Book makes some very interesting points, but - germane to this thread - suggests that FDR wasn't determined to stop the Holocaust because he was already in hot water over our entry into WWII.
FDR did a lot to get the US into war with Germany, including harassing U-boats while we were not at war with Germany, and he tried to get opponents of American participation in WWII voted out of office after Pearl Harbor - the trouble being, before Pearl Harbor 80% of Americans opposed entry into WWII. So if your congressman agreed with you before Pearl Harbor, and if he agreed with you after Pearl Harbor, why would you want to vote against him? You didn't.
So FDR, according to Flemming, was afraid that if he made a big deal about the treatment of Jews there would be a backlash of "So that's why he was so eager to get us into WWII! Jews!"
With one thing and another, it is really quite a thought-provoking book.
FDR sided with the British, true enough. And then the Germans started attacking US merchant ships and US Naval ships as early as the summer of 1940.
And when Pearl Harbor came along FDR still did not get us into war with Germany, Hitler did. Hitler decalred war on the USA even thought the Axis Treaty did not require him to assist Japan.
It was Hiter's choice to have a low level conflict with the USA blow up into a major war. He did so against the advise of almost all of his leaders and advisers. Had Hitler remained silent about the USA then Japan would've faced the full fury of the US military and Germany would have stood a chance against Britain and the USSR.
The last sixty years may have been a different world had Hitler not taken on the USA.
But it was Hitler who started the war with the USA. FDR might've pissed off a tyrant, but the tyrant started the war.
The whole issue of racism at that time is irrelevant. It was the way things were back then. Things have changed and for the better.
Still, no one could've imagined the horrors unleashed by Hitler against the Jews and many people at the time found the scope of the atrocity unbelievable. It really was not until the 1970's and another generation before the world really started to take a serious look at the Holocaust. And now the pendulum has swung to where it is a CRIME in all western nations except the USA to state your doubts about aspects of the Holocaust.
You need to read historical texts of the time to get a grasp of the context in which events were viewed back then. It is patently illogical to measure the events of the 1940's by the cultural values of the 21st century.
And I still go back to the fact that intelligence (spying) was not trusted in the USA as it was in Britain and elsewhere. When intel showed up about the Holocaust it was judged to be rumor and not fact. Dean Acheson once commented that George C. Marshall thought the Holocaust might be a diversion as the Germans had seen how sensitive the Americans were to Japanese atrocities.
While we're at it. Let's address the 'genocide' in the Balkans that Clinton used to have the USA attack Yugoslavia. With modern satellite surveillance and "trusted" sources of intelligence they still got it wrong. The whole thing was a lie.
Now imagine yourself a military leader of 1940 when telephone service was spotty at best and you get a report of a huge death camp. You can use the resources you have to attack known targets or you can dedicate your valuable resources and the lives of your soldiers and airmen to chasing something that may be a diversion.
If I were FDR or Marshall in the 1940's with the intel they had at hand >> I would have done NOTHING different <<.
Because they won the war, didn't they?
Instead of whining about what *might* have happened how about we talk about what DID happen?
Because Hitler was defeated by the Allies there were fifteen million Jews who DID NOT get killed in the Holocaust.
I'm sorry for the people who got killed, but to assail the country that sacrificed four million dead to defeat fascism PISSES me off.
Had Hitler not been defeated there wouldn't be an Israel.
I'm no FDR lover, but the man deserves a Thank You instead of some moron peeing on his memory.