138 e lusive v ictories
Public timidity was something European dictators had come to
expect from the political heads of the major democracies. Hitler
dismissed Roosevelt as, in the words of historian Donald Cameron
Watt, “simply another democratic halfling, half-dolt, half-dupe.”
Toward such leaders, the führer felt only contempt, and his scorn had
increased with their craven efforts to appease him at Munich. His
disdain was shared by Joseph Stalin, who concluded that the Soviet
Union also could not rely on feckless allies in the West and decided
instead to cut a deal with Germany, the Non-Aggression Pact signed on
August 23, 1939. For Stalin, the agreement at least bought time to put
his country’s defenses in better order. Hitler, knowing the Soviet
Union would not take the side of Great Britain and France, readied his
fi nal plans for Poland, whose only friends were too far away.
Germany’s attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, left the Roosevelt
administration groping for a new policy toward Europe. Th e president
saw at once that a German victory would pose a grave threat to Amer-
ican national security. He now understood that Hitler’s ambitions were
insatiable. Better to oppose him in alliance with other significant
powers than face him alone, much less confront him while also coping
with the Japanese menace in the Far East. At the same time, however,
Roosevelt refused to go beyond the off er to help meet the Allies’ needs
for armaments. He intended to assist them to prevent a German
triumph (Benito Mussolini and Italy did not join the war on Berlin’s
side until June 1940), and thereby contain the war within Europe. But
he expected the British and French to resist successfully without direct
American military intervention—anticipating at worst a reprise of the
Western Front stalemate of 1914–1917.
Above all, the president sought to retain his cherished freedom of
action, to hold open all possible options. He approached the situation
as a shrewd politician. Roosevelt’s stance refl ected his strong personal
style: he preferred to let others advocate particular positions, to commit
themselves, so he could gauge the reactions of various key players before
reaching his own decision. Th e method had suited him well in domestic
politics, where he would sometimes delay before attaching himself to a
policy initiative until the political benefi ts were fully clear, yet still in
time to secure much of the political credit. (The plan to pack the
Supreme Court stood out as a rare misstep for so consummate a