The Lost Internationalism of Wendell Willkie

Why Wendell Willkie, and why now? At first glance, the failed 1940 Republican presidential aspirant, corporate lawyer, and advocate of “one world” appears to have left only a glancing trace on the 20th century. Conventional wisdom sees him as an accessory to history, a courageous also-ran, and a fortuitous ally for his 1940 Democratic opponent, then-two-term president Franklin Roosevelt. Willkie is praised as a poignant reminder of a long-lost liberal Republicanism, a great bipartisan spirit who helped banish the party's so-called “isolationism.” Jousting in the press with Charles Lindbergh's America First Committee and offering critical support for Roosevelt's Lend-Lease program, which provided crucial aid to Britain, Willkie gave the canny operator in the White House the political cover to lead the country into war.