[Jaysun]

Indeed he was. As was Patton. As was Mitchell. They never listen to the visionaries. Too impractical I suppose. Plus, for us Americans, the idea of a truly preemptive war on a grand scale is a no go. Our minds think like the Hobbits. The world needs to be about to go off a cliff before we'll do anything. Next time, it might just go off the cliff, and be in darkness for 1000 or more years.

I'm still not entirely convinced that those pulling the strings back then weren't somewhat enamored with the idea of socialism / communism (judging from the policies and programs of the day).

[GOP_1900AD]

Certainly, FDR, having gone for some Fabian Socialist programs in order to attempt doing something about the Great Depression without actually truly purging all the bad debt and somehow remaining inefficient firms and individual estates, must have had a soft spot for Marxism / Stalin. I doubt he would have ultimately OK'd Communist world domination, but certainly, he was no Goldwater either! He probably figured, like many Western European socialists, that putting socialism lite in place might somehow lessen the Communists desire to overthrow the West and capitalism. He clearly lacked the courage to truly lead by example and through our own actions, essentially say, "we are as far from Communism as one can be."