of personal ambition and partisan advantage. Interestingly, almost all these rebels were Republicans. They included Wendell Willkie, the 1940 GOP candidate for president, who supported much of FDR's foreign policy, and Henry Stimson and Frank Knox, arguably the Republican Party's most respected senior statesmen, who joined Roosevelt's cabinet and were read out of their party for doing so. Theirs was an example of cooperation and compromise that cries out for emulation now.

Editorial Reviews

Powerfully [re-creates] this tenebrous era . . . Olson captures in spellbinding detail the key figures in the battle between the Roosevelt administration and the isolationist movement.”—The New York Times Book Review

“In Those Angry Days, journalist-turned-historian Lynne Olson captures [the] period in a fast-moving, highly readable narrative punctuated by high drama. It’s . . . popular history at its most riveting, detailing what the author rightfully characterizes as ‘a brutal, no-holds-barred battle for the soul of the nation.’ It is sure to captivate readers seeking a deeper understanding of how public opinion gradually shifted as America moved from bystander to combatant in the war to preserve democracy.”—Associated Press
 
“Filled with fascinating anecdotes and surprising twists . . . With this stirring book, Lynne Olson confirms her status as our era’s foremost chronicler of World War II politics and diplomacy.”—Madeleine K. Albright

“Olson has shone a dramatic light on the complexities of the issue and skillfully portrayed the protagonists of an almost forgotten crisis in American history.”—Newsweek/The Daily Beast
 
“[An] absorbing chronicle . . . [Olson] doesn’t so much revisit a historical period as inhabit it; her scenes flicker as urgently as a newsreel. While highlighting Lindbergh and FDR as its stars, Those Angry Days embraces a cast of characters far beyond the book’s title characters.”—The Christian Science Monitor
 
“Masterfully describes America’s conflicting opinions before Pearl Harbor . . . a comprehensive take on another era of angry divisions.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch
 
“Spanning the years 1939 to 1941, Lynne Olson’s masterful book relives American’s debate over whether to go to war—a bitter clash personified by FDR and Charles Lindbergh.”—Parade
 
“A fully fleshed-out portrait of the battle between the interventionists and isolationists in the eighteen months leading up to Pearl Harbor . . . a vivid, colorful evocation of a charged era.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
“Humanizing public events with private strains . . . Olson delivers a fluid rendition of a tempestuous time.”—Booklist
 
“[Olson] manages to keep her complex, character-filled story on keel as she describes the forces bearing down on FDR’s administration while the world slipped into war. . . . Delicious tales abound.”—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Olson captures in spellbinding detail the key figures in the battle between the Roosevelt administration and the isolationist movement.

The New York Times Book Review - Jacob Heilbrunn

It’s hard to recall, but going to war used to take a long time. The protracted two-year battle over F.D.R.’s gradual, hard-fought, bitter, and often necessarily devious campaign to prepare the U.S. for war and overcome powerful isolationist sentiment is the subject of this snappy, comprehensive book. At its center are Charles Lindbergh, a tin-eared, pro-German, unappealing, obtuse naïf, and F.D.R., wily but hemmed in by political forces. Olson, author of numerous books on the WWII era (including Citizens of London), manages to keep her complex, character-filled story on keel as she describes the forces bearing down on F.D.R.’s administration while the world slipped into war. Familiar and unfamiliar figures—military and civilian, private and public—people the book, and delicious tales abound. Overall, the story is sobering, and it’s hard to understand now how the run-up to America’s greatest war was so fraught with political and cultural explosives. Olson tells the story unerringly, but the book—however lively—is largely descriptive and short on ideas, argument, and point of view. Agent: Gail Ross, Ross Yoon Literary Agency. (Mar. 26)

Publishers Weekly

Olson’s (Citizens of London) most recent work captures the contentious debate over American intervention into World War II. Olson chronicles the “Great Debate” between the interventionists, led by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the isolationists, unofficially led by Charles Lindbergh. Digging more deeply than a simple retelling of policy and events, Olson provides intimate details through a variety of sources including diary entries. Readers will appreciate Olson’s fair criticism of both sides and her honest approach to the often shocking events that included death threats, vicious personal attacks, and even fistfights among politicians. Multiple award?winning narrator Robert Frass has a smooth, deliberate cadence that makes it easy to soak up the extensive coverage of the era.

Verdict A must for history fans. [“Though this subject is not new, Olson’s focus on the Lindberghs and the pressure groups opposing and supporting the aviator offers additional insight into the period that ended with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Its readability further recommends the book to history buffs,” read the review of the New York Times best-selling Random hc, LJ 3/15/13.—Ed.]—Sean Kennedy, Cleveland State Univ. Law Lib.
(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Library Journal

The division between interventionists—who wanted to join the war in Europe—and isolationists—who wanted U.S. troops to stay home—took a personal turn in the public feud between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and pilot Charles Lindbergh. Robert Fass's narration is calm and dispassionate—until he's reading the actual words of those involved. Then, emotions come through. Listeners will feel the anger from both corners, taking them back to tense pre-WWII debates. Perhaps the most embattled figure involved was Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who supported her husband even as public opinion and her own went against him. Fass relates both the political and the personal well. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2013 - AudioFile

A fully fleshed-out portrait of the battle between the interventionists and isolationists in the 18 months leading up to Pearl Harbor. Former Baltimore Sun White House correspondent Olson (Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour, 2010, etc.) looks closely at both sides of the U.S. debate about whether to support Britain against the onslaught of Nazi Germany or remain aloof from the European conflict, epitomized by the two prominent personalities of the respective camps, President Franklin Roosevelt and Charles Lindbergh. The author clarifies "those angry days," so-called by Arthur Schlesinger, and the deep, searing divisions within the country: from FDR, his hands tied to aid Britain materially by Senate Midwestern leaders like Burton Wheeler and Gerald Nye, who deeply resented the growing power of the presidency; to pro-German, frankly racist Lindbergh, whose trips to Germany and radio broadcasts helped sharpen the public outcry, gave fodder to prescient journalists like Dorothy Thompson and alienated his own long-suffering wife, Anne Morrow. Once viewed as America's great hero for his solo trans-Atlantic flight, Lindbergh spiraled into controversy with his public argument against aiding the English, his rationalization of German aggression and espousal of racial purity. Ostracized by the Europeans, who had not long before sheltered him and his wife after the kidnapping of his son, and excoriated by the press and the East Coast moneyed establishment, Lindbergh took up with the reactionary American First campaign and was increasingly regarded as traitorous. Roosevelt, in turn, warned the country about the "perils of complacency" in his State of the Union speech of 1940 as events in Europe heated up, and he was not averse to stoking fears of "Fifth column" infiltration and restricting civil liberties in garnering support for his policies. Throughout, Olson adroitly sifts through the many conflicting currents. A vivid, colorful evocation of a charged era.

Kirkus Reviews