code authors discuss their book fdr goes to war. about how he expanded executive power. and how they shaped wartime america. the offers -- authors contend that fdr used world war ii to promote his own agenda which according to the authors included the expansion of the executive branch, curtailed civil liberties and excessive spending that left the country financially ill-prepared for the japanese attack on pearl harbor and the subsequent u.s. entry into world war ii. this is about one hour. >> good afternoon and welcome to the cato institute in exile. we're glad to have you folks here and we're very proud to say that in about two months the construction on our building will be complete and we'll be back in the fay hayek auditorium

but for now we're glad to be undercroft auditorium to discuss this book "fdr goes to war." a long time ago, i went to mayfield high school in mayfield, kentucky, and in my senior year i was the coeditor of the high school newspaper, the cardinal, and i think the features editor that year was my classmate anita prince, and she has gone on to bigger things. she got married for one thing to burt folsom. she got two degrees. she worked for president reagan and she was the president-elector and most recently she has directed hillsdale college's free market forum for five years. her co-author and husband is burton folsom, jr., who holds a

ph.d. from the university of pittsburgh. i actually visited pitt for the first time last fall and saw something i'd never heard of, which i'm surprised at. the cathedral of learning which is the second tallest university building in the world the tallest one you might guess as in moscow where they always thought building something bigger they were doing something better than capitalism but this is a 42-story university building and the first floors are built like a gothic cathedral. if you're in pittsburgh, spend some time in the cathedral of learning. but burt has taught in a double of colleges and now holds the charles klein chair of history and management at hillsdale college. he also serves as senior historian at the foundation of senior foundation where you can find some of his articles and he

has pushed several books into the myth of the robber barons now it's in his sixth edition in which he explains of the market entrepreneurs and political entrepreneurs which is a good text for today's increasing discussion between capitalism and enterprise. his work on the administration of flynn roosevelt began with his book new deal or raw deal how fdr's economic legacy has damaged america. that came out in the fall of 2008 just as everybody was saying we needed to emulate what fdr had done and so it got a lot of attention and his newest book is fdr goes to war in which he co-authored with anita. as i said in my book libertarianism as a primer we're still living in the washington that roosevelt built and the president in the political system that all goes back fdr's

policy and it's important to understood how fdr governed and what he changed what had gone before. and it also, i think, has an additional importance for libertarians and that is that the libertarian movement sort of arose in opposition to roosevelt's new deal and imperial presidency. and i think particularly if you wanted to pick a date and say, when did the libertarian movement began, obviously, political movements have long prehistories and histories but if you wanted to put a date, you might say it was 1943 when three women, rose wilder lane, isabelle patterson and ayn rand all published books about individualism, free markets and constitutionally limited government and sort of brought together the nucleus of a movement of new ideas and so

that's why we occasionally turn here from public policy to history and to why we are delighted to host this event today, so please welcome the co-author of "fdr goes to war: how expanded executive power spiraling national debt and restricted civil liberties shaped wartime america." professor burton folsom. [applause] >> let me just start with some opening remarks. we got franklin roosevelt, the president, world war ii the event you can't miss an event book with those topics. you have a president just bold dramatic greater than life himself. you have the biggest military event in the history of the world, world war ii. and what we're trying to do in this book is give a history of world war ii, 300 pages,

readable for today -- for people to grasp the war itself, the president who conducted the war we have a chapter of pearl harbor, and aneatlia wrote the section on midway, the turning point militarily for the united states in many ways. you have the generals, eisenhower, patton, all conducting enterprises that were essential to victory for the united states. you have the atomic bomb itself and we have to give removes some credit of thinking ahead of what might be developed that might make a pivotal difference in the war and then you have the end finally of the great depression which dominated the thinking of a generation of americans. coming to an end at the end of world war ii. you have a lot to work with. we work with those elements in the book, "fdr goes to war" and i would like anita to start off by commenting of some of these

features of world war ii and franklin. go ahead. >> it's a pleasure to be here today for cato and my old friend david boaz, thank you so much for coming, but, yes, as burt just said our goal in writing this book was to make it larger than just an economic text, although that is very important. but it's to give everyone a book that in 300 pages or so you can read and you can get an overview of world war ii, whether you're a young person trying to learn about world war ii. we have a son who's 26 years old and i can assure you most of his friends know almost nothing about that entire period. it's just amazing. also, we have material that we think you've probably never heard before. so to get right into it, i want to set the stage a little bit about the 1930s and to explain that part of what led to world war ii being such an upevil for the united states were the

policies of franklin roosevelt during the 1930s, to give you some statistics and i'll be brief on those, for instance. factory output, the output increased every decade beginning in 1899 for the following 10 years factory output was up 14%. 1919 to 1929, the roaring '20s, factory production was up 5.1% each year. but 1929 to 1939, it decreased slightly every single year during the 1930s. so our industrial complex, of course, by 1939 has aged it's out of touch with cutting edge innovations that are going on in

europe and elsewhere. and suddenly we're faced with this with this problem of a military complex in europe and we can't -- we don't have anything to compete with them. in the book i mentioned the army chief of staff douglas mcarthur at one point testified before congress in 1935 pleading for enough money so that his army would have enough bullets for 100,000 soldiers. we're not talking about stealth bombers or complex weapons here. we're talking literally about just even enough bullets to man 100,000 army. and even -- and i can certainly understand if you're not for a strong military american presence overseas, which we don't necessarily need. i do think a strong defense of america wards off problems.

and in the 1930s we certainly didn't have that and germany was aware of that and so was japan and that leads to a lot of problems. well, the war, of course, comes along to the united states in late 1941 and suddenly factories have to be converted. what are you going to do? well, overnight for one thing they restricted products to consumers. overnight in january, 1942, you could not buy tires for your car. if your tires had been getting a little aged and you thought, oh, well, next week i'll run down to sears roebuck and get a new set of tires, you are out of luck. and the only way you could get another set of tires was to go before the government's tire board and prove that you had an essential reason for getting a new set of tires. likewise, radios, bicycles, clocks -- even clocks, the common american could no longer purchase after the spring of 1942.

all of those mechanisms were used in the war effort. now, most americans supported the sudden changes. and that was, of course, with the wave of patriotism that swept through, everyone wanted to win the war. most people did. many people had new -- knew fighting men overseas and the way the war had began with japan bombing pearl harbor before the declaration of war was given to the secretary of state and that angered everyone but what did the government do to suddenly help the american economy meet the war emergency? well, it did what it does a lot of time and it began regulating everything. the federal war production board took control of the allocation of almost all materials in the united states and said, where they would be used, it took control of the fuel supply and it took control of the war production.

the wpd is one of the most powerful agencies ever created by the federal government and would employ literally hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats by the end of the war. the government issued ration books to every american, even babies. 7 million ration books were issued the very first week that rationing went into effect which was the spring of 1942 and, of course, without rationed stamps from the rations books you couldn't purchase shoes, meat, gasoline, many items. and as as soon as the ration books were issued, there's always these unintended consequences. crooks discovered that these ration books were easy to copy. now, sometimes we have a picture of world war ii and the solidarity of the american people, but it's like any other time. there's a great deal of craftiness in the human nature and it came to thieves, let's

just print their own ration books and they did by the hundreds of thousands. it was big business. and the theft of ration coupons was big business. there is an account of a veteran coming home after serving in the war overseas, coming back home to central indiana during the latter days of the war, and he's at a rally, a high school rally in central indiana giving his story a fighting the japanese and all of these hardships he endured and he went outside to the parking lot after the rally and someone had broken into his car and stolen his gas coupons. so america wasn't quite as solid as sometimes i think the rosy picture that is painted of the war years. there were a great many struggles but by and large most americans supported the war and, of course, wanted the united states to win it. entrepreneurs had to come up with new things on the good side such as aircraft manufacturer, that's where we lag behind

almost -- the most glaring example. for instance, in 1940, henry ford was asked to get behind mass production of aircraft. this is before we entered the war, but they knew that he was good at assembly lines. what can we do to mass produce airplanes? the ford sent his son edsel and top executives out to california. california 1940 was one of the main places where aircraft was built and that seems strange and why? because most were put together outside. that sounds just unbelievable they were putting planes together one at a time out in the california sunshine. well, you can't build 10,000 bombers doing that. it would take you forever in a day. ford had to figure out how to do an assembly line for b-24s and in typical henry ford fashion, he owned a farm near michigan. he turned his farm land into a bomber plant called willow run and the bomber plant had the

largest room in the world to build b-24s. it even had a curve in the assembly line because it was in a county and he didn't want to go over in the county where detroit was because he didn't want to give those democrats any tax money so the assembly line curved around, too. another huge success during world war ii that we often don't realize is the development of penicillin. penicillin was not available before world war ii. now, sulfa was developed and one of the great successes not one injured man who was injured by the japanese bombing at pearl harbor had had to have an amputation due to infection. this was a new -- this was a new world in the military medicine. because the sulfa prevented the infections and they used it liberally and it worked.

the problem with sulfa it didn't deal with extremely deep wound infections in the abdomen or the chest and those are so common in war, so penicillin had to be developed and that was done with the help of the british. the british, of course -- penicillin had been discovered in the 1920s. and even before that, chemists knew certain types of mold killed bacteria and sir ian fleming publicized penicillin and the british brought their strains of penicillin of what they had and because they were so constrained with the war they were able to develop enough penicillin with five patients and they tried it with five extremely ill patients and they knew it worked extremely well and they brought it over to the american department of agriculture, do you think you can grow penicillin and they said we'll try and it was a great partnership between the

department of agriculture and private pharmaceutical companies. it still took a year and a half but it revolutionized medicine for the american soldier and then eventually the american public because by 1945, penicillin was available for american citizens. and we were very soon -- very quickly sending it overseas. so that's one of the better success stories of world war ii. but overall, the american pebble met the challenge of pulling together in this wartime emergency knowing that the japanese were sailing off the coast of california and knowing that hitler had overrun europe, they met the challenge and through the entrepreneurship and the spirit of the american people made these great contributions. now, burt is going to come and talk a little bit about the economic and what got us out of -- at the end of the war and of the great depression.

burt? >> thank you, anita. you know, we look at world war ii and franklin it seems so long ago, it's 70 years since the bombing at pearl harbor, and you don't really realize that much of american politics from foreign policy to domestic policy is shaped by the events that happened in world war ii. franklin roosevelt was very anxious for an active role of government in the american economy. of course, world war provides it in a big way and it has gone into some details but roosevelt wanted it that way and you have during the war franklin roosevelt created the national resources planning board. they were supposed to take ideas for after the war to run the american economy. roosevelt picked this up and in his state of the union speech in

1944, he talked about the economic bill of rights. the economic bill of rights -- and i quote from parts of it include the right to a useful and remunerative job. and the right of every family to a decent home. the right to a good education., the right to good medical care. these become new rights which roosevelt described as the new economic bill of rights. sometimes he called it the second bill of rights. and they roll off the tongue so nicely, don't they? right to a decent home. don't we all want decent homes. the right to a good education. the right to a useful and remunerative job. roosevelt issued these and these become the plan for after world war ii, when the war is over,

then these rights can be given for. now, if you think about it, if anita has a right to a useful and remunerative job, then someone here has an obligation to provide that job. if i have a right to a decent home, taxpayers have an obligation to provide that home if david has a right to adequate medical care, then there's hospitals or through federal funding of some kind, those hospitals, those physicians are obligated to supply that medical care. the right to free speech does not impose obligations to you to even listen to the speech least of all pay for it. the right for freedom of religion, we're in a church

here, the right of freedom of religion does not obligate anyone to go to a certain church. it just provides the opportunity for someone to practice freedom of religion. the first bill of rights by the founders are rights. the second bill of rights impose obligations and involve the government in a big way. now, what we see in the war is a huge tax structure being set up which roosevelt will want to use after the war and will be used after the war to fund more federal programs. in 1932, the year that franklin roosevelt was elected president, the income tax maximum that anybody had to pay was 25%. that's the most anybody had to pay. top incomes. most americans did not pay income tax at all. in some ways there's a problem with that. but we only had about 5% of americans pay any income tax

right before the war in 1940. by the end of the war, two-thirds of american families were paying the federal income tax. and it started at 24%. the exemption was only $500. if you made over $500, you started paying at 24%. that then increased in a progressive way up to a maximum of 94% on all income over $200,000. that means that if you earn $300,000 on your third 100,000, you keep $6,000, you give to the government $94,000. a lot of people, thought, hey, that might stifle entrepreneurship. roosevelt believed it's essentially for providing good

homes, decent educations, medical care, this will be the basis for the funding of those kinds of actions. so what we see is a dramatic increase in the taxpayer base and in tax revenue. we see withholding reduced for the first time. withholding, we have a chapter on that that will be introduced that will take money directly out of paychecks so the government can use it right away rather than having to wait for a year. what we see as a defense of franklin roosevelt by many people -- i'd like to read from a kentucky senator, senator happy chandler, a democratic senator from kentucky. the state where david was born, where anita was born but neither of them agree with happy chandler at least on this point. he said, quote, all of us owe the government. we owe it for everything we have.

and that is the basis of obligation. and the government can take everything we have if it needs it. the government can assert its right to have all the taxes it needs for any purpose, either now or at any time in the future. the chandler view expressed on the senate floor, we pulled this out of the congressional record and many like this, are the defense of the idea of government becoming the main source not only of -- for the economy, for providing jobs, for providing health care and a tax revenue going into the government so the government programs can provide those kinds of jobs, can provide decent homes. can provide good educations. when we got to the end of the war, roosevelt died, harry truman comes in -- harry truman essentially agrees with

roosevelt on many of these issues. they're different kinds of people, two very different presidents but on these issues, truman is ready to go on with a lot of this. truman comes in. the economic planners are wanting to institute this but they think the war is going to go on till 1946. germany, of course, surrenders in '45. it appears that it will go on for a long time. truman did not know about the atomic bomb when he became president. that's one of the shocks. roosevelt had never informed him that it was being developed. in fact, one of the odd things was the day that truman became president he did not know we had an atomic bomb but stalin did. one of the ironies of history, the russians knew we had it, the president of the united states did not. happily, secretary of war stimson told that to truman early in his presidency so now he knew and when he decided to use it on japan in august, congress is out of session.

it takes most of america by surprise, august 6th an atomic bomb on hiroshima, august 9th on nagasaki and congress were out of session and the planners did not have a chance to send their programs and immediately truman wants to get them into session but by this time some of the congressmen you know what? this 94% tax i don't think is going to get america back on track. the keynesians completely believed it. here's truman secretary of treasury gives you, where the americans were to favor this kind of intervention. lord commander keynes came out with this idea that you need public works, stimulate aggregate demand, lots of government intervention and you will eliminate unemployment through that. and so what secretary of treasury vincent, another kentuckian by the way, fred vincent, truman's secretary of treasury says, quote -- he says

this right after the war the japanese have surrendered and he wants massive government intervention and he says history shows us, business, labor, agriculture cannot ensure them the maintenance of high levels of production and employment. in other words, markets don't work. the government must assume responsibility and take measures broad enough to meet the issues. reporter i.f. stone completely agrees, as do many other reporters. stone says, quote, new agencies, new ideas, new directions end necessary or quickly if we are not to suffer relapse into a chronic mass of unemployment. the war's transfusions are no longer available to an alien capitalism. this ailing capitalism no longer has this worse transfusion. 12 million soldiers are coming home. immediately we've got to have these government programs for them. they predicted without massive government programs, new wpa's,

new programs to build roads to programs to train people without these programs, in effect -- roosevelt -- excuse me, truman, roosevelt also, wanted to build like the tennessee valley authority for the tennessee valley, others all around the country, other types of public works programs other types of use of dams, building of public works very much in truman's mind. unless these things happen, they predicted, listen, we got 12 million veterans coming home. senator kilgore of west virginia said i predict 19 million unemployed. it's going to be worse than the great depression, it will be worse than the 25% we had when roosevelt came into office. "time" magazine, others estimated no, maybe just 10 or 12 million unemployed. that's still going to put it at about 20%. predictions are very high unemployment. what do we get?

2 senators, one republican, one democrat say no. the chairman of the senate finance committee, senator walter george of georgia said this -- he supported a revenue act of 1945, which cut tax rates, i'll get into that in a minute, but he said this, if this revenue act has the effect which it is hoped to have, it will so stimulate the expansion of business as to bring in a greater total revenue and create more jobs at the same time. in other words, i think we can get more revenue into the government and i think we can get more jobs created if we cut the tax rates and allow businesses to expand. it was a model completely different from the roosevelt model in the economic bill of rights. and he was -- we had the republicans agree, senator albert hawks a republican of new jersey said this, the repeal of the excess profits tax in my opinion may raise more revenue for the united states than would

be raised if it were retained and it was at 90%. we had a 90% corporate tax. and hawks is saying, if you'll cut that tax below 90%, i think we can actually not only create more jobs because you stimulate more business but you'll actually grow the economy and get more revenue at the same time. and hawks added this statement, senator hawks, you cannot get a golden egg out of a dead goose. hawks led enough republicans and senator george led enough democrats to pass the revenue act of 1945. and the revenue act of 1945 cut the corporate tax from 90% to 38%. imagine that. 90% to 38%. it cut the personal income tax. plus, it promised more cuts later. this is the first one. this is all we can get through now.

more are coming later. we cut what was known as the capital stock tax. you had to pay a tax on every share of stock you owned. they eliminated that. they eliminated regulations and slashed federal spending and no longer be the takes more ammunition. the end results is the massive economic expansion. finally -- we had been under these heavy taxes for 13 years. even the hoover administration was not too good. now the tax rates are cut. it is time to expand. if you look at the postwar economy, so much we take for granted today.

and then mcdonald's gets going. holiday inn, television, xerox, all of these kinds of our entrepreneurs come to the fore after world war ii and we see a tremendous growth. one of the most exciting statistics is we have 39 million people employed civilian employment, nonmilitary. that goes up to 55 million. the stock market increased by 20% in 1946. private gross national product increased 30%, the only time it had done that in history. and further, the experts were estimating i think we will get $31 million into the federal treasury and 1946, 1947.

we have 31 billion. increasing more than 25% because the economy had expanded so much more than people expected. the result is 3.9% unemployment in 1946 and the united states 1947. has the burgeoning growth rate , and when europe who is trying , to the keynesian means to get back on their feet, when they are failing, the united states is able to send tons and tons of food over to feed the europeans who at different points were dying at the rate of one per second. those deaths were curtailed by the free food the united states and over after the war. we sent that food, the economy recovered, and we cut the federal deficit during 1946 slightly, but we cut it because the revenue so much exceeded expectations. what i say is we have a lot

during world war ii that gives his lessons for today, what works, and what doesn't work in an expanding economy. the taxes we have come to expect today, the economic bill of rights, the right to education seen with thee student loan program under president obama. we've seen changes with the housing to a decent home going with urban renewal, and the community reinvestment act of the to promise very low interest 1970's rates to poor people so they could have homes to a accelerate the mortgage crisis that has become unhinged, and the right to medical care so i simply say the politics of today have been shaped from world war ii, but if you study more carefully, said we got out of the great depression by freeing up the economy and cutting tax

rates, not by following the prescription to increase and perpetuate the high economic growth that we experienced during world war ii. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, bert, and and need anita. now we will open as for questions please wait for the microphone. i'll ask the first question. i read this book and i found it more straight forward and sober history than i thought from that the title. how expanded executive power, , spiraling national debt, and restricted civil liberties

america.rtime i wonder if the marketers wrote the subtitle? [applause] >> this subtitle was developed by simon & schuster publishers , but the person who developed it did it on the basis of saying i deduce this from a content of the book and i think today is reasonable we talk about the growth of the production board , the price control control, rationing, the spiralling national debt. it doubled the first year of roosevelt or the first two terms of his presidency. then increase it is sixfold during world war ii. so what you have at the end is a national debt of $260 billion and the interest so we go from having to national debt of 20 billion to having the interest rate of 20 billion on the national debt that was almost 300 billion. so what i am suggesting is the

national debt and the growth of federal spending and that economic bill of rights you roosevelt had hoped would perpetuate that into the future is a big part of the war. and the civil liberties, we have not done as much with a record japanese-american internment. roosevelt using wiretaps extensively. it is essential for national defense. enemies could be sending messages. suddenly he wiretaps republicans that he wiretaps his wife eleanor, so we see an abuse of the civil liberties as well, as well as shutting down magazines and newspapers that opposed him, so much so that his own attorney general had to fight him. that is a fair deduction of the content of the book, although have to give simon & schuster credit for doing the subtitle

. we got the main title, "fdr goes to war." >> questions. yes? there. >> my name is stephen. i was a bit thrown by the title of the book. that the tax rates had reached prewar levels, but the other is in his, the rationing, direction of production to win the war, the consequences of the expanding debt, i not sure any other am president would not have afterup at the same locus a two-ocean war. >> part of the premise is one of the reasons we wound up of the war is we weren k during the 1930's.

fdr cut military spending during the 1930's in terms of the percentage of military spending in the federal budget. this was on top of the factoring there who were presidency military budgets were very low. the american military was incredibly weak and behind the rest of the world. we were something like 17 in terms of military strength and innovation. as we show come all through 1940 in 1941, before pearl harbor, he has ari declared military emergencies. withs taken over power lots of executive orders, and the thing is that he is not putting these agencies under the control of congress or other individuals. he has 15 defense agencies under the president's office.

it is called the office of emergency management and it is directly supervised by franklin roosevelt, so we list some of his grabs for power. president faced with a war emergency has to do certain things, but the extent to which roosevelt looked at this as an opportunity to really put his big government ideas into action, and you especially get this with taxation. he had been wanting high rates of withholding from a huge percentage of americans for his entire life, and use the war emergency to get that through. >> yes. two things really quickly, the standard narrative for the post war boom is the more spending built up this enormous pent-up demand in americans and i think the narrative you've

explained is a counter to that because of centers on reduce regulations and tax rates. if truman wass, so aligned with roosevelt on , do you believe it died fromlt had not that he would somehow managed to do what truman according to you wanted to do, but because of political naivete or whatever , failed to do. would roosevelt have done that, and if he would have done what he wanted to do, keep tax rates high to pursue that keynesian rather than supply side strategy then we wouldn't have had the postwar boom.

would roosevelt have been likely to continue the new deal programs, the new deal movementn movement than truman? was it just truman's political naïveté? >> that accounts for some of it. it is a good question. roseville had vast expanse with congress and had enormous confidence he could get his way on most things. remember, truman did not know we had an atomic bomb. he is trying to appoint cabinet members, trying to figure out what is going on, because .oosevelt kept him in the dark plus, as a senator, he hadn't had that close of access to the executive branch so he's still learning the job and hasn't developed a political skills yet to be able to get what roosevelt might have been able to get.

could roosevelt have gotten this? i'm not sure he would have been able to do so. what do you think? >> one thing that's interestings and we point this out is that fdr had lost a lot of clout in congress in 1939 and 1940. his court packing scheme in 1938 really angered a lot of peoplef , and he also tried to purge various members of congress and the senate. one of them was senator tidings from maryland, and if you notice in the book, tidings leads the filibuster to defeat several of the proposals that fdr once passed before the congress adjourns in the summer of 1939, and he is delighted to do

that because cc fdr as an enemy. people were very suspicious of him. that is one side. >> he is sick. he is only working 20 hours a day -- 20 hours a week. he is gone from 20 hours a date to 20 hours a week. his physician simply said the stress, he had high blood pressure, so roosevelt was only working half-time, so it is hard to be affected when you are only working half-time. i don't think he would have been able to do it. the other thing is that walter george was the subject of a purge. he tried to get roosevelt out of office, which is why he was so hostile. so you have the chairman of the senate finance committee opposing you, this large block of republicans opposing you to i think roosevelt is likely not to have been successful. it is hard to say.

he would have tried. every time you try to think roosevelt cannot pull this off, he gets something on someone and that person ends up being an ally and is able to put off. certainly was easier for senator george and senator hawkes dealing with truman that it would've been a healthy roosevelt. you noted another political change, the senators he tried to purge were democrats, not republicans. yes. his own democratic senators, and if you're looking at the influence of fdr on truman and other presidents, waiting in the wings is lyndon johnson, and lyndon johnson is a new member of congress and he is soaking up everything roosevelt does in terms of patronage and government programs and is a big help to fdr in the national elections of 1940. >> roosevelt has a delicate task manipulating civil liberties. for example, he wants to put

moses annenberg in prison. a republican paper and if you go irsr annenberg on an audit, and he was runnable, so he does not just pay the fine goes to present than johnson is campaign misuse of contributions with his supporters, and now the iris .oes after him so he comes to roosevelt. he has to pull the iras off of johnson so they could continue to be his man in texas then put them on moses annenberg to make sure they go to prison so fdr did call both of those off. so he's doing with someone in the executive branch they could be very powerful. >> yes, in the back.

>> where you both united in the way you viewed economic relations or the lack of with economic relations between united states and japan leading up to world war ii? and how surprised do you believe the united states was with the attack on pearl harbor? >> i think we were pretty united in her that, and that it's something i did the majority of the work for on the book, so i will answer first. we do think -- we point out in the early pages, in 1933, even before he is inaugurated, he talks with two of his advisers big new are both dealers, part of the brain trust

, columbia professors. believe the government directed economy and of course, those directing the economy should be intellect. and he mentions that he has always favored china and he thinks the world of japan might work better sooner than later, so why not? fdr had that flippant side to his nature, and i point out he had never been in a foxhole or the military or shot at. he took that rather lightly if , and when you look the men who died in the pacific in the early days of world war ii, i find that appalling that he let them go into those exposed areas with many of weapons, and the men who died in this complex blame fdr, but as far as pearl harbor goes, i do think we cut off the japanese from their

i will say an interesting study is to read the papers of an ambassador who was in tokyo all during the 1930's, and he is pleading with washington to put off this embargo. he is pleading and saying there is a peace faction within the japanese and we can build that if you will put the embargo off them up but they were determined to embargo oil and scrap iron, and they make it difficult for the japanese to receive that to any of that comes to the japanese war party gains ascendancy in tokyo and plans world harbor. so people always say do you think fdr knew about pearl harbor? i think fdr he knew an attack was coming, and he knew an attack is probably coming the first of december, the first two weeks of december, but where was a going to be? almost everyone thought it would be on singapore and probably the

philippines. the japanese had 50,000 troops in saigon, vietnam, back then french indochina. living to the fdr and general marcia had the war department worn the bases to go on high alert. if i had an hour, i could go over what happened at pearl harbor. it is the perfect storm of mistakes. everyone there believed -- they were in command, but in command with the attitude it does not matter anyway because we will not be attacked, so why bother? that is a bad way to do it. other commanders had done that, but if it was 1932, 1934, 19 36, and you are a commander in hawaii, you could have that

attitude and you could spend two years in hawaii and not do all lot. but in december 1941, it was a poor way to run things. i don't think fdr directing new about pearl harbor, but he knew an attack was coming. for 1900im anti-aircraft guns and given away hundreds of fire planes. they did not have the weapons either. they were very shorthanded. admiral richardson had gotten fired -- we point this out in the book -- he was pacific fleet commander in 1940 and of realist, and a very capable officer, and he went to the white house finally in 1940, and argued for two hours with franklin roosevelt about keeping the fleet at pearl harbor, and he said we are vulnerable and need to move the fleet back to

california, and finally it became heated and he finally told franklin roosevelt, mr. president, i have to inform you that most of the leaders of the pacific fleet do not have confidence in you to lead our navy. fdr did not do anything at that precise moment. he would not act on what he said, and he finally, fdr was elected in november in 1940, third term, and right after the election he fires him. i don't know a movie has gone into the life of admiral richardson or not, but he is back in the united states on the day pearl harbor is attacked, and he is sitting there getting all that news and he knows, i warned them over a year ago, and it still happened. >> thanks. did fdr acknowledge any limits

, constitutional limits on the commander in chief in world war ii? you mention the and term and i have also read historical accounts about the military tribunals. some of the historical accounts i have read said he let it be known through back channels of that if the supreme court tries to challenge my authority to execute these people, i was executed them anyway. i just wonder if he acknowledged a limits on the power of commander in chief during wartime, whether the bill of rights had any application. >> i have not seen any. if he did, i have not run across them. he tended not to like to talk about those things. judging by his actions, and i have not seen in the indications he felt there were those particular restrictions that

applied to him during wartime. reminds me sometimes, maybe bill clinton reminds me of fdr because both men are very smart and careful not to step on landmines if they don't have to, so fdr just frequently ignore the constitution. he simply ignored it. >> let me ask a follow-up. for the past four years, we have debated a good bit whether the getting out of the great depression is a good model for getting out of the great recession today. there have been people on both sides, many sides of that. should there be a similar debate roosevelt's treatment of civil liberties in wartime is a model for what we've done , or should be as a cautionary model? roosevelt, by putting 110

thousand japanese americans into internment camps has gone way beyond anything we have seen today, but roosevelt, keep in mind, there was a political angle to that. he endorsed governor doing that, the motive seems to be heavy political. we would talk about this often . the the japanese were such good workers and had been successful in the vegetable industry, that many anglo-saxons felt competitive pressures. if you would pull california, you would find there is a majority of non japanese that thought that if we get these guys out of the way, that is a good thing. roosevelt played to that to put them into the internment camps. even j edgar hoover said they are not dangerous. don't do this. he did it anyway and the attorney general did not like it, but roosevelt enjoyed the

political success of removing them. not only are they removed and cannot vote against me, but they are removed and those people will be voting for roosevelt. finally the western coordinator, with the japanese saying, why are they still here? they have been here for years. we let some of them out. they join the army and they are highly decorated people. you might indict an individual who show signs of having made overtures that should cause him to be investigated. you're talking about whole group of people, grandma, the six-year-old come all of these people are put in the camps. it was atrocious. so you have people who are actually in charge of the camp saying, no, this is not right, and roosevelt keeps it going and finally secretary aitkin says, you know what? i have been around roosevelt a long time. i have a feeling that after the election he is going to change,

and sure enough, the first cabinet meeting after the 1944 election after roosevelt is house elected, three seats gaining california, and we work on getting the japanese out of the internment camps. some of it is a politics issue. there are political advantages to roosevelt to choose this. there were military people who thought they should put the japanese in the camps. it wasn't just roosevelt. there are many who said don't do this, and there were some that do, and roosevelt said let's put them in there and took a lyrical advantage of this and lifted the restrictions when he was safely reelected. right, we will take one last question here. i just want to ask a couple of questions. one is that 90% plus corporate tax rate, does that apply across the board to companies always a

part of the corporate tax system ? >> it was across the board. you had an earnings restriction, but it was not very high. most companies were not caught if not at the 90% level, at least pretty close to it. certainly all major corporations had been caught at the 90% level so that was in place. it is important to note that roosevelt and many of his followers wanted to keep it that it, becausee to after the war it was going to be a source of revenue for a home and a good education and a right to a job. >> just on the politics of truman, could he have vetoed these reductions in taxes if you wanted to? could have and didn't. he was not enthusiastic about it, but when along with it. i'm not sure if roosevelt would have vetoed it.

but again, roosevelt is gone and you trying to think what would he have done, but truman was willing at least on this first tax cut to go along with it, and part of it was is he is new on his job in congress is urging him to do it, but when further further tax cuts were passed by congress in 1946 and and 1947, he vetoed them again and again and again and ran against them in 1948 calling them tax cuts for the rich and made that the basis fundamental basis of his , 1948 campaign for re-election. most of the money was going back to the rich, not towards a small guy. >> all right. the book is fdr goes to war. thank you all for being here could let's break for lunch. [applause] on history bookshelf, here from the country's best-known american history writers of the past decade every saturday at 4:00 p.m. eastern. you can watch any of our programs at any time and visit

our website c-span.org/history. watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span three. lookncer: we continue our at the history of reading california where we will hear about this cities native son earl charles behrens. >> growing up in a small town like redding, california, it was a learning ground for someone who is going to be eventually a journalist. as he got older, he received many accolades, many wards. , butceived recognition probably the most important was he received the presidential medal of freedom in 1970 by then-president richard nixon.

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