Rendezvous With Destiny

Michael Fullilove, executive director of the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, talked about his book, Rendezvous with Destiny: How Franklin D. Roosevelt and Five Extraordinary Men Took America into the War and into the World, in which he recounts the role that President Franklin D. Roosevelt and five of his advisors played in America’s entry into World War II. In his book, the author reports that Roosevelt was deterred by the public and Congress from getting involved at the outset of the War and was determined to gather information to lend support to Europe. He subsequently sent five men - Harry Hopkins, “Wild Bill” Donovan, Sumner Welles, Averell Harriman, and Wendell Wilkie - as American envoys to Europe from 1939-1941. Their respective meetings with European leaders provided Roosevelt with the information and diplomatic channels to move America into the war. Michael Fullilove spoke at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. close