Tacit Alliance (Franklin Roosevelt and the Anglo-American 'Special Relationship' before Churchill, 1933-1940)

In February 1938, Senator William Borah, an inveterate isolationist, accused the Roosevelt Administration of forming a ‘tacit alliance’ with Britain. Taking Borah’s remark as its starting point, Tony McCulloch analyses Anglo-American relations from the start of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second term in January 1937 through to the outbreak of war in Europe and the revision of the US Neutrality Act in November 1939. Despite the mutual doubts afflicting the governments – and public opinion – on both sides of the Atlantic during these years, McCulloch argues that thanks largely to Franklin Roosevelt there was considerable progress in establishing an ideological and strategic understanding between the two democracies. This laid the foundation for the ‘special relationship’ so desired by Winston Churchill during and after the Second World War.