In one notorious incident, Roosevelt assured Long that he would not let refugee advocates "pull any sob stuff" on him. Assistant Secretary Breckinridge Long, who was in charge of refugee matters, reported to the president on his efforts to keep refugees out. The State Department did not create its own foreign policy.
That's true -but it should not absolve Roosevelt. Next, Smith blames the State Department for abandoning the Jews. During the years the Nazis were slaughtering six million European Jews (1941-1945), nearly 190,000 quota places from Axis-controlled countries sat unused. The quotas from Hitler-controlled countries were almost never filled, because the Roosevelt administration created bureaucratic obstacles to reduce refugee immigration to levels far below what the law permitted. Again and again, he tries to find other parties to blame.įirst, Smith blames Congress for enacting tight immigration quotas - but he ignores the fact that Roosevelt could have saved many refugees just by quietly permitting the existing immigration quotas to be filled, without changing a single law. Smith acknowledges that the US failed to take significant measures to help the Jews in Europe - but he refuses to assign any of the responsibility to President Roosevelt. This perception has been reinforced by an Obama spokesman's confirmation that the president-elect is currently reading Jonathan Alter's book about Roosevelt's first hundred days, as well as Jean Edward Smith's biography, FDR.Īlter told reporters, "It's just nice that we're going to have a president that has a strong sense of history." True enough, but one hopes the new president will be careful to separate the wheat from the chaff, because when it comes to the issue of FDR's response to the Holocaust, Smith's book is deeply flawed. Roosevelt look-alike dramatically illustrated the widespread expectation that the new president intends to govern in the spirit of FDR and the New Deal.
The recent Time magazine cover depicting Barack Obama as a Franklin D. NOTE! Consider delaying until first div on page If (slot) slot.addService(googletag.pubads()) (function (a, d, o, r, i, c, u, p, w, m) Will biased FDR biographers mislead Obama? - The Jerusalem Post
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