134 e lusive v ictories
More than any other American wartime president, Roosevelt con-
sciously tried to retain his freedom of action. Preserving his options had
been a hallmark of his domestic leadership style. He much preferred to
test the waters before making a commitment. Notwithstanding his rep-
utation as a public communicator, he was careful not to get too far in
front of public opinion; when he erred in his reading of the public
mood—such as during the scheme to pack the Supreme Court—he
swiftly backpedaled. Both before and during American involvement in
the Second World War, Roosevelt adroitly avoided and delayed making
choices that would commit him to a course of action from which he
could not retreat. Th us he serves as the ideal test case for the propo-
sition that presidents lose the capacity to shape events over the course
of a confl ict. We saw this pattern fi rst with Lincoln, then it recurred
with Wilson. So, too, with Roosevelt: his decisions, the irresistible
momentum they created, and the actions of others combined to narrow
his range of choices.
Th at Roosevelt would be thwarted in his drive to dictate the course
of the war became evident even in the several years before the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor. Th e fi rst task for a president facing the prospect
of war is to determine whether the national interest of the United States
requires that it resort to and prepare for the use of force. Roosevelt had
grasped the threat posed by Germany under Hitler and concluded the
United States must help stop him. Rather than act on that conviction,
however, he worried more about holding open his options. But his
eff orts failed, in part because of events beyond his control and in part
because the very steps he took to avoid being forced to choose back-
fi red. As for preparing for war, Roosevelt acted even before Germany
struck Poland in September 1939 to redress glaring weaknesses in Amer-
ican military readiness. Yet his hesitation about full preparedness,
driven mainly by politics, delayed the military buildup and left Ameri-
cans unconvinced about the wisdom of entering the war until the attack
on Pearl Harbor settled the matter.
Roosevelt rebounded from his prewar equivocation to become a
highly eff ective wartime chief executive. He approached the confl ict
with a clear (though often unstated) sense of national objectives, both
for the war and its aftermath, which included a vision of the postwar
world order more ambitious even than Wilson’s. In the space of several