this book also sheds light on how FDR was such a traitor to us all
re: FDR, I’m just reading a book this evening that refers to a private letter written by Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (son of Teddy R.) who was traveling in Italy in 1933 and had a private audience with Mussolini (common then for such leading Americans to be invited in to meet with heads of state). Anyway, Ted, Jr. reports that Mussolini considered FDR to be his pupil.
Now in one sense that could seem to be simply be self-aggrandizement by Mussolini, wanting to inflate his own importance. But he would not speak of FDR in such terms if he did not recognize a strong affinity between FDR’s approach to politics and his own - why would he want to claim any ‘credit’ for a man-party-phenomenon that he did not regard as aligned with his own efforts?
Book is “The Roosevelts” by Peter Collier with David Horowitz (Collier is described as primary author so I gather that Horowitz did not collaborate as fully on this one as on their others, or perhaps did research but not the writing?). The Mussolini meeting and statement is referred to on p. 386 if anyone’s interested.....