This is a board game blog. Board games are a medium which can help us understand – for example, they can provide a uniquely active perspective on history. Yet which other medium can provide a fresh perspective on board games? – This is where novels come in handy. Today, we’re going to look at The Third Reich (Roberto Bolaño), a study in obsession as well as gaming and history.
Spain in the 1980s. Udo Berger, a young German, has just arrived in a small seaside town for a vacation with his girlfriend Ingeborg. Yet Udo’s mind is not on the beach. He has just won the national championship at the wargame The Third Reich (clearly based on Rise and Decline of the Third Reich (Don Greenwood/John Prados, Avalon Hill)) and plans to use his vacation to write an article on his new strategy for the Axis. Ingeborg, however, has more traditional vacation activities in mind, and so they spend some of their swimming, tanning, and partying, through which they befriend another German couple, some locals, and the enigmatic paddleboat renter who is only known as El Quemado (The Burned One) for the burn marks which cover his body. When the vacation comes to an end, Udo remains in Spain, supposedly to help in the case of an acquaintance lost at sea windsurfing… yet the real reason is the game of Third Reich which he plays against El Quemado.
Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño wrote the novel in 1989. Since he turned his hand-written first draft into a typoscript (and later typed the first 20% into his first computer), it is assumed that he wanted to eventually publish it, but he didn’t do so before his death in 2003. When the novel was found among his papers, it was posthumously published in 2010. In addition to the original Spanish (El Tercer Reich), the book has been widely translated. I read the German translation.
Warning: Spoilers for the plot of The Third Reich ahead – but frankly, this is not a book you read for plot, you read it for the vibes.
Obsession: Conquest, Validation, Control
Udo Berger is wargame-obsessed, but the book is not a study of how an outsider has outsider fixations. On the one hand, Berger’s obsession with conquest and domination sets him by no means apart from his peers – just that they usually direct their respective urges to amorous exploits. On the other, our protagonist does not only want to conquer in the game either. In addition to his girlfriend, he also pursues the hotel manager Frau Else (who has been his crush when he was vacationing in Spain as a teen), and the underage chambermaid Clarita. And maybe most of all, Berger is fixated on being respected by his wargame peers, which he can only imagine obtaining by finding strategies (and publishing articles about them) which will obliterate all conventional wisdoms about the game.
As Berger is acutely aware of his lack of linguistic sophistication, he decides to practice by writing a diary during his vacation (which is what we read in the novel). The development of this diary reflects the changes in the writer: Originally, his daily entries are very structured (one per day, headlined by the date), and mostly concerned with banal reports on what he did, what he ate, and what he has in mind for the game/article). As Berger is drawn more and more into his duel with El Quemado, the diary gets more confused: He jumps from one level of narration to another within the same paragraph, extensive passages are solely dedicated to what’s happening in the game (down to which counters are placed on which individual hex numbers on the board), and the chapters are not only named after the dates, but also entitled “With El Lobo and El Cordero [his Spanish acquaintances]”, “Spring 1942” or “My Favorite Generals”.
Berger’s inability to focus also dooms his conquests (ludic and erotic): He sets out to prove that opening a second front early is not a liability, but an asset, and enthusiastically reports early in the game to a friend at home that it’s “Blitzkrieg on all fronts”. Yet as he conducts an amphibious assault of Britain at the same time as he invades the Soviet Union, his forces are overstretched and his Axis collapses before the historical date. And broadcasting his erotic attention over Ingeborg, Frau Else, and Clarita, does not further his relationship with either of them.
As things slide out of his grip, his attitude to control changes: Initially, Berger is fixated on the superior strategy. He notes down the exact moves – which corps need to occupy which hex in which turn to win. This chess-like approach collapses after the turning point of the game: Once El Quemado begins his counter-attack, Berger mentions for the first times that there are die rolls in the game (and how they favor his opponent) – not unlike many board gamers I have seen.
Gaming and History
Besides the main theme of obsession, the novel also offers many glimpses on gaming, history, and the relation between the two.
Berger arrives in Spain with his life compartmentalized between the gaming and the “normal” part – his girlfriend and the office job. This compartmentalization is already eroding with his plan to write the strategy article (which immediately chafes against the confines of a conventional vacation – the hotel employees are bewildered by his request for a large table to be set up in his room, and Ingeborg demands he come to the beach) and fully collapses over the course of the book, when he even unilaterally extends his vacation to play the game (and gets fired for it).
The shadow of history hangs over Berger. Our protagonist does not only play games about World War II, he also reads “patriotic” literature of the era, knows about the lives and deeds of the German generals (especially those of the SS), and the only of his wargamer friends for whom he has a certain reverence is a veteran of World War II. Despite this clear fascination for the history of Nazi Germany, Berger twice disavows being a Nazi himself (having been asked by El Quemado and Clarita). Once he even calls himself an “opponent of the Nazis”, but does not expound on it. His personal politics do not factor into the novel – Berger, having been born around 1960 in democratic, liberal, prosperous post-war Germany enjoys the luxury of only engaging with history at his leisure. He thus remains at the surface of it…
…unlike his gaming opponent. El Quemado comes from South America, and it is rumored among his Spanish acquaintances that the scars he bears are the result of torture (by one of the many right-wing regimes which took power in the 1970s). History has thus seeped into his body and gives him the strength to withstand the ludic assault of the experienced player Berger.
Bolaño himself was arrested after the 1973 coup in Chile and, to his own wonder, was released after eight days without having been tortured (he ascribed it to two of the detectives having attended school with him). He then emigrated to Spain where he worked odd jobs in the tourism industry like El Quemado.
Another allusion to Chile is made in a much-misunderstood scene: On September 11, everyone is out at the beach to celebrate the Catalan national holiday. Yet when a plane flies overhead, an eerie sense of dread overcomes the spectators. Many reviewers see this as a revision which Bolaño must have made after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks (or, as an odd coincidence) – but I think the likeliest reason for the scene is that the coup in Chile began on September 11, 1973 with the rebelling air force bombarding the presidential palace in Santiago.
Verdict
Roberto Bolaño’s The Third Reich starts with the innocent concept of a beach vacation. As it grows darker, the novel develops a hypnotic pull. The author’s own deep knowledge of wargames allows him to paint a vivid picture of the game itself – and of the hold it can have over its players.
Last year, I have inaugurated a new irregular series on my blog assessing the merits of UK prime ministers (illustrated through the lens of a single board game each). The rating system seemed robust enough to apply it to other countries/leaders (at least if they are more or less democratic). Thus, we branched out to an American president and a German chancellor. Today’s subject is another US president – Harry S. Truman, the first Cold Warrior in the White House. And which game could be more appropriate for him than Twilight Struggle (Ananda Gupta/Jason Matthews, GMT Games)?
The Rating System
Some caveats ahead: The presidents will be rated by the knowledge of their time. If they or their contemporaries could not have known about the effects of something, I will not use my hindsight to mark it as a mistake of theirs. The assessment is focused on their conduct as president, but includes their life after holding the office (in which they will still be regarded in the public eye as (ex-)presidents).
Now, to the system itself: There are three policy field categories (foreign, domestic, and economic policy) and three more general ones (vision, pragmatism, integrity). A president can earn from one to five stars in each category (for a total sum of up to 30). In detail, the president is assessed as follows:
Foreign policy: Did the president increase US influence in the world and the security of Americans at home? Did the president wield US power responsibly and with positive results for the regions affected (the latter counting for a greater deal in times of US power being great)?
Domestic policy: Did the president increase the liberty of Americans to express themselves and to participate in the political process? Did the president promote domestic security and shape the framework for fair justice dealing with offenses?
Economic policy: Did the president facilitate the prosperity and economic security of Americans (including in the mid- and long-term)? Was the president’s economic policy based on mutual benefit of those involved or did it unduly burden one side?
Vision: Did the president have an idea of what the United States and the world (the latter counting for more in times of US influence being great) should look like beyond the immediate future? Did the president’s policies steer the United States (and, if applicable, the world) in this direction?
Pragmatism: Did the president succeed in seeing his policy through from inception to completion? How well did the president manage the support from Congress, society, the administration, the media (the latter counting for more in more recent years)?
Integrity: Did the president understand the office as a means to benefit himself, special interest groups, the entire country, or another community? Did the president respect the boundaries of the office?
Truman’s Life
Harry S. Truman was born on May 8, 1884 as the son of Missouri farmers. He took a few classes at a local business school, but remains the only US president of the 20th and 21st century to not have attended college. After a few years of odd jobs, he returned to help on his parents’ farm. As he had political ambitions, he joined the National Guard in 1905 and volunteered for service during World War I.
Back from the war, Truman opened a haberdashery (which went bankrupt in 1921) and was elected county judge (in 1922). His political career was tied to Tom Pendergast’s political machine. Over the course of the following years, he struggled both economically and politically. His fortunes only improved when he was named Missouri’s director for the Federal Re-Employment program (which got him in touch with important people from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs) in 1933 and was elected senator in 1934.
Truman’s first term in the Senate was unremarkable and he only barely won re-election in 1940. The following year, his career took off when he headed a special committee to investigate inefficiencies in US war production – a crucial task with war ravaging both Europe and the Pacific, which the United States would enter later that year. Truman’s reputation for honesty and efficiency recommended him to president Roosevelt who was looking for a running mate in the 1944 presidential elections. As the favorites of the two wings of the Democratic party – Henry Wallace for the liberals, James F. Byrnes for the conservatives – were anathema to the respective other wing, Roosevelt chose Truman as a non-offending alternative – the “second Missouri compromise”. Roosevelt barely met with Truman either on the campaign trail or after their successful election and kept him in the dark about his political initiatives, particularly regarding foreign policy. When Roosevelt died barely three months after the start of his term, Truman entered the presidency woefully unprepared.
His first task was the victorious conclusion of World War II. Germany surrendered only weeks after Truman’s inauguration. When soon after the first nuclear bombs were successfully tested, the United States dropped them on Japan in order to “shock” the country into surrender – a policy which Truman endorsed, but did not specifically authorize (the bomb was treated like any other weapon at the disposal of the commanders in the theater).
In the meantime, Truman grew more distant to America’s erstwhile Soviet allies. He had wanted the Soviets to join the United Nations and the war against Japan, but once they had done both, Truman took a hard line against what he perceived as Soviet expansionism. The first test of strength was Soviet refusal to leave Iran – in violation of the agreement among the Allies after their invasion of Iran in 1941, which specified that they would leave the country six months after the cessation of hostilities. Truman’s tough stance won the day by spring 1946 – but in a pattern typical for his presidency, he did not receive the credit for it among the American public.
A common sight in the first turn of Twilight Struggle: Iran is a focal point for both players if they want to contest the Middle East and have access to western Asia. …in this case, the US player used their +2 influence boost (according to competitive play standards) in Iran – a luxury which the historical Truman did not have! From the Playdek digital adaptation of Twilight Struggle.
At home, Truman was faced with the transformation of the economy back to peace time. Increased unemployment and inflation dashed the hopes for a beautiful, carefree post-war life for many Americans. Truman’s heavy-handed handling of a railroad strike – he proposed a law that would draft strikers into the army – intimidated the strikers into submission. Yet while it antagonized labor (and questioned Truman’s commitment to constitutional practices), it did not win him support among business or the middle class. Truman’s Democrats were shellacked the 1946 midterm elections.
The electoral defeat freed Truman from his obsession to walk a middle course and please everybody. Instead, he proposed the policies that he thought were right. Domestically, that encompassed a series of ambitious bills to preserve and expand civil and economic rights which he called the “Fair Deal.” Most of them were squarely defeated by a cross-aisle conservative majority in Congress, but Truman’s activity put Congress on the defensive and no further New Deal legislation was rolled back.
Truman’s greatest achievements belong to the realm of foreign policy. Faced with the challenge of possible Soviet inroads into the Eastern Mediterranean (from where the United Kingdom was about to withdraw), Truman countered with the promise of aid to any free nation which resisted subjugation – the Truman Doctrine. He backed this unprecedented American commitment to internationalism up with the European Recovery Program – or, as it was more popularly called, the Marshall Plan. (Truman was wise enough not to attach his own name to it, as his unpopularity in Congress would likely have resulted in a defeat of the proposal.) The ERP did not only help Europe in its recovery from the destruction of World War II, but also provided a welcome stimulus for the American economy on whose goods the money was spent, and it was a major PR success for the United States in the nascent Cold War with the Soviet Union. When the Soviets played hardball in 1948 and blockaded West Berlin, a western-controlled island within the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, Truman found a measured response in supplying West Berlin from the air – steering clear of both abandoning West Berlin and risking war.
Truman’s relationship with both wings of the Democratic Party had been uneasy through his tenure – the liberals disliked him for his handling of labor disputes and his tough stance on real and perceived Communists. As the Cold War developed, a second “Red Scare” swept the country. Truman, who personally did not believe that a large number of Communist spies had infiltrated federal institutions, nonetheless lent this conspiracy theory credence with the vain attempt to ward off more radical legislation on the matter by examining the loyalty of all federal employees – with “reasonable doubts” sufficient to be fired. Even though the past of five million federal employees was scrutinized, not a single Communist spy was found.
On the other hand, the conservatives, particularly those from the Democrats’ southern bastions, warily regarded his Civil Rights stance. Truman created a committee to make proposals for Civil Rights whose recommendations he endorsed. Yet only when the Southern Democrats abandoned him in the election year 1948 (and supported the segregationist Strom Thurmond instead) did he stick out his head and decreed the desegregation of the armed forces and the federal civil service.
Truman took to the campaign trail and vigorously attacked the Republicans for not supporting his domestic reform agenda. Against the predictions of the pollsters, Truman defeated his Republican opponent Thomas E. Dewey soundly, with Thurmond coming in a distant third (and defeated in most southern states as well). Truman’s inauguration in 1949 was the first to which Black Americans were invited as guests.
Truman’s second term was less eventful than his first – and less successful.
When North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel to unite Korea by force (with Stalin’s approval), Truman faced another Cold War crisis. Truman attached an importance to it that went far beyond Korea – if such a blatant breach of the peace was not checked, it would spell doom for the rules-based peace order embodied in the United Nations. Thus, he sent in US forces to stop the Northern invasion and attained UN approval for the operation. US troops under General Douglas MacArthur blunted the offensive of the North Koreans and landed in their rear – thus throwing the entire invasion force back in disarray. As the coalition forces approached the 38th parallel, Truman disregarded Chinese warnings and authorized a crossing into North Korea. The ensuing Chinese entry into the war now caught the coalition forces off guard and forced them into an ignominious retreat. MacArthur then pressured Truman to extend the war to China – and the use of nuclear bombs. Truman refused, and as MacArthur kept defying presidential authority, relieved him of his command. For the remainder of Truman’s tenure, the Korean War would be a bloody stalemate.
Domestically, Truman did not fare better. His attempt to prevent a full-on Red Scare by the loyalty check program turned out to have failed entirely – instead Representative Joseph McCarthy levelled (unfounded) charges of Communist sympathies and activities at government officials, academics, left-leaning politicians, labor activists, and entertainers (especially in the film industry). The climate of fear which infringed on free speech also damaged the United States’ standing abroad.
Finally, another strike – this time in the steel industry – aroused the president’s anger. He seized the steel mills from their private owners to deal with the strike. This was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in April 1952. By the time of the Court’s decision, the deeply unpopular Truman had already announced that he would not seek re-election. The Democratic Party instead chose the governor of Illinois, Adlai Stevenson, as their nominee. Stevenson lost in a landslide against the Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower, the general credited with winning World War II in Europe.
Harry S. Truman lived a relatively modest post-presidential life, devoting much of his time to writing his memoirs. He died on December 26, 1972.
The Rating
Foreign policy: Truman shifted from cooperation to confrontation with the Soviet Union with remarkable skill. He found adequate responses to most foreign policy crises – from the first test of strength in Iran over the Greek/Turkish crisis which prompted the Truman Doctrine to the Berlin Blockade and the North Korean invasion of the South. His rare misstep was the foolhardy decision to push further in Korea which drew the Chinese into the war.
Structurally, Truman’s influence is even more profound: Almost the entire modern US security architecture was founded by him – the US Air Force, the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency and NATO.
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Domestic policy: Truman’s domestic record is mixed. While he was the first 20th century president to stick his head out for the equal treatment of Black Americans, he only turned to action after the Southern Democrats had abandoned him already. His anti-Communist loyalty checks infringed on the individual liberties of federal employees and did not achieve their goal of pre-empting more radical measures by the anti-Communist conspiracy theorists like Joseph McCarthy (and rather emboldened them). Finally, Truman’s invasive meddling in the economy – both his law to draft strikers and his seizing of the steel mills – show an instinctive preference for a security-based war presidency over individual economic freedoms.
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Economic policy: Truman faced the challenge to transform the US economy back to peace time – for which conservatives/business and liberals/labor had starkly different ideas. Truman initially attempted a middle course, but turned more liberal after his electoral victory in 1948. His Fair Deal legislation (most notably the near-doubling of the minimum wage, the expansion of Social Security to another 10 million Americans, the rural electrification programs, and the building of homes for low-income Americans) contributed to the broad prosperity of the post-war decades.
In the end, it was Truman’s foreign policy that was most influential for the economic development of the US: The Marshall Plan had shown how a further internationalization of American businesses could be profitable for them. Truman’s turn toward the security state after the outset of the Korean War led to a quadrupling of defense spending which would never again fall to the level of the inter-war years. This perpetual state of war-readiness and the resulting military-industrial complex of the United States play a crucial role for the structure of the US economy until today.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Vision: Nobody regarded Truman as a visionary when he entered the presidency. Yet his policies captured not only the present but also the future: The Truman Doctrine, a sharp break with the American isolationist tradition, was employed for the remainder of the Cold War. Every other Cold War presidential doctrine rested on it (and usually interpreted it for a particular region). Its basic tenet – to aid free nations against attempts to subjugate them – informs US policy until today (say, in Ukraine). In practice, the Truman Doctrine resulted in the “containment” of the Soviet Union and global Communism – another basic principle of US foreign policy for the next 40 years.
Truman’s predecessor Franklin D. Roosevelt, much more a visionary in the public perception, had relied on his own personality to see through all the great breaks with political tradition. Truman, on the other hand, built the institutionalized security state which is until today the foundation of the US presidency. Despite the pivot to “security” as the new main goal of American government activity, Truman maintained the primacy of politics over the military and defeated the specter of Bonapartism when he fired MacArthur over his insubordination.
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Pragmatism: Truman’s early attempts to chart a middle path often antagonized both sides – and sometimes led to contradictions (as when he publicly endorsed both Henry Wallace’s and James F. Byrnes’s foreign policy statements which differed markedly on the matter if the Soviet Union was an ally or an opponent of the United States).
Truman was at best middling at winning public support for his initiatives. While he won the 1948 election, his Congressional allies fared badly both in 1946 and 1950, and Truman had low approval ratings through most of his tenure (excepting the honeymoon period in 1945 and his time of foreign policy glory in 1947), sometimes as low as 23%.
Despite these troubles with both Congress and the wider public, Truman could see some of his key policy initiatives through Congress despite their impulses towards isolationism and a limited role of government.
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Integrity: Truman honestly strove for the interests of the whole nation. Yet he tested the limits of the Constitution with his reaction to strikes and when he did not seek Congressional approval for the war in Korea. His appointments were often based on loyalty rather than merit (and turned out lackluster in these cases more often than not). While Truman never used the presidency to enrich himself personally, his reputation for being extraordinarily honest is rather an artifact of being compared favorably to his morally flexible successors Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon in the 1960s and 1970s.
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Overall: Despite Truman’s unassuming personality and his low popularity during his tenure, he laid the foundations for American foreign policy for decades. His many moments of foreign policy brilliance are interspersed with a mixed record at home and many individual mistakes in running the office. He was an above-average, but not great president.
How would you rate Truman? Let me know in the comments!
Further Reading
For a short and accessible biography, see Dallek, Robert: Harry S. Truman, St. Martin’s Press, New York City, NY 2008.
As always when it comes to American presidents of the 20th century, see the respective chapter in Leuchtenburg, William E.: The American President. From Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, pp. 243—326.
Last year, I have begun a new irregular series on my blog assessing the merits of UK prime ministers (illustrated through the lens of a single board game per prime minister). The rating system seemed robust enough to apply it to other countries/leaders (at least if they are more or less democratic). Thus, I’m branching out! Today, we’re doing our first US president. And we’re starting with none other than 20th century heavyweight Franklin D. Roosevelt. The accompanying game will be Cataclysm (Scott Muldoon/William Terdoslavich, GMT Games).
The Rating System
Some caveats ahead: The presidents will be rated by the knowledge of their time. If they or their contemporaries could not have known about the effects of something, I will not use my hindsight to mark it as a mistake of theirs. The assessment is focused on their conduct as president, but includes their life after holding the office (in which they will still be regarded in the public eye as (ex-)presidents).
Now, to the system itself: There are three policy field categories (foreign, domestic, and economic policy) and three more general ones (vision, pragmatism, integrity). A president can earn from one to five stars in each category (for a total sum of up to 30). In detail, the president is assessed as follows:
Foreign policy: Did the president increase US influence in the world and the security of Americans at home? Did the president wield US power responsibly and with positive results for the regions affected (the latter counting for a greater deal in times of US power being great)?
Domestic policy: Did the president increase the liberty of Americans to express themselves and to participate in the political process? Did the president promote domestic security and shape the framework for equality before the law and fair justice dealing with offenses?
Economic policy: Did the president facilitate the prosperity and economic security of Americans (including in the mid- and long-term)? Was the president’s economic policy based on mutual benefit of those involved or did it unduly burden one side?
Vision: Did the president have an idea of what the United States and the world (the latter counting for more in times of US influence being great) should look like beyond the immediate future? Did the president’s policies steer the United States (and, if applicable, the world) in this direction?
Pragmatism: Did the president succeed in seeing his policy through from inception to completion? How well did the president manage the support from Congress, society, the administration, the media (the latter counting for more in more recent years)?
Integrity: Did the president understand the office as a means to benefit himself, special interest groups, the entire country, or another community? Did the president respect the boundaries of the office?
Roosevelt’s Life
Franklin D. Roosevelt – or FDR for short – (1882—1945) came from a wealthy New York family. He studied law and ventured into politics soon after graduating: At age 28, he was elected into the New York state senate. Like his famous (distant) cousin Theodore Roosevelt who’d been president until a few years before, Franklin was a progressive in favor of ambitious reforms. Unlike Theodore, he was a Democrat. When fellow Democrat Woodrow Wilson became president in 1913, he appointed FDR Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Many of Roosevelt’s convictions – like the importance of a strong navy to control sea lanes and his commitment to an interventionist foreign policy – were shaped in that time. In 1920, FDR was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidates James M. Cox’s running mate. They lost in a blowout, but Roosevelt established himself as a national figure. Roosevelt fell ill soon after and became paralyzed from the waist down (traditionally, his illness has been identified as polio, but newer research suggests it might have been Guillain-Barré syndrome). Consequently, he retired from electoral politics for a few years.
Roosevelt returned to politics and was elected governor of New York in 1928. His energetic tenure recommended him as a presidential candidate four years later, when the country was suffering from the Great Depression. Roosevelt won the election against Republican incumbent Herbert Hoover in a landslide. He would be re-elected an unprecedented and never repeated three times, winning over 80% of electoral votes in every election.
Roosevelt immediately began a flurry of reforms – starkly different from Hoover’s aloof and seemingly indifferent reaction to the Depression. This “New Deal” included unemployed relief and federal work programs, the foundation of federal social security, and the regulation of the financial sector. Thus, Roosevelt restored trust in the American economy and government.
In his second term, Roosevelt’s reforms were opposed by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Roosevelt threatened to introduce legislation which would have increased the size of the Supreme Court. As Judge Owen Roberts left the conservative camp in the Court, the New Deal now had a reliable judicial majority and the “court-packing” bill failed in Congress.
Outside of the United States, storms were brewing. Germany, Italy, and Japan challenged the existing world order. Roosevelt recognized early that American isolationism was ill-equipped to deal with these challenges. He pushed for American rearmament and, once war had broken out in Europe, supported the United Kingdom, France, China, and later also the Soviet Union in their struggle against the Axis aggressors – especially by giving them war matériel which they were to return or pay for after the war (“Lend-Lease”).
The Pacific is large. Even for a country as wealthy and powerful as the United States, it is not easy to project power on the other side of it. Setup for scenario C.4 The Eagle and the Sun from Cataclysm, taken from the Vassal module.
The United States only joined the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 (and the subsequent declarations of war by Germany and Italy). Roosevelt mobilized the country on an unprecedented scale: Federal spending from 1941 to 1945 exceeded that from the founding of the United States to 1940. The demand for war materiel stimulated the economy. Thus, America overcame the Great Depression building the planes, ships, and trucks with which the Axis was defeated.
Roosevelt’s main allies, the communist Soviet Union and Britain with its large colonial empire were not always supportive of the president’s ideas for a post-war order based on national self-determination and a rules-based international community. Yet they went along, defeated the Axis powers together, and founded international institutions like the United Nations. Roosevelt, however, would not live to see it: He died on April 12, 1945, less than a month before Germany’s defeat.
The Rating
Foreign policy: Roosevelt’s impact on US foreign policy can barely be overstated. He overcame the traditional American isolationism and replaced it with the United Stated adopting a global role appropriate to its economic strength and ideological appeal as the beacon of democracy and capitalism.
Even before the United States entered the war, Roosevelt had succeeding in putting the country on a quasi-war footing, instituting selective service and supporting the beleaguered Allies first with the “cash & carry” option to purchase war matériel, then with the destroyers-for-bases deal, and finally with Lend-Lease).
During the war, he managed a coalition of unlikely allies and got them to agree with his outline for the rules-based post-war order in which we live until today.
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Domestic policy: Roosevelt expanded American liberties with the early, symbolically valuable decision to end prohibition. More substantially, his appointments for judgeships as well as cabinet and administration posts reflected American diversity much better than before – Frances Perkins, his secretary of labor, the first woman to hold a cabinet post, may have been the most famous, but besides her, countless FDR appointees were women, from racial minorities, as well as Catholic and Jewish. Thus, Roosevelt ended the practical monopoly of WASP men on the levers of political power.
While the practical implementation of some New Deal policies excluded disadvantaged Americans (particularly Black southerners), the programs overall were the first large-scale social scheme in America not designed to exclude them and contributed to their equality.
However, Roosevelt’s controversial decision to incarcerate ethnic Japanese (most of which were American citizens) from the Pacific Coast states was an act of state violence based on racial prejudice and taints Roosevelt’s record for liberty and equality.
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Economic policy: The strategy tips for the United States in the Cataclysm playbook state: “The United States can do everything. But in 1933, America is not doing anything.” That’s precisely the state in which Roosevelt found the United States. His deft management of competing interests quickly restored trust in the US government and economy, as when his early cuts in federal expenses increased support for the following spending on unemployment relief.
It is impossible to list all New Deal policies and their economic effects. Three examples might illustrate their breadth and depth:
Roosevelt’s labor rights legislation allowed for the establishment of minimum wages, maximum working hours, and codified the right to collective bargaining. Combined with the expanded access to higher education from the G.I. Bill, these rights ushered in an unprecedented age of prosperity for the American working and middle classes from the 1940s on.
The Glass-Steagall Act separated commercial and investment banking and thus limited the effect of stock market crashes on the “real economy”. Its repeal in the 1990s paved the way for the Great Recession beginning with the crash of 2007.
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) did not only provide unemployment relief and conduct infrastructure projects, it also had a massive positive environmental impact (for example, with the three billion trees that were planted by CCC workers).
Rating: 5 out of 5.
The United States has great potential in Cataclysm, yet begins with a small force and low commitment. It is your task as the player – as it was FDR’s – to change that. United States power sheet from Cataclysm with counters from the beginning of the full game on them, taken from Vassal.
Vision: Roosevelt built the modern presidency and shaped US and world politics for decades to come. He elevated and enlarged the office of the president, which, as a strong executive center, allowed the United States to become a global superpower. His vision of achieving liberty, equality, and opportunity with the help of an active government dominated in US politics until the 1970s, and his vision of the rules-based world order even longer (even though it has been under attack in recent years both domestically and internationally).
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Pragmatism: As outlined above, Roosevelt undertook a massive transformation of American policy as well as of the role of US government. He succeeded in getting this transformation through Congress and the judiciary mostly by virtue of his immense electoral appeal: The public’s trust in Roosevelt was never more eloquently put forward than in his four landslide electoral victories. The “Roosevelt coalition” of urban working class, southerners, and racial/ethnic minorities proved almost unbeatable even after his death – from 1933 to 1969, Democrats held the presidential office for 28 of 36 years. Thanks to the Roosevelt coalition, they could always rely on Democratic strength in Congress. These endured even longer – the first time Republicans held both houses of Congress was after the “Republican Revolution” of 1994.
This combination of radical reform and enduring popular support in a democracy is remarkable. Cataclysm players need to keep their stability always at a high level if they want to emulate FDR!
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Integrity: Roosevelt did not use his vast power for personal benefit, but for that of his country and the world. Still, his reach for power knew no bounds. He frequently tested the limits of his office, as in the “court-packing” attempt or in his battles with Congress. He never relinquished power voluntarily. Only death parted him from the presidency.
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Overall: Roosevelt is not easy to rate. He is such a massively impactful president – by virtue of his long time in office, his re-shaping of the presidential role, his complete re-orientation of US foreign and economic policies – that in all the categories in which I have awarded him five stars he is likely still to stand out among future highly-rated contenders. The low points of his presidency – Japanese internment and his constant reach for more power – remind us that he was a flawed man, and that the flaws of a man with his power would shake a nation.
Summed up, he scores 25 out of 30 stars – a top contender.
Maybe I should tackle a less stellar subject for the next leader rating…
How would you rate FDR? Let me know in the comments!
Further Reading
For a recent, politically-focused Roosevelt biography, see Daniels, Roger: Franklin D. Roosevelt (2 volumes), University of Illinois Press, Champaign, IL 2016/2020.
William E. Leuchtenburg’s chapter on FDR in his treatment of the American presidents in the 20th century is almost a monography unto itself. See Leuchtenburg, William E.: The American President. From Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, pp. 143-242.
I’ve started a little irregular series called Prime Minister Ratings– assessing British prime ministers by a very general rating system and showcasing one board game in which the prime minister in question or the problems they faced feature. Our first contestant was Robert Walpole, the very first prime minister. Today, we move on to a 20th century heavyweight: Winston Churchill, the man who led Britain through World War II… and was elected prime minister for a second time six years after the war. Our accompanying board game is Churchill (Mark Herman, GMT Games).
Before we dive into Churchill’s life and the assessment of his policies, here’s…
The Rating System
Some caveats ahead: The prime ministers will be rated by the knowledge of their time. If they or their contemporaries could not have known about the effects of something, I will not use my hindsight to mark it as a mistake of theirs. The assessment is focused on their conduct as prime minister, but includes their life after holding the office (in which they will still be regarded in the public eye as (ex-)PMs). And lastly, in the following, “Britain” serves as a shorthand for either Great Britain or United Kingdom of Great Britain and (Northern) Ireland as applicable, “British” for the inhabitants of such.
Now, to the system itself: There are three policy field categories (foreign, domestic, and economic policy) and three more general ones (vision, pragmatism, integrity). A prime minister can earn from one to five stars in each category (for a total sum of up to 30). In detail, the prime minister is assessed as follows:
Foreign policy: Did the prime minister increase British influence in the world and the security of the British at home? Did the prime minister wield British power responsibly and with positive results for the regions affected (the latter counting for a greater deal in times of British power being great)?
Domestic policy: Did the prime minister increase the liberty of the British to express themselves and to participate in the political process? Did the prime minister promote domestic security and shape the framework for equality before the law and fair justice dealing with offenses?
Economic policy: Did the prime minister facilitate the prosperity and economic security of the British (including in the mid- and long-term)? Was the prime minister’s economic policy based on mutual benefit of those involved or did it unduly burden one side?
Vision: Did the prime minister have an idea of what Britain and the world (the latter counting for more in times of British influence being great) should look like beyond the immediate future? Did the prime minister’s policies steer Britain (and, if applicable, the world) in this direction?
Pragmatism: Did the prime minister succeed in seeing their policy through from inception to completion? How well did the prime minister manage the support from Parliament, the Civil Service, the media, society (the latter two counting for more in more recent years)?
Integrity: Did the prime minister understand the office as a means to benefit themselves, special interest groups, the entire country, or another community? Did the prime minister respect the boundaries of the office?
Churchill’s Life
Winston Churchill (1874—1965) came from the English high aristocracy, but inherited a knack for populism from his father, a Tory politician. After formative years as an officer and war correspondent, Churchill turned himself to politics, being elected into Parliament in 1900 (as a Conservative) and joining the government (as a Liberal) in 1905. He held various government posts and was First Lord of the Admiralty when World War I broke out. Churchill resigned over the disastrous Gallipoli landings, but re-joined the government in 1917. While being regarded as a major political talent, Churchill seemed too fickle and unreliable for the highest of offices – for example due to his second change of party (back to the Conservatives) in 1924, after which he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Once out of office (in 1929), Churchill searched for new causes – and took up first opposition to Indian self-government and, from 1933, opposition to Nazi expansionism. Neither was a popular stance in the Conservative Party or the country as a whole. Churchill had much time for his second calling after politics – writing.
When Germany went to war with Britain in 1939, Churchill, the great Cassandra on Hitler’s aggression, was called back into government. Less than a year later, prime minister Neville Chamberlain resigned over the failure of the Norwegian operation, and on May 10, 1940, Churchill followed him as prime minister. On the same day, Germany invaded France. Churchill presided over a series of military disasters in his first weeks. In this difficult situation, he excelled at maintaining the fighting spirit of his government, Parliament, and the British people. Not only Hitler was surprised when Britain did not seek peace, but opted to fight alone against the Nazi war machine which controlled half of Europe. Churchill’s great speeches of the spring and summer 1940 – from “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat” over “We shall fight on the beaches” and “This was their finest hour” to “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few” chronicle his defiance.
Britain did not have to stand alone forever. In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and Churchill disregarded his ardent anti-communism in cooperation with Stalin. Six months later, the United States entered the war on the allied side. Churchill was sure that this great alliance of Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States would emerge victorious. His task was now to drive forward the victory – and make sure that Britain, the least populous and productive of the three powers, was not relegated to second rank. For a long time, he succeeded. It was only after the D-Day landings in France in 1944 that Britain’s comparably small material contribution began to turn Britain into a junior partner. Churchill enjoyed great personal popularity for his role in the war, but in the parliamentary elections held two months after the German unconditional surrender, the British voters gave the Labour Party a majority.
Churchill was nominally the head of the opposition and made some memorable speeches warning of Soviet expansionism, but spent most of his time writing his war memoirs (like his other books, they turned into bestsellers). Labour enacted a series of ambitious domestic reforms (from the creation of the NHS to a housing program), but lost their majority in the 1951 elections – so Churchill returned to Downing Street No 10. By then, he was old and suffered from bad health, and domestic politics had never been too interesting to him. However, when Stalin died in 1953, Churchill hoped that a three-way summit between US president Eisenhower, the new leader in Moscow, and himself could resolve the nascent Cold War. His hope was in vain. He resigned in 1955 due to health reasons, but remained a member of parliament until a few weeks before his death in 1965.
The Rating
Foreign policy: Churchill’s focus of interest, and, as a wartime prime minister, the policy field in which the biggest challenges awaited him. He met them remarkably well. True, he did not increase British power and influence, but he staved off its likely demise by a negotiated peace with the Nazis, and held his own in league with the much larger powers of the United States and the Soviet Union for a long time. More importantly even, while it may have been these powers that eventually won the war, Churchill’s contribution in 1940 was to not lose it – and thus ensuring the liberty of hundreds of millions of people around the globe. Churchill’s wartime record is blemished by his less benevolent approach to the liberty of the peoples under British imperial rule which manifested itself in drawn-out colonial wars during his second premiership.
Domestic policy: Churchill’s main contribution was his unification of the country (and his own party, to begin with) to oppose Nazism – when isolationism, appeasement, and pacifism no matter the cost had been en vogue in the 1930s and still lingered early in the war. Also, the British government’s intrusion into the British people’s lives during the war was remarkably limited given the circumstances, and it can be argued that Churchill’s defense against Nazism was an enormous contribution to the British people’s life in liberty and democracy.
Economic policy: Tough to assess, as Churchill was never too interested in it and let his ministers run the show in these matters. The Labour members of his wartime government were able men, and letting them do their thing without hindrance is an achievement in itself (particularly for a leader as headstrong as Churchill). The British economy also was very efficiently mobilized for war production (and achieved a state of economic “total war” long before Germany’s). In Churchill’s second term, his major economic achievement was to accept and continue the sweeping economic and welfare reforms enacted by the Labour government from 1945 to 1951, even though they had been strongly opposed by the Conservatives when they had been in opposition. Churchill thus became a father of the post-war consensus.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Vision: Churchill’s great mission – the defeat of Nazi expansionism – was in itself not a long-term project. It ended with the Nazis’ unconditional surrender in 1945 – and so did Churchill’s premiership. He took to warning against Soviet expansionism and the hope to end it in a three-way summit between him, the American president, and the Soviet leader in his second term, but this proved futile.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Pragmatism: Churchill was one of only few government members who were committed to fighting on after the fall of France, but he carried his government, his party, and the country at large with him. His broadening of the government to include Labour and Liberal ministers ensured national unity as long as the war lasted. Once Germany was defeated, this unity was over – exactly how it had been designed to be in a competitive democracy. In terms of foreign policy, Churchill seized on the opportunity to cooperate with the Soviet Union and maintained this difficult partnership until the completion of its mission to defeat the Axis countries.
Integrity: As long as Churchill was a wartime prime minister, his conduct in office held up to high standards. Once Germany had surrendered and Churchill switched to election campaign mode, he was not quite as exemplary – alleging that Labour would want to install a “Gestapo” if elected, a smear as baseless as it was unworthy of a man who knew both Hitler and Attlee well enough to understand they stood at opposite ends of the political sphere. As a former prime minister, Churchill was given access to government files for his war memoirs – and used them to shape public opinion and gain another election victory.
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Overall: Churchill had great qualities and marked defects. Fortunately for him, Britain, and the world, he was called into office in a time that demanded just what he could offer – and probably no one else who stood ready for the task at hand. With 25 out of 30 stars, he jumps to the top group of leaders.
An excellent overview with portraits of all prime ministers is Leonard, Dick: A History of British Prime Ministers, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2014.
A good start on Churchill – and, despite the somewhat grandiose title, no hagiography – is Best, Geoffrey: Churchill. A Study in Greatness, Hambledon and London, London 2001.
Of course, Churchill’s own writings are of great interest to anyone reading on his times, especially his Nobel Prize for Literature-winning The Second World War, six volumes (also published as an abridged one-volume version), Cassell, London 1948—1953.
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