Operation Torch at 75: FDR and the Domestic Politics of the North African Invasion
Carrie Lee
November 8, 2017
Wednesday, Nov. 8 marks the 75th anniversary of the North Africa landings by Allied forces during World War II. The 1942 landings, which constituted America’s first operation fighting Germans in the European theater, protected assets and territory around the Mediterranean and served as the launching point for the Sicilian and Italian invasions the following year.
What many do not appreciate is that U.S. military guidance at the time advocated against the landings. The joint chiefs were overruled by President Franklin D Roosevelt, who was concerned about the domestic political implications of delaying an invasion after the November congressional elections. Archival evidence from the Roosevelt Presidential Library, Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s diaries, and oral histories given by Army Chief of Staff George Marshall reveal that domestic political priorities shaped—in fact, drove—the American president’s decision-making about military operations in 1942.
https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/16075/
