168 e lusive v ictories
At a press conference in late 1943, Roosevelt seemed to recognize that
the Great Depression and the reformist political momentum that it had
inspired were gone for good. Th e crisis had necessitated bold steps for
recovery, he said, but these had succeeded and “Doctor New Deal” was
no longer needed. Now the time had come for “Doctor Win-the-War”
to organize the great effort to defeat the menace posed by German
Nazism and Japanese militarism. Yet just a few weeks later, in his 1944
State of the Union Address, the president issued a stirring call for an
economic bill of rights to guarantee every citizen a job, a living wage,
adequate housing and medical care, education, and protection from a
range of circumstances that would leave people insecure. It may have
been his most radical speech in terms of advocacy of public social pro-
vision, and liberals reacted enthusiastically to his call. But the speech
could amount to little more than campaign posturing for the 1944 race,
something with which to inspire the political legions of the left. Major
legislative proposals did not follow, for the sensible reason that they
would have gone nowhere in the conservative Congress and done no
more than highlight the president’s political weakness.
Strategies for Global War
Franklin Roosevelt picked outstanding men to help him plan and direct
American military operations in the Second World War. It helped, as
historians have noted, that the president already knew how to build an
eff ective political coalition because that exercise resembled assembling
a powerful military force. Typical of Roosevelt, he rejected recom-
mendations to appoint an overall military commander (whose power
might have off set his own) and let the membership of the new Joint
Chiefs of Staff (JCS) evolve in the early war period, without ever giving
the body formal authority.
In George C. Marshall, the army chief of staff , the president found a
truly extraordinary military leader to guide the formation of the largest
fi eld army in American history, select many of its key leaders, and keep
Allied strategy properly focused. Ernest J. King, installed as com-
mander in chief of the United States Navy just after Pearl Harbor and
soon thereafter also as chief of naval operations, demonstrated a keen
grasp of global strategic tensions. Although seen by many, especially the