Karl Von Clausewitz, a renowned Prussian general and military theorist, once famously stated, "War is the continuation of politics by other means."  To understand war then, one must go behind the frontlines into the political realm to the people and movements that guided their countries into war.  One such person is Wendell Willkie. 

Previously a trivia footnote as the only major party presidential candidate not to have previously held a political position or served as a general, this tome reveals a life far beyond the trivial.  A native of Elwood, Indiana, Willkie served in World War I before pursuing a career in law and business, taking him to Wall Street and the presidency of Commonwealth & Southern, a power utility holding company.  This position would bring Willkie into continued corporate competition and personal contact with President Franklin D. Roosevelt over C & S Holding and the development of the Tennessee Valley Authority. 

In 1940 this competition would migrate to the political realm as Willkie switched his registration from Democratic to Republican and captured the Republican nomination for president.  Willkie may have been the first challenger to the Republican isolationist tradition since Theodore Roosevelt.  The 1940 campaign was the one in which America’s entry into World War II was a key issue.  Willkie promised “When I am President I shall send not one American into the shambles of a European war” while warning “your boys will be sent overseas” with Roosevelt. Willkie shared Roosevelt’s belief that victory for Britain in World War II was essential.  Though attacks on the Selective Service Act and the Destroyers for Bases deal may have been politically expedient, Willkie withheld criticism and intervened with GOP to rally Republican congressional votes for what he believed were necessary measures.  In the words of columnist Walter Lippmann, “Under any other leadership but his, the Republican party would have turned its back upon Great Britain causing all who still resisted Hitler to feel that they were abandoned.” 

Immediately after his reelection, FDR turned to his vanquished rival for collaboration as the nation moved toward involvement in the World War, sending Willkie on an around the world tour in both a personal capacity and as a representative of the President, featuring personal meetings with Churchill, King George VI, de Gaulle, Stalin, Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek. 

Though widely predicted as the likely successor to FDR in 1944, mainstream isolationist Republicans denied him nomination, turning to Governor Thomas Dewey.  Willkie would not survive until election day, dying on October 8, 1940, a fifty-two-year-old visionary “who ate too much, drank too much, smoked too much and loved too much.” 

Author David Levering Lewis has crafted a very readable biography replete with high ideals and human frailties, noble bipartisanship and political intrigue.  He presents a patriot who rose out of Indiana to the heights of business and politics and profoundly impacted our country through his advocacy of international involvement, acceptance of many New Deal programs and pricking of a nation’s conscience on racial issues.  A transformational leader rather than a transactional politician, he became one of “those who cannot exercise power (but) come thereby to exercise greater influence.”  Probably his greatest influence on history is joining what approached a war coalition government with other Republicans, most prominently War Secretary Henry Stimson and Navy Secretary Frank Knox.  The struggle for the heart of the Republican party between isolationists and internationalists may have been begun, but would not be decided in Willkie’s lifetime continuing for another twelve years until Dwight Eisenhower solidified the internationalists’ control for 65 years.  “The Improbable Wendell Willkie” is an excellent biography of a significant, but often overlooked life in the American pageant that merits the interest of War History Network readers. 

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