Franklin D. Roosevelt As World Leader: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered Before the University of Oxford on 16 May 1995

This transcript of the author's lecture considers that 50 years after his death, Franklin Roosevelt's leadership as a world leader is a matter of dispute. Nearly everyone agrees that he was an architect of victory in World War II, but they continue to argue over whether he conspired to let the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor and whether he acted wisely in incarcerating 110,000 Japanese Americans in 1942 or abandoning the Jews to the Holocaust. Professor Dallek disputes these allegations but believes it is more useful to discuss the elements of Franklin Roosevelt's effective wartime leadership. He argues that Roosevelt was a successful foreign policy leader who relied on vision, pragmatism, consensus, charisma and public trust to achieve his ends. Professor Dallek believes that Roosevelt remains a model for American foreign relations practices.