“How about you call me Cordell, and I call you Mr. President? That way neither of us slips up in front of some foreign dignitary. Take the respect where you can find it. Some of your least favorite congressmen are referring to you as ‘Old Three-Term.’ Among other, um…interesting names.”
Roosevelt nodded, hand on his chin. “I’ve heard some of those other names. Some of them quite colorful.” He paused. “I didn’t want three terms. I pushed you as hard as I could. You were the best man for the job, but you wouldn’t take the nomination, and God help us if some isolationist from either party had won the election. The British are already in a load of trouble—Churchill’s begging for our help. If we had elected somebody new, somebody who decided he’d rather listen to Charles Lindbergh’s nonsense, that would have been a pure catastrophe for this country. I’m so sick of those congressmen who think they’re representing their constituents by pretending that Hitler is only a problem over there. God knows what’s going to happen to the French people, the Belgians, the Norwegians, Dutch, Danes, and anybody else who’s already under Hitler’s boots. And who’s next? It scares the hell out of me, Cordell, that the British might cease to be a nation. All the while, big noisy voices in this country are telling the American people that it’s none of our affair. I wonder how those fools will feel when German U-boats show up in every river on our coastline.”
He paused again, seemed to catch his breath. “Sorry, I’m ranting a bit. But you’ve done a fair share of speechmaking on your own. There’s probably a few over in the Capitol who listen to you more than they do to me—you’re not quite as despised as I am. If you’d have accepted the nomination, I wouldn’t be sitting here now raising my blood pressure.”
“I’m older than you are. Best not talk to me about blood pressure.”
Roosevelt smiled. “Fair assessment.”
Hull debated saying anything else. He had endured enormous pressure from Roosevelt to run for president, so many in the Democratic Party believing that Hull was the best man available to carry on the policies they all saw as critical for the survival of the free world. But the isolationist sentiment was astounding, Congress split nearly fifty-fifty. Often, Hull had gone to Capitol Hill, speaking or lobbying for one of Roosevelt’s programs, which seemed to him so obviously positive for the country. But closed minds fought every effort. The opposition to Roosevelt’s policies came mostly from adversaries in the Republican Party. But even in his own party, there were those who insisted they spoke for the folks back home, insisting in their own public forums and local newspapers that as long as the world’s problems remained outside the borders of the United States, they had no effect on anyone within those borders. And all too often, those voices were being believed.
But the secretary of state was not necessarily immune to the hostility that so many had directed toward his president. Hull was well liked and well respected, even among some of the most difficult members of the opposition. If that would have resulted in President Hull, no one could say, and he would not speculate. Once Hull had adamantly refused Roosevelt’s push that he accept the party’s nomination, Roosevelt had made the decision to run himself, seeking an unprecedented third term in office. Despite the howls of protest about what some called Roosevelt’s blatant power grab, what the Republican opposition failed to understand, and certainly underestimated, was the positive sentiment toward Roosevelt among the American public. He won overwhelmingly.
There had been no doubt that Hull would continue as secretary of state. He was as much a confidant of Roosevelt’s as an influential member of the cabinet. With Roosevelt’s people preparing for his third inauguration on January 20, Hull couldn’t avoid speaking out to Roosevelt about a serious concern.
“Please forgive me, but I’ve been chewing on this for a while now. You know that I fully support just about every program you’ve proposed…”
“You wrote some of them.”
“Well, yes. Please, let me say this. I fully believe we need to support our allies and push back at our potential enemies. You sitting in that chair for another term was the best way to accomplish all of that.”
Roosevelt seemed impatient. “Yes, yes. So, I’m here. The people said, ‘Fine. Keep at it.’ That’s that.”
“My concern is what might happen in the future. By you winning a third term, you’ve established a precedent. Down the road, twenty years, fifty, a hundred, someone who has his own interests in mind more than the country’s, some demagogue…Well, you know what could happen.”
“Have faith in the future, Cordell. Faith in the people. That’s all we can do. I can’t look that far down the road. What we are facing right now could be the greatest crisis the world has ever known; you know that too. It’s one reason why the kind of bitching coming at me from people like Admiral Richardson just isn’t to be tolerated.”
“You were going to tell me what he’s done?”
“Right, yes. So, Admiral Richardson was here back in October. You know that, of course. He sat right there in that chair and told me that the military in this country had lost faith in their civilian leadership, in my leadership. Didn’t even couch it in friendly terms. Gave me all the same reasons I’ve heard before, why our naval base at Pearl Harbor is a gigantic mistake. He thinks that by having our fleet based out there, we’re provoking the Japanese. Why the hell would they want a war with us? I told him then, and I’ve been telling him since, that having our fleet in Hawaii is a cautionary symbol, reminding the Japanese that they simply can’t gallop all over the Pacific as they please.
“You know better than I do that the Australians are with us on this. Hell, the British want us to send ships to Singapore; the Free French are afraid they’re going to lose all of Indo-China. There are already Japanese troops around Hanoi, and we think they’re building airfields. The Chinese have their hands full trying to win a war on their own land. Yes, I said war. The Japanese still refer to their invasion as the Chinese problem, as though Chiang Kai-shek caused the whole thing. If we have the fleet in Hawaii, at least we’re showing that we care, for God’s sake. Can you imagine what kind of message it would send to every single one of our allies, as well as to the Japanese, if we suddenly sailed away, pulled everybody back to California? But that’s what Richardson insists we do. He beat me over the head with his so-called reasoning. The commander in chief of our entire Pacific fleet thinks the Japanese are too militant to be scared off by us having ships in Hawaii.
“I know something about the navy, Cordell. Big ships mean big power. So it seems to me that the more militant anyone is, including the Japanese, the more they’ll respect someone else’s military power. It should be simple, even to Admiral Richardson. If you’re stronger than the other guy, he’ll mind his manners. Bringing the Pacific fleet back from Hawaii will look like a show of weakness. I do not understand how an experienced admiral cannot grasp that.”