Speaker 1: Fraud abuse. They're looking for it.
Speaker 2: Ever been wasted for an abuse? Don't just find a things,
Speaker 2: find out.
Speaker 3: All about it. On fifty five krc the talk station,
Speaker 3: just I MADO five. You're a fitty five KRCD talk station.
Speaker 3: Happy Thursday. My next guest her name Mary Greybar. She's
Speaker 3: a Resident Fellow of the Alexander.
Speaker 4: Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization and the
Speaker 4: founder of I Love this organization of the organization, the
Speaker 4: Dissident prof Education Project, taught to college level for twenty years,
Speaker 4: most recently at Emory University. Or work has been published
Speaker 4: by the Federalist town Hall, Front Page Magazine, City Journal,
Speaker 4: American Greatness, and Academic Questions. And she's written a book
Speaker 4: we're talking about today, Debunking FDR, The Man and the Myths.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the fifty five KRSE Morning Show. Mary, it's
Speaker 4: a pleasure to have you on this morning.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, it's great to be here.
Speaker 4: When I think of FDR, I first think of my grandfather,
Speaker 4: who was a lifelong Democrat, because FDR gave him a
Speaker 4: job when he was a tea major in the Civilian
Speaker 4: Conservation Corps and that was enough to win over his
Speaker 4: long lifelong support for the Democrat Party, even though he
Speaker 4: was voting for the indefensible.
Speaker 1: Quite often.
Speaker 4: We used to get in political arguments when I was younger.
Speaker 4: But God rest his soul. But he also was the
Speaker 4: father of term limits. We're bringing about the twenty second amendment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I've heard of others, you know, who had
Speaker 2: warm failings for FDR. Because of the Civilian Conservation Corps,
Speaker 2: people were very desperate, and so that was part of
Speaker 2: his strategy, was to give things to people who were
Speaker 2: suffering under the depression. I mean, it wasn't from his
Speaker 2: personal fortune. It was from taxpayers. And then to seem like,
Speaker 2: you know, the magnificent leader. Yes, and so you know,
Speaker 2: you have those emotional resonances and they'll exist and it's
Speaker 2: passed on, you know. I mean some people can understand
Speaker 2: while this was part of a strategy, but others think,
Speaker 2: you know, well we need to continue with that kind
Speaker 2: of program.
Speaker 4: Well, people easily refer to him in such awe was
Speaker 4: his great or all. He was a great guy. He
Speaker 4: got us we won World War Two. He got us
Speaker 4: out of the Great Depression, and perhaps maybe we got
Speaker 4: out of the Great Depression because of World War Two.
Speaker 4: I've always kind of looked at it that way. It
Speaker 4: put a lot of people to work in the defense industry,
Speaker 4: and it put a lot of people overseas fighting wars,
Speaker 4: and that in large parts help us, helped us turn
Speaker 4: around the country, didn't it.
Speaker 2: Well, Yeah, and it's a little deceptive because you know,
Speaker 2: you had, you know, millions of working age men who
Speaker 2: were fighting overseas, so those unemployment figures were deceptive. It
Speaker 2: wasn't really until after the war that the economy rebounded, so,
Speaker 2: you know, and a lot of people at the time,
Speaker 2: you know, leading up to the war, we're thinking, you know,
Speaker 2: he's such a failure. I mean, the economy is still
Speaker 2: so bad, you know, twenty percent unemployment, and hey, maybe
Speaker 2: he's thinking of war to get us out of this mess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Europe, of course, that's what there is, go ahead.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Oh yeah, I mean that's what a lot
Speaker 2: of the critics were saying, you know at the time.
Speaker 4: Yes, and you know, the United States remained completely unscathed,
Speaker 4: so the rest of the industrial complex around the world,
Speaker 4: you pretty much bombed out mess of all of Europe
Speaker 4: and in England. So we seem to be the recipients
Speaker 4: of a lot of business potential and opportunity because the
Speaker 4: rest of the world still needed goods.
Speaker 2: Yes, And it was the same thing, you know, after
Speaker 2: World War One, So you had the industrialists, the manufacturers,
Speaker 2: you know, rebuilding Europe. Yeah. And the thing was, you know,
Speaker 2: the war could have been ended a couple of years sooner,
Speaker 2: according to many historians. But you know, Franklin Roosevelt, this
Speaker 2: is one of the things I point out as I
Speaker 2: go through his early history and his early political career.
Speaker 2: He just had this hatred of Germans. And I'm not
Speaker 2: talking just about Nazis. I'm talking about your you know,
Speaker 2: your ethnic German And he would not consider you know,
Speaker 2: having an agreement and you know, ceasing fighting even though
Speaker 2: there were uh, you know, Germans resisting Hitler at the time.
Speaker 2: He insisted on unconditional surrender. He wanted to make Germany
Speaker 2: completely pastoral, wipe out all industry, divided up into different segments,
Speaker 2: and make her completely powerless.
Speaker 4: My understanding he had he was in thrall of Stalin
Speaker 4: and I mostly remember FDR along lines of the guy
Speaker 4: that sold out Eastern Europe at Yalta. So did I mean,
Speaker 4: did he not cave in or capitulate the Stalin at
Speaker 4: Yalta in giving up the European of the Eastern European
Speaker 4: countries and turning them into communist nations.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And that happened even before a Tehran And
Speaker 2: you know, he was infatuated with Stalin. Anything Stalin wanted,
Speaker 2: you know, FDR was like this defrauded lover, you know,
Speaker 2: appealing to him. I mean he had so many opportunities,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, with lens lease and supplying you know,
Speaker 2: military equipment and food and everything else to you know,
Speaker 2: rein him in, but he never did. I mean, he
Speaker 2: was an absolutely awful negotiator, and he carved up Poland
Speaker 2: and told him you know, but I can't announce this.
Speaker 2: And after the election in nineteen forty, because you know,
Speaker 2: American polls were voters and he wanted them to vote
Speaker 2: for him, and they were you know, pretty solidly Democrats.
Speaker 4: Well, did he also have a hatred for Japan because
Speaker 4: he is famous for rounding up Japanese American citizens. Most
Speaker 4: only one of my dad's friends, who was a very
Speaker 4: young child at the time, ended up in an internment camp.
Speaker 4: They lost their house and we're we're in a camp.
Speaker 4: I mean that that to me is like, I mean,
Speaker 4: one of the bigger human rights abuses that have ever
Speaker 4: been conducted by a president.
Speaker 2: Well, and he also did that to Germans, you know,
Speaker 2: Germans who lived here in the United States. You know,
Speaker 2: there was no due process of you know, if someone
Speaker 2: heard a neighborhood someone speaking German or getting German publications,
Speaker 2: they were put under suspicion. I mean, there was no
Speaker 2: due process. And they were also interns. But yes, Roosevelt
Speaker 2: did hate the Japanese. He had a soft spot for
Speaker 2: the Chinese because and he'd never been to China, although
Speaker 2: he you know, claimed to be an expert on China,
Speaker 2: but it was because his grandfather made his fortune by
Speaker 2: pushing opium in China and he thought that Japanese. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I go into that quite a bit. And he always
Speaker 2: denied it in history. A lot of historians have downplayed
Speaker 2: it or outright denied it. But yeah, he was an
Speaker 2: opium pusher. How about push.
Speaker 1: This is the first time I've ever heard that.
Speaker 4: We always hear the stories about the Kennedy family making
Speaker 4: money off prohibition.
Speaker 1: But I was not aware of that history. That's that's frightening, yes.
Speaker 2: And it's been suppressed for a long time, and I
Speaker 2: go into quite a bit of detail about it in
Speaker 2: my book. And you know, on the point of the
Speaker 2: Japanese even before he was inaugurated, he told you know,
Speaker 2: his future cabinet members that you know, he foresaw war
Speaker 2: with Japan. So this is you know, in nineteen early
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three. He was inaugurated in March. Of course.
Speaker 4: Wow, but there have been rumors swirling for years that
Speaker 4: maybe he even knew about the impending and bombing of
Speaker 4: Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 1: Is there any truth to that notion?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if that will ever be proven
Speaker 2: because a lot of the records have been destroyed and
Speaker 2: he did not keep diaries. But he did tell Admiral Richardson,
Speaker 2: James O. Richardson, that he would not remove the fleet
Speaker 2: from Hawaii. Richardson said, you know, they're vulnerable. So he said,
Speaker 2: I can't do this in an election years nineteen forty,
Speaker 2: So he, you know, put Richardson in a different spot
Speaker 2: and put in Kimmel, who was more you know, agreeable,
Speaker 2: And so he was warned about that, and he was
Speaker 2: trying to provoke war. I mean, you know, as I
Speaker 2: point out in an article that I had published recently, also,
Speaker 2: you know, when he and Churchill met at place Antia Bay,
Speaker 2: he said, you know, I am going to provoke war.
Speaker 2: I want to have a provocation. I want an incident.
Speaker 2: He was hoping that it would be around the Philippines.
Speaker 2: You know, he didn't think that the Japanese were smart
Speaker 2: enough to send such a bombing mission. You know that,
Speaker 2: you know, destroyed the fleet and killed almost three thousand men.
Speaker 2: But they were you know, he thought that the Japanese
Speaker 2: were sneaky and not very smart.
Speaker 4: Well, I know he's perceived as this, you know, champion
Speaker 4: of the working crass and a class in the press. Obviously,
Speaker 4: he had a great depression to campaign on along those lines.
Speaker 4: I suppose the failure of the Hoover administration helped him.
Speaker 4: But what was his driving motivation? Is it just simply
Speaker 4: a typical politician power struggle and wanting to be a powerful,
Speaker 4: controlling man.
Speaker 2: Yes, he wanted to be a dictator. He was called
Speaker 2: a dictator when he was first inaugurated. Some people said,
Speaker 2: we need a dictator to get us out of the depression.
Speaker 2: But his ambition from the time he was a boy,
Speaker 2: or at least a freshman at Harvard, as he told
Speaker 2: a girlfriend or he hoped would be his girlfriend, that
Speaker 2: he thought he would be president. And he followed in
Speaker 2: the footsteps of his cousin, his distant cousin, Theodore Roosevelt,
Speaker 2: and you know, planned out his political path of you know,
Speaker 2: one a seat to the New York State Senate, then
Speaker 2: became assistant Secretary of the Navy, just like you know,
Speaker 2: t R. Was ran for vice president with Knox, with Cox,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, and you know then of course came down
Speaker 2: with polio. And but he did, you know, when the
Speaker 2: governorship served two terms, and you know, he was looking
Speaker 2: for an opportunity. A lot of people think he was
Speaker 2: just you know, floundering around, well meaning during the depression.
Speaker 2: But as I point out from a speech that he
Speaker 2: gave at the People's Forum in Troy, New York in
Speaker 2: March nineteen twelve, he believed that the Founding Fathers had
Speaker 2: it a little wrong. They wanted independence, but what they
Speaker 2: really wanted was cooperation and interdependence. And he already was
Speaker 2: talking about the compulsory programs that he would set up
Speaker 2: in the New Deal. So this is nineteen twelve.
Speaker 4: Well, was he a fan of the Woodrow Wilson style government?
Speaker 4: You know, dictatorial from top down, and you know, the
Speaker 4: the government of experts dictating the terms of conditions of
Speaker 4: our lives.
Speaker 1: Is that his mold.
Speaker 2: A little bit. He was not a great reader or
Speaker 2: a student, you know, he was, you know, living in
Speaker 2: that milieu of progressivism. I don't think he consciously followed
Speaker 2: Woodrow Wilson's program, but they coincidentally matched because Franklin Roosevelt,
Speaker 2: you know, grew up in the Hudson Valley and the
Speaker 2: kind of feudalistic system he thought of himself as, you know,
Speaker 2: being sort of lord of the nation, and that top
Speaker 2: down system you know, aligns with progressivism. Yes, so he
Speaker 2: had these kind of vague notions. But and he you know,
Speaker 2: he did see himself as being powerful, more powerful than
Speaker 2: the other two branches of government.
Speaker 4: Well, and I guess I have to ask, because you know,
Speaker 4: mister Fireside, Chad Fdr. Everybody's like sort of grandfatherly figure
Speaker 4: offering us, you know, comfort and solace in our in
Speaker 4: our difficult times. Excuse me, ma'am, what was he really
Speaker 4: like behind the scenes. Was he that you know, decent,
Speaker 4: reasonable guy or was he kind of boil it down
Speaker 4: as there was he kind of a jerk because a
Speaker 4: lot of people's public persona is not the way they
Speaker 4: really run the run the ship.
Speaker 2: That's right. Yes, he was a master of the radio.
Speaker 2: That was a new medium. That was you know, and
Speaker 2: so was Mussolini. But I quote extensively from a fellow
Speaker 2: Grouten student, Francis Biddle, who became his attorney general ultimately,
Speaker 2: and he writes about what he would do to the
Speaker 2: people closest to him. He had a way of catching
Speaker 2: them when they were most vulnerable and then sort of
Speaker 2: attacking them with something that was very hurtful, and he
Speaker 2: had pleasure in doing that. There's something sadistic about him,
Speaker 2: and even I don't know if you know, I'm not
Speaker 2: a psychologist, but when he was a boy, he wrote
Speaker 2: this letter to one of his governesses about how he
Speaker 2: liked to watch squirrels die after he shot them.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it sounds Jeff damer esque.
Speaker 2: I know, it's it's yeah. There was definitely a mean streak,
Speaker 2: and he really was impervious to people's suffering. He was
Speaker 2: very callous. He's yeah, yeah, he sent this maybe lieutenant
Speaker 2: on a He wanted to send him on a suicide
Speaker 2: mission to provoke the Japanese and you know, given given
Speaker 2: what I've discovered about his early life and his pre
Speaker 2: presidential career, that sounds, you know, like it would be true.
Speaker 2: I mean, that was his character.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm sure there's a DSM diagnosis for somewhere in there.
Speaker 4: Without question. Name of the book, Debunking FDR the Man
Speaker 4: in the my guest today, Mary Grevart. Mary, we put
Speaker 4: your book on my blog page fifty five cars dot
Speaker 4: com so my listeners can easily get a copy learn
Speaker 4: about the realities of FDR rather than the myths and
Speaker 4: legends we've been fed all these years. Mary, It's been
Speaker 4: an interesting conversation. It's a wonderful book, and I know
Speaker 4: my listener is going to really enjoy reading it. And
Speaker 4: I can't thank you enough for the time he's spoke
Speaker 4: my listeners today, just scratching the surface of the man
Speaker 4: who is or was FDR.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 4: It's been my pleasure too. You take care and have
Speaker 4: a wonderful week. It's eight twenty right now, folks. If
Speaker 4: you have krs DE talk station cover Sincy and you know, folks,
Speaker 4: it's not just the Greater Cincinnati area for cover Sincy.
Speaker 4: It is nationwide and it is them acting as your broker.
Speaker 1: They are working for you.
Speaker 4: When it comes to medical insurance, they will they plug
Speaker 4: the holes in the bucket. As John Roman has explained
Speaker 4: to me, you know, your regular insurance policy has got
Speaker 4: a lot of holes in it. You're not covered in
Speaker 4: a whole lot of respects. They work with hundreds of
Speaker 4: insurance companies, thousands of different policies, and those different policies
Speaker 4: work to plug all those holes. Up front coverage for
Speaker 4: your regular medical services. You got catastrophic coverage if you
Speaker 4: end up in a hospital. Accident coverage. Everybody has accidents
Speaker 4: and you never know when it's gonna happen. They make
Speaker 4: sure you're covered across the board and ultimately, and it's
Speaker 4: as impossible to believe. You have better medical coverage for
Speaker 4: less money, and they'll explain it to you in Gloria's detail.
Speaker 4: They look specifically at you where you are in your life.
Speaker 4: For example, do you to ensure your entire family? Are
Speaker 4: you single and solo starting out your career. If you're
Speaker 4: a small business, he can improve your business's bottom line
Speaker 4: while getting your employees insured happily insured, because it's going
Speaker 4: to be a policy that they can actually afford, and
Speaker 4: we'll provide them coverage. It's an amazing concept, isn't it so?
Speaker 4: Anywhere you happen to be. If you're listening to me,
Speaker 4: like my friend Mississippi James, or New Hampshire Garrett, or
Speaker 4: even of course in the greater Cincinnati year go to
Speaker 4: coversincey dot com. Fill the format, get the ball rolling,
Speaker 4: no obligation to you. You'll take a look at your
Speaker 4: specifics and come up with the package of insurance which
Speaker 4: is going to be better than what you got for
Speaker 4: less money. And therein is the bottom line. Cover sency
Speaker 4: dot com or call um up five one three eight
Speaker 4: hundred call five one three eight hundred two two five
Speaker 4: five