In his 1933 inaugural address, Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that
"the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Yet even before
Pearl Harbor, Americans feared foreign invasions, air attacks,
biological weapons, and, conversely, the prospect of a dictatorship
being established in the United States. To protect Americans from
foreign and domestic threats, Roosevelt warned Americans that "the
world has grown so small" and eventually established the precursor
to the Department of Homeland Security - an Office of Civilian
Defense (OCD). At its head, Roosevelt appointed New York Mayor
Fiorello La Guardia; First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt became assistant
director. Yet within a year, amid competing visions and clashing
ideologies of wartime liberalism, a frustrated FDR pressured both
to resign. In Defenseless Under the Night, Matthew Dallek reveals
the dramatic history behind America's first federal office of
homeland security, tracing the debate about the origins of national
vulnerability to the rise of fascist threats during the Roosevelt
years. While La Guardia focused on preparing the country against
foreign attack and militarizing the civilian population, Eleanor
Roosevelt insisted that the OCD should primarily focus on
establishing a wartime New Deal, what she and her allies called
"social defense." Unable to reconcile their visions, both were
forced to leave the OCD in 1942. Their replacement, James Landis,
would go on to recruit over ten million volunteers to participate
in civilian defense, ultimately creating the largest volunteer
program in World War II America. Through the history of the OCD,
Dallek examines constitutional questions about civil liberties, the
role and power of government propaganda, the depth of
militarization of civilian life, the quest for a wartime New Deal,
and competing liberal visions for American national defense -
questions that are still relevant today. The result is a gripping
account of the origins of national security, which will interest
anyone with a passion for modern American political history and the
history of homeland defense.
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