David L. Roll (with co-author Keith D. McFarland) will present findings from his new biography of Louis A. Johnson--the controversial lawyer and politician who was FDR's architect of industrial mobilization on the eve of WW II and Truman's embattled secretary of defense at the outbreak of the Korean War. As he was being "drafted" to run for his third term in the summer of 1940, Roosevelt dismissed Johnson but led him to believe he would be on the ticket as FDR's running mate. In 1948, Johnson raised the money that enabled Truman to pull off his stunning come-from-behind victory. As Truman's secretary of defense, Johnson was given the almost impossible job of unifying the armed forces and carrying out Truman's orders to drastically reduce defense expenditures. Johnson's conflicts with the likes of Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of War Harry Woodring, Winston Churchill, Harry Hopkins, a host of battle hardened navy admirals, Dean Acheson, and Paul Nitze find contemporary parallels in the recent disagreements between the national defense establishment and the State Department.

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