Roosevelt's 'Secret Map' Speech

by Mark Weber

Franklin Roosevelt often lied to further his goals. In a radio address broadcast to the nation on 23 October 1940, for example, he gave "this most solemn assurance" that he had not given any "secret understanding in any shape or form, direct or indirect, with any government or any other nation in any part of the world, to involve this nation in any war or for any other purpose." But American, British and Polish documents (mostly released many years later) proved that this "most solemn assurance" was a bald-faced lie. Roosevelt had, in fact, made numerous secret arrangements to involve the U.S. in war.

Of all his speeches, perhaps the best example of Roosevelt's readiness to lie is his 1941 Navy Day address broadcast over nationwide radio on 27 October.

A lot had happened in the months preceding that address. On 11 March 1941 Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease bill into law, permitting increased deliveries of military aid to Britain in violation of U.S. neutrality and international law. In April Roosevelt illegally sent U.S. troops to occupy Greenland. On 27 May he proclaimed a state of "unlimited national emergency," a kind of presidential declaration of war that circumvented a power constitutionally reserved to Congress. Following the Axis attack against the USSR in June, the Roosevelt administration began delivering enormous quantities of military aid to the beleagured Soviets. These shipments also blatantly violated international law. In July Roosevelt illegally sent American troops to occupy Iceland. More