Assess the effectiveness of President Franklin D Roosevelt in preparing for, and leading the nation through, World War II.
Use the following documents and your knowledge of the period 1939 through 1945. Note: Some documents have been modified
Document A
THE ATLANTIC CHARTER, July, 1941
The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Mr. Churchill, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their two countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world.
First, their countries seek no conquest, territorial or other;
Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;
Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;
Fourth, they will endeavor to help all nations to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity;
Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of living in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want;
Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to sail the high seas and oceans without hindrance;
Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, must abandon of the use of force.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Winston S. Churchill
Document B
FDR Speech, March, 1941
…The British people and their Greek allies need ships. From America, they will get ships. They need planes. From America, they will get planes. From America they need food. From America, they will get food. They need tanks and guns and ammunition and supplies of all kinds. From America, they will get tanks and guns and ammunition and supplies of all kinds. And so our country is going to be what our people have proclaimed it must be--the arsenal of democracy…
Document CEXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 9066
FEBRUARY 19, 1942
Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas
… l hereby authorized and direct the Secretary of War to create military areas in such places as he may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded. The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary, until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order…
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The White House, February 19,1942.
Document D
FDR Speech to Congress, December 8, 1941
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. The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific…
Document E
--FDR Fireside Chat, Sept. 11, 1941
My fellow Americans:
The Navy Department of the United States has reported to me that on the morning of September fourth the United States destroyer GREER, proceeding in full daylight towards Iceland, had reached a point southeast of Greenland. She was carrying American mail to Iceland. She was flying the American flag. Her identity as an American ship was unmistakable.
She was then and there attacked by a submarine. Germany admits that it was a German submarine. The submarine deliberately fired a torpedo at the GREER, followed later by another torpedo attack…I tell you the blunt fact that the German submarine fired first upon this American destroyer without warning, and with deliberate design to sink her…
Document F
from Executive Order 8802, June, 1941
…NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution, and as a necessity to the successful conduct of our national defense production effort, I do hereby reaffirm the policy of the United States that there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin, and I do hereby declare that it is the duty of employers and of labor organizations to provide for the full and equal participation of all workers in defense industries, without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin…
Document G
--from the Joint Statement on the Yalta Conference, Feb. 11, 1945
...We have agreed on common policies and plans for enforcing the unconditional surrender terms which we shall impose on Nazi Germany after German armed resistance has been finally crushed. These terms will not be made known until the final defeat of Germany has been accomplished. Under the agreed plan, the forces of the three powers will each occupy a separate zone of Germany...
...We are resolved upon the earliest possible establishment of a general international organization to maintain peace and security...
...The Polish Provisional Government shall be pledged to the holding of free elections as soon as possible on the basis of universal voting and secret ballot. In these elections all democratic and anti-Nazi parties shall have the right to take part and to put forward candidates...
(signed) Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin
Document H
---Franklin Roosevelt, January 1, 1941
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear which, translated into world terms, means a world wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation...