Franklin Delano Roosevelt was 51 years old when he was inaugurated on March 4, 1933.
He had been born into a distinguished New York family and was distantly related to Theodore Roosevelt. He graduated from Harvard and studied law at Columbia University. An assistant secretary of the navy in the Wilson administration, he ran for the vice-presidency in 1920. One year later he was struck by polio which left his legs paralyzed. But a strong will and support from his wife helped him to carry on. In 1928 he had been elected Governor of New York. The depression presented him with a political opportunity; he became Democratic presidential candidate and easily defeated Herbert Hoover whose weak response to the economic crisis had cost him many sympathies.[214]

   His secretary of state Cordell Hull held many sympathies in Congress and still trusted free trade to guarantee peace. Over the next 11 years, Hull presided the State Department .[215]

   Two months before Roosevelt entered office, a radical, nationalist, racist, expan- sionist ideology had taken over Europe’s largest nation. Hitler had seized power in Germany. In Asia Japan had been fighting China for two years and was occupying more and more of the world’s largest nation. In the Soviet Union, Stalin was ‘clea- ning’ the ranks of the Communist Party to make himself a totalitarian leader. The League of Nations, conceived core of world peace, was disintegrating.[216]

   And meanwhile the economy of the world’s greatest power lay in shambles. How would Americans and the foreign policy of the nation cope with the situation of economic disorder at home and political disorder abroad? How would they define their international relations after two ‘internationalist’ policies had gravely disap- pointed them in not achieving the promised goals?
Would the erosion of power continue or would Americans actively engage in securing it?