Greasing the skids for war ... most democracies are enticed by this .. it is the morphine for the state (addict). ... The late Robert Sherwood, a Roosevelt ghost writer, has written that on a trip through New England on October 30 FDR was flooded with telegrams “stating almost tearfully that if the President did not give his solemn promise to the mothers, he might as well start packing his belongings at the White House.” For this reason, Sherwood explained, the President that night in a speech in Boston spoke those unforgettable lines: “I have said this before, but I shall say it again – and again – and again – your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign war.” ... The President’s campaign promises did not square with an impression I was getting from insiders. In October, Vice President John Nance Garner called me into his room off the Senate floor. He had just come from a Cabinet meeting. “I’ll bet you a grand,” the Vice President [stated], “that we’re in the war by June first of next year.” Garner paused, ruminating, then added: “[Secretary of State Cordell] Hull is more anxious to go to war with the Japs than the Chief is.” I asked why. “Because he thinks we’ve got to go to war with them sometime and we might as well do it now,” the Vice President said... The people who grease the skids rarely have their lives at stake on the battlefield, in the air or at sea ... they are usually behind desks. :(
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 00:03:57 +0000
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