Those Angry Days

Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941

By: Lynne Olson

Narrated by: Robert Fass

At the center of the debate over American intervention in World War II stood the two most famous men in America: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who championed the interventionist cause, and aviator Charles Lindbergh, who as unofficial leader and spokesman for America's isolationists emerged as the president's most formidable adversary. Their contest of wills personified the divisions within the country at large, and Lynne Olson makes masterly use of their dramatic personal stories to create a poignant and riveting narrative. While FDR, buffeted by political pressures on all sides, struggled to marshal public support for aid to Winston Churchill's Britain, Lindbergh saw his heroic reputation besmirched-and his marriage thrown into turmoil-by allegations that he was a Nazi sympathizer. Spanning the years 1939 to 1941, Those Angry Days vividly re-creates the rancorous internal squabbles that gripped the United States in the period leading up to Pearl Harbor. After Germany vanquished most of Europe, America found itself torn between its traditional isolationism and the urgent need to come to the aid of Britain, the only country still battling Hitler. The conflict over intervention was, as FDR noted, "a dirty fight," rife with chicanery and intrigue, and Those Angry Days recounts every bruising detail. In Washington, a group of high-ranking military officers, including the Air Force chief of staff, worked to sabotage FDR's pro-British policies. Roosevelt, meanwhile, authorized FBI wiretaps of Lindbergh and other opponents of intervention. At the same time, a covert British operation, approved by the president, spied on antiwar groups, dug up dirt on congressional isolationists, and planted propaganda in U.S. newspapers. The stakes could not have been higher. The combatants were larger than life.

With the immediacy of a great novel, Those Angry Days brilliantly recalls a time fraught with danger when the future of democracy and America's role in the world hung in the balance.

©2013 Lynne Olson (P)2013 Tantor

Informative, Unexpected, and Interesting

Where does Those Angry Days rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I've listened to several non-fiction, historical works on audio over the years. This is in my top five, mostly for the depth of information presented without getting lost in minutia. The reader's performance (Robert Fass) is solid enough and does not distract from the information which is the real star here.

What other book might you compare Those Angry Days to and why?

In many respects, this book reminded me of The Zimmerman Telegram. Not in content or historical period of course. Those Angry Days is about the late 1930s, The Zimmerman Telegram about World War I. What makes me compare them is the depth of information I didn't know.

I'm both a student and professor of history. I've done quite a bit of study and research into the periods in both books, and they both offered up to me quite a bit of information I did not know. Those Angry Days did so even more than I could have expected. It dashed quite a few of my cherished "beliefs" about the period running up to America's involvement in World War II, especially regarding FDR's conduct and attitude.

New information is refreshing.
New information presented well is outstanding!

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

At this length, hardly! But, that's not a bad thing. This is a book to be savored, not sprinted through. It's not a page-turner in the knuckle-biting suspense or action genre--it's a historical treatise, packed with information and insight. It's a book to be studied not plowed through.

Incivility in Politics - A Real Shocker!

This is a very informative and interesting audio. My husband and I listened to it on a cross-country road trip, and it took up a fair number of days and states! We learned a lot!

Both a history of the contentious battle leading up to WWII and a semi-biography of Lindbergh (and, to an extent his wife Ann,) this new work by Lynne Olson succeeds on the first count but falls a bit short on the second. So many people were involved in the anti-war and America First movements, and their motives were so varied, that the account and the cast of characters is sometimes too complicated to follow, and the Lindberghs are absent for much of the discussion. I found myself wanting to get back to them.

But this is at heart the tale of two very different, very opinionated, very stubborn men of great influence in a turbulent time. Hearing their story (and that of other pro-and-anti-WWII activists) is a reminder that no action in American history has been without controversy, not even the response to the Hitler movement in Germany. Some of those who opposed war were genuinely and earnestly convinced that involvement in WWII would be disastrous for America - they were labeled traitors and anti-Semites. Those who wanted to come to the aide of Britain were called war-mongers. It is painful to recognize in these historical arguments the same short-sighted intolerance and vicious personal attacks which are so common in today's politics.

Japan ultimately settled the argument between the interventionists and the isolationists.
Lynne Olson justly reminds us that such periods of debate should not be forgotten.

US prelude to World War II

Lynne Olson has given us a very interesting and comprehensive study of the political “conversation” that went on in the US in the last couple of years prior to America’s entry into World War II. Her book takes us behind both the scenes and the public face of the organizations involved in trying to influence political opinion and decisions in the US and the story has all of the interest of current events. The main characters in the story are not only the high political figures in the US, Britain and Germany but also important figures in the US and foreign military, the US press and the general public. She describes in great detail the efforts both to drag the US into the war and the efforts of those opposed, not only to US entry into the war, but also to US help for Britain prior to Pearl Harbor.

The current myth concerning the run-up to the entry of the US into World War II is that Franklin Roosevelt led the US into understanding the need to help the British and his leadership in providing that help. Ms Olsons books shows a very different President - one extremely reluctant to get ahead of public opinion, making promises about help and then doing nothing to implement those promises, telling people he would do one thing and then changing his mind and always, always looking at the public polls before taking any actions. This book shows a President being dragged into providing help by the public which was always far ahead of him. This is not a new view of the pre-war years and Joseph Lash, in his 1975 book Roosevelt and Churchill, made the same point. But it is a point worth repeating because the facts belie the myth. This is not an anti-Roosevelt book and Ms Olson is anything but a conservative author but this book will be uncomfortable for some readers.

The tableau that the book covers include many of those involved in the “conversation” - Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Harold Ickes, Burton Wheeler, Hamilton Fish, Gerald Nye, John McCormick, Frank Knox, Henry Stimson, George Marshall, Hap Arnold, Lord Lothian, Albert Wedemeyer, Joachim von Ribbentrop, J Edgar Hoover, William Donovan, William Stevenson, Charles Lindbergh and many others - and the story of their efforts to draw the US into the war, keep the US out of the war or try to straddle a middle course during the turbulent times, forms the core of the book and thus provides an extraordinarily helpful addition to understanding the period prior to US entry into the war. While there may not be much that is new here, the book is unique in that its subject is not the war nor the efforts to provide help to the allies, but rather the political and social arguments that took place leading up to the war that ended up providing that help. In that, this book provides a great service to understanding the period and hence the decisions.

The book also serves to dispel other existing myths. America First was founded by young student leftists, not by conservative politicians. Lindbergh was against US entry into the war because he believed we were unprepared, would likely be defeated and would lose our liberties at home. He was not a Nazi sympathizer nor did he want them to win. General Wedemeyer was not the officer who leaked the Victory Program papers to the Senate isolationist. And others.

Robert Fass’ narration is well done, although a bit show, and I did not hear any production problems with the recording. I did, however, have to play the book at 1.25 x speed to avoid the slow pace of speech. Once that was done the book flowed well with no problems.

Fascinating Period of History that Was Eclipsed by the War

Olson’s book describes a slice of American history I knew little about. My parents lived through WW2 (my father served) so I knew about the war years— the unity to defeat the Axis powers, mass enlistment, the war mobilization, etc. My grandfather’s business closed because he lost his workers to the service and Willow Run bomber factory. I did not know about the fierce dissension over intervention or isolation that took place before the Bombing of Pearl Harbor. I can’t ask my parents and grandparents now, but Lynne Olson did an excellent job detailing this period. She describes Roosevelt as extremely political and apprehensive following his court packing fiasco. Wendall Wilkie comes across as a great American patriot. The most interesting details concerned the pre-war weakness of the military and the America First movement which included such early members as Kingman Booster and Gerald Ford. The Lindbergh’s and their strange history is accounted for in great detail. I was intrigued throughout, but then I really enjoyed the detail. Also— superb narration!

History unfolding

Olson shares with the reader the personalities , the motives, and the drive each of the men who interacted with FDR to achieve their goals. Coupled with reading citizens of London, one goes away with a great onsite of the years before the U.S. Entered WW II.

The fight before the fight

Where does Those Angry Days rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I would say that it ranks in the top 10

What was one of the most memorable moments of Those Angry Days?

The revelation of how prevalent (and acceptable) anti-semitism was in the US before WWII

Have you listened to any of Robert Fass’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Any additional comments?

This tells the interesting and dramatic story of the clash between the interventionists and non-interventionists in the months between the invasion of Poland and the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is little remembered today how bitter and divisive that fight was. The story also reveals the attempts by both the German and British governments to influence public opinion in their respective favors. Overall, it is a good listen and is very informative about a little known chapter in American history.

Love to learn new things!

What a great book! Learned that FDR wasn't always such a great leader but spent a lot of time being just another politician, that Lindbergh was really quite a jerk, and that politics is politics no matter what era you lived through. All in all a really good book.

great history, highly recommended in audio

Where does Those Angry Days rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is another terrific history book from Lynne Olson. Even though I knew the general outlines of the period, 1936 to 1941, I certainly did not know all of the players, all of the factions, machinations, FDR's political jockeying and poll-watching, Lindbergh and his long suffering wife (and mother in law). Olson makes great use of all kinds of evidence, speeches, letters, newspapers, newsreels, movies and diplomatic dispatches to knit together the time in such a way that you feel as if you were there. The narrator is also very good.

If you think vitriol I. Politics is unique to current times, this story will disabuse one of that mistake

Well written it well tells the story of the political decision surrounding the US support for and those against entry of this country into the European war. It also exposes the chinks in the armor of the most famous person in the world, the idealistic Charles Lindbergh and the extent that FDR and his sycophants would push fealty to civil liberties aside to achieve their political ends. It is during this time that J Edgar Hoover broadly interpreted FDR’s purposefully vague instructions to amass information on thousands of Americans obtained through warantless spying.

A world at odds with itself is nothing new.

As we ponder the complicated challenges of a modern world, it serves us well to remember the nature of man. The rifts in our social fabric. The acrimonious debate that so tear at us today. The desire to cancel those we disagree with. These challenges, that so many believe form a new experience for mankind, are but a cycle repeated since the beginning of history. Perhaps, in our struggle to make sense of it all, some salve can be taken in the knowledge that we are not the first to go through these things. Some lessons, at least, can be taken from our consideration of the people and events that preceded us. I find compelling the themes of hero’s who are far from perfect but ultimately contributed more than they took from the world around them. They’re a reminder that life is rarely so simple as our simple and convenient judgments would have us believe. I’ve been a lifetime follower of the exploits of Charles Lindbergh. The world had no idea when he was first assigned the moniker “Lone Eagle” how fitting that name would become for him on multiple levels til the end of his life. FDR is a personality less known to me but like Lindbergh, his life was complex to a degree few comprehend. A great read. A deep dive into a debate that permanently changed our world and whose echoes deserve our attention to this day.