8. A, B, C, D’s

Chapter Eight

A, B, C, D’s

AMONG THE most important of the President’s decisions was to consummate secret war alliances with the British and Canadians in the Atlantic and with the British and Dutch in the Pacific. News that the United States was a partner in a full-blown war alliance before a shot had been fired burst upon the American people on December 6, 1941, one day before the Pearl Harbor attack.

A New York Times dispatch from Melbourne, Australia, stated, “The Australian government has completed preparations, in concert with Britain, the United States, and the Netherlands Indies, for action in the event of a Pacific conflict. The four plan to match Japanese action, move by move.” The report warned of “powerful American squadrons in the rear of any southward Japanese expedition.”¹

The Australian Associated Press said of the agreement, “Following eleventh-hour conversations between the ABCD powers, a declaration has been drawn up setting out their attitude to any Japanese aggression. This declaration reaffirmed the necessity for the four allies to continue to stand together. ‘We are fully alive to the Japanese threat and are not afraid of it,’ the statement was reported as saying.”²

In Washington the State Department said it “did not know of any joint declaration.”³

This secret war alliance, so casually sprung upon the American people, and denied by that people’s own government, had been developing for years and had been in being for more than eight months. It had not been executed, as the Constitution provides all treaties must be, with the advice and consent of the Senate, nor had it been drafted as an executive agreement—a means of by-passing the Senate which Roosevelt on occasion was not reluctant to invoke. The President had been sufficiently prudent not even to initial it.

While Holland and China were listed among the “ABCD powers,” Britain was the important partner taken under the American wing. Collaboration between the two nations in the Pacific had begun at the Washington naval conference in 1922, when Britain terminated its 1902 alliance with Japan. Disregarding Japanese opposition, nine battleships, six cruisers, thirty-four destroyers, and thirteen auxiliary units of the American fleet visited Australia and New Zealand in 1925 to signalize the new Anglo-American bonds.

This visit was the precursor to another call by four American cruisers to Australia in 1938. From there three of the cruisers proceeded to Singapore at the invitation of the British Foreign Office to attend ceremonies opening Britain’s new naval base. No other foreign warships attended. The visit was obviously a demonstration of American-British solidarity for the benefit of Japan.

In March, 1938, Roosevelt suddenly rediscovered Canton and Enderbury Islands in the Phoenix group, 1,900 miles southwest of Hawaii. He asserted formal claim on the basis of century-old American discovery. Britain had taken formal possession of the islands a year before Roosevelt’s proclamation of American sovereignty. In August, 1938, the islands were placed under joint Anglo-American control, and in April, 1939, the condominium was extended for fifty years. Members of Congress asserted that the supposed dispute between Roosevelt and the British was merely a screen for collusive action to intermingle the affairs of the two countries so that America would be bound to Britain in the event of an Asiatic war.

In February, 1946, Adm. Ingersoll confirmed charges in Congress at the time of the Canton-Enderbury deal that an agreement had been reached as early as 1938 looking forward toward a Pacific war alliance with the British. In December, 1937, when he was director of Navy war plans, he was called to the White House and directed by Roosevelt to go to London to explain to the British what the United States could do in a war with Japan and to determine what contribution Britain could make.⁴

A letter from Adm. Richardson to Adm. Stark on January 26, 1940, indicates that the Ingersoll conversations produced a secret understanding for joint Anglo-American use of the Singapore base against Japan:

When the China Incident started and on every opportunity until after I left the job as assistant chief of naval operations, I used to say to Bill Leahy, “Be sure to impress on the boss that we do not want to be drawn into this business unless we have allies so bound to us that they cannot leave us in the lurch.”

There is a possibility that this constant repetition had something to do with the trip of Ingersoll.

When this understanding was reached, it had some value, but under present conditions it has little value, as it affords us the use of a base in exchange for an obligation to protect about two and one-half continents.”⁵

Chief of Staff Marshall, however, stated before the congressional committee that the British first advanced the project of using Singapore as a joint fleet base in November, 1941. “The British wanted us to base a number of vessels at Singapore,” Marshall said. “They felt that if we would base part of our Navy there it would greatly strengthen Britain’s position in the Pacific without reducing her naval forces in the Atlantic war with Germany.” The general and Adm. Stark refused the invitation on tactical grounds. They thought that American vessels, if moved to Singapore, would be too far removed from supply sources and would be vulnerable to air attack.⁶

Ingersoll said that his conversations in London in 1938 were rendered obsolete when, in the spring of 1941, a new understanding was reached between the United States and Britain. The British seem to have begun agitating for a firmer alliance in the Far East as their troubles multiplied in the European war. Thus, Adm. Stark, writing to Adm. Hart on Nov. 12, 1940, remarked of Britain’s overtures:

They have been talking in a large way about the defense of the Malay barrier, with an alliance between themselves, us, and the Dutch, without much thought as to what the effect would be in Europe. But we have no idea as to whether they would at once begin to fight were the Dutch alone, or were we alone, to be attacked by the Japanese. Then again, the copy of the British Far Eastern war plan . . . obtained at Singapore shows much evidence of their usual wishful thinking. Furthermore, though I believe the Dutch colonial authorities will resist an attempt to capture their islands, I question whether they would fight if only the Philippines, or only Singapore, were attacked.⁷

At length, however, Stark succumbed to British pressure and agreed to convoke a joint staff conference in Washington.

“I did not ask the President’s permission or that of Col. Knox,” he told the congressional committee. “There was some dynamite in the fact that we were holding conversations with the British. . . . I informed [the President] in January, after the committee was here, that I was going ahead with those conversations. . . . I told him that I would prefer to be panned for not being ready rather than be reproved when the time came and I was not ready, and he let it go at that.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, he did not pan me. Later on all those conversations, that is, the boildown and the plans, were shown to him.”⁸

The American representatives at the secret staff conversations, held from January 29 to March 27, were Maj. Gen. Stanley D. Embick, representing the joint United States-Canadian defense board; Brig. Gen. Sherman Miles, chief of intelligence for the Army general staff; Brig. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow, war plans officer, general staff; Col. Joseph T. McNarney, subsequently a member of the Roberts commission, representing Army aviation; Rear Adm. Robert M. Ghormley, American naval observer in England; Rear Adm. Richmond K. Turner, naval war plans officer; Capt. A. G. Kirk, chief of naval intelligence; and Capt. Dewitt C. Ramsey, representing the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics.

The British representatives were Rear Admirals R. M. Bellairs and V. J. Danckwerts, Maj. Gen. E. L. Morris, Air Vice-Marshal J. C. Slessor, and Capt. A. W. Clarke.⁹

“The staff conference assumes,” its report said, “that when the United States becomes involved in war with Germany, it will at the same time engage in war with Italy. In these circumstances, the possibility of a state of war arising between Japan and an association of the United States, the British commonwealth, and its allies, including the Netherlands East Indies, must be taken into account.”

The important word was “when.” There was no “if.”

“Since Germany is the predominant member of the Axis powers,” the document continued, “the Atlantic and European area is considered to be the decisive theater. The principal United States effort will be exerted in that theater, and operations in other theaters will be conducted in such a manner as to facilitate that effort.” The United States was to use its fleet to weaken Japanese economic power and “to support the defense of the Malay barrier by diverting Japanese strength away from Malaysia,” principally by raids into the Marshall Islands.

Not only was Malaya to be protected, but the British stipulated that they did not intend to let go of any of their Asiatic holdings. “A cardinal feature of British strategic policy,” this provision held, “is the retention of a position in the Far East such as will insure the cohesion and security of the British commonwealth.”

The plans for a war with Japan provided that the United States should be responsible for the defense of a vast stretch of the Pacific—the ocean areas from the coast of North and South America westward to a short distance from the coast of Australia, and north of the equator to a line extending to the westward of the Marianas up to latitude 30 degrees north, where the area was extended to include the reaches of the ocean all the way to the Asiatic continent.

A second staff conference was held in Singapore April 21-27 to draft an American-British-Dutch war plan for the Pacific in conformity with the master plan for global war laid down at the Washington staff conference. The American representatives were Capt. W. R. Purnell, chief of staff of the Asiatic fleet; Col. A. C. McBride, assistant chief of staff of Gen. MacArthur’s forces in the Philippines; Capt. A. M. R. Allen, naval observer at Singapore; and Lieut. Col. F. G. Brink, military observer at Singapore.

The principal British representatives were Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, commander-in-chief, Far East, and Vice-Adm. Sir Geoffrey Layton, commander-in-chief, China. There were six Australian representatives, six Dutch delegates, three New Zealanders, and one representative from India and from the British East Indies.¹⁰

On the basis of the previous Washington agreement, the United States Pacific fleet was to operate against the Japanese mandated islands and Japanese sea communications. The Asiatic fleet at Manila was to employ only its submarines and its naval air and local naval defense forces in support of the American Army in its defense of Luzon, while cruisers and destroyers were to report at Singapore to operate under strategic command of Adm. Layton. Submarine tenders, destroyers, tankers, and flying boats were to be dispatched to Singapore before the commencement of hostilities. Most of Adm. Hart’s cruisers and destroyers were eventually lost fighting in defense of the British and Dutch colonial empires.

The security of Luzon was termed of “subsidiary interest” to the security of Singapore and of sea communications. The Singapore plan envisioned loss of the Philippines. “Upon the ultimate defense area (which includes Corregidor and the entrance of Manila Bay) becoming untenable,” the agreement said, “all remaining naval and naval air forces retaining combat value will . . . retire southward, passing under the strategic direction of the commander-in-chief, China.”

Chief of Naval Operations Stark testified before the congressional committee that there was general agreement with the conclusion that the Philippines could not be held. He related that, in conversations with the Japanese ambassador, Adm. Nomura, he had predicted that the Japanese would score many early successes in a Pacific war, but that they would eventually be beaten down.

“I’m inclined to think Nomura agreed with me,” Stark said.

“Did you think we would lose the Philippines?”

“I hoped we could put up a good fight, but I always conceded we would lose them.”

“Did you discuss this with the President?”

“Yes, he was thoroughly familiar with the picture.”¹¹

The primary reason why the Philippines—and with them Guam¹²—were written off at Singapore, however, was that the Pacific was considered a secondary front. The staff conference agreed that “to insure that we are not diverted from the major object of the defeat of Germany and Italy, our main strategy in the Far East at the present time must be defensive.” Clark Lee, in They Call It Pacific, asserts that “the dead of Bataan . . . would have still been living if the United States had not decided that the Pacific was a secondary front.”¹³

The defense of the Roosevelt administration later for entering a war alliance through the Washington and Singapore staff agreements was that the commitments assumed were not binding. The Washington agreement nowhere provided for ratification by the Senate or even that notification be given Congress that any such alliance existed. The Singapore agreement, while disclaiming that any political commitment was implied, specified that the agreement was to implement the war plan previously adopted in Washington, which provided for no congressional approval.

The Washington agreement on the master war plan was approved by Secretary Knox on May 28 and by Secretary Stimson on June 2.¹⁴ Adm. Stark appeared before the congressional committee with a prepared statement saying that the plan was approved by the two secretaries “and by the President,” but deleted the reference to Roosevelt. He said he had learned to his surprise just recently that while the President had full knowledge of the military agreements, he had not ratified them.¹⁵ Stark added, however, that the President had approved these plans, “except officially.”*

Lieut. Col. Henry C. Clausen, who had taken a world-tour in 1944 to look for evidence in support of Secretary Stimson’s thesis that blame for the Pearl Harbor disaster solely attached to the commanders on the spot, told the congressional committee that his inquiries led him to the White House, but that he was discouraged from entering.

Clausen said that the statements of Army leaders convinced him there was “an informal agreement but not a binding agreement” on the part of the United States to fight Japan if the British or Dutch were attacked.

“That may make sense to you; it didn’t to me,” he told the committee.

“I suggested that the inquiry would lead to the White House, but I was told that it was beyond the scope of my function to investigate there.” He said that he was so informed by Col. William J. Hughes, assistant to the Army judge advocate general.¹⁶

However strenuously it might be denied that the intention of Roosevelt was to circumvent constitutional limitations,¹⁷ the indisputable fact is that as soon as the staff agreements were drafted the Army and Navy drew up supplementary Pacific war plans of their own designed to carry out master strategy in concert with the British and Dutch. The joint Army and Navy basic war plan, which bore the short title “Rainbow No. 5,” was approved by Stimson and Knox on the same dates upon which they approved the report on the Washington staff conversations, which bore the short title “ABC-1.”¹⁸

On the basis of Rainbow 5, the Navy basic war plan, known as “WPL-46,” was promulgated May 25. The Pacific fleet’s plan to support the basic Navy plan was distributed on July 25 and approved September 9 by the chief of naval operations. It was known as “WPPac-26.” The Army also drew up a plan of operations to supplement Rainbow 5. This was approved by Chief of Staff Marshall on August 19.¹⁹

The objectives of the joint Army-Navy plan were described by Adm. Turner, Navy war plans officer, in the following words:

The plan contemplated a major effort on the part of both the principal associated powers against Germany initially. It was felt in the Navy Department that there might be a possibility of war with Japan without the involvement of Germany, but at some length and over a considerable period this matter was discussed and it was determined that in such a case the United States would, if possible, initiate efforts to bring Germany into the war against us in order that we would be able to give strong support to the United Kingdom in Europe.* We felt that it was incumbent on our side to defeat Germany, to launch our principal efforts against Germany first, and to conduct a limited offensive in the Central Pacific, and a strictly defensive effort in the Asiatic.²⁰

The statements of other high-ranking American officers were equally illuminating concerning the practical effects of the staff agreements. They suggested that the reluctance of the American people to be pulled into war was the real reason why the agreements were drafted in secret and why they were kept secret from Congress.

Thus, while asserting that America’s broad military objective was the defeat of Germany, Marshall and Stark, in their instructions to American representatives at the Washington staff conference, warned that the American people desired to stay out of war.²¹* The same conclusion was voiced by Lieut. Col. George W. Bicknell, assistant to Gen. Short’s G-2. In an intelligence estimate on October 17, 1941, Bicknell said that there was “no known binding agreement between the British and Americans for joint military action against Japan” because “the American public is not yet fully prepared to support such action.”²²

In questioning Short, Senator Ferguson referred to Bicknell’s phrase “no known binding agreement” and asked, “What do you understand by ‘binding agreement’? Do you mean by treaty?”

“To be binding, it should be approved by the Congress, as I understand it,” Short replied. “He might have meant simply any agreement that had been made and approved by the President, and not made public.”

“What was your understanding about that part of it that ‘the American public is not yet fully prepared to support such action’?”

“I felt at that time,” Short responded, “that the American public would not have been willing to have an agreement ratified that we would go to war to defend the Netherlands East Indies or Singapore.”²³

Adm. Kimmel testified that he was no better informed than Gen. Short about American commitments to the British and Dutch. He said that he had tried to find out what the United States would do if the Japanese moved toward Singapore, Thailand, or Borneo, but all the enlightenment he received was in a letter from Stark on November 25, 1941, mentioning reports that the Japanese were planning aggressive moves in the Southwest Pacific. “I won’t go into the pros and cons of what the United States may do,” Stark said, “I will be damned if I know.”²⁴

Stark himself testified before the congressional committee that his “honest opinion was that no one knew the answers to such questions.”²⁵ Under questioning of Senator Ferguson, he admitted that there was “not so much” difference between the informal war alliance with Britain in the Atlantic and the similar arrangement with the British and Dutch in the Pacific. “We did not come to Congress,” he said of both. Nor did he dispute Ferguson when the Senator pointed out that “in the Atlantic, with what you call technical war, we went in without Congress.”²⁶

Gen. Marshall was shown a memorandum in which he and Stark advised Roosevelt on November 27, 1941, to take “military action” if Jap forces moved into western Thailand or advanced southward through the Gulf of Siam.

“Did you feel,” asked Ferguson, “that a Japanese move against British territory would inevitably involve the United States in war?”

“Yes,” said Marshall.²⁷

In carrying out its engagements under the Singapore pact, Marshall admitted, the Army was building landing strips and accumulating bombs, gasoline, oil, and other material before December 7 at Port Moresby, New Guinea; Darwin, Australia; Rabaul, New Britain; Balikpapan, Borneo; and Singapore.²⁸

Even after the drafting of ABC-1, Rainbow No. 5, WPL-46, WPPac-46, and the Army plan of operations for the Pacific, new joint war plans were being worked up with the British and approved by Washington almost to the very hour of the December 7 attack. On November 11, for instance, Stark advised Adm. Hart that previous joint plans were considered “dead.” Hart was instructed to confer with Adm. Tom S. V. Phillips, who was coming to Singapore as commander of the British Far Eastern fleet, in drawing up a new joint naval operating plan.²⁹

Hart subsequently reported that he and Phillips, after a secret conference in Manila, had made an agreement to enlarge the harbor at Manila for use as a base by British naval units. Phillips had brought out the battleship “Prince of Wales” and the battle cruiser “Repulse”—both to be sunk in a Jap air attack in the South China Sea on December 8—and Manila could not accommodate such large units. The agreement was reported by Hart on December 6 and approved by Stark just before the attack upon Pearl Harbor the following day.

Although Hart was charged with perfecting joint war plans in the Far East, even he did not know the full extent of aid which the White House was pledging to the British. On December 7, a few hours before the attack on Oahu, Hart sent a message to Stark saying, “Learn from Singapore we have assured British armed support under three or four eventualities. Have received no corresponding instructions from you.”³⁰

Four years later Hart told the congressional committee that he had been informed of these undertakings by Capt. John Creighton, American naval attaché at Singapore, who had been told of them by Air Marshal Brooke-Popham. Hart said that the attack at Pearl Harbor intervened before he received any clarification from Washington.

Capt. Creighton, following Hart before the committee, produced the message which Brooke-Popham had received from London setting forth the terms for American aid. It read:

We have now received assurance of American armed support in cases as follows:

A) We are obliged to execute our plans to forestall Japanese landing Isthmus of Kra or take action in reply to Nips invasion any part of Siam.

B) If Dutch are attacked and we go to their defense.

C) If Japs attack us, the British therefore without reference to London put plan in action if, first, you have good info Jap expedition advancing with the apparent intention of landing in Kra; second, if the Nips violate any portion of Thailand. If N.E.I. attacked, put into action operation plans agreed upon between British and Dutch.³¹

These contingencies did not provide that American aid should be dependent upon a Japanese attack on any American possessions. The conditions had the effect of giving the British commanders at Singapore a blanket authorization to call American forces into war any time the Japanese moved against British or Dutch possessions or even against Siam. It is not known who in the British government sent word to Brooke-Popham outlining the conditions under which the United States would enter the war, but it is impossible to believe that Britain would have instructed its commander-in-chief for the entire Far East of such conditions if they had not been agreed upon.

Once the United States signed the Washington and Singapore staff agreements, the British, Australians, Dutch, and Chinese proceeded on the assumption that this country was an outright ally and increased their pressure to hasten the day when America should be formally at war. Secretary Hull described their attitude in a memorandum of a conference on November 24 with Lord Halifax, British ambassador; Richard G. Casey, Australian minister; Hu Shih, Chinese ambassador; and A. Louden, Netherlands minister. Hull noted:

They seemed to be thinking of the advantages to be derived without any particular thought of what we should pay for them, if anything. I remarked that each of their governments was more interested in the defense of that area of the world [Southwest Pacific] than this country, but they expected this country, in the case of a Japanese outbreak, to be ready to move in a military way and take the lead in defending the entire area.³²

Senator Ferguson asked Adm. Stark: “Isn’t that exactly what happened, just what Mr. Hull prophesied would happen, that we would have to defend the whole area and we would have to have the war for the whole area?”

“We would have the major role,” Stark replied.³³

Japanese diplomatic messages show that America’s role as a partner of Britain, China, and Holland in a Pacific war alliance was not lost upon the Japanese. Two messages sent by Ambassador Nomura from Washington in the last month before hostilities began demonstrate that the Japanese had suspected or somehow learned of this joint military program. On November 10 Nomura advised Tokyo:

1. I sent [Frederick] Moore [legal adviser to the Japanese embassy] to contact Senator [Elbert D.] Thomas [of Utah] of the Senate Military Affairs Committee and Hull. His report reads as follows:

“The United States is not bluffing. If Japan invades again, the United States will fight with Japan. Psychologically the American people are ready. The Navy is prepared and ready for action.”

2. Yesterday evening, Sunday, a certain Cabinet member, discarding all quibbling, began by saying to me:

“You are indeed a dear friend of mine and I tell this to you alone.” Then he continued: “The American government is receiving a number of reliable reports that Japan will be on the move soon. The American government does not believe your visit on Monday to the President or the coming of Mr. Kurusu will have any effect on the general situation.”

I took pains to explain in detail how impatient the Japanese have grown since the freezing; how they are eager for a quick understanding; how both the government and the people do not desire a Japanese-American war; and how we will hope for peace until the end.

He replied, however: “Well, our boss, the President, believes those reports and so does the Secretary of State.”³⁴

Again, on December 3, Nomura notified Tokyo: “Judging from all indications, we feel that some joint military action between Great Britain and the United States, with or without a declaration of war, is a definite certainty in the event of an occupation of Thailand.”³⁵

Other Japanese diplomatic messages showed that the Japanese had a clear appreciation of Mr. Roosevelt’s role as a protector of Britain, Holland, and China. On November 24, a message from Tokyo to Washington described the American President as “acting as a spokesman for Chiang Kai-shek.”³⁶

America’s protective occupation of Dutch Guiana on November 24 aroused Japanese fears that Roosevelt contemplated similar action in the Dutch East Indies. On November 27 Nomura expressed belief to Tokyo that, “depending upon the atmosphere at the time the Japanese–U.S. negotiations break off, Britain and the United States may occupy the Netherlands East Indies.”³⁷

Foreign Minister Togo, on December 6, drew a sardonic parallel between America’s occupation of Dutch Guiana and Japan’s conduct in Indo-China. “Based on an agreement with France,” he said, “we penetrated southern French Indo-China for joint defense. Scarcely were our tracks dry, when along comes good old nonchalant America and grabs Netherlands Guiana. If she needs any of the American countries for her own interests, hiding under the camouflage of joint defense, she will take them, as she has just proven.”³⁸

In two speeches after the Pearl Harbor attack had brought the United States into the war, Prime Minister Churchill made it clear that it had been his constant policy to entangle the United States in any conflict Japan might bring upon Britain, and that in this object he had the eager assistance of Roosevelt. His remarks show that the staff agreements were considered binding by both Roosevelt and himself, and that the President had fortified their effect with additional personal assurances.

On January 27, 1942, in a speech to the House of Commons, Churchill said,

It has been the policy of the cabinet at almost all cost to avoid embroilment with Japan until we were sure that the United States would also be engaged. . . . But as time has passed the mighty United States, under the leadership of President Roosevelt, from reasons of its own interest and safety but also out of chivalrous regard for the cause of freedom and democracy, has drawn ever nearer to the confines of the struggle. And now that the blow has fallen it does not fall on us alone. . . .

I have explained how very delicately we walked, and how painful it was at times, how very careful I was every time that we should not be exposed single-handed to this onslaught which we were utterly incapable of meeting. . . .

On the other hand, the probability, since the Atlantic conference, at which I discussed these matters with Mr. Roosevelt, that the United States, even if not herself attacked, would come into the war in the Far East, and thus make final victory sure, seemed to allay some of these anxieties. That expectation has not been falsified by the event. . . . As time went on, one had greater assurance that if Japan ran amok in the Pacific, we should not fight alone. It must also be remembered that over the whole of the Pacific brooded the great power of the United States fleet, concentrated at Hawaii. It seemed very unlikely that Japan would attempt the distant invasion of the Malay Peninsula, the assault upon Singapore, and the attack upon the Dutch East Indies, while leaving behind them in their rear this great American fleet.”³⁹

Again, on February 15, Mr. Churchill crowed in Commons,

When I survey and compute the power of the United States and its vast resources and feel that they are now in it with us, with the British commonwealth of nations all together, however long it lasts, till death or victory, I cannot believe that there is any other fact in the whole world which can compare with that. This is what I have dreamed of, aimed at, and worked for, and now it has come to pass.⁴⁰

The most straightforward estimate of Roosevelt’s policy was provided by Capt. Oliver Lyttelton, British production minister in Churchill’s cabinet. Speaking June 20, 1944, before the American Chamber of Commerce in London, he asserted that “America provoked Japan to such an extent that the Japanese were forced to attack Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty on history ever to say that America was forced into war.”⁴¹

Later he apologized for speaking the embarrassing truth that the will to get into war came from this side of the water—from the White House.

*See Note 17, Appendix.

*Italics supplied.

*The percentage of Americans favoring entry into the war from October, 1939, until May, 1941, the month that the Washington master war plan and the joint Army-Navy war plan were approved, was shown by the Gallup poll to be as follows:

October, 1939, 5 per cent; June 2, 1940, 16 per cent; June 14, 1940, 19 per cent; July 6, 1940, 14 per cent; July 19, 1940, 15 per cent; October, 1940, 17 per cent; December, 1940, 15 per cent; Feb. 2, 1941, 15 per cent; March, 1941, 17 per cent; April, 1941, 13 per cent; May, 1941, 19 per cent.