In the McConnell Center’s Daniel H. Utley Memorial Lecture, best-selling author Lynne Olson recounts the internal squabbles that gripped the U.S. in the period leading up to Pearl Harbor.

We often forget that even America’s “last good war” was highly controversial at the outset. Interventionists were pitted against isolationists and skeptics, similar to the political camps debating American foreign policy in the 21st century. Big personalities like FDR and Charles Lindbergh battled for public opinion and policy dominance and ended up changing the world.

Olson is a national bestselling author or co-author of six books. She spent 7 years with the Associated Press, working in New York, Moscow and Washington D.C. She covered national politics and the White House with the Baltimore Sun. She later taught journalism at American University.

This marks the final event in the McConnell Center’s “Debating America” lecture series.

The Daniel H. Utley Memorial Lecture is named in honor of U.S. Army Capt. “Dan” Utley, a McConnell Scholar alumnus killed in 2012 while in service to his country.