FDR Talk

I was only able to spend half an hour at the talk but this is the information I received:

Franklin D. Roosevelt was described as a mold-able politician by Professor Brikemen. This meant the FDR would change how he talked depending on who he was talking to, not trying to offend anyone. There are different versions of FDR and Brikemen focused mostly on the "2nd Franklin."  The problem with FDR is that he never kept a diary and would not write long extensive notes, making finding documents extremely hard. Other people like McDonalds and Sweeser (sp?) kept a journal or wrote documents that created a window in FDR's life.

2nd FDR was reelected, with a high domestic policy (The New Deal). But he lacked in foreign policy which was stopped by Congress. Congress agreed with the isolationists of the US. After WWI, which most Americans thought was a mistake, did not want to get involved in other people's issues. In 1938 Nazi Germany took over Austria and parts of Czech. FDR was worrying that something was about to happen. So FDR had a meeting with Rabbi Steven Wise. Wise was mostly focusing on Palestine and getting back to the promise land. FDR thought Palestine was exhausted, artificial restrictions and would not accommodate all the Jews and things were just going to get worse.

I wish I could have stayed for more of the talk, but he was very interesting.