FDR lives into 1946

Thande

Donor
What if FDR had lived around a year longer than OTL?

I can see some potential effects and discussions already -

* USA softer on the Soviets at the immediate end of the war
* USA more sympathetic to Attlee's Britain

And another thing - would FDR have used the Bomb on Japan? I think the answer is probably yes, but it changes the dynamic of the Cold War if the decision to use it is associated with FDR, who dies not long afterwards, rather than with Truman who gets himself elected in his own right.
 
I don't see the US being any more or less sympathetic to Britain than under Truman tbh - FDR certainly had a pronounced antipathy towards the Empire, and I doubt he's going to be any more generous in respect of supporting Britain economically so that it could keep it's military etc humming than Truman was. If anything, I could see FDR being a bit more confident and mercenary than Truman actually.
 
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I've mentioned it before but its worth repeating here because it suggests exactly how Roosevelt felt about Europe and the Soviet Union.



From ‘Warlords, the heart of conflict 1939 – 1945’ by Simon Berthon and Joanna Potts.

Page 131

But as the war ground on, Churchill began to see a new threat to Europe – the man who had become the third ally in the fight against Hitler, Joseph Stalin. In late 1942 he told Anthony Eden: ‘It would be a measureless disaster if Russian barbarianism overlaid the ancient state of Europe.’

Roosevelt thought otherwise. As far as he was concerned, the cause of war in the first place was the in fighting between Europe’s ancient, imperialist nations and he began to see in Stalin someone who would help him in his great cause of freeing the world of that Imperialism. Also in 1942, in a conversation with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, he remarked: ‘The European people will simply have to endure Russian domination in the hope that – in ten or 20 years – the European influence will bring the Russians to become less barbarous.’


This is taken from ‘The Roosevelt Letters: Being the Personnel Correspondence of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Vol.3: 1928 – 1945.
 

Thande

Donor
I don't see the US being any more or less sympathetic to Britain than under Truman tbh - FDR certainly had a pronounced antipathy towards the Empire, and I doubt he's going to be any more generous in respect of supporting Britain economically so that it could keep it's military etc humming than Truman was. If anything, I could see FDR being a bit more confident and mercenary than Truman actually.
This is true but I was referring to Truman's attitudes to Attlee and Labour (not totally unjustified) seeing them as unreliable allies against the Soviets.

Sure FDR was crazily anti-Empire but I think he would have been quicker to support us in a European context because of that.
 
I've mentioned it before but its worth repeating here because it suggests exactly how Roosevelt felt about Europe and the Soviet Union.



From ‘Warlords, the heart of conflict 1939 – 1945’ by Simon Berthon and Joanna Potts.

Page 131

But as the war ground on, Churchill began to see a new threat to Europe – the man who had become the third ally in the fight against Hitler, Joseph Stalin. In late 1942 he told Anthony Eden: ‘It would be a measureless disaster if Russian barbarianism overlaid the ancient state of Europe.’

Roosevelt thought otherwise. As far as he was concerned, the cause of war in the first place was the in fighting between Europe’s ancient, imperialist nations and he began to see in Stalin someone who would help him in his great cause of freeing the world of that Imperialism. Also in 1942, in a conversation with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, he remarked: ‘The European people will simply have to endure Russian domination in the hope that – in ten or 20 years – the European influence will bring the Russians to become less barbarous.’


This is taken from ‘The Roosevelt Letters: Being the Personnel Correspondence of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Vol.3: 1928 – 1945.

If so Dewey might be elected President in 1948 after the Democrats are seen as "soft" on communism.
 

Typo

Banned
From what I heard during the last weeks of his life FDR was waking up to the true intent of the Soviets.

I think it might have been rather like OTL until 1948, then Dewey might get elected, or a democrat other than Truman.
 
From what I heard during the last weeks of his life FDR was waking up to the true intent of the Soviets.

From Page 298 of the same book


Evidence that a niggling doubt had now lodged in Roosevelt’s mind surfaced the next day (March 30 1945). He asked the lend-lease administrator Leo Crowley: ‘How much do the Russians owe us?’ Crowley replied that it was somewhere in the region of eleven billion dollars. Roosevelt told him that Henry Morgenthau had suggested the Soviets be given ten billion more. Crowley said he was opposed to this. Roosevelt agreed. ‘I have yet to get any concessions from Stalin,’ he remarked. ‘We are getting down to the tail end of the war. I do not want you to let out any more long-term contracts on Lend-Lease,’ he ordered Crowley, ‘further, I want you to shut off Lend-Lease the moment Germany is defeated.’ He also conveyed his anxieties to an aide, Chester Bowles: ‘We’ve taken a great risk here, an enormous risk, and it involves the Russian intentions. I’m worried. I still think Stalin will be out of his mind if he doesn’t cooperate, but maybe he’s not going to; in which case, we’re going to have to take a different view.’
 
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