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Defenseless Under Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security

Defenseless Under the Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security
Defenseless Under the Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security

Homeland security is often seen as a post-Sept. 11 development. Yet, in Defenseless Under the Night, Matthew Dallek traces its birth to an epic battle during World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt’s vision of a wartime New Deal was pitted against New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia’s campaign to militarize millions of civilians to keep Americans safe from air raids, chemical and biological attacks, spies, and even land invasion. Defenseless argues that Americans felt truly vulnerable for the first time not after 9/11 but during the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Matthew Dallek (Ph.D., U.S. History, Columbia) is associate professor at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management. His articles and reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, Politico, the Journal of Policy History, and numerous other scholarly and popular publications. He is also author of The Right Moment: Ronald Reagan’s First Victory and the Decisive Turning Point in American Politics and co-author of Inside Campaigns: Elections through the Eyes of Political Professionals (CQ/Sage).

The seminar is sponsored jointly by the National History Center of the American Historical Association and the Wilson Center. It meets weekly during the academic year. See www.nationalhistorycenter.org for the schedule, speakers, topics, and dates as well as webcasts and podcasts. The seminar thanks the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the George Washington University History Department for their support.

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Defenseless Under the Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security
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Defenseless Under the Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security

<p>In his 1933 inaugural address, Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that &quot;the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.&quot; 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 &quot;the world has grown so small&quot; 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.&nbsp;<br /><br />In&nbsp;<em>Defenseless Under the Night,</em>&nbsp;Matthew Dallek reveals the dramatic history behind America&#39;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 &quot;social defense.&quot; 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.&nbsp;<br /><br />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.</p>
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Speaker

Matthew Dallek
Matthew Dallek
Public Policy Scholar;
Associate Academic Director, University of California Washington Center, Washington, DC.

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