The third presidential term of Franklin D. Roosevelt began on January 20, 1941, when he was once again inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States, and the fourth term of his presidency ended with his death on April 12, 1945. Roosevelt won a third term by defeating Republican nominee Wendell Willkie in the 1940 presidential election. He remains the only president to serve for more than two terms. Unlike his first two terms, Roosevelt's third and fourth terms were dominated by foreign policy concerns, as the United States became involved in World War II in December 1941.

Roosevelt won congressional approval of the Lend-Lease program, which was designed to aid the United Kingdom in its war against Nazi Germany, while the U.S. remained officially neutral. After Germany began war against the Soviet Union in June 1941, Roosevelt extended Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union as well. In Asia, Roosevelt provided aid to the Republic of China, which was resisting an invasion by the Empire of Japan. In response to the July 1941 Japanese occupation of French Indochina, Roosevelt expanded a trade embargo to cut off oil that Japan urgently needed for its fleet. When Roosevelt refused to end the embargo, on December 7, 1941, Japan launched an attack on the U.S. fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Isolationist sentiment in the U.S. immediately collapsed and Congress declared war on Japan. After Germany declared war on the U.S., Congress declared war on Germany and Italy. To win the war, the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union assembled a large coalition of the Allies. The U.S. funded much of the war efforts of the other allies, and supplied munitions, food, and oil. In consultation with his Army and Navy and British prime minister Winston Churchill, Roosevelt decided on a Europe first strategy, which focused on defeating Germany before Japan. In practice, however, in 1942 and 1943 the U.S. focused on fighting Japan.

In late 1942, the U.S. began its ground campaign against Germany with an invasion of North Africa. The German and Italian forces surrendered in May 1943, opening the way for the invasions of Sicily and Italy. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy won a decisive victory over Japan in the Battle of Midway and began a campaign of island hopping in the Pacific. In 1943, the Allies launched an invasion of Italy and continued to pursue the island hopping strategy. The top Allied leaders met at the Tehran Conference in 1943, where they began to discuss post-war plans. Among the concepts discussed was the United Nations, an intergovernmental organization championed by Roosevelt that would replace the League of Nations after the war. In 1944, the Allies launched a successful invasion of northern France and the US Navy won a decisive naval victory over Japan in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. By the time of Roosevelt's death in April 1945, the Allies had occupied portions of Germany and the US was in the process of capturing Okinawa. Germany and Japan surrendered in May–August 1945 during the administration of Roosevelt's successor Harry S. Truman, who previously served as Roosevelt's vice president.

Though foreign affairs dominated Roosevelt's third and fourth terms, important developments also took place on the home front. The military buildup spurred economic growth, and unemployment fell precipitously. The United States excelled at war production; in 1944, it produced more military aircraft than the combined output of Germany, Japan, Britain, and the Soviet Union. The United States also established the Manhattan Project to produce the world's first nuclear weapons. As in Roosevelt's second term, the conservative coalition prevented Roosevelt from passing major domestic legislation, though it did increase taxes to help pay for the war. Congress also passed the G.I. Bill, which provided several benefits to World War II veterans. Roosevelt avoided imposing heavy-handed censorship or harsh crackdowns on war-time dissent, but his administration relocated and interned approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans. Roosevelt also prohibited religious and racial discrimination in the defense industry and established the Fair Employment Practice Committee, the first national program designed to prevent employment discrimination. Scholars, historians, and the public typically rank Roosevelt alongside Abraham Lincoln and George Washington as one of the three greatest U.S. presidents.

1940 election

The two-term tradition had been an unwritten rule (until the ratification of the 22nd Amendment after Roosevelt's presidency) since George Washington declined to run for a third term in 1796. Both Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt were attacked for trying to obtain a third non-consecutive term. Roosevelt systematically undercut prominent Democrats who were angling for the nomination, including Vice President John Nance Garner and two cabinet members, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Postmaster General James Farley. Roosevelt moved the convention to Chicago where he had strong support from the city machine, which controlled the auditorium sound system. At the convention the opposition was poorly organized, but Farley had packed the galleries. Roosevelt sent a message saying that he would not run unless he was drafted, and that the delegates were free to vote for anyone. The delegates were stunned; then the loudspeaker screamed "We want Roosevelt... The world wants Roosevelt!" The delegates went wild and he was nominated by 946 to 147 on the first ballot. The tactic employed by Roosevelt was not entirely successful, as his goal had been to be drafted by acclamation. At Roosevelt's request, the convention nominated Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace for vice president. Democratic party leaders disliked Wallace, a former Republican who strongly supported the New Deal, but were unable to prevent his nomination.

World War II shook up the Republican field, possibly preventing the nomination of isolationist congressional leaders like Taft or Vandenberg. The 1940 Republican National Convention instead nominated Wendell Willkie, who had never held public office. A well-known corporate attorney and executive, Willkie rose to public notice through his criticism of the New Deal and his clashes with the TVA. Unlike his isolationist rivals for the Republican nomination, Willkie favored Britain in the war, and he was backed by internationalist Republicans like Henry Luce the publisher of influential magazines like TIME. Willkie's internationalist views initially prevented disputes over foreign policy from dominating the campaign, helping to allow for the Destroyers-for-bases deal and the establishment of a peacetime draft.

FDR was in a fighting mood, as he called out to an enthusiastic audience in Brooklyn: I am only fighting for a free America – for a country in which all men and women have equal rights to liberty and justice. I'm fighting against the revival of government by special privilege....I am fighting, as I always have fought, for the rights of the little man as well as the big man....I'm fighting to keep this nation prosperous and at peace. I'm fighting to keep our people out of foreign wars, and to keep foreign conceptions of government out of our own United States. I'm fighting for these great and good causes.Susan Dunn, 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler the Election amid the Storm (2013) p. 249. As the campaign drew to a close, Willkie warned that Roosevelt's re-election would lead to the deployment of American soldiers abroad. In response, Roosevelt promised that, "Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."Steven M. Gillon, Pearl Harbor: FDR Leads the Nation Into War (2012) p. 13. Roosevelt won the 1940 election with 55% of the popular vote and almost 85% of the electoral vote (449 to 82). Willkie won ten states: strongly Republican states of Vermont and Maine, and eight isolationist states in the Midwest. The Democrats retained their congressional majorities, but the conservative coalition largely controlled domestic legislation and remained "leery of presidential extensions of executive power through social programs." Elections during third and fourth presidency Franklin D. Roosevelt + Congressional party leaders Senate leaders House leaders Congress Year Majority Minority Speaker Minority 73rd 1933.03.04.-–1935.01.03. Robinson McNary Rainey Snell 74th 1935.01.03.–1936.06.04. Robinson McNary Byrns Snell 1936.06.04.–1937.01.03. Robinson McNary Bankhead Snell 75th 1937.01.03.–1937.07.14. Robinson McNary Bankhead Snell 1937.07.14.–1937.01.03. Barkley McNary Bankhead Snell 76th 1939.01.03.–1941.01.03. Barkley McNary Bankhead Martin 77th 1941.01.03.–1943.01.03. Barkley McNary Rayburn Martin 78th 1943.01.03.–1945.01.03. Barkley White Rayburn Martin 78th 1945.01.03.–1947.01.03. Barkley White Rayburn Martin

+ Democratic seats in Congress Congress Senate House 73rd 59 313 74th 69 322 75th 75 334 76th 69 262 77th 66 267 78th 57 222 79th 57 244

Personnel Executive branch

Roosevelt's standard strategy was to give two different people the same role, expecting controversy would result. He wanted the agencies' heads to bring the controversy to him and he would make the decision.James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The soldier of freedom (1940–1945) (1970) p 348. Roosevelt on August 21, 1942, explicitly wrote all of his department heads that disagreements: "should not be publicly aired, but are to be submitted to me by the appropriate heads of the conflicting agencies." Anyone going public had to resign.Letter in Jesse H. Jones, Fifty Billion Dollars: My 13 years with the RFC (1932-1945) (1951) pp 505-506. By far the most famous controversy came during the war when Secretary of Commerce Jesse H. Jones and Vice President Henry A. Wallace clashed publicly over who would purchase war supplies in Latin America. Congress gave the authority to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation controlled by Jones; Roosevelt gave the power to Wallace, who envisioned creating a sort of little New Deal for poorly paid South American workers. According to James MacGregor Burns, Jones, a leader of Southern conservative Democrats, was, "taciturn, shrewd, practical, cautious.” Wallace, deeply distrusted by Democratic party leaders, was the, "hero of the Lib Labs, dreamy, utopian, even mystical yet, yet with his own bent for management and power." On July 15, 1943, days after they escalated their private controversy to Congress and the public, Roosevelt stripped both of their roles in the matter.Burns, Roosevelt: The soldier of freedom pp. 341-342.