 Good afternoon. My name is Susan Eisenhower. It's a pleasure to be with you today. Our great thanks to the National Archives for making it possible for us to hear from Peter Schenkel today about his wonderful book about uniting America. I was very fortunate to get to know Peter through one of his earlier works, another great book called Ike's Mystery Man. And so he really is quite an authority on this extraordinary period of American history. And I'm so looking forward to our conversation today, Peter. I am too. Thanks so much. So having just finished a book myself, I, as you know, wrote a book called how I clad, and it's a very arduous process and there has to be something behind it that drives you to stick with it for what is often years and and so I'm absolutely intrigued having read your wonderful book. What prompted you to choose this subject at this time. Well, a number of years ago, I learned that a team of Republicans were in control of the War Department during World War Two, under the Democratic President Franklin D Roosevelt. And I was utterly amazed. How could that be in our age of intense partisan division. It would seem nearly impossible. Imagine it would be as if Donald Trump in 2016 appointed Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of Defense, and Joe Biden this as the Secretary of Homeland Security. It's just, it's just impossible, right. It boggles the imagination. And amazingly, the two Republicans the two most prominent Republicans who worked with FDR Henry Stimson and Frank Knox, or just two of many Republicans who joined with the president in 1940. And then I realized that the politics of the 1940s are actually not that different from what we're experiencing today. Republicans in the 1930s, openly avowed hatred of Franklin Roosevelt whom they considered a leftist radical. He signed a law protecting the rights of workers to join unions. He created a massive infrastructure, massive infrastructure projects to give Americans jobs at a time when millions were unemployed because of the Great Depression. And he created a fast federal program that made payments to retired and disabled workers. That's the Social Security Program. In the 1940s, he was attacked as a socialist, a Marxist and a destroyer of free enterprise by the Republican Party. And then in 1939 1940 when he tried to support America's allies fighting Hitler's fascist armies, they accused him of getting America involved in another European war. Does this all sound familiar. It sounds like partisan battles today so I began to think, maybe we can once again have a politics where the two parties joined together to defend American democracy from the forces of fascism, whether abroad or internal to America, threatening to destroy our democracy. We did it once we can do it again. My book is intent in an attempt to show how and why FDR and Stimson, and Henry Stimson formed their alliance in hopes of inspiring America in spokes of inspiring Americans today. In my view the success of the wartime bipartisan alliance comes to key to key elements. Its leaders shared a deep and abiding love for America's constitution and democracy, and its leaders were willing to engage each other in respectful debate that was based on facts and focused on finding the best outcome for the country. And on that note, I would add that both Henry Stimson and your grandfather Susan, President and General of the Army Dwight D Eisenhower had a phrase they used about how to debate, when tensions grew high. They both said they would not quote, get into personalities. And that's why I so much admire your book how I bled it examines the temperament of the man and what a great leader he was. The attitude of not getting into person personalities is a far cry from the insults that are common in American political discourse today. Well, I can tell you, Peter I had plenty of lessons at the dinner table about no personalities and no personal remarks. Well, I mean, I think this whole question of how an alliance like this forms is absolutely intriguing and so I'm wondering if you could say something about how President Roosevelt and Henry Stimson actually cross that political divide in 1940 to build an alliance, the uniting America. Certainly. Now shortly after winning the election of 1932 Franklin Roosevelt asked Henry Stimson who was then Secretary of State to Republican President Herbert Hoover to visit him at his home in Hyde Park, New York. And I'm just going to show you an image of that. Don't bear with me one minute. Here you see the two men meeting on January 9 1933 at FDRs estate, Springwood. Stimson sought FDR support for a policy of refusing to recognize Japan's previous invasion of Manchuria, a realm within China. This began a private dialogue that showed the two men, a Democrat and a Republican shared a belief that it was vitally important to defend democracy from the rising threat of fascism. Now, in this era. The fascism was extremely strong in the United States. And Stimson was perhaps the most prominent Republican, who argued the nation must take a more active stance in preparing for war, defending democracy, and aiding our allies. FDR knew that Stimson shared his values and would be a highly capable Republican ally in pulling the country together to fight fascism. So, seven years after that meeting, Stimson FDR appointed Stimson Secretary of War, and he appointed Republican Frank Knox to be Secretary of the Navy. Let me show you another image of that day of that era. This is a political cartoon of the day from the Washington Evening Star in June of 1942 showing Stimson FDR and Knox from right to left Iraq as a rag tag marching band, trying to pull national defense together. Stimson appointed a team of prominent Republicans to be his assistant secretaries in the War Department, and Stimson and Knox work to bring Republicans over to support FDR policies. For example, a conscription bill passed in September of 1940 with bipartisan support, it required 16 million American men to register for the draft, and it kicked the American arm, the expansion of the American Armed Forces into overdrive. In the next five years, FDR and his Republican allies work to bring the country together in support of the war effort to save democracy and America's allies. Well, I love that cartoon nothing, nothing says it more quickly than the way people put that those cartoons into national circulation. What do you mean when you write that there was a national amnesia about this bipartisan alliance. You know we have so much talk about the furious disputes disputes between the two political parties today. There's been so much written about World War two. Every individual battle has been chronicled, and rightly so. It's wonderful reading and extraordinary, extraordinarily important to Americans. FDR has had endless books about him and so have Republican leaders in the era, and yet I was shocked to find that somehow no one had ever written a book about how many members of the two political parties came together to lead the country through five years of a World War. And there are lots of reasons for this and I'm just going to cite a few. First, FDR and Stimson worked hard to bring the country together in defense of American democracy. So they themselves tried to blur the dividing lines of partisan politics. And to a certain extent, they were successful in that effort. Second, the facts are not really comfortable for either party for the Democrats. The fact is that FDR needed Republican support in order to protect the country, which means that the Democratic president was not the sole leader of the war effort. And for the Republicans, the fact is that when Stimson and Knox first joined FDR's cabinet, the Republicans reviled them as traders to their party. But polling at the time, by the way, shows that when Stimson and Knox first joined the cabinet, the Republicans that the public excuse me the public quickly embraced that those appointments. Remember, it is not. This is not good material for partisan politics. Operatives today trying to raise money for their party do not go out and say things like, remember the time when we work so well with the other party to get something important done for our country. Partisan politics is all about casting the other party as evil, anathema to America. Compromisers, the people who build a bridge between two opposing parties are very often forgotten or ignored, at least by those trying to raise money for current partisan political efforts. I wish it were otherwise. But the fact is that compromisers are often the ones who get important get done the really important things that the country needs. Well, I'll say, and I'm sure today if we had Democrats and Republicans working more closely together the public would embrace that effort too. I'm quite sure. Yes, absolutely. Well, you know, I don't know about your experience Peter but my experience was I, I, and I knew the man I wrote about. I was surprised frequently and doing my research and it's always a kind of an arresting experience so I just feel compelled to ask you. What were some of the surprising things you discovered in the course of writing this book. I turned up a lot of really interesting things that I think had never seen the light of day and I'm not familiar with them. For example in 1934. FDR and Stimson had a very close dialogue and correspondence over the writings of a British liberal historian Ramsey Muir. And FDR was down in in Warm Springs when he sent Stimson a handwritten thank you note, calling that document that Stimson a document that Stimson had sent him written by Muir, a splendid expression of faith. So this means that six years before Stimson FDR even appointed Stimson, the two men had really communed about the need to defend democracy because that was what Muir's writing was all about. Another interesting fact I learned was that during the campaign of 1940. Henry Stimson reached out to his old friend, Wendell Wilkie, and Wendell Wilkie was of course the 1940 presidential candidate of the Republican Party. Henry Wilkie, after he formally accepted the nomination from his party in August of 1940. In contacting Wilkie Stimson goal was simple to prevent the Republican candidate from attacking FDR on two military issues, the draft that FDR and Stimson had started in the US, and the sending of 50 destroyers to the British. He discovered that in making his request Stimson actually provided Wilkie with War Department intelligence on the progress of Hitler's war in Europe. Stimson conveyed the request, and Wilkie complied. Had Stimson's efforts been revealed many Republicans likely would have been outraged over Stimson's conduct and they may well have viewed this as a violation of Wilkie's freedom of speech, the right of the Republican presidential candidate to say what he wanted to win an election. One last thing I'll mention is an interesting nugget I turned up in all this. In 1942, not long after Pearl Harbor. Charles Lindberg, the famous US Aviator, sought to become to serve in the US Army. Now, Lindberg was very controversial figure. He was also the spokesman for the isolationist group America first. And he had made tax attacks on Jews, and was widely views and as an anti-Semite. Yet when it became known that he wanted to join the US Army, many people encouraged it. He had support from the New York Times, support from Navy Secretary Frank Knox, and even FDR wrote Stimson suggesting that giving Lindberg a position in the army was a good idea. But Stimson refused. He bluntly refused. He met with Lindberg and said to his face he rejected him because he Lindberg had no faith in the righteousness of our cause. And this is one of the many examples of FDR tolerating actions by his Republican allies that he did not agree with. This is one of the keys to success of the long bipartisan alliance by the way. And there was the tolerance of different views and even different policies within the executive branch. And those are just a few of the facts I turned up during my investigation. Well, that's fascinating. I myself think it's, there's been a really big change that strong individuals have a hard time these days, approaching each other with their true and well held feelings. And then go on to compromise. It's really a very fascinating story. This bipartisan alliance obviously was came at just the right time because we were in the in the war and how did that how did this relationship between Roosevelt and Stimson actually helped the war effort. So the bipartisan political alliance created a sense of unity in the country that helped rally the entire nation in support of the war effort. But that's sort of a touchy feely kind of statement but the fact is that in a very real political way, the bipartisan alliance helped FDR win passage of critical pieces of legislation that created the massive US military machine that enabled America to win the war. I note that in 1939, the US Army was 19th largest in the world behind Portugal's army and just ahead of Bulgaria's. At the time Germany had 2 million men under arms, and the United States had about 100,000. Just two months after he was appointed, Stimson played a vital role in winning bipartisan passage of a conscription law that would require 16 million men to register for the draft. With Stimson leading the charge 46 Republicans joined 186 Democrats to vote yes in the House. In the Senate, seven Republicans joined 40 Democrats to pass the measure. They were shot in the arm to the creation of the American fighting machine that would go on to victory. Stimson and Knox as well as the GOP 1940 nominee Wendell Wilkie also helped lead the charge in support of the land lease act. I'm going to show you an image of that as well. Again, through the help of a political cartoon. From the Washington Evening Star showing the three Republicans. Stimson, Knox and Wilkie in a trench defending the White House. In the background, FDR calls out from the White House. Let me know boys when the time has come for the Democrats to get into action. After FDR, those three Republicans were the most prominent advocates for passage of land lease, which enabled the US government to send billions of dollars worth of military assistance to England, and other allies in the fight against fascism. Now, beyond all those political matters, Stimson and Knox work tirelessly with FDR throughout the war in their agencies to strengthen the army and Navy, so they could defeat the fascist armies. Yeah, it's a remarkable story isn't it I thought that cartoon was really special. Well of course there were so many elements to establishing preeminence and the building of military capability and just the scale up. Not just to the draft but in war industries and in your book you describe FDR's efforts to desegregate the war industries by creating a committee for fair employment practice. What was the Republican role in establishing this committee. The Republicans played key roles in development of the Fair Employment Practice Committee, or FEPC. Of course the driving force behind this effort was a Philip Randolph, who is the founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the nation's largest black labor union, which represented the interest of black railway employees. In early 1941, Randolph launched a campaign to desegregate the armed forces and the giant companies making planes, tanks and ships the so called war industries. He called for black citizens to join a march on Washington to demand desegregation. For Stimson, considered himself sympathetic to black Americans, but he refused to desegregate the troops, arguing it would lead to turmoil in the armed forces. But in fact in his diary, he revealed racist attitudes. For example, he wrote that leadership is not embedded in the Negro race yet. In fact, it should not be glossed over in telling the story of Stimson and FDR and I don't, I don't gloss over it. But one of Randolph's close allies in the struggle to achieve desegregation was Fiorella LaGuardia, the Republican mayor of New York. He changed for Randolph to meet with Eleanor Roosevelt, the first lady, and administration officials in New York City Hall to discuss this issue. Meanwhile, the march is still on and still causing concern for FDR who's worried about an outbreak of violence in the nation's capital. But of course this is the era of desegregation lynchings were still common, and the prospect of 100,000 African Americans marching through Washington caused concern for FDR and for Eleanor. Now, after that first meeting in City Hall, another follow up meeting was arranged the following week in the White House. That's June 1941 Pearl Harbor is still six months away. And we're not in the war yet, but the rise of Hitler is is well under process in way in process at this time. Now at the meeting in the White House, FDR and Henry Stimson agreed to support the idea of desegregating the war industries. Stimson still remained opposed to segregating the army itself. The FDR then took this agreement and drafted an executive order that would create the FEPC, the Fair Employment Practice Committee, and giving it the power to issue orders to employers in the war industries, ordering them to stop segregating employees by race. FDR signed the order a week later. The FEPC was a major milestone in the civil rights movement, as it put the machinery of the federal government to work breaking down segregation in the workplace which had been with America since its inception. Segregatious segregationists in the south and elsewhere in the country rebelled and violence broke out. I'm going to show you an image from Detroit in 1943. Here you see a picture of a race riot in June 1943 in Detroit where white mobs overturned the vehicles of black motorists and set them on fire. This dispute, which ultimately claimed the lives of almost 30 people, the vast majority of them black, erupted after workers objected to FEPC orders at a at a war plant. The FDR and his Republican allies never backed away from the FEPC, and this put the Democratic Party until then the party of the south and segregation, firmly on the path to becoming the party of civil rights. As you were talking about a Philip Randolph, he has a statue at Union Station in Washington. I don't know if you know that. I didn't know that. No, it's really I love that part of the story to learn who he really was. So, you know, civil rights was obviously a contentious element in those days. How did the government look at women in the war effort? Well, both parties had had members supporting women's issues over the previous decades, including women's suffrage Republicans, particularly also interestingly supported women's issues women's rights, and the leading proponent for bringing women into the army was, in fact, US Representative Edith Norris Rogers, a Republican from Massachusetts, who in 1925 became the first woman from New England, elected to Congress. In 1941, she filed a bill to create the women's army auxiliary corps or whack. After the Pearl Harbor attack, women rushed to join the war effort and support the support built for this bill, and both Stimson and Eleanor Roosevelt supported it. Ultimately, though there was opposition from men who opposed letting women take roles in the in in the army or Navy or other services. The bill passed with bipartisan support in May 1941, and FDR signed it into law. Now, here's a photo of the author of that bill, Representative Rogers, standing with the first class of wax trainees, as many as 150,000 women ultimately volunteered to serve as wax and other branches of the military moved quickly to create women's divisions. These organizations help transform perceptions of what women could do in military service, and in all walks of life. Well, of course the, the whole, the whole notion of going to war was controversial before we got into the war but certainly the advent of America's direct involvement in this war was very dramatically, very dramatic. And so I'm sort of curious to know how FDR and Simpson responded to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941. Well, of course, there was immediately a tightening of arm of us defenses. There was an investigation launched by the, the army and the Navy. And there was a question of identifying those who might have fallen down on the job. After the surprise attack the nation was gripped by fear that the Japanese might now strike the man mainland of the United States. And so FDR and Stimson quickly moved to improve US defenses, and also they focused on what they perceived as an internal threat from Japanese living in the United States. Throughout 1941 FDR had raised alarms about Japanese agents in the United States repeatedly urging Stimson to take action to prevent damage by those agents. In Pearl Harbor. There was a debate inside the administration about removing Japanese Americans from areas near military facilities, and Stimson express concerns about how doing this would damage the constitutional rights of Japanese Americans. Nonetheless, in February of 1942 FDR issued an executive order authorizing Stimson to order the removal of civilian populations to protect military installations. And Stimson then ordered the army to carry out the removal of people of Japanese ancestry from designated designated military zones. In the year some 110,000 Japanese Americans were interned in concentration camps. Let me just show you one more image here. From a famous photo of the internments. This action the internment of the Japanese population will always remain a stain on both American democracy, and on the FDR Stimson Alliance. This is also evidence that bipartisanship does not always lead to the right result, just because two parties agree on something doesn't mean it's right. So, I would just say that my book is intended as a full examination of the bipartisan alliance documenting both its successes, and it's abysmal failures, such as this. Well you make a good point about bipartisanship it doesn't get everything right necessarily. I can't imagine that everything went smoothly. The entire time that Stimson and FDR were in really a de facto alliance. Were there any acrimonious disputes between the two of them. In fact, throughout most of the first half of 1942 FDR and Stimson repeatedly clashed over an idea advanced by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. And that was the idea of having the United States join in an invasion of North Africa to defeat the German forces there. Along with Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall, and many other senior offers army officers including your grandfather, General Dwight Eisenhower. I argued that this was a venture that that the British wanted chiefly to protect their interests and the interests of their empire. At this point Stimson even brought FDR a book that detailed Churchill's failings in the First World War by pushing the disastrous invasion of Gallipoli and Turkey. Even mark sections of the book for FDR to read if you can believe it in pencil handed it to him. Yet this bitter debate was playing out even as the army men work to collaborate with the British to win the war. So, as you can see from this image. We are at army training exercises in South Carolina in June 1942 as General Marshall on the left Winston Churchill, and then Henry Stimson and something that appears to be like a pith helmet. Excuse me there. My slide slipped. One second. Now, Stimson warned that the Churchill, just as he had during World War One was doing the same thing again, he was dispersing army armed forces instead of targeting them to direct overwhelming force at the critical objective. Stimson and General Marshall and others in the army wanted instead was to wait until 1943, and then launch an invasion on the coast of France that would begin an assault directly on Germany. Ultimately though, FDR boldly took command and overrode the views of both his secretary of war Stimson, and the army chief of staff, Marshall. He held the US military to accept the British view that the only option was to invade North Africa in fall of 1942. Ultimately, it proved to be a successful invasion and set the stage for subsequent attacks on German and Italian troops in the Mediterranean. The sometimes heated dispute over the invasion in 1942 cause tremendous tension between Stimson and FDR, but their alliance ultimately was bolstered by the strength of their mutual respect, and their shared values, and the Alliance survived and found ultimately immense success. Now there's a remarkable story that how how this, not just the Alliance between these two men but the Alliance between our country and Great Britain how it survived a lot and went on to be victorious. Your book provides an account of Stimson's long running disagreement with Winston Churchill on military strategy. What is the gist of that dispute and how did FDR respond to Stimson's complaints. Yeah, as I noted, just a moment ago Stimson believed Churchill was promoting the interest of the British Empire over America's need to defeat Hitler. So in 1943, when the Allies finally agreed to launch an invasion across the English Channel into France in 1944. Stimson repeatedly condemned what he saw as Churchill's efforts to thwart the invasion plans and direct Allied forces toward other objectives. Of course, this invasion would ultimately be the great D day invasion of June 1944. But prior to the event actually taking place. There was immense debate over it. Now you've got to understand that FDR had built a very close relationship with Churchill, and had tremendous respect for him. And so he did not immediately accept all of Stimson's criticisms of Churchill. That would ultimately change. In July of 1943 Stimson traveled to London to meet with Churchill, and the two men debated the invasion, mano a mano. Churchill warned that the disastrous effects that would take place if Allied corpses for floating in the channel. Yeah, and Stimson warned him that talking of corpses would never win the invasion. So Stimson went back to Washington and immediately asked for a meeting with FDR. And he began he wanted to present a warning to FDR about both Churchill and the top British commander who was named to lead the invasion at that point. General Alan Brooke. Here's what he had to say about the two men, the shadows of passion Dale, which was a horrific and costly battle and World War one, and done Kirk, still hang too heavily over the imagination of these leaders. He added their hearts are not in it. At the time, as I said, Brooke was slated to lead the D day invasion, but Stimson told the president that was unacceptable, and an American must lead the invasion to ensure its success. FDR agreed with Stimson, and he quietly raised the issue with Churchill in a private meeting the following month that FDR is home and Hyde Park, New York. Eventually, US Army General Dwight D Eisenhower was named to be the supreme commander of the Allied forces for the D day invasion and beyond. I'm skipping over tremendous amounts of history, but I have to share this one was one fine photo of the men. You see a photo of Stimson and Eisenhower during a news conference in Normandy on July 19 1944. At the time, the US Army was fighting to push German forces out of France and back east toward Germany. Stimson had flown to Normandy to see the fine US Army hard at work defeating the Germans. And on this day, the men held a news conference to discuss the progress of the war. Wow, that's that's a remarkable photograph. Well, you know, I don't think many Americans realized how ill. Roosevelt was as time went on. You can just see the difference in the pictures you've shown to us Peter and, of course, we know that FDR died before the war was over. But before that, in his fourth election campaign for president. He had what you call in your book the last great bipartisan campaign. And I was wondering if you could say something about the goal of that campaign. I can. The objective of this last great campaign was the creation of a permanent United Nations organization to spread peace and democracy around the world. It's important to remember the backdrop of US foreign policy debates and the first part of the 20th century was that President Woodrow Wilson 25 years earlier had sought to create such an organization, such a global organization the League of Nations, but the US Senate failed to refuse to ratify it. And the United States did not participate. And Stimson believed it was vital to have a permanent United Nations organization and in this he and FDR were on the exact same page. The United Nations of course by the way it was the name that had been given to the group of allies battling against fascism. Well, Stimson told Winston Churchill in 1943 that if they wanted to create such a permanent organization, they would need to act during the war, not after it because there would be a resurgence of isolationism after the war. So work began create on creating this organization in 1944. This was scheduled to be held in San Francisco in April of 1945 to approve a charter for the UN seeking to pardon me, seeking to ensure its approval by the Senate FDR in March of 1945, invited three Republicans, including the Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Arthur Vandenberg to join four Democrats on a bipartisan commission to the San Francisco conference. So here's a photo of that. The one second, let's see. Where's my one moment. Here's a photo of that. Pardon me for that difficulty there. Here the delegation meets with FDR on March 13 1945. Vandenberg is second from right in this photo. Vandenberg was once a severe isolationist, and also a candidate for the presidency, but his views had gradually shifted in favor of international collaboration to solve world problems. A month later, on April 12 1945 FDR died. And Harry Truman became president. And one of his first decisions was that the San Francisco UN conference, where this bipartisan delegation was at work with delegations from around the world would proceed as scheduled. Ultimately, Vandenberg became an ardent supporter of the United Nations Treaty when the Senate took it up for consideration in 1945. The Senate ratified the United Nations Treaty that month and a lopsided bipartisan vote 89 to two. That is a remarkable overwhelming support from both parties. It was a victory for FDR and his bipartisan alliance so of course it was a bus to miss one for FDR. That's a very moving story. I personally am very intrigued by the whole question of the way the war ends ultimately with the use of the atomic weapon. And your book reveals the efforts by Stimson in 1945 to find a way to obtain the Japanese surrender without using the bomb. And I wish you'd say more about that and why those efforts failed. You know, Stimson had played a central role in development of the bomb, beginning at about 1941. And after FDR died. He informed President Truman about the Manhattan project building the bomb it was on the very day that Truman was sworn in as they were leaving the cabinet room in the White House, Stimson pulled them aside and said, we have this tremendously powerful explosive, almost unimaginable power. And we're going to need to talk about it. However, Truman appointed a fellow Democrat, his ally James Burns as Secretary of State, and began relying heavily on burns for advice on the bomb. And here we get to, you know, one of the key challenges of the bipartisan alliance in the middle of the war was, could it survive the death of its key member Franklin Roosevelt. And the answer would come in the following months through the actions of President Truman. In 1945, Stimson recommended repeatedly to the President that the Japanese be given an opportunity to surrender, and that they be permitted to keep their Emperor hero Hito on his throne. Burns, however, rejected this strategy. Burns pointed out that both Truman and FDR had demanded unconditional surrender from the Japanese. And at the same time, Japanese diplomats made overtures for peace, asking for one condition that the Emperor be retained on the throne. So, let me show you an image here of Stimson and Burns meeting in Potsdam in Germany and as the Potsdam conference was beginning in mid July of 1945. At that conference, of course, President Truman met with Joseph Stalin. Stimson went to the meeting site, but he was kept out of many of the key discussions. So the bipartisan alliance at this point was pretty shaky. Truman and Burns hoped that in dropping the bomb on the Japanese, they would both end the war and prevent military action by the Soviet Union. After the bomb to expand the communism and Soviet control. After the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and nine, the Japanese formally offered to surrender. Again, on the condition that the Emperor keep his throne. Here you have an image of Stimson conferring with Truman on August 8, 1945. Shortly a day before the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. After the second bomb was dropped, and the Japanese made their offer to surrender. A third bomb, a third atomic bomb was being prepared by the US Army and other Japanese cities were on the list to be targeted. But Stimson urged Truman to accept the peace proposal. Once again with the idea of permitting the Emperor to keep his throne. Once again Burns opposed this idea, pointing the need for to the need for unconditional surrender. At this time, however, Truman accepted Stimson's advice and the peace agreement was signed, ending the war and sparing another Japanese city from the horrors of nuclear devastation. Well Peter, if we have time before our wonderful time together I hope you might say something more about what changed Truman's mind. Truman must have been remarkably receptive to. I mean, Truman must been remarkably receptive to Stimson and his argument. I think he was, I think that the things were rough between Truman and Stimson at the outset. Over time. He grew to have tremendous respect for Stimson. And that would be reflected after the war and ultimately, when Stimson died. Five years later, Truman praised him as a great American, and one who suffered the slings and arrows of working with the Democrats, the slings and arrows from his own Republican Party, but Truman did grow to respect Stimson tremendously. You know, well it's a it's a riveting story. And so, in standing back and looking at this book that you've written and I really enjoyed reading it I have to tell you Peter, I think it's not a great read but this is such an interesting perspective and an interesting piece of history. How do you conclude this great story how do you think it helped the alliance reshape American foreign policy, what might have happened had this alliance not taken place. Well, to answer that I think we should look at where America was before the alliance took place. And and that was that American foreign policy was dominated by isolationism. Remember that more than 115,000 Americans died in World War One and there was a huge wave across this country to never get in another war like that. And in the 1930s, as the threat of war from fat with fascist nations arose. This isolationism led to the passage of the neutrality act, which was signed into law by FDR. And then expanded by FDR with additional legislation in 1936 and 1937. And that act essentially meant that if one of our allies was attacked by fascist country, we could not do anything to help it. And of course, when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. The United States initially refused to send any aid said it could not send any aid because of the neutrality act. And then Stimson demanded that the act be removed and repealed. And FDR said that he regretted that Congress had passed the act, and he regretted equally that he had signed the act. And it was early thereafter repealed and it was that moment of Stimson coming forward and bringing bipartisan support for repeal of the act that really showed that it was time for America, that America could embrace a new policy through bipartisanship. And also that America was abandoning isolationism at that time. Now after Stimson joined the administration in 1940. Here's the president to adopt increasingly aggressive policies to oppose the fascist powers, particularly Germany and Japan of course. And once Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war us foreign policy overtly supported democracy and self determination for nations around the globe. As the war came to a close. FDR with Stimson support called for the creation of a permanent United Nations organization as we've discussed. And by the time the UN was created in 1945 us foreign policy was fully focused on ensuring that countries that fell to fascist forces regained self determination. And if possible, we're free to choose democracy. In the post war years, President Truman continued the bipartisan alliance by working with Senator Vandenberg in 1947 to establish the Marshall plan to rebuild European economies after the war. And then in 1949 Truman and Vandenberg worked together to establish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO the military alliance intended to defend the Europe, European countries from fascism after the war and communism. Then that alliance became the focus of much of our foreign policy and supporting a democracy internationally of course. In other words, American foreign policy had traveled a very long road from the days of isolationism, and had abandoned it completely. And instead adopted what is generally called a liberal internationalism. This liberal internationalism centered on a mandate to extend peace, self determination and democracy around the world has guided us foreign policy ever since. Well, that's a wonderful way of looking back on all this and I, I really commend you for your work. Now I don't know whether I'm allowed to ask this question since this is a piece of history but it's so tempting to ask you. What about this book, I mean did you did you see some resonance for contemporary times and what do you think it would take today to reestablish some kind of bipartisan approach to some of the most critical issues we're facing today. Well, my view is that we should primarily, we can certainly learn a lot and learn about how to work together across partisan lines by looking at this extraordinary example from the past that we have all but forgotten as a nation. And I certainly think that re learning the principles of respectful debate is critical. And I think learning how to tolerate differences of opinion. And those who have leadership roles or just our fellow citizens is a critical thing as well, and leaving this culture of personal attacks and insults which is just reached epidemic proportions as far as I'm concerned. Those are all critical. And for me that the big lesson here is that, you know, what do we do with those if we do those. If we make those changes in our culture and our mindset. And to my mind, what it will yield is a stronger democracy, a greater nation for us that will be able to withstand attacks from fascist and anti democratic forces, whether they are abroad and from coming from Russia, or they are somewhat from the more threatening ominous forces within our own country, seeking to overturn our own democracy inside the country, which are so concerning. I think that's a brilliant answer. And I'm, I'm sure what you're really talking about at the end of the day is that we need to have some early, early leaders who are going to help us understand the compromise is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength. And if ever there was a opportunity to demonstrate that very point it's in your wonderful book, Uniting America, and I wish you all the, all the best with this Peter I think everybody needs to read a history like this to remember that it's a tradition to do this this is not starting something experimental but it's, it's the very set of qualities that brought a successful outcome to the large and largest and most catastrophic war in history. I want to thank you very much Peter Schenkel it's been a real honor to be with you, and to be able to discuss this book. I hope all of you will enjoy it as much as I did. Thank you so much Susan, it's been a pleasure.