Evaluate the domestic and international leadership of Presidents Roosevelt and Truman during World War II. Be sure to include details on how they...

Franklin D. Roosevelt effectively ended the Great Depression with American involvement in war production. While the U.S. Congress had passed a series of neutrality acts in the 1930s in an attempt to keep the U.S. out of the war, Roosevelt was able to maneuver the U.S. towards involvement in the war, while maintaining solid relationships with allies such as Great Britain. In 1939, he was able to get the Congress to pass the "cash and carry" act, which said that the U.S. could sell arms to other nations if the other countries paid cash (instead of financing their purchase with loans) and carried the arms on their own ships. In 1941, he was able to get the Lend-Lease Act passed so that he could lend or lease materials to countries, such as Great Britain and China, that he deemed critical to the war effort. By maneuvering the U.S. slowly into the war, he was able to conquer domestic opposition to the war, and this opposition all but disappeared after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the American entry into the war. In 1942, Roosevelt started the War Production Board to convert peacetime industries into industries needed for the war in a rapid manner. Roosevelt maintained alliances with Great Britain and the Soviet Union though wartime conferences such as Tehran in late 1943, when the leaders discussed the eventual Allied invasion of northern France.

Truman, who became President with Roosevelt's death in 1945, continued his policies with our allies, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. However, by the time of the Potsdam Conference in August of 1945, there was growing mistrust between the Soviet Union and the west, particularly the U.S. The Soviet Union had already occupied parts of Eastern Europe, such as Poland. In addition, Truman told the Soviet leader, Stalin, about the development of the atomic bomb, but Stalin showed little interest or surprise (perhaps because he had already been informed about the bomb through spies). This conference showed the signs of mistrust and division that would continue to develop between the west and the Soviet Union during the ensuing Cold War.