FDR Chapter Summary

By the Order of the President talks about many years, beginning by briefly mentioning FDR’s college years at Harvard University where he developed many relationships with the Japanese. -- Whether these old friends influenced Roosevelts final decision to sign Executive Order 9066 in 1942 is not definite but as Robinson puts it: “The Psychological portrait of any individual, especially one of such a complex and enigmatic historical figure as FDR, is bound to be oversimplified and distorted…” Robinson argues the President may have had a larger part to play in the blame about the internment of Japanese that has long been placed on the military.

Robinson starts writing by detailing the November 21st, 1944, biweekly meeting that had become a trademark of FDR’s administration. White House correspondents were welcomed into FDR’s office and could ask questions that hadn’t needed to be submitted beforehand (a difference from other presidents of the modern era). It was in this particular meeting a reporter from the Los Angeles Times finally asked the President about rumors concerning Japanese-Americans that had been circling for months, “Do you think that the danger of espionage or

Robinson decided to study and document the time of the famous President’s administration, he states that the President had been wary of the Japanese even before the event of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii by citing early letters with his cousin Theodore Roosevelt. In the back of his book, Robinson organized references by the chapter in which they appeared, using journal articles published in papers, letters given public access over time, and other researchers works. Yet those did not give a positive answer as to why Executive Order 9066 was put into effect or how the President was so involved with the internment, that part was put to Robinson to tell in an orderly