19. Japan Solves the Dilemma

Chapter Nineteen

JAPAN SOLVES THE DILEMMA

IN THE complex of events from November 25 through December 7, 1941, Japanese policy shaped itself in conformity with the desires of President Roosevelt. The President wanted to get in the war.* Primarily he wanted to fight Germany, but when Hitler would not accommodate him with the pretext for asking a declaration of war, he turned to the Pacific and to Japan to achieve a back-door entry into the war in Europe, knowing that the tripartite pact made it certain that if we went to war with one of the three Axis partners, we should be at war with all of them.

Hitler, suspicious of the reliability of the Japs, did not want to fight the United States as long as the chance remained that Japan might leave him in the lurch. An attack by Japan upon the United States, however, would serve his purposes. The Japs would then be fully committed, and Hitler could hope that American power would be tied up in the Pacific until he had cleared the board in Europe.

Mr. Roosevelt seems long to have doubted, despite the overwhelming weight of evidence to the contrary, that Japan would be sufficiently foolhardy to make a direct attack upon the American flag. Accordingly, he followed an alternative plan on the assumption that Japan might fail to fulfil the prediction he had made long ago to Adm. Richardson that the Japanese “could not always avoid making mistakes and that, as the war continued and the area of operations expanded, sooner or later they would make a mistake and we would enter the war.”

First, the President tightened the screw. Japan was reduced to desperation by embargoes and the freezing of its foreign assets. Then it was deprived of hope that any solution could be achieved through the diplomatic negotiations in Washington. Finally, the President threw over the scheme to obtain a breathing spell of from three to six months by means of a modus vivendi which would have provided some stopgap solution. He told Secretary Hull to go ahead and present the ten counter-proposals of November 26. The Japanese were ordered to abandon all their ill-gotten gains and become a probationary “peace-loving” nation. To a people so addicted to “face,” the confession of error implicit in any such retreat would have been even more galling than the surrender of the tangible acquisitions of conquest.

Roosevelt knew that Japan would fight. The only question was whether Japan would fight the United States. If the Japanese limited the attack to the colonial empires of Britain and Holland, an excruciating dilemma would be posed to the administration. On the one hand, the President was bound by his secret commitments under the Washington and Singapore staff agreements, and by his secret engagements to Prime Minister Churchill, to go to war if British or Dutch territory were attacked. On the other, he was restricted by his repeated pledges that Americans were not going to be sent into foreign wars “except in case of attack.”* In his “again and again and again” speech at Boston, he had not even made that reservation. It was because of these promises that the President kept insisting that Japan commit the first overt act.

In casting about for means to extricate himself from this quandary, Roosevelt hit upon a desperate expedient. This was nothing less than to execute a “Pearl Harbor” in reverse—to attack Japan without waiting for Japan to strike. Before acting, however, the President felt it necessary to prepare public opinion. The personal message he dispatched on December 6 to Hirohito, although eventually sent as an appeal to history for moral justification, had originally been intended as part of this conditioning. An address to Congress, and perhaps a speech to the nation, were to follow. Events moved so fast that this program could not be carried out; but they moved to the President’s liking, for they saved him from a constitutional crisis.

In pursuing his war policy, Roosevelt forced a two-front war upon an unready nation over the objections of his high command. On November 5, and again on November 27, Gen. Marshall and Adm. Stark addressed joint memoranda to the President appealing for delay. In the earlier memorandum they urged that “no ultimatum be delivered to Japan.”¹ They said that American naval forces in the Pacific were inferior to the Japanese fleet and could not undertake an unlimited offensive; that the Philippines were only then being reinforced, and that not until March, 1942, would air and submarine strength in the Western Pacific constitute a “positive threat.”

Referring to this memorandum, Senator Ferguson asked Marshall, “Were we in a position at that time to back up any additional warnings to Japan with military force?”

“We were not,” said the chief of staff.²

The plea of November 27 came too late, Hull having given the Japanese his unacceptable conditions the day before. The Army Board observes:

This is the memorandum asking the President not to precipitate an ultimatum with the Japanese and to give the Army and Navy more time within which to prepare; but it was too late, as the die had been cast by the Secretary of State in handing the ten-points counter-proposals to the Japanese on the previous day, which was, as the Secretary of State remarked, “washing his hands of the matter.”³

Again, the board stated,

Undoubtedly the Secretary of State had been frequently advised during the meetings of the war council of the inadequate status of the defenses of the United States. Our Army and Navy were not ready for war, and undoubtedly the Secretary of State had been advised of that fact. . . .

This memorandum was addressed directly to the President, according to the testimony of Gen. Marshall. It contained two things: first, a statement that the most essential thing from the United States viewpoint was to gain time and to avoid precipitating military action so long as this could be done consistent with the national policy, because of the fact that the Army and Navy were not ready for war; and, second, attention was called to the desirability of counter-military action against Japan in event she engaged in specific acts of aggression. The memorandum recommended among other things that “steps be taken at once to consummate agreements with the British and Dutch for the issuance of warnings to the Japanese against taking such aggressive action.”⁴

The memorandum and the question of the need for further time were discussed on the 27th at a conference among Secretary of War Stimson, Secretary of the Navy Knox, Adm. Stark, and Gen. Gerow. Marshall had left the preceding afternoon for maneuvers in North Carolina.⁵ During the congressional investigation, Representative Gearhart suggested that Marshall and Stark drafted the memorandum the afternoon of November 25, before the departure of the chief of staff, after it became apparent to them from discussion at a meeting of the war cabinet in the White House at noon that the President was crowding the country toward war. There were three telephone calls between the general and the admiral that afternoon, but Stark professed inability to recall whether the appeal had been drafted before Hull’s terms were tendered and then withheld until it could serve no purpose.⁶

Hull, with the assent of the President, went ahead, “kicking the whole thing over,” as he said, and stating to Stimson, “I have washed my hands of it, and it is now in the hands of you and Knox, the Army and the Navy.”⁷ The Army Board censured Hull for this conduct. Said the board:

The action of the Secretary of State in delivering the counter-proposals of November 26, 1941, was used by the Japanese as the signal to begin the war by the attack on Pearl Harbor. To the extent that it hastened such attack, it was in conflict with the efforts of the War and Navy departments to gain time for preparations for war. However, war with Japan was inevitable and imminent because of irreconcilable disagreements between the Japanese empire and the American government.⁸

The inevitable and imminent war, however, was the product of American diplomacy so managed that war could neither be averted nor delayed until the Army and Navy were ready.^* As late as November 6 Roosevelt favored a modus vivendi that would delay hostilities. Secretary Stimson, who kept a contemporaneous record of events, relates that on that day he discussed the Far Eastern situation for an hour with the President. He states:

The thing uppermost in his mind was how we could gain more time. I quote from my notes: “The President outlined what he thought he might say.^† He was trying to think of something that would give us further time. He suggested he might propose a truce in which there would be no movement or armament for six months and then if the Japanese and Chinese had not settled their arrangement in that meanwhile, we could go on on the same basis.”⁹

On November 25, one day before he tendered the Japanese the demands which they found unacceptable, Hull was still considering what Stimson called “the proposal for a three months’ truce.” Overnight, however, he and the President changed their minds. On the 26th Hull told Stimson that the Chinese had objected strenuously to the modus vivendi and that he “had about made up his mind to give up the whole thing in respect to a truce and to simply tell the Japanese that he had no further action to propose.”¹⁰ That same day Hull not only “gave up the whole thing” but handed Nomura and Kurusu the conditions which he and the President knew they were certain to reject.

Stimson had been unsympathetic to the truce proposal when the President was considering it. He was still unsympathetic when he discussed the belated appeal for delay of Marshall and Stark on November 27 with Stark, Knox, and Gerow. “There was a tendency, not unnatural, on the part of Stark and Gerow to seek for more time,” he wrote in his diary. “I said that I was glad to have time but I didn’t want it at any cost of humility on the part of the United States or of reopening the thing, which would show a weakness on our part.”¹¹

A memorandum of this conversation prepared for Gen. Marshall by Gerow stated that Stimson “wanted to be sure that the memorandum would not be construed as a recommendation to the President that he request Japan to reopen the conversations. He was reassured on that point.” Later the memorandum was submitted to Stimson, who made some changes.¹²

Thus the Secretary of War, seeing that the United States was heading toward an inevitable conflict with Japan, issued orders to forestall any possibility that war would be headed off by conciliatory action on the part of the Roosevelt government. He issued these orders although fully aware of the unpreparedness of the Army and Navy to go to war, and this is among the many responsibilities which must be charged to him.

So far as the record shows, Roosevelt and Secretary Hull abandoned the modus vivendi because of the cries of “appeasement” which were coming from the Chinese and British. Beyond that, it seems clear that both were ready for war, even if the Army and Navy were not. Significantly, their momentous decision to submit the counter-proposals of November 26 does not appear to have been influenced by new Japanese troop movements which might have served as a convenient pretext.

On the afternoon of the 25th intelligence reports to Stimson showed five Japanese divisions moving southward by transport from Shantung and Shansi toward Indo-China. Stimson communicated the news to Hull and sent a copy of the intelligence summary to the President.¹³ The following day Hull told Stimson of the decision to submit the ten points to Japan. He mentioned Chinese pressure in explaining his intention, but did not refer to the Japanese troop movement.¹⁴

Roosevelt, who had already approved the Secretary of State’s decision to “kick over” the modus vivendi, had not received Stimson’s report of the movement of the transports southward when Stimson telephoned him shortly after talking to Hull. The President reacted violently to the news. Stimson relates:

He fairly blew up—jumped up into the air, so to speak, and said he hadn’t seen it [the report] and that that changed the whole situation, because it was an evidence of bad faith on the part of the Japanese that while they were negotiating for an entire truce—an entire withdrawal [from China]—they should be sending this expedition down there to Indo-China.¹⁵

But the Hull proposals had already “changed the whole situation.” Both the President and the Secretary of State knew it. Hull conceded that the following day when he told Stimson that the effect of his terms was to put matters “in the hands of you and Knox—the Army and the Navy.”¹⁶

After November 26 and the submission of the Hull ultimatum, the attention of the Roosevelt administration was focused upon the movement of the Japanese expedition steaming southward. It now was apparent that the time was fast approaching when the President would have to honor the secret commitments which he had assumed at the Atlantic conference and which his staff officers had undertaken at the Washington and Singapore conferences.¹⁷ The Roosevelt administration knew that once it met Japan in head-on collision, the nation would be in a global war. Its policy had been predicated upon this very knowledge.

This consideration was manifest in a statement given by Adm. Ingersoll when he was examined during the course of an independent investigation conducted by Adm. Hart for the Navy Department. Hart asked Ingersoll what meaning the Navy Department attached to the “war warning” dispatched to Kimmel November 27. “Was consideration given to the thought that mention of Western Pacific objectives only might tend to reduce the vigilance of the Pacific fleet in the Hawaiian area?” Hart inquired. Ingersoll answered:

I am sure that the drafting of the dispatch was not meant to give such an impression. The impression it was intended to give was that events were moving in such a fashion in the Far East that the United States would become involved in war in a few days and that consequently the United States forces elsewhere in the Pacific and also in the Atlantic would find themselves at war with the Axis when the clash actually took place in the Asiatic waters.^*18

The feeling in Washington was that the United States must fight even if there were no attack upon this country and Japanese belligerent action were confined to British, Dutch, or even neutral territory. This view was reflected in the intense preoccupation of the administration leaders and the high command with the idea that if Japan crossed a certain line in the Pacific, the United States would be bound by its secret undertakings to go to war. Again and again this concept entered the thinking of the principals.

The deadline was first mentioned by Lindley and Davis in their description of the Atlantic conference:

The crisis in the Far East claimed first attention, resulting, as we have seen, in Churchill’s agreement to the President’s policy of delaying hostilities without invoking a “deadline.” That agreement represented a unifying of English-speaking policy in the Pacific. In the discussions about a deadline, it was generally held that the geographical limit should be set at the south of Cam Ranh Bay. . . .¹⁹

The Singapore staff conference, in its secret report of April 27, 1941, stated:

It is agreed that any of the following actions by Japan would create a position in which our failure to take active military counter-action would place us at such military disadvantage, should Japan subsequently attack, that we should then advise our respective governments to authorize such action:

(a) A direct act of war by Japanese armed forces against the territory or mandated territory of any of the associated powers. It is not possible to define accurately what would constitute “a direct act of war.” It is possible for a minor incident to occur which, although technically an act of war, could be resolved by diplomatic action. It is recognized that the decision as to whether such an incident is an act of war must lie with the government concerned.

(b) The movement of the Japanese forces into any part of Thailand to the west of 100 degrees east or to the south of 10 degrees north.

(c) The movement of a large number of Japanese warships, or of a convoy of merchant ships escorted by Japanese warships, which from its position and course was clearly directed upon the Philippine Islands, the east coast of the Isthmus of Kra or the east coast of Malaya, or had crossed the parallel of 6 degrees north between Malaya and the Philippines, a line from the Gulf of Davao to Waigeo Island, or the equator east of Waigeo.

(d) The movement of Japanese forces into Portuguese Timor.

(e) The movement of Japanese forces into New Caledonia or the Loyalty Islands.²⁰

In his secret warning to Ambassador Nomura August 17, Roosevelt had served notice that any move by Japan anywhere in the Pacific would compel the United States “to take immediately any and all steps which it may deem necessary toward safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the United States and American nationals and toward insuring the safety and security of the United States.”²¹ As Undersecretary of State Welles said, this warning, in diplomatic language, meant the same thing as a promise to go to war.

Senator Claude Pepper of Florida, frequently an administration spokesman, also gave notice of the existence of a deadline when, in an interview at Boston on November 24, 1941, he said that the United States was not far from a shooting war with Japan and that “we are only waiting for Japan to cross a line before we start shooting.”

“I don’t know exactly where that line is,” Pepper said, “and I’m not sure the President knows exactly where it is, but when they cross it we’ll start shooting.” Pepper added that “actual declaration of war is a legal technicality, and such technicalities are being held in abeyance as long as those brigands [the Japanese] continue in force.”²²

Chief of Staff Marshall conceded that war was known to be imminent at least eleven days before Pearl Harbor when Army intelligence reported five Jap divisions in thirty to forty transports moving south from Shanghai. This information, Marshall said, clearly indicated that Japan was moving “to cross the line” which, in his opinion, would have pulled us into war, regardless of Pearl Harbor, in order to protect the Philippines.²³

Secretary of the Navy Knox, in a memorandum the morning of December 7, stated:

I think the Japanese should be told that any movement in a direction that threatens the United States will be met by force. The President will want to reserve to himself just how to define this. The following are suggestions to shoot at: Any movement into Thailand; or any movement into Thailand west of 100 degrees east and south of 10 degrees north—this in accordance with the recommendations of the British and Dutch and United States military authorities in the Far East; or any movement against British, Dutch, United States, Free French, or Portuguese territory in the Pacific area.²⁴

Secretary Stimson, in a written statement to the congressional committee, said,

Our military advisers had given the President their formal advice that, if Japan attacked British Malaya or the Dutch East Indies or moved her forces west of a certain line in Indo-China, we would have to fight for the sake of our security.²⁵

Again, he said,

The opinion of our top military and naval advisers was that delay was very desirable, but that nevertheless we must take military action if Japan attacked American, or British, or Dutch territory or moved her forces in Indo-China west of 100 degrees east or south of 10 degrees north.²⁶

Describing a meeting November 28 of the war cabinet, Stimson relates in his diary that the probable objectives of the Japanese expedition moving south along the China coast were discussed. He says:

It was now the opinion of everyone that if this expedition was allowed to get around the southern point of Indo-China and to go off and land in the Gulf of Siam, either at Bangkok or further west, it would be a terrific blow at all of the three powers, Britain at Singapore, the Netherlands, and ourselves in the Philippines.

It was the consensus of everybody that this must not be allowed. Then we discussed how to prevent it. It was agreed that if the Japanese got into the Isthmus of Kra, the British would fight. It was also agreed that if the British fought, we would have to fight. And it now seems clear that if this expedition was allowed to round the southern point of Indo-China, this whole chain of disastrous events would be set on foot of going.

It further became a consensus of views that rather than strike at the force as it went by without any warning on the one hand, which we didn’t think we could do; or sitting still and allowing it to go on, on the other, which we didn’t think we could do; that the only thing for us to do was address it a warning that if it reached a certain place, or a certain line, or a certain point, we should have to fight.²⁷

In his statement to the congressional committee, Stimson said,

If war did come, it was important, both from the point of view of unified support of our own people as well as for the record of history, that we should not be placed in the position of firing the first shot, if this could be done without sacrificing our safety, but that Japan should appear in her true role as the real aggressor.²⁸

Referring to the “war warning” to Short on November 27, Stimson says,

If there was to be war, moreover, we wanted the Japanese to commit the first overt act. . . . In Hawaii, because of the large numbers of Japanese inhabitants, it was felt desirable to issue a special warning so that nothing would be done, unless necessary to the defense, to alarm the civil population and thus possibly precipitate an incident and give the Japanese an excuse to go to war and the chance to say that we had committed the first overt act.²⁹

Thus, the defense of the Hawaiian commanders was circumscribed in the interest of making good Roosevelt’s campaign pledges.

In his diary entry of November 25, thirteen days before the Pearl Harbor attack, Stimson expressed the dilemma in its baldest terms. Describing the war cabinet meeting in the White House, he stated:

There the President . . . brought up entirely the relations with the Japanese. He brought up the event that we were likely to be attacked, perhaps [as soon as] next Monday, for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning and the question was what we should do. The question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.*³⁰

Gen. Marshall later made the illuminating comment: “Of course, no one anticipated that that overt act would be the crippling of the Pacific fleet.”³¹ In other words, Roosevelt and his associates wanted a little surprise; they were not looking for a major disaster.

The minority report of the Joint Congressional Committee says of the administration’s intention:

In the diplomatic documents, exhibits, and testimony before the committee there is a wealth of evidence which underwrites the statement that the tactics of maneuvering the Japanese into “the position of firing the first shot” were followed by high authorities in Washington after Nov. 25, 1941. Examples of such tactics are afforded by—

(a) Secretary Hull’s decision, with the approval of President . Roosevelt, to discard the proposal for a temporary agreement with Japan without notifying the Secretary of War or the British and Australian representatives in Washington who had collaborated in working out a draft of a memorandum with a view to reaching such an agreement if possible.

(b) The substitution for the proposed modus vivendi of the note of Nov. 26 to Japan, which, as Secretary Hull knew and said at the moment, practically put an end to negotiations with Japan and passed over to the Army and Navy the burden of safeguarding the security of the United States. . . .

(c) The rejection of appeals made to President Roosevelt by Gen. Marshall and Adm. Stark on Nov. 5 and also later on Nov. 27, 1941, for a delay in bringing about a breach with Japan—appeals based on their belief that the Army and Navy were not then ready for war with Japan.

(d) The orders of the Secretary of War to the effect that Gen. Marshall and Adm. Stark should not put into their memorandum appealing for delay, signed Nov. 27, anything that could be “construed as a recommendation to the President that he request Japan to reopen the conversations” (Tr., Vol. 20, p. 3325).

According to Secretary Hull, the tactics of waiting for the Japanese to fire the first shot was, in a measure, forced upon the administration by the attachment of a large part of the American people to neutrality as expressed in the neutrality legislation of Congress and by their opposition to involvement in war in the Far East as well as elsewhere.

This view Secretary Hull expressed in his statement to the committee (Tr., Vol. 7, pp. 1096 ff.) and it is set forth more fully by other documents before the committee, particularly the State Department’s publication: Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy 1931–41, especially chapter 1.

In this chapter the State Department explains that the President and Secretary Hull were hampered in the pursuit of the foreign policy they had “clearly” decided upon—at a date not fixed by the Secretary—on account of the opposition by “much of public opinion” in the United States. In this chapter the State Department also explains that—

“Our foreign policy during the decade under consideration (1931–41) necessarily had to move within the framework of a gradual evolution of public opinion in the United States away from the idea of isolation expressed in ‘neutrality’ legislation. . . . The pages (in the volume) which follow show the slow march of the United States from an attitude of illusory aloofness toward world-wide forces endangering America to a position in the forefront of the United Nations that are now (1943) making common cause against an attempt at world conquest unparalleled alike in boldness of conception and in brutality of operation.”

It is a serious question whether the President and his advisers were justified in making the conclusions that the country would support them for war; and whether actions taken by them upon their own opinion without placing the matter before Congress was in violation of their responsibilities under the Constitution and laws of the land.³²

The problem, as viewed by the President and his war council, was to discover “the basis on which this country’s position could be most clearly explained to our own people and to the world.”³³ Roosevelt’s first attempt to reconcile his pledges to the British, the Dutch, and the Chinese with his promises to the American people was made at the weekly cabinet meeting on November 7. Stimson relates:

The President at the meeting undertook to take an informal vote of the cabinet as to whether it was thought the American people would back us up if it became necessary to strike at Japan, in case she should attack England in Malaya or the Dutch in the East Indies. The cabinet was unanimous in the feeling that the country would support such a move.³⁴

Roosevelt, with a jocular reference to a vote taken at one of Lincoln’s cabinet meetings, remarked, “This time the vote IS unanimous. I feel the same way.”³⁵

At the meeting of the war cabinet on November 25, Stimson undertook to persuade Roosevelt that the President’s warning of August 17 to Ambassador Nomura constituted sufficient warrant for him to order military action if Japan so much as crossed into neutral Thailand. He said:

I pointed out to the President that he had already taken the first steps toward an ultimatum in notifying Japan way back last summer that if she crossed the border into Thailand she was violating our safety and that therefore he had only to point out [to Japan] that to follow any such expedition [to the south] was a violation of a warning we had already given.³⁶

Three days later the President made up his mind. Stimson described the radical solution proposed as follows:

The first thing in the morning of the next day—Friday, November 28—I received information from G-2 of such a formidable character with regard to the movements of the Japanese forces along the Asiatic coast that I decided to take it to the President before he got up.

I saw him while he was still in bed, and we discussed the situation. He suggested that there were three alternatives, as my notes show: First, to do nothing; second, to make something in the nature of an ultimatum, stating a point beyond which we would fight; or, third, to fight at once.

I said that I felt to do nothing was out of the question and the President agreed with me. As to the other two alternatives, the desirable thing to do from the point of view of our own tactics and safety was to take the initiative and attack without further warning. It is axiomatic that the best defense is offense. It is always dangerous to wait and let the enemy make the first move. I was inclined to feel that the warning given in August by the President against further moves by the Japanese toward Thailand justified an attack without further warning, particularly as their new movement southward indicated that they were about to violate that warning. On the other hand, I realized that the situation could be made more clear cut if a further warning were given.³⁷

At the war cabinet meeting that noon, the mechanics of preparing the country to accept war were decided upon. Stimson says:

We decided, therefore, that we could not just sit still and do nothing. On the other hand, we also decided that we could not attack without a further warning to Japan, and we discussed what form that warning should take. The President suggested a special telegram from himself to the emperor of Japan. After some discussion it was decided that he would send such a letter to the emperor, which would not be made public, and that at the same time he would deliver a special message to Congress reporting on the danger and reporting what we would have to do if the danger happened.³⁸

Stimson’s report of the decision in his diary reads,

I pointed out . . . that he had better send his letter to the emperor separate as one thing and a secret thing, and then make his speech to the Congress as a separate and more understandable thing to the people of the United States. This was the final decision at that time and the President asked Hull and Knox and myself to try to draft such papers.³⁹

After the meeting Roosevelt left for Warm Springs. “The rest of the weekend,” said Stimson, “was largely taken up with preparing a suggested draft of a message for the President to deliver to Congress, in which Secretary Knox and I co-operated with Mr. Hull and his associates in the State Department.”⁴⁰ Hull completed the draft by noon on November 29,⁴¹ but events moved with such speed that it was unnecessary for the President to deliver the message.

Stimson later said that the President at this time was “undoubtedly considering” an attack on Jap forces threatening Southeast Asia.⁴² His position, however, was that Roosevelt, by ordering a message to “condition” Congress, showed that he was not presuming to usurp the war-making power.

A strange light is cast upon this explanation by a covering note sent to Roosevelt by Hull with the draft message to Congress. In his memorandum, Hull said, “I think we agree that you will not send message to Congress until the last stage of our relations, relating to actual hostilities.”⁴³ Thus, only after war was an accomplished fact—only after events had passed beyond recall—was Congress to be called upon to ratify the actual existence of hostilities by jumping through the administration’s hoop with a declaration of war.

On November 29 Roosevelt cut short his holiday at Warm Springs after a telephone summons from Hull. He returned to Washington December 1. The following day Stimson saw him and was encouraged to believe that he would go full speed ahead with the program to prepare the country to enter the war even if there were no attack by Japan on the United States. Stimson said:

The President went step by step over the situation and I think has made up his mind to go ahead. He has asked the Japanese through Sumner Welles what they intend by this new occupation of southern Indo-China—just what they are going to do—and has demanded a quick reply. The President is still deliberating the possibility of a message to the Emperor, although all the rest of us are rather against it, but in addition to that he is quite settled, I think, that he will make a message to the Congress and will perhaps back that up with a speech to the country. He said that he was going to take the matters right up when he left us.⁴⁴

After this there was only one more mention of the President’s program to condition public opinion against American entry into the war in the event that Japan withheld a direct attack upon the United States. It was disclosed that on the afternoon of December 6 Roosevelt had informed the Australian government of the steps he intended to take if Japan had not taken belligerent action by the following Wednesday, December 10.

Information regarding Roosevelt’s maneuvers was supplied the Joint Congressional Committee May 26, 1946, by the Australian legation in Washington. The letter to the committee from the legation referred to a telegram from the Australian minister for external affairs in Canberra to the British secretary of state for dominion affairs in London. The legation said of this telegram:

The telegram contains the substance of a message which the Australian minister for external affairs had received from the Australian minister at Washington. This message was dispatched from Washington at 9:30 P.M. on Dec. 6, 1941. The information contained therein regarding the procedure to be followed by the President had come orally from the President late in the afternoon of December 6.⁴⁵

The paraphrase of the Australian minister for external affairs’ telegram is as follows:

Subject to conditions that President gives prior approval to text of warning as drafted and also gives signal for actual delivery of warning, we concur in draft as a joint communication from all His Majesty’s governments. I point out that message from Australian minister at Washington just received notes that,

1. President has decided to send message to Emperor.

2. President’s subsequent procedure is that if no answer is received by him from the Emperor by Monday evening,

(a) he will issue his warning on Tuesday afternoon or evening,

(b) warning or equivalent by British or others will not follow until Wednesday morning, i. e., after his own warning has been delivered repeatedly to Tokyo and Washington.⁴⁶

It is only curious that as late in the day as this Roosevelt should still have been worrying lest the Japanese fail to provide the necessary incident.

By December 1 it was clear to the President that his fears were groundless that Japan might begin hostilities against Britain and Holland without shooting at the United States. Decoded Japanese intercepts told Roosevelt what he wanted to know. Japan’s Washington envoys were advised that the November 28 deadline for a diplomatic solution had come and gone. From now on things were “automatically going to happen.” The ambassadors were instructed to keep talking in order to lull American suspicions. Assurances were given to Germany and Italy that, “quicker than any one dreams,” Japan would be fighting the United States. Assurances were given in turn by Germany and Italy that they would fight at Japan’s side.

No one could have misread these messages, nor did Roosevelt misread them. On the night of December 7, when he summoned cabinet members and congressional leaders to the White House to tell them of the Pearl Harbor attack, he said, “We have reason to believe that the Germans have told the Japanese that if Japan declares war, they will too. In other words, a declaration of war by Japan automatically brings. . . .”

The President was interrupted at that point, but he had said enough to show that he had read the Japanese code intercepts and that he knew what they meant.⁴⁷ A long report from the Japanese ambassador in Berlin on November 29 and a shorter dispatch from Tokyo to Berlin on November 30, both of which were translated December 1, had told Roosevelt that Germany would join Japan in war with the United States.

So, while Nomura and Kurusu kept up their sham conversations with Hull, Roosevelt and the leaders of the administration were busy practicing the same sort of deception on their countrymen.

Stimson, in his statement to the congressional committee, said,

From some of the comments quoted in the public press, one would get the impression that the imminent threat of war in October and November, 1941, was a deep secret, known only to the authorities in Washington, who kept it mysteriously to themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth.”⁴⁸

He then cited speeches by Knox, Welles, and Roosevelt, none delivered after November 11, as proof that the people and Congress had been adequately warned of “the imminence of war with Japan.”

Nowhere did Stimson say that not a whisper of Roosevelt’s August 17 ultimatum ever reached Congress or the people, that instead it had been hidden under the smoke screen of the Atlantic Charter; that in none of these speeches was there an inkling that the United States had been committed to war if Japan moved against anybody anywhere in the Pacific; that the true nature and course of the American-Japanese conversations were not disclosed until after the war was in progress; that the last of the so-called warning speeches was made more than two weeks before the definite, final crisis of November 26; and that afterward that crisis was concealed until the attack on Oahu struck the people as a monstrous, shocking surprise.

This surprise was carefully prepared by the devious statements and actions of the men in Washington who knew that war was at hand. At Warm Springs on November 29 Roosevelt suggested the possibility that “next year . . . our boys of the military and naval academies may be fighting.” He knew that all of America would be at war within days. At his press conference December 2 he referred to Japan as “a friendly power with which the United States is at peace”⁴⁹ when he knew from “Magic” of Japan’s announced intention to fight the United States.

Secretary Hull December 3 emphasized that diplomatic negotiations with Japan were still in progress. He called Nomura and Kurusu his “friends” and said insistently that the conversations he was having with them were “exploratory” and tentative.⁵⁰ He knew that Japan considered them final and formal, that Japan’s decoded messages showed them “ruptured and broken” as a consequence of his proposals of November 26, that the conversations were being continued only to mask developing military action, and that Japan had told its diplomatic representatives and its Axis partners that it would soon be fighting the United States.

On December 4, the very day that Japan announced through the “winds” signal that a state of war had already been secretly decreed against the United States, Britain, and Holland, Stimson abandoned his post of duty and flew up to New York to see his dentist.⁵¹ No one would have gathered from this behavior that any tasks confronted the military establishment. Nor did Stimson at a press conference December 5 offer more enlightenment. He stated, “with some humor,” that he had been out of touch with the news, because, having assurance that “the conversations with Japan were still in progress,” he had spent the preceding day at his dentist’s in New York.⁵²

A curious sidelight on the professed ignorance of Stimson and the Washington insiders that war was coming was provided before the congressional committee by Lieut. Col. Clausen. The knowledge that was supposed to be lacking in Washington was possessed in comparatively obscure quarters elsewhere, Clausen discovered.

While in Honolulu, he said, he saw a copy of a cable from Col. G. H. Wilkinson, a secret British agent in Manila, to the commercial firm in Honolulu which Wilkinson represented. Wilkinson on December 3 cabled John E. Russell, president of Theodore H. Davies & Co., Ltd., a British sugar firm in Honolulu, stating his intelligence indicated the Japanese were rushing the building of railroads and air fields in Indo-China. The cable went on to say: “Our considered opinion concludes that Japan envisages early hostilities with Britain and the United States. Japan does not intend to attack Russia at present but will act in south.”

Clausen said that Wilkinson’s message bore all the earmarks of having been prompted by independent interception of the Japanese “winds” message.⁵³

Clausen also obtained an affidavit from Maj. Gen. C. J. Willoughby, intelligence officer for Gen. MacArthur in the Philippines, stating that Wilkinson had approached MacArthur’s headquarters with a request that he be attached as liaison officer representing Britain. Gen. Willoughby said that the British agent represented himself as having the backing of Prime Minister Churchill. Willoughby said that Wilkinson “combined the status of a respected business man with that of a secret agent.”

Describing Wilkinson and others of his type, Willoughby said, “This net of potential spies is world-wide. I find them loyal to no one but themselves and the empire.”⁵⁴

If the nation were warned of war, as Stimson says, why did the Senate, on the afternoon of December 4, adjourn on the motion of Senator Lucas of Illinois^* until December 8, the day after the attack on Oahu? Why, on December 5, should the House have adjourned until December 8 after a protracted session in which not one word was uttered about war at any moment with Japan?⁵⁵

There was one flaw in the general picture of Washington’s unawareness. On December 4 Maxwell Hamilton of the State Department’s Far Eastern section was busy discussing plans with the British embassy to arrange with the Japanese for the exchange of civilian nationals when war came.⁵⁶

Stimson says that the “people had been slow to recognize the danger.”⁵⁷ The man who, having been given repeated notice of war, responded by going off to his dentist, also condemns Gen. Short. He contends that his message of November 27 gave Short the precise situation.⁵⁸ However well or badly Short was informed of the situation on the 27th, that situation changed, by Stimson’s own statement, on November 28 and December 1, 2, and 6. Short, however, was left uninformed for the last ten days before the attack.

The President, Stimson, and the war cabinet had determined on November 28 that if the Japanese expedition steaming down the China Coast entered the Gulf of Siam, the United States would be at war with Japan. On December 1 there were reports that the expedition was landing near Saigon, Indo-China, instead of continuing into the gulf. “This appeared to give us a little respite,” Stimson says.⁵⁹ Roosevelt, believing the report of the landing was valid, demanded of the Japanese on December 2 what “they intended by this new occupation of southern Indo-China.”⁶⁰

If Japan was not going to force a war, the President was quite willing to do so. Adm. Ingersoll told the congressional committee that this same day Roosevelt ordered three small vessels dispatched into the Gulf of Siam as a “defensive information patrol.” A dispatch sent by the chief of naval operations to Adm. Hart commenced with this unusual statement: “President directs that the following be done as soon as possible and within two days if possible after receipt this dispatch.”⁶¹

Rep. Keefe said of this project:

The President’s directions were that the commander-in-chief of the Asiatic fleet was to charter three small vessels to form a “defensive information patrol.” The minimum requirements to establish these ships as United States men of war would suffice in manning them. These requirements were: command by a naval officer and the mounting of a small gun and one machine gun. The employment of Filipino crews with the minimum number naval ratings was authorized. The ships were to observe and report by radio Japanese movement in the West China Sea and Gulf of Siam. The President prescribed the point at which each vessel was to be stationed. One vessel was to be stationed between Hainan and Hue; one between Camranh Bay and Cape St. Jaques; one off Pointe De Camau (Ex. 37, p. 39). All these points were clearly in the path of the Japanese advance down the coast of Indo-China, and towards the Gulf of Siam. The Navy Department did not originate this plan (Tr., 11351). The Navy Department would not have directed it to be done unless the President had specifically ordered it (Tr., 11351). Adm. Hart was already conducting reconnaissance off that coast by planes from Manila (Tr., p. 11350). So far as the Navy Department was concerned, sufficient information was being received from this air reconnaissance (Tr., p. 11351). Had the Japanese fired upon any one of these three small vessels, it would have constituted an overt act on the part of Japan (Tr., p. 11352).⁶²

This was only one of the long series of attempts by Roosevelt to create an “incident” which would plunge the United States into war. Representative Keefe submits the following comment on the program:⁶³

The concept of an “incident” as a factor which would unify public opinion behind an all-out war effort either in the Atlantic or Pacific had influenced the thinking of officials in Washington for a long time. Many plans which might have produced an incident were from time to time discussed and considered. As early as Oct. 10, 1940, Secretary Knox had advised Adm. Richardson, then commander-in-chief of the Pacific fleet, of a plan the President was considering to shut off all trade between Japan and North and South America. This would be accomplished by means of a patrol of American ships in two lines extending from Hawaii westward to the Philippines, and from Samoa toward the Dutch East Indies (Tr., p. 792). This plan was to be instituted in the event Japan retaliated against Great Britain upon the reopening of the Burma Road scheduled for Oct. 17, 1940 (Tr., p. 792). Adm. Richardson was amazed at this proposal and stated that the fleet was not prepared to put such a plan into effect, nor for the war which would certainly result from such a course of action (Tr., p. 793).

On Feb. 11, 1941, the chief of naval operations in a memorandum for the President, described the President as considering a plan to send a detachment of vessels to the Far East and perhaps to permit a “leak” that they were going out there (Ex. 106). He quoted the President in the same memorandum as stating that he would not mind losing one or two cruisers, but that he did not want to take a chance on losing five or six. Again, in a letter of April 19, 1941, the chief of naval operations quoted the President as saying to him:

“Betty, just as soon as those ships come back from Australia and New Zealand, or perhaps a little before, I want to send some more out. I just want to keep them popping up here and there and keep the Japs guessing” (Ex. 106).

On May 24, 1941, Adm. Stark wrote Adm. Kimmel—

“Day before yesterday the President gave me an overall limit of 30 days to prepare and have ready an expedition of 25,000 men to sail for and to take the Azores. Whether or not there would be opposition I do not know but we have to be fully prepared for strenuous opposition” (Ex. 106).

On July 25, 1941, the chief of naval operations wrote Adm. Kimmel to the effect that he might be called upon to send a carrier-load of planes to Russia via one of the Asiatic Russian ports (Ex. 106). “I don’t know that you will, but the President has told me to be prepared for it, and I want you to have the thought.” Adm. Kimmel replied to this suggestion as follows:

“I entertain no doubt that such an operation, if discovered (as is highly probable), will be tantamount to initiation of a Japanese-American war. If we are going to take the initiative in commencing such a war, I can think of more effective ways for gaining initial advantage. In short, it is my earnest conviction that use of a carrier to deliver aircraft to Asiatic Russian ports in the present period of strained relations is to invite war. If we have decided upon war it would be far better to take direct offensive action. If for reasons of political expediency, it has been determined to force Japan to fire the first shot, let us choose a method which will be more advantageous to ourselves” (Ex. 106).

On July 31, 1941, Adm. Stark sent Adm. Kimmel a copy of a letter to Capt. Charles M. Cooke as follows:

“Within 48 hours after the Russian situation broke I went to the President, with the Secretary’s approval, and stated that on the assumption that the country’s decision is not to let England fall, we should immediately seize the psychological opportunity presented by the Russian-German clash and announce and start escorting immediately, and protecting the Western Atlantic on a large scale; that such a declaration, followed by immediate action on our part, would almost certainly involve us in the war and that I considered every day of delay in our getting into the war as dangerous and that much more delay might be fatal to Britain’s survival. I reminded him that I had been asking this for months in the State Department and elsewhere, etc., etc., etc. I have been maintaining that only a war psychology could or would speed things up the way they should be speeded up; that strive as we would it just is not in the nature of things to get the results in peace that we would, were we at war.

“The Iceland situation may produce an ‘incident.’ You are as familiar with that and the President’s statements and answers at press conferences as I am. Whether or not we will get an ‘incident’ because of the protection we are giving Iceland and the shipping which we must send in support of Iceland and our troops, I do not know—only Hitler can answer” (Ex. 106).

Reverting to the Japanese troop convoy steaming down the coast of Indo-China, Roosevelt and his colleagues in Washington learned definitely on December 6 that the report of the landing near Saigon was in error and that the Japanese expedition had in fact crossed the line which the administration had determined would pull the United States into war. That information came in two messages from Ambassador John Winant in London. The first reached Roosevelt and Hull at 10:40 A.M., December 6, almost twenty-seven hours before the Japs struck Hawaii. This message, marked “Triple priority and most urgent” and “Personal and secret to the Secretary and the President,” stated:

British Admiralty reports that at 3:00 A.M., London time, this morning two parties seen off Cambodia Point, sailing slowly westward toward Kra, 14 hours distant in time. First party 25 transports, 6 cruisers, 10 destroyers. Second party 10 transports, 2 cruisers, 10 destroyers.⁶⁴

This dispatch, read in the light of the unanimous decision of the war cabinet on November 28 that the United States would fight if and when Japan entered the Gulf of Siam, meant to Roosevelt, Hull, Stimson, Knox, Marshall, and Stark that the United States was at war as of 10:40 A.M. that day. The actual Japanese attack on Thailand, the Isthmus of Kra, and Malaya would come in fourteen hours.

During cross-examination of Gen. Marshall, Senator Ferguson referred to the joint memorandum of November 27 in which Stark and Marshall recommended “military action” if Jap forces moved into western Thailand or advanced southward through the Gulf of Siam.

“According to your memorandum to the President,” Ferguson said, “a Jap advance into Kra called for military action by us. So Winant’s message meant war with Japan, didn’t it?”

“It meant an attack by Japan in a military sense,” Marshall lamely replied, “but the question of going to war was up to the two governments [the United States and Japan].”⁶⁵

Winant’s second dispatch of December 6, again marked “Triple priority and most urgent” and “Personal and secret for the Secretary,” reached Hull at 3:05 P.M. This message read in part:

Again from Cadogan. Admiralty conference on information just forwarded, Cadogan attending. They were uncertain as to whether destination of parties is Kra or Bangkok. Latter would not be reached before Monday.

Note a discrepancy in time reported by me and time reported in our naval dispatch, latter stating 3:00 A.M. Greenwich time, by dispatch as given me 3:00 A.M. London time. Believe former correct.

British feel pressed for time in relation to guaranteeing support Thailand fearing Japan might force them to invite invasion on pretext protection before British have opportunity to guarantee support but wanting to carry out President’s wishes in message transmitted by Welles to Halifax. . . .

I am having lunch with the Prime Minister tomorrow at his usual place in the country and will be constantly in contact with the embassy over private wires in case you wish to communicate with me.⁶⁶

Efforts were made at the congressional hearings to learn from Welles the nature of the “President’s wishes” as conveyed to Lord Halifax. Welles said that there was no written record of the message. He was unable to achieve any satisfactory recall.⁶⁷ Another of Roosevelt’s maneuvers thus is concealed.

The dispatches from American representatives in the Southwest Pacific which came into Washington following Winant’s messages show clearly, however, that the British and Dutch now considered the United States bound to come to their assistance. Adm. Hart radioed for confirmation of the British assertion at Singapore that America had assured armed support if Japan landed in the Kra Isthmus, violated any part of Thailand, or attacked the Dutch East Indies.^*

The paraphrase of a second secret message from Hart, received at the War Department at 4:29 P.M. December 6, stated,

[Lieut. Col. F. G.] Brink [American military observer at Singapore] advises that at one o’clock in the afternoon, following a course due west, were seen a battleship, five cruisers, seven destroyers, and twenty-five merchant ships; these were seen at 106 degrees 8 minutes east, 8 degrees north; this was the first report.

The second report was that ten merchant ships, two cruisers, and ten destroyers were seen following the same course at 106 degrees 20 minutes east, 7 degrees 35 minutes north.

Both of the above reports came from patrols of the Royal Air Force.⁶⁸

These movements were in violation of paragraphs (b) and (c) of the deadline provisions of the Singapore conference, and the British were bringing them to American attention because they automatically required action by us.

When Adm. Stark was examined by Senator Ferguson about this message, he candidly admitted, “The presumption which we instilled into the dispatch was war.”⁶⁹

On December 6 Adm. Hart was already acting under the ABCD pact. Adm. Sir Tom Phillips, who had arrived at Singapore December 2 with the battleship “Prince of Wales” and the battle cruiser “Repulse,” conferred in Manila with Hart on the 6th. Phillips had brought with him only four destroyers and utterly lacked carrier air cover for his big units. Hart agreed at this conference the day before the Pearl Harbor attack to assign Phillips four American and six Dutch destroyers to supplement his covering force, but before they could be sent to his assistance the Japanese caught and sank the “Prince of Wales” and “Repulse” December 10 in a combined bombing and aerial torpedo attack off Kuantan on the east coast of Malaya.⁷⁰

The Australian government on December 6 held up still another message in which Col. Merle-Smith, American military attaché at Melbourne, sought to address a reminder from Dutch authorities in the East Indies that the United States was now committed to come to their assistance. Merle-Smith’s message, addressed to the War Department and to Gen. Short, was dated December 6, but did not arrive in Washington until 7:58 P.M. December 7, twelve hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, having been held up for seventeen hours by the Australians.

Merle-Smith said Dutch intelligence had reported that a Jap fleet was moving toward Ambon or Menado in the Dutch Indies, which would carry it across the Davao-Waigeo line established at the Singapore staff conference, and that, as a result, the Dutch high command in the Pacific had ordered the execution of “Plan A-2.” This was the Dutch portion of Rainbow No. 5, the master war plan, calling for joint American-British-Dutch deployment against Japan.

Col. Merle-Smith’s assistant, Lieut. Robert H. O’Dell, said that he and his superior were summoned to a conference the afternoon of December 5 with Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles S. Burnett, commander of the Australian air force, and Comdr. Saom, Dutch liaison officer at Melbourne. There they were told of the Jap fleet movement and of Dutch action. Merle-Smith prepared a radiogram that night to warn Hawaii and Washington of the developments, but Burnett asked Merle-Smith to “wait twenty-four hours” before sending it, and Merle-Smith “reluctantly agreed.”

O’Dell further related that the Dutch action in executing their portion of the war plan “called for joint operations by the Australians, Dutch, and our navy, if nothing else.”⁷¹

Upon first sighting the approach of this fleet, the Dutch had consulted Secretary Hull as to the advisability of addressing a warning to Japan. Hull asked the advice of Stark, who said that if the Dutch wanted to give the Japs a warning, it should be in the form of a declaration that Japanese naval vessels or expeditionary forces crossing a line running between Davao and Waigeo would be considered hostile and would be attacked.⁷² Asked if he had drawn up the memorandum without informing Roosevelt, Stark responded, “I don’t think I would have without consulting the President.”⁷³

The Dutch had ordered a comprehensive mobilization of forces in the East Indies on December 1, and the same day British troops at Singapore were also alerted for war. The eyes of the partners in the secret ABCD alliance were turned upon the United States. On December 6, in Melbourne, the four powers issued a statement in which it was promised that they would match Japan, “move by move.” The State Department in Washington promptly denied that American adherence to any such manifesto was authorized.⁷⁴

During the week Prime Minister Churchill had been importuning Roosevelt to convey a stiff warning to Japan. The President agreed to send a message to Hirohito, and, if no reply came from the emperor by Monday evening, December 8, to “issue his warning on Tuesday afternoon or evening.” This was to be followed by a warning on Wednesday from the British and possibly the Dutch. A British draft of the warning, sent by Churchill December 7 to Roosevelt “for comment,” warned Japan against invading Thailand.⁷⁵

“Should hostilities unfortunately result,” it read, “the responsibility will rest with Japan.”⁷⁶

As “Magic” had shown, this strategy was superfluous, for the Jap attack was certain to intervene. The administration, with war only a few hours away, with the intercepts and the Japanese spy messages pointing to an attack upon Pearl Harbor, suddenly began protesting a passion for peace.

Roosevelt, for the record alone, sent his message to Hirohito the night of the 6th, when he knew it was much too late to avoid war. Now that it no longer mattered, he did not insist that a settlement be based on Hull’s ten points of the memorandum of November 26, which had served as the final goad in bringing Japan to war. He did not even mention the November 26 conditions. He knew that they were no longer relevant, just as he knew that his whole message was without meaning. It was released for publication to Monday morning papers, the day after the attack, and in the confusion of the hour seemed to confirm the administration’s aggrieved cries about the duplicity of the Japs. With what is now known about Roosevelt’s diplomacy, the appeal to Hirohito becomes merely the act of a politician pulling the wool over the eyes of his own countrymen.

On Sunday, December 7, when the complete fourteen-part final Japanese reply to Hull and the pilot message instructing that it be handed in at 1:00 P.M. had announced that the hour was about to strike, the pretense of innocence was maintained to the last. Roosevelt and Hopkins arranged the tableau in the White House study. Hull, Stimson, and Knox gathered in the morning in the State Department, where Stimson muttered that “something” was hanging in the air and Hull voiced the obvious conclusion that the Japs were up to “some deviltry.” Stimson wrote in his diary,

The main thing is to hold the main people who are interested in the Far East together—the British, ourselves, the Dutch, the Australians, the Chinese. Knox also had his views as to the importance of showing immediately how these different nations must stand together.⁷⁷

The prudent Stimson had Hull and Knox dictate their views on the spot⁷⁸—more contributions for the record, to be produced at an opportune time, as they were produced when the congressional committee at length began nosing around. Stimson states:

The messages we were receiving now indicated that the Japanese force was continuing on in the Gulf of Siam, and again we discussed whether we would not have to fight if Malaya or the Netherlands were attacked and the British or Dutch fought. We all three thought that we must fight if those nations fought.⁷⁹

At 2 o’clock, while he was at lunch, Stimson was telephoned the news by the President that the Japs were bombing Hawaii. Stimson’s description of his reception of this news was significant. He confided to his diary, “We three [Hull, Knox, and Stimson] all thought that we must fight if the British fought. But now the Japs have solved the whole thing by attacking us directly in Hawaii.”^*80

Japan had obligingly provided the solution for President Roosevelt’s dilemma.

Stimson expressed his reaction to the Jap attack which was costing 3,000 American lives with the utmost frankness. He wrote in his diary:

When the news first came that Japan had attacked us my first feeling was of relief that the indecision was over and that a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people. This continued to be my dominant feeling in spite of the news of catastrophes which quickly developed. For I feel that this country united has practically nothing to fear; while the apathy and divisions stirred up by unpatriotic men had been hitherto very discouraging.⁸¹

In other words, Stimson’s view was that it was patriotic to go to war for the British and Dutch empires, and unpatriotic to try to stay at peace.

That night, at the White House meeting of cabinet members and congressional leaders, Roosevelt wonderingly observed again and again that now the nation was at war, and that war had come from an overt act on the part of Japan.

“Well,” he said, “we were attacked. There is no question about that.”⁸²

Again, he said, “The fact is that a shooting war is going on today in the Pacific. We are in it.”⁸³

It was almost as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

The Roosevelt policy which took the United States to war has been aptly described as resembling a river which occasionally disappears underground only to emerge nearer the sea—in this instance, the sea of total war. The Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor averted a serious constitutional crisis in the United States. This crisis was precipitated by Roosevelt’s policy of using his “commander-in-chief” powers to push through action in the field of foreign affairs which had its full intended effect before Congress could be consulted.⁸⁴

* At any time after 1936 it was evident that a European war would not be unwelcome to the administration at Washington; largely as a means of diverting public attention from its flock of uncouth economic chickens on their way home to roost, but chiefly as a means of strengthening its malign grasp upon the country’s political and economic machinery.”—Albert Jay Nock, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, p. 248.

* Speech at Teamsters Union convention, Washington, Sept. 11, 1940; speech at Philadelphia, Oct. 23, 1940.

* “An ‘incident’ can always be arranged or manufactured or better yet, provoked, as we have often seen; and then the fat is in the fire. In recent years, as far as I can remember, every pretext for war has been carefully hand-tailored. . . . As for the present war, the Principality of Monaco, the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, would have taken up arms against the United States on receipt of such a note as the State Department sent the Japanese government on the eve of Pearl Harbor.”—Albert Jay Nock, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, p. 249.

† To Kurusu, who was coming from Japan.

* Italics supplied.

* Italics supplied.

* Appointed four years later as a New Deal majority member of the Joint Congressional Committee to investigate Pearl Harbor.

* See Chap. VIII.

* Italics supplied.