FDR no superstar
Sir: Pundit von Hoffman, my fellow citizen, is now revealed to readers of the Spectator (23 January) for what we in the US know him to be: a liturgist of liberalism. His effort in your pages to justify the apotheosis of FDR is, of course, witless or- thodoxy. Whi'e some might tentatively agree that ole Franklin's beatification is justified by his domestic leadership during the Great Depression, it is an act of blind Pavlovian faith to call FDR a 'statesman'. Tell that to the Poles! Whisper it to the snickering shade of Comrade Stalin!
As for FDR's role in liberating the minorities, Mr von Hoffman apparently did not serve in Mr Roosevelt's Navy during the last popular war. Aboard my battle cruiser, American blacks served all, including their lessers, as waiters. Jews and Catholics were patronisingly admitted to FDR's military academies on a limited quota basis. So much for late liberal myths. The fact is that American minorities of FDR's era struggled for and achieved justice on their own in- itiative and perseverance. That FDR's rhetoric celebrated that end, there can be no doubt. Rhetoric was and is, however, mere rhetoric.
James J. Carberry
Department of Chemical Engineering, Pembroke Street, Cambridge
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