9. Meeting at Sea

Chapter Nine

MEETING AT SEA

AS EARLY as February, 1941, Prime Minister Churchill had begun to press Mr. Roosevelt to take the lead in deterring Japan from seizing British possessions in the Far East. He besought the President then to “instil in Japan anxiety” that any Japanese move toward Singapore would mean war with the United States.¹ To the Atlantic conference in August he brought renewed proposals that Roosevelt throw down the gauntlet to Japan. Although Britain’s hand in the Orient was so weak that Churchill had been forced to shut down the Burma Road only a year before in order to appease Japan, the Prime Minister euphemistically referred to the proposed course as “parallel action” by Britain and the United States.

More than four years after the Atlantic conference Sumner Welles told the congressional committee investigating Pearl Harbor the detailed story of the conference. Welles’s notes of conversations between the two leaders on August 10 and 11 provided the fullest first-hand account of the Charter meeting yet made public.² Welles dealt at length with the so-called “parallel declaration” to be made by the United States, Britain, and Holland warning Japan against further aggression in the Far East.

On Sunday, August 10, Welles wrote, he accompanied Roosevelt to a conference with Churchill aboard the battleship “Prince of Wales.”

Sir Alexander Cadogan [British permanent undersecretary for foreign affairs] told me before lunch that in accordance with the conversation which was had between the President, the Prime Minister, Sir Alexander, and myself at the President’s dinner last night, he had made two tentative drafts covering proposed parallel and simultaneous declarations by the United States and British governments relating to Japanese policy in the Pacific and of a proposed joint declaration to be made by the President and the Prime Minister when their present meeting was terminated.

The draft of the “parallel declaration” to Japan read as follows:

Declaration by the United States government that:

1. Any further encroachment by Japan in the Southwestern Pacific would produce a situation in which the United States government would be compelled to take counter measures even though these might lead to war between the United States and Japan.

2. If any third power becomes the object of aggression by Japan in consequence of such counter measures or of their support of them, the President would have the intention to seek authority from Congress to give aid to such power.

Identical declarations were to be made by Great Britain and the Netherlands, with the names of those nations and appropriate references to their governments substituted for the United States and the President. A notation at the bottom of the document read, “Keep the Soviet government informed. It will be for consideration whether they should be pressed to make a parallel declaration.”

Welles’s memorandum continued,

As I was leaving the ship to accompany the President back to his flagship, Mr. Churchill . . . impressed upon me his belief that some declaration of the kind he had drafted with respect to Japan was in his opinion in the highest degree important, and that he did not think there was much hope left unless the United States made such a clear-cut declaration of preventing Japan from expanding further to the south, in which event the prevention of war between Great Britain and Japan appeared to be hopeless.

He said in a most emphatic manner that if war did break out between Great Britain and Japan, Japan immediately would be in a position through the use of her large number of cruisers to seize or to destroy all of the British merchant shipping in the Indian Ocean and in the Pacific and to cut the lifelines between the British dominions and the British Isles unless the United States herself entered the war. He pled with me that a declaration of this character, participated in by the United States, Great Britain, the dominions, the Netherlands, and possibly the Soviet Union, would definitely restrain Japan. If this were not done, the blow to the British government might be almost decisive.

On the following day Churchill was received by Roosevelt aboard the cruiser “Augusta.” Churchill again brought up the subject of the parallel declaration. Welles noted:

The Prime Minister then said that he desired to discuss the situation in the Far East. He had with him a copy of a draft memorandum, of which he had already given the President a copy, and which suggested that the United States, British, and Dutch governments simultaneously warn Japan that further military expansion by Japan in the South Pacific would lead to the taking of counter measures by the countries named, even though such counter measures might result in hostilities between them and Japan, and, second, provided that the United States declare to Japan that should Great Britain go to the assistance of the Netherlands East Indies as a result of aggression against the latter on the part of Japan, the President would request from the Congress of the United States authority to assist the British and Dutch governments in their defense against Japanese aggression.

After further discussion of proposals submitted by Ambassador Nomura in behalf of the Japanese government to Secretary Hull—“all of which,” Churchill remarked, “were particularly unacceptable”—Roosevelt said that he would ask Hull by radio to inform Nomura that he was returning to Washington the following Saturday or Sunday and that he desired to see the Japanese ambassador immediately upon his return.

The President, Welles recorded, stated that in this interview he would inform Nomura that if the Japanese would pledge themselves to keep hands off the Southwest Pacific and to withdraw the troops they then had in Indo-China, “the United States would in a friendly spirit seek to explore the possibilities inherent in the various proposals made by Japan for the reaching of a friendly understanding between the two governments.”

Roosevelt, however, was unwilling to assent to Japan’s proposals that, as conditions to any such pledge undertaken by Japan, the United States abandon economic and financial sanctions, take no further military measures in the Southwest Pacific in concert with the British and Dutch, and “use its good offices for the initiation of direct negotiations between the Japanese government and the Chiang Kai-shek regimé for the purpose of a speedy settlement of the China incident.”

The President, Welles continued, announced that he would

further state that should Japan refuse to consider this procedure and undertake further steps in the nature of military expansions, the President desired the Japanese government to know that in such event in his belief various steps would have to be taken by the United States, notwithstanding the President’s realization that the taking of such further measures might result in war between the United States and Japan.

Churchill, Welles reported.

immediately declared that the procedure suggested appeared to him to cover the situation very well. He said it had in it an element of “face saving” for the Japanese and yet at the same time would constitute a flat United States warning to Japan of the consequences involved in a continuation by Japan of her present course.

Churchill’s satisfaction was understandable. The position which Roosevelt announced he intended to take was that Japan must clear out of China and guarantee immunity to the British and Dutch colonial holdings without getting anything in return except a promise that the United States would continue to “explore” the possibilities of a settlement. Such terms obviously would be unacceptable to Japan. Therefore, the bite was at the finish of Roosevelt’s proposed lecture to Nomura: if the Japs moved against British and Dutch territory, they would have a war with the United States on their hands.

The discussion then turned to whether the threat of American action should be broadened to cover any aggressive steps by Japan against Russia. Welles suggested that

the real issue which was involved was the continuation by Japan of its present policy of conquest by force in the entire Pacific region and regardless whether such policy was directed against China, against the Soviet Union, or against the British dominions or British colonies, or the colonies of the Netherlands in the Southern Pacific area. I said it seemed to me that the statement which the President intended to make to the Japanese government might more advantageously be based on the question of broad policy rather than be premised solely upon Japanese moves in the Southwestern Pacific area.

The President agreed to this comprehensive enlargement of the warning.

Roosevelt, in calling for the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Indo-China, proposed that that country and Thailand be neutralized by a general agreement to which Japan should be a party. He said that Japan might more readily acquiesce in this proposal if he could state that he had been informed by the British government that Great Britain “had no aggressive intentions whatever” upon Thailand. Welles suggested the addition that “the British government had informed the United States government that it supported wholeheartedly the President’s proposal for the neutralization of Indo-China and of Thailand.” Churchill authorized these statements, by means of which Roosevelt undertook to carry the diplomatic ball for Britain.

“The President expressed the belief,” Welles said, “that by adopting this course any further move of aggression on the part of Japan which might result in war could be held for at least thirty days.” Churchill said that the procedure gave a “reasonable chance” that Japanese policy might be modified.

The thirty-day estimate is at variance with that given by Lindley and Davis, who said that Roosevelt, in endeavoring to check Churchill’s impetuous desire to bring a showdown with Japan at once, had asked, “Wouldn’t we be better off in three months?” Churchill agreed, but when he still professed doubt whether the respite would be forthcoming, Roosevelt was quoted as saying in an airy, offhand way, “Leave that to me. I think I can baby them [the Japs] along for three months.”³

Whether it was one month or three, the President by either reckoning was manifesting a conviction that war was inevitable. Once he had taken that position, it is difficult to see what meaning attached to the negotiations for a peaceful settlement which were to go on in Washington for another four months between Hull and Nomura. The decisions which Roosevelt and Churchill reached at their meeting at sea virtually precluded any constructive resolution of the problems between the United States and Japan.

Having decided to warn Japan that further moves in any direction meant a war with America, the conferees indulged in a curious parley as to how much of this the Chinese should be permitted to know. Welles relates:

I said that while I felt very definitely that every effort should be made to keep China closely informed of what was being done in her interest by Great Britain and by the United States, I wondered whether telling China of what the President intended to state to the Japanese government at this particular moment would not mean that the government at Chungking for its own interests would make public the information so received.

If publicity resulted, I stated I feared the extreme militaristic element in Tokyo and that portion of the Tokyo press which was controlled by Germany would immediately take advantage of the situation so created to inflame sentiment in Japan to such an extent as to make any possibility remote, as it might anyhow be, of achieving any satisfactory result through negotiation with Japan.

Cadogan, said Welles,

was entirely in accord and would be governed by these views. He said, of course, I realized how terribly persistent the Chinese were and that the present ambassador in London, Dr. Wellington Koo, would undoubtedly press him day in and day out to know what had transpired at the meeting between the Prime Minister and the President with regard to China. He said he felt that the best solution was for him merely tc say in general terms that the two governments had agreed that every step should be taken that was practicable at this time for China and its defense and avoid going into any details.

Accordingly, the Chinese were left as completely uninformed about what went on at the Atlantic conference as the American public.

Having disposed of Japan to his satisfaction, Churchill tackled the problem of getting Roosevelt to sign an acknowledgment of Anglo-American alliance in the Atlantic which could be waved in Hitler’s face. Roosevelt assented without making difficulties. The Atlantic Charter was the product.⁴

On August 17, upon his return to Washington, Roosevelt summoned Adm. Nomura to the White House and there read him what was tantamount to an ultimatum. After reviewing Japanese penetration of Indo-China and charging Japan with having “continued its military activities and its disposals of armed forces at various points in the Far East,” the President said:

Such being the case, this government now finds it necessary to say to the government of Japan that if the Japanese government takes any further steps in pursuance of a policy or program of military domination by force or threat of force of neighboring countries, the government of the United States will be compelled 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.⁵

The oral warning which the President gave Nomura followed the Churchill draft only as far as the beginning of the clause “compelled to take counter-measures even though these might lead to war.” Welles said that Roosevelt’s revisions constituted a “watering down” of the original statement.

“But the two instruments meant the same thing in diplomatic language?” asked Senator Ferguson.

“That is correct,” said Welles.*⁶

No public announcement was made by Roosevelt of the joint action agreement, although he addressed Congress August 21 on his meeting at sea, nor was it announced that the President had submitted an ultimatum to Japan. Roosevelt reserved his confidences for Churchill alone. On the day after addressing his statement to Nomura, he advised the Prime Minister that he had warned the Japanese ambassador against further moves by Japan in the Pacific.

“I made to him,” Roosevelt said, “a statement covering the position of this government with respect to the taking by Japan of further steps in the direction of military domination by force. . . . The statement made to him was no less vigorous and was substantially similar to the statement we had discussed.”⁷

Under the parallel action agreement, Churchill and the Dutch government were also obligated to follow Roosevelt in addressing ultimatums to Japan, but they seem to have been content to let the United States threaten the Japanese. State Department files do not show that either Churchill or the Dutch gave warnings in the same manner or form as the President had, although Churchill approached a parallel declaration in his radio speech of August 24, when he reported on the Atlantic conference.

After reviewing Japan’s military adventures and discussing the potential Japanese threat to Singapore, Siam, and the Philippines, he said, “It is certain that this has got to stop. Every effort will be made to secure a peaceful settlement. . . . But this I must say: that if these hopes should fail we shall of course range ourselves unhesitatingly at the side of the United States.”⁸

On November 10 Churchill returned to this theme, stating that “it is my duty to say, that, should the United States become involved in war with Japan, the British declaration will follow within the hour.”⁹

In Tokyo, Ambassador Grew was much gratified. “It does one’s heart good,” he remarked, “to hear such an unqualified statement by the British Prime Minister, leaving nothing to the imagination.”¹⁰

The only evidence that Churchill ever went beyond his public speeches in taking parallel action against Japan is provided in a memorandum written November 27, 1941, by Dr. Stanley Hornbeck.¹¹ Hornbeck, reviewing America’s relations with Japan, said: “By August of 1941 the situation had become definitely threatening. Toward the end of that month, the British government and the American government served on Japan a strong warning against further extending of her courses of aggression.”

When Senator Barkley, chairman of the investigating committee, observed that “if such a protest or representation was made by Great Britain, the document itself would prove what it contained,” Senator Ferguson reminded him, “Mr. Chairman, it is clear that the British papers are not subject to our examination.”¹²

That the effect of the Roosevelt warning of August 17 was that of an ultimatum is attested by Welles, Capt. R. E. Schuirmann, the Navy’s liaison officer on diplomatic relations, and by the Japanese themselves.

Senator Ferguson read Welles a press report from Tokyo dated August 13, while Roosevelt and Churchill were meeting at sea, stating that Japanese political sources believed America would match Japan “move for move” and that the Japanese had “no doubt what the next move would be.”

“Doesn’t that indicate parallel action had been taken?” asked Ferguson.

“Those would be the implications of the Atlantic Charter,” Welles replied.

“Didn’t the parallel declaration by Churchill and Roosevelt at the Atlantic conference commit us to ‘take the lead’ in the war?”

“It envisaged a possible conflict,” conceded Welles. “My understanding of the document is that if Japan continued its aggression, the United States would be obliged to take the necessary steps, which would include military action.”¹³

Capt. Schuirmann characterized the Roosevelt statement at a meeting on November 5, attended by Gen. Marshall, Adm. Stark, and other high-ranking officers, as “an ultimatum to Japan that it would be necessary for the United States to take action in case of further Japanese aggression.”¹⁴

The Japanese also viewed the statement as an ultimatum. On November 28 Adm. Nomura cautioned Tokyo,

What the imperial government must, of course, consider is what Great Britain, Australia, the Netherlands, and China, egged on by the United States, will do in case the imperial forces invade Thailand. Even supposing there is no armed collision with British forces, in the oral statement of President Roosevelt on the 17th he prophesied that suitable action would be taken immediately in case Japan carries on any further penetration beyond Indo-China.¹⁵

The President’s statement was not the first ultimatum addressed by American spokesmen to the Japanese, nor would it be the last. The first had come from Counselor Eugene Dooman of the American embassy in Tokyo, who, on February 14, 1941, had informed Chuichi Ohashi, the Japanese vice-minister for foreign affairs,

It would be absurd to suppose that the American people, while pouring munitions into Britain, would look with complacency upon the cutting of communications between Britain and the British, dominions and colonies overseas. If, therefore, Japan or any other nation were to prejudice the safety of those communications, either by direct action or by placing herself in a position to menace those communications, she would have to expect to come into conflict with the United States.¹⁶

Ambassador Grew said he approved this statement.¹⁷ The impression had been created in Japan, he told the congressional committee, that the United States was “isolationist, pacifistic, and too divided to fight a war.” The controlled press, he said, played up anti-war speeches and strikes in the United States.

“Dooman was in the United States during the 1940 Presidential campaign,” said Representative Keefe of Wisconsin. “Were his speeches played up in Japan?”

“I cannot recollect,” said Grew.

“Well,” said Keefe, “during that campaign there were a lot of speeches made by nonisolationists, including the President himself, indicating that we did not want to fight a foreign war.”¹⁸

A second warning was given Japan by Adm. Turner, Navy chief of war plans. Meeting Ambassador Nomura in July, 1941, Turner told Nomura he thought “Congress would declare war” if Japan attacked the Dutch East Indies or the British in Malaya. The admiral said that his report of the conversation was relayed to Roosevelt.¹⁹

Welles’s statement to Nomura on July 23 that Japan, by occupying Indo-China, had removed the basis for a “peaceful” settlement with the United States, had suggested that the only remaining alternative was a solution by resort to force.²⁰

The striking fact is that all of these statements promised Japan war with the United States if the Japanese attacked territory not belonging to the United States. Dooman threatened war in behalf of Britain and its dominions and colonies. Turner threatened war in behalf of Dutch and British colonies. Welles ruled out prospects of a peaceful settlement because Japan moved against Indo-China, then the property of Vichy France. Roosevelt was thinking of the British empire lifeline when he gave his all-inclusive warning. And, as will be seen, Secretary Hull acted at the insistence of the Chinese when he abandoned his own device to keep the peace and submitted terms to Japan which brought on the Pearl Harbor attack and the war.

It was in this strange climate of the United States conducting its foreign relations in the interest of everybody else that diplomatic negotiations proceeded in the hope of averting a war between the United States and Japan.

*As to the effect of this warning, the minority report of the Joint Congressional Committee says, “In his statement to the Japanese ambassador on Sunday, Aug. 17, immediately following his return from the Atlantic conference, President Roosevelt warned Japan against further attempts to dominate ‘neighboring countries,’ not merely the possessions of the United States, and used diplomatic language which, according to long established usages, had only one meaning, namely, that such further attempts would result in a conflict with the United States” (Min., p. 15).