First off, anybody who treats the UN as a successor to the League is talking through his hat.

The League was intended -- even by Wilson, who had no patience with small nations -- as a figleaf to allow the big powers to run things without scaring themselves to death all the time.

The maximum real membership of the League was limited to 5. The UN is a wholly different animal, in which Tuvalu, which has a population less than Orrin's hometown, gets an equal vote with China.

Collective security is a delusion, as we now know.

But, as Maurice Hankey (who turned down the job as the first general secretary of the League) kept telling people, if you're not going to have collective security, you'd better be able to defend yourself.

The Republicans chose "neither of the above," leaving FDR in a nearly hopeless position. We just barely got out of that one, and a lot of fine American boys were slaughtered because they were put in uniforms but weren't given any bullets.

I have recently revised by list of worst presidents, moving Coolidge to the top and Wilson down to second-worst.

Don't you need to move FDR to the top since he'd been president for a full two terms plus at that point? If we weren't prepared for the War it was his fault alone.

He was elected on domestic issues. The die-hard Republicans, pro-Nazis and worried masses wouldn't listen.

He was President for 9 years by Pearl Harbor with a massuive Democrat majority. He provoked the Japanese. But it's not his fault that we were unprepared for the war he got us into? Wow, you are in the bag for FDR.

Mr. Judd;

You might also point out that despite the fact that FDR was elected on domestic issues, he failed there as well, prolonging the depression and saddling future generations with out of control federal spending programs. Perhaps had FDR not been so obstructive to economic recovery we might have been able to afford a strong military.

It takes more than 9 years to build a Navy. One of FDR's first actions -- one he was able to take personally, without having to sell it to defeatist Republicans, was to transfer WPA money to begin building the ddestroyers and cruisers that, as it turned out, were all that we had to defend ourselves with in 1942.

He also managed, although only just, to get conscription, but not in time to train the new Army.

His administration did take the steps that ensured victory, such as the Naval Air Cadet Program, int he mid-'30s, over furious opposition from Republicans and many Democrats.

We came very close to losing World War II, and would have lost it if FDR had not been president during the '30s.

Even so, we could not have won had not Stalin industrialized Russia sufficiently to occupy the German army while we caught up.

Ah yes, we barely repelled the Nazis from the beaches of Cape Cod.

That's correct, Orrin. The bodies of dead Americans were washing ashore on Cape Henry, killed by Nazis.

Ask your oldtimers what the fuel situation was in New England in 1942. You will be surprised at the answer, I bet.

Three gallons a week or something absurd. So what? We'd have driven less and ridden trains more. It still wouldn't have enabled the Nazis to control the entire population of Europe and attack America.

You're not listening. The 3 gallons a week came after the Navy, supplied by FDR, began to come to grips with the subs.

So many tankers were sunk in 1942, that the northeast was on the verge of shutting down. That's why the Big Inch was built and Canol.

The 10th Fleet had nothing to oppose the German Navy with. The German Army could not have landed on Cape Cod. No Arab army is going to land on Manhattan either, but you take Arab attacks seriously enough.

I agree, once FDR inadvisably got us into the war the Germans effectively limited our fuel supplies. This was made easy because of FDR's inadequate preparation for war, after 9 years in office, and his refusal to blackout the East Coast lest people realize what war actually meant, especially those Easterners who had no desire to fight Germany, unlike the Westerners who wanted to kill Japs. Even despite his incompetence, you acknowledge there was no prospect of our ever being invaded. Nor did the Germans have the weaponry to attack us from Europe, though the V-2 program might eventually have led to the capability. Of course, there was no prospect of Germany being able to oppress all of Europe and the Soviet Union for any prolonged period of time, so the Nazis wouldn't have been likely to be around by then.

So, remind me again how we almost lost the war?

N/.B. It will be recalled how little gasoline mattered then, at a time when over 90% of the men called up for WWII were able to travel from home to base via our then excellent rail system.

The inadequate preparation was the fault of your hero Lindbergh and his defeatist friends, not FDR.

Check Morison's "Battle of the Atlantic." Most of the fuel needed in the Northeast then was not for cars but factories.

Lindbergh was President with a Congress of his own party from 1932 to 1942?