3 What Ifs from Jon Meacham's Franklin and Winston

Over my vacation I read Jon Meacham's Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship. It was a good book and I can certainly recommend it, but I try not to give full reviews of straight history books on this blog. Nevertheless, there were some counterfactuals scattered throughout the book that grabbed my attention.

You see even the most straight laced historian dabbles in what ifs from time to time. Often it is even unintentional. If a historian says "because of x, we got y", then presumably if we remove x, then there won't be a y. Meacham is no exception to this phenomenon and here are the top three what ifs from his novel:

#1: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt divorce

Although perhaps unknown at the time by the general public, Roosevelt's extramarital affairs are well known to historians. After Eleanor found out about his affair with Lucy Mercer in 1918, Eleanor threatened to divorce him, which would have meant the doom of his political career. Franklin promised to stop seeing her, but he continued to do so in secret. Then in 1921, Franklin contracted polio and became paralyzed. Nevertheless, he continued his career in politics and became the only president of the United States to be elected four times.

Meacham briefly argued that Franklin's paralysis was actually a boon to his political career. He believed that if Franklin had never contracted polio, he would have had more affairs and would have been less discreet. Eleanor would have eventually have found out and would have carried out her threat to divorce Franklin. Being a divorced man in the 1920s would have ruined his chance at high office and thus someone else would have to carry the burden of leading America during the Great Depression and WWII.

While it is difficult to speculate on what would happen if someone else other than Roosevelt led America during these difficult times, I am not entirely convinced Eleanor would have divorced Franklin if she had caught him cheating again. If life could be difficult for a divorced man back in the early 20th century, just think how difficult it would be for a divorced woman. Eleanor lived a very public life as well and championed causes that often put her at odds with her husband. Her ability to live her life the way she wanted could have been hampered as well by a divorce so she may have just sucked up the embarrassment and come to some other understanding with her husband. Then again considering the liberal principles she held dear, she may still have divorced Franklin. Sometimes it is easier to see how a nation will change in an alternate history than how a single individual will change.

#2: The Anglo-American Union

It is a well known fact that Winston Churchill, after he became Prime Minister of Britain, sought to bring the United States into the war against Nazi Germany as soon as possible. What is not as well-known is Churchill's dreams about what to do after this feat was accomplished. As Franklin and Winston worked together to lead their countries in the fight against the Axis powers, Winston floated ideas about a closer union between the two countries, including shared passports and a common currency. There is no denying that Churchill wished to unite the English speaking peoples of the world (he stated as much in his own alternate history work: "If Lee had not Won the Battle of Gettysburg") and perhaps he thought now was the best time do it.

It is hard to pinpoint an exact point of divergence for this one. For such a union to occur the positions of the United States and Britain would need to be vastly different. Post-war Britain would need to be better off, the United States would need to be weaker and the peoples of both nations would need see such a union as mutually beneficial. Even if they wanted it there are still plenty of kinks to work out. For example, what would be the status of the British Empire? Its perhaps not much of a stretch to think that Canada and Australia would be treated as equals, but what about India or Nigeria? FDR was a proponent of self-determination, while Winston stated again and again he would not preside over the dismemberment of the Empire. Would the majority non-white states be allowed full membership or would 1940s racial ideas win out and they would be pushed out of the decision making?

Nonetheless, such a union never came to be and the many parts of the British Empire gained independence. Today the American-British alliance is still strong, which Meacham argues is a testament to the very real friendship of Franklin and Winston. Still one wonders what would have happened if such a union ever came about. Would it be something like today's European Union or would it be something else entirely? Would other nations not affiliated with America or the British Empire join? How would this bloc handle the Cold War with the Soviets? So many questions and no real plausible answers.

#3: Rommel at the Suez

We have come now to perhaps the most important what if in Franklin and Winston. When Winston Churchill learned of the fall of Tobruk and the surrender of 35,000 Allied troopes, he was visiting Franklin Roosevelt in the United States. Looking sad and dejected upon hearing the news, Franklin reached out to his friend and offered whatever help he and America provided. Winston asked for the Sherman tanks that were supposed to be given to the American Army. Franklin agreed and 300 new Sherman tanks were handed over to the British and saw combat at the Second Battle of El Alamein that ended the Axis advance to the Suez and beyond and likely saved the lives of the Palestinian Jews.

The crux of Meacham's argument in his book is that the friendship between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill was a contributing factor to the Allied victory in WWII. If Churchill had been less successful "courting Roosevelt" (the author's words, not mine exactly) or someone else had been in the White House, then the United States may have been less willing to part with their new tanks. Without the equipment, Rommell may have been victorious at El Alamein and could have crossed the Suez into the Middle East. Such a dramatic defeat could have led to the end of Churchill's government and Britain may have sought a separate peace with Germany, allowing Hitler to turn his full attention on the Soviet Union. Although Japan would probably still be doomed at this point, an alternate Cold War with the United States squaring off against Nazi Europe was still possible.

Then again the war could have still ended in an Allied victory, it just would have taken longer with the Soviets having to liberate the rest of Europe (although perhaps a longer war on the Eastern Front could have led to the Soviets negotiating their own peace with the Germans). Then again one can argue that Meacham put too much emphasis on the friendship between the world leaders and that any President would see that the deteriorating strategic situation in North Africa needed to be fixed and would have given the tanks to Churchill regardless of what he thought of him personally. Nevertheless, when Churchill was at his lowest, FDR reached out to help a friend and if he or someone else didn't do that, the world could have been a very different place.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The President That Never Was: A DBWI Alternate History by Tyler “tbguy1992” Bugg

Entry for the DBWI Writing Contest.

On June 7, 2013, the Chairman of the Australian based International History Council, Sir Alan Dearing, held a discussion with author Ken Harper, the writer of a new book, The President That Never Was, a substitution history of how forgotten New York Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt nearly became the President of the United States, and what his role in America and around the world could have been. This is a small portion of the two hour interview that was held in Sydney, and to be fully printed in the July edition of the Historians International Monthly.

DEARING: What exactly is the basis for this book?

HARPER: When I was still in the United States studying at Yale, I came across the papers of a former governor of New York State, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was running for the Presidency in 1932 as a Democrat; however the revelation that polio had crippled his legs and prevented him from walking without iron braces had scuttled his chances for running. The Democratic Party instead turned to John Nance Garner, who won against the incumbent Republican, Herbert Hoover. After reading through the papers, I began to envision a world where Roosevelt was elected, and the consequences that would have.

DEARING: Despite his disability, you paint a very robust and upbeat Franklin Roosevelt.

HARPER: Even before he contracted polio, he was a very energetic man, serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Great War and in other high government positions. After his illness in the 1920s, Roosevelt would work twice as hard, eventually becoming Governor of New York despite his illness. However, the revelation that he was confined to a wheelchair ended his chances to be President, and he would retire to a comfortable life at his family’s estate at Hyde Park, as well as his secondary home at Warm Springs, Georgia, passing away in his sleep in 1952.

DEARING: The president that could have been you proposed in your story seems almost superhuman, getting things done that many presidents had failed to do. In comparison to what actually happened, why do you say this, when even right now the US is struggling in yet another Depression?

HARPER: He was a very charismatic man, giving one liners that, though most are forgotten today, were both uplifting and steadfast in his time. One of my favorites, which he wrote to a family friend in 1935, was “The only thing you and I have to fear is fear.” In his short run for President, he never made any specific policy announcements, besides that the Great Depression must be fought, and that America was great, instead saying that he was willing to try whatever he could. I think through his words alone, he could have convinced the US that he would do whatever he could to rectify the Great Depression, though whether he could or not would never be seen. President Garner, though a very capable man, did not have the way with words as Roosevelt did. The programs he got through Congress in his first year, like Social Assistance and the Jobs Council, were very much the result of compromise with the strong Republican minority and conservative Democrats, which the liberal Roosevelt would not have tolerated to the same degree. While America was lifted out of the Depression by 1936 in our history, partially from massive make work projects and cutting taxes for businesses to virtually nothing, I would argue that under Roosevelt it could have happened sooner with more proactive, government supported actions.

DEARING: Perhaps the biggest change, and the one that has had many critics complain, was the foreign policy of your fictional presidency. Why do you think that he would have been very proactive in external affairs, going so far as to aid the British in their doomed war effort, and picking a fight with Japan?

HARPER: I will answer the second part of the question first. It wasn't necessarily that Roosevelt picked a fight with Japan that it looks like he did in my story: in the various crises that occurred in the 1930s that damaged the relationship with the Empire and America, such as the sinking of the Panay in China during the 1936 invasion, the occupation of French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies would have been met with economic countermeasures, such as in embargo of oil and steel. Now, not to say that it is right or wrong, but President Garner, in his view that America was not strong enough, nor cared to fight an overseas enemy, instead continued diplomacy with a militant Japan. This would eventually end American involvement in the Philippines, which almost promptly fell into the East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere as a bloodless triumph. While we are close allies with Japan today, in the alliance brokered by President Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. in the 1960s, before then it looked very much like war, or at least a vicious trade struggle, would ensue.

As for Britain, my President Roosevelt was taking a long term view that some American politicians to this day never did: Britain was the one bulwark that could protect America from a cross-Atlantic attack, with the Royal Navy of the 1940s and  their strategic position against a Nazi Europe. It is clear that Prime Minister Winston Churchill, though leader of Britain for a few months after the “Great Appeaser” Neville Chamberlain’s death in November 1940, had depended on the US’s involvement in the Western European War to prevent the spread of fascism. Garner, a great domestic president, was pushed around in foreign affairs by the dictators of the era, and the American people, led by the likes of Charles Lindbergh, had no interest in overseas military intervention. It would come back to haunt us in the Hot Peace, when we had few allies to turn to against a militant Europe and Soviet Union.

DEARING: Now, the diplomatic moves that your Roosevelt put against Japan can be seen as cause for war. Yet, you think that Japan would have settled it peacefully, and not actually engaged us in war. Why do you think so?

HARPER: The Japanese leadership of the 1930s and 40s would, and should, have known that America was a sleeping giant, one that could use its vast economic might to crush them in any total war. Roosevelt was known as a man that would not back down unless he got what he wanted, or if the greater majority of the public disapproved of it. I think he would have been prepared to go to war with Japan, but only after getting the American people to support him. That was going to be the big issue, getting the American people to support a war that they otherwise had no interest in. It wasn't like Japan had the capabilities in the 1940s to launch an attack against us, which would perhaps be the only way to get the American public of the Thirties and Forties interested in wars on the other side of the oceans that protect us.

DEARING: In your analysis, you think that Roosevelt would have wanted to run a third term. No president has ever succeeded in getting a third term, but what would make you think he would?

HARPER: Roosevelt’s uncle, Theodore Roosevelt, was the closest to ever winning a third term in 1912, so I think it runs in the family. I’m sure the desire to lead the nation, not for selfish reasons but because they feel that his job would not be done, would have convinced him to try for a third term. However, I highly doubt the American people would have went along with that, and an effective Republican campaign, like that of Charles Lindbergh in 1940, would have painted Roosevelt as a dictator like those he opposed, trying to keep himself in power. He would have run, but I highly doubt he would have won.

DEARING: Now, this book has been banned in both the Third Reich and in the Soviet Union. You paint a very bright picture of the Soviets in your book, saying that Roosevelt would have supported the Russians if the Nazi’s had invaded. What do you have to say about that?

HARPER: The Soviet Union was in greater danger than they could have realized in 1941, before the failed attempt at a British Invasion in the west distracted Hitler. Even reading Mein Kampf, it’s clear that Hitler wanted to attack and annex large parts of Russia, but the long drawn out battle with England sapped his and Germany’s strength, and Hitler’s death in 1946 before Germany was fully recovered from the war ensured that he would never attack the Soviet Union. The alliance the two established in 1939, and reaffirmed every few years, seems to be a historical certainty, but I think the Soviets got off lucky.

As for the censorship, I do not mind. The Third Reich and the Soviets are, if maybe at one point at different ends of the political scale, are now almost virtually identical in their methods of government and education. I cannot see them understanding that this kind of fiction is not only plausible, but could have been so likely to happen.

DEARING: One final question: if Roosevelt had been president, exactly how great would he have been ranked?

HARPER: That is perhaps the hardest question. It completely depends on how successful his domestic policies were, and if he kept America out of war. I’m sure he would have repaired the economy as quickly as he could, which alone could have cemented his status. However, he did seem more bellicose in international affairs, which, while he may have gotten a war to fight, it would not have been what the American people wanted. So, if he repaired America and served two terms without sparking a war, I’m sure he would be recognized as one of the Greats, like how we see George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and (arguably) Jimmy Carter today. If he did get us in a war, it depends on the circumstances. I highly doubt he would have because he was militant, but because he thought that it was right. The people of the time may not have recognized it, but history always will.

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Tyler "tbguy1992" Bugg is an aspiring writer, history student, gamer and Canadian, and somehow managed to merge all four into his current project, a Fanfiction set in Manitoba in the Fallout gaming universe. His first published short story, "From Enigma to Paradox" can be found in the Alternate History Anthology Substitution Cipher. He is also barely on Twitter.

Op Ed: FDR's Dilemma

I present to you a new column for Alternate History Weekly Update, "Op Ed" with Henry Martin.

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Seventy years ago today the United States declared war on Japan after a devastating surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. However, it was not a total surprise, for US Secretary of War Henry Stimson had discussed with US President Roosevelt concerning the escalation of the war in China and Southeast Asia. It was expected that Japan would attack US fleets and the president and his advisers were considering ways to maneuver Japan into firing the first shot.

What if, instead of moving the fleet to Hawaii in early 1941, FDR had deployed the fleet to actively patrol the Pacific between Hawaii and the Philippines? This would have been a 'moving target.' This would have been provocative enough to cause Japan to move on the fleet, but the 'first shot' they fired would not be as devastating.

Better writers than I have written variations of this, I am sure, but the point of this essay is to demonstrate that we can learn perhaps as much from considering alternatives as we can from actual mistakes. This is a function of the alternative history genre that is not often appreciated.

Knowing what we know today, we can backtrack days or even moments from a disaster such as the one on that Sunday morning in 1941 and consider what 'could have,' indeed maybe what 'should have' been done to prevent what many 'knew' was inevitable. In this case, for example, FDR and his advisers took the chance that Japan did not have the means to strike half an ocean away, and they lost that 'bet.' If however, they had taken different measures, such as I supposed above, the US would have begun the war in the Pacific on a stronger footing.

With a intact fleet on the water and ready for battle, Japan may have opted for a different move, perhaps even agreeing to some concessions in French Indochina as requested in November. The war in Europe would have most likely lead to an eventual declaration of war there anyway, and that would have drawn Japan into the war with the US as well. There are so many different twists and turns to consider that a student of history would have to do some intense research to understand the strengths and weaknesses of various campaigns in Europe in 1942 that may have gone differently if the US FDR had planned his Pacific strategy different.

As one works through all the myriad of changes in an alternate history of this magnitude, he becomes aware of the interactions of things far removed from each other. The butterfly and the domino become players on opposite ends of a long string of possibilities and probabilities. Luck and logic coalesce to activate the imagination to perhaps produce a better decision the next time we are faced with a dilemma.

In honor of the 2466 killed that day (including 64 Japanese warriors), we can imagine 'what if' the US president had not taken the chances that he did in 1941. How many lives would have been saved if the attack on Pearl Harbor had been avoided? Perhaps more people would have died in the long run, but not the same ones. There is no way of knowing. But what we can know is that we, with the gift of hindsight, can learn from both fact and fiction.

Toward a better alternative,

Henry Martin