VI. "If I were a Jap...."

ChapterVI ttIF I WERE A JAP .... " PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT had a particularly busy calendar on the last day of July, 1941. It was one of those days that would whet the vanity of any man and certainly that of Franklin D. Roosevelt, in whom that "sixth insatiable sense," as Carlyle called it, was by no means underdeveloped. It was a day replete with big manip ulations, half-veiled by oblique announcements issuing forth from near the seat of power. These served to inform the public that the man of destiny was up to something important. To the White House, by invitation, came two men impres sively arrayed in uniforms of scarlet, blue, and olive drab, with the Soviet hammer and sickle embossed in gold leaf on their visored caps. They were Lieutenant General Filip 1. Golikoff, deputy chief of staff of the Soviet Army, and his assistant, En gineer General Alexander Respin. They were accompanied by the Russian Ambassador, Constantin A. Oumansky, who intro duced them to the President. As heads of the Russian military mission, it was their business in Washington to get military sup plies for the Soviet army.

On that day, the United States was technically at peace. The Roosevelt administration had made no pretense of neutrality; but it had not yet dared to remove the word "peace" from its lexicon of rhetoric, for the public did not wish to enter the war. 62 U IF .I "VERE A JAP ••• " 63 The Nazi blitz on England had failed; in turn,bombs had been dropped from hundreds of Royal Air Force planes on Hamburg and Berlin, with telling premonition of devastation yet to come. Hitler's legions, now in the sixth week of their unhappy gamble in the east, had been checked on the approaches to Leningrad, Moscow, and Kiev, and a Soviet counteroffensive was actually underway in the crucial Smolensk sector of the long battle front. German peace feelers, looking toward a rapprochement with Britain, were being put forth in the neutral capitals of Europe.l Communism, the Germans were insisting, was the real menace to Western civilization.

After a lengthy visit, the Russians emerged from the White House, obviousIy pleased. Whatever Mr. Roosevelt had said to them· had been music to their ears. General Golikoff told in quisitive reporters that he found it very "easy" to talk with Presi dent Roosevelt on military matters. Perhaps General Galikoff had not anticipated that Mr. Roosevelt would say yes to him with such gusto or without attaching any strings to his commit ment. It was not so long ago that the League of Nations had ex pelled General Golikoff's government for aggression against little Finland or that his boss, Stalin, had joined with Adolf Hit.. ler to wipe Poland off the map. So he may have expected a more mitigated enthusiasm on President Roosevelt's part. Under the circumstances,it is not surprising that the adjective "easy" should have come to his mind in describing the conference. It so.happened that on this same thirty-first of July, in faraway Moscow, the President's perennial message-bearer and intimate, HarryHopkins,was having a three hour tete-a-tetewith Marshal Joseph Stalin. He was promising Stalin all possible American aid. He had spent three houts with the Soviet dictator the pre vious evening. Stalin was coolly confident. The Germans, said he, had underestimated the strength of the Russian army, which could mobilize three hundred and fifty divisions.

THE ATLANTIC CHARTER Stalin wanted American guns and other things, both imme diately and over the long run, but he made it plain that there was more on his mind than just the defense of the soil of Russia. Germany must be completely crushed, and to do that, America would have to come into the war. He wanted Hopkins to give Roosevelt that personal message. (Hopkins marked this part of his report "For the President Only.")2 Hopkins did not ask Stalin what the Soviet Union intended to do in the heartland of Europe after Germany was crushed, a question which anyone with a perspective of European history and an elementary understanding of geopolitics would have known to be important. The excuseshe proffered for some of the delays which would be inevitable in furnishing Stalin the vast quantities of supplies and equipment he wanted savored of apol ogies. He offered even more than was asked for. "In return for the offer of such aid," writes William C. Bullitt with consterna tion, "he asked nothing."g Sherwood's account, from Harry Hopkins' own notes and report, bears this out.4 On this same day, the Germans had. something dour to say about the visit of the American Santa Claus, in the person of Harry Hopkins, to the Kremlin. While it ill behooved the Nazis to speak of outrages and to don the robe of moral indignation, they had not lived in uncomfortable propinquity to the foun tainhead of international Communism since 1917 without learn ing some things about it which many Americans were to dis cover, with painful embarrassment and at great cost, in the years to follow. The authorized German spokesman, as quoted the next morning in the New York Times, tossed out a ball which Franklin D. Roosevelt did not dare try to catch. He charged that Hopkins' offer of support to Soviet Russia made the United States a party to the Soviet Union's efforts to thrust Communism into the heart of Europe.

The implicit prediction in this German comment, though "IF I WERE A JAP •••" prescient, was not just a case of clairvoyance, for it rested upon a knowledge of Marxism and of Soviet imperialism. "The United States is perfectly informed about the conditions of terror imposed by the Soviet in the territory Russia recently occupied," the spokesman continued. "By supporting such efforts any third party of course makes itself equally responsible for this assault on civilization.n The kettle was no less black because it was the pot that was calling it so. But in those days it was a tactic of the Roosevelt administration to scorn, as Nazi propaganda, anything said in Berlin, regardless of any amount of truth contained in it. The police state which was spawned by Bolshevism as an ugly sequel to the Revolution of 1917 and which has ever since drawn its vitality from a weird fusion of idealistic pretensions and brutal terrorism could logically commemorate the thirty first day of July, 1941, as one of the most auspicious dates in its history. The·assurances given on that day to the Red Army by Franklin D. Roosevelt,the President of the United States,and by Harry Hopkins, the creature and mouthpiece of Roosevelt, to Stalin in the Kremlin virtually guaranteed that the SovietUnion would be built up to be a monstrous military power that would cast a lengthening shadow over Europe and Asia throughout the following decades.

Naturally, the average American citizen knew little of the import of what was occurring. He was being agreeably diverted (although unemployment recorded in August, 1941,was 5,620, 000, or·one-tenth of the total labor force). His resistance to the idea of going to war, for ends which were dubious at best, was slowly being chipped away. Mr. Rooseveltsaw to that personally. For example, on that eventful day when the President was receiving the Russian generals at the White House, the Ameri can people-or at least those who were reading their newspapers -were being regaled with accounts of a visit by one Alvin York 66 THE ATLANTIC CHARTER to the White House the day before. Alvin York was the heroic Sergeant York of World War I. The Hollywood interventionist set,5 close political allies of the President, had reached back a whole generation to resurrect the almost-forgotten Mr. York. They had made a motion picture with the title SergeantYork.

It was a clever piece of jingoism which was calculated to make many an adventurous youngster yearn to get a gun in his hands and be a hero, too. President Roosevelt then arranged to have Mr. York brought to the White House, where, with much pub licity, he praised the new picture and told Mr. York that he thought it would do much "to rouse our people." This gratuitous Presidential plug for a motion picture was in the newspapers at a timely moment. Later in the day, after Generals Golikoff and Respin and the Soviet Ambassador had left the White House, another foreign visitor arrived for an appointment with the President. It was the British Ambassador, Lord Halifax. Naturally, one of the prime duties of this suave diplomat was to keep a sharp watch on President Roosevelt's humors, with the object of accelerating, however possible, the tempo of American participation in the war. Mr. Roosevelt,in turn, had opened his arms to Lord Hali fax and was a willing collaborator in the job of putting an inno cent face on the British cause in the world power struggle then raging. This, of necessity, involved a liberal touching up of the record of history and so came within one of Mr. Roosevelt'sspe cial aptitudes. He .liked to refer to Lord Halifax's homeland as a "peace-loving nation," in spite of the fact that since the foun dation of British nationalism in the eleventh century the doughty Englishmen had never let a single generation pass without en..

gaging in warfare somewhere away from their own soil. On this occasion, Lord Halifax did not come to the White House empty handed. He brought as gifts to Mr. Roosevelt a portrait of the President by Frank Salisbury, a gold medal from "IF I WERE A JAP •••" 67 the Royal Societyof Arts, awardedby its president,the Duke of Connaught, and a diploma from Oxford Universityattesting that Mr. Roosevelt had received its honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law. The British Ambassador remained with the President one hour. They probably talked about Mr. Roosevelt's impending meeting with Prime Minister Churchill, which was to result in the Atlantic Charter. But that was a guarded secret. They also talked about Japan. What they said to each other on this subject was, of course, not made public. Upon leaving the White House, Lord Halifax was not explicit, but said that it \vas a fair assump tion that the conference had touched on' Far Eastern develop ments. Asked if future moves had been planned, he replied, "Not a great deal. We discussed various possibilities."

"Possibilities" for what? For fostering amicable relations with the Japanese government, then headed by the moderate Prince Konoye, or for prodding the Japanese to some desperate act of aggression that would touch oft war with England and the United States? For playing into the hands of the war party in Japan by new belligerent moves which would force the Konoye cabinet out of power and bring in General Tojo and his militar ists? For cutting the ground from under the conscientiousJoseph C. Grew, our Ambassador in Tokyo, who thought, or hoped, that his government really wanted peace? For stultifying in the eyes of the Japanese people those moderate leaders who were known to desire a resolution of the China impasse and an escape from the tripartite agreement with the Axis powers? For forcing the Japaneseto go southfrom theirtiny islandsto morefavored landsin orderto get oil, tin,rubber,and rice at gunpoint,as had the English, the Dutch, and the French before them?

The insinuation is not fanciful. In the first place, President Roosevelt wanted war.6 And certainly the British, who were al ready in one in Europe, wished for nothing more than that 68 THE ATLANTIC CHARTEX America be in it with them. The Far East was the back door. If the United. States were to clash with Japan, she would also be plunged into the maelstrom in Europe. This was perfectly fore seeable (and, of course, is exact!y what happened). In the second place, secret and detailed war plans were ready. British and American military and naval experts, disguised in civilian clothes to concealfrom the public the fact that the United States was surreptitiously entering into a military alliance, had drawn them up a few months earlier in Washington and Singa pore. (This all came out five years later in the hearings of the Joint Congressional Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack.)7 Third, President Roosevelt had just initiated a series of highly provocative actions which were almost certain to lead to war with Japan. 'TIhePanama Canal had been closed to Japan's ships, and her oil had been cut off.8 The President was not one to eschew an indirect means to an end when the direct one was denied him. During the early sum mer of 1941,his Secretary of War, Stimson, conscious of the fact that in a democracy the people have a right to candor on the part of their public officials,was urging Mr. Roosevelt to come out boldly for intervention in the war in Europe; but now, in July, he came to realize that political considerations based upon what was "palatable" to the people had so firmly committed the Presi dent "to his own more gradual course that nothing could change him."9 It is obvious that Henry L. Stimson, who had never been elected to a public office, was temperamentally incapable of comprehending the modus operandiof a virtuoso politician such as Franklin D. Roosevelt.The squire of Hyde Park had not won his third term campaign by being candid, nor was he going to reach his fourth term by the route of candor.

In Roosevelt's machinations to embroil the United States in the European war, Hitler had turned out to be somewhat disap"IF I WERE A J AP •••" pointing. The Lend-Lease Act, which the President rammed through Congress in March, had violated every concept and canon of neutrality enunciated in international law since the time of Grotius, including the Hague Conventions. And on April 21, Roosevelt had directed units of the Atlantic fleet to "trail" German and Italian merchant and naval ships and air craft and to brQadcast their movements in plain language at four-hour intervals for the convenience of British warships and planes.1o T'hesewere but two of a list of steps which he had taken to make the United States,for all intents and purposes, a belliger ent, though a non-officialone. He was waging an undeclared war. (Admiral Stark wrote in a private letter a month before Pearl Harbor: "Whether the country knows it or not, we are.at war.") 11 In short, Mr. Roosevelt had put a chip on his shoulder and had dared the Nazi dictator to knock it oft. The latter had not obliged. Although American warships were plowing the Atlantic and helping the British navy and although American military aid was of such a nature and the attitude of the Roose velt administration so pugnacious that Prime Minister Churchill was able to tell the House of Commons on July 21 that the United States was "on the verge of war," the Germans were careful not to accommodate Mr. Roosevelt by giving him sufficientgrounds to ask Congress for a declaration of war.

When American troops were sent to Iceland to relieve fifteen thousand British soldiers garrisoned there, hopes that Hitler might consider this the last straw rose high in administration circles.On July 7, when Roosevelt,after being badgered by Sen ator Burton K. Wheeler into making the revelation, finally noti fied Congress of this movement of forces, he made it appear to be purely a matter of defense of the Western Hemisphere be cause, as Stimson confides to us, he believed that "this was a more palatable argument to the people."12 However, Admiral Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, wrote a letter to Captain 70 THE ATLANTIC CHARTER (later Admiral) Charles M. Cooke, Jr., on July 31 in which he said, in the more blunt fashion of the Navy, "The Iceland situ ation may produce an incident.... Whether or not we will get an 'incident' ... I do not know. Only Hitler can answer."18 As it turned out, Hitler continued a cautious path. He did not give President Roosevelt the incident he was waiting for. His U-boats were instructed to keep away from American ships where possible.14 "They're keeping out of our way, apparently,"

said Secretary of the Navy Knox on August 16. To be sure, the American destroyer Greer was sunk on September 4 by torpe does, but under circumstances which were far from clear on the point of whether the Greer or the German submarine had been the aggressor.15 This was clearIy not the case for the President to take to Congress without fear of a rebuff. In fact, the Navy Department refused to submit the log of the Greerto inspection by the United States Senate.16 In the meantime, Mr. Rooseveltwas not putting all his bets on one horse. If the 'Germans would not attack the United States, perhaps the Japanese would. The troubled waters of the Far East were full of "possibilities," to pluck a word from Lord Hali fax's cryptic comment when he elnerged from his private con versation with President Roosevelt in the White House on July 31. Had Mr. Roosevelt told Lord Halifax that the Navy Depart ment had advised him in advance that the oil elnbargo would force Japan to make war to get oil? If they talked at all about the Far Eastern situation-and Lord Halifax said they did-this must have been mentioned,· for it was the most potent fact in that situation and it is inconceivable that the loquacious Mr.

Roosevelt would have been so lacking in frankness to his visitor on a matter of their common interest that he would smother the information. In those days, it was not uncommon for intelligence which was carefully kept secret from the American people, "IF I WERE A JAP •••" 71 chiefly for political reasons, to be imparted freely to the British hierarchy. Admiral Richmond K. Turner, chief of the War Plans Divi sion of the Navy Department, had, with the general concurrence of Admiral Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, prepared for the State Department and the President an analysis of the effects of such an embargo. This report, made on July 22, set forth the Navy's official position on the advisability of imposing the em bargo. It stated that an embargo "would probably result in a fairly early attack by Japan on Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies," that it would have "an immediate severe psychological reaction in Japan against the United States," that it seemed cer tain that if Japan should take measures against the British and Dutch, she would also include military action against the Philip pines, which would immediately involve us in a Pacific war. The final recommendation was "that trade with Japan not be em..

bargoed at this time.,,17 Of course to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had other objectives in mind than the maintenance of peace, this conclusion was a non sequitur. Three days later, on July 25, from Hyde Park, he issued an executive order freezing all Japanese assets in the United States and imposing a virtual embargo on trade between the two countries.18 Naturally, the British and the Dutch govern ment-in-exile in England followed suit. Japan, which because of her natural deficiencies must trade or perish, was backed to the wall. Whether or not the Navy's analysis decided the issue for Mr. Roosevelt must remain a matter of conjecture, but we do know that when the Navy advised that the embargo would pre cipitate war, he promptly imposed it. This move was palmed off on the public as an effort to deter Japan from a course of aggression. The officialNavy conclusion that it would have just the opposite effect was, of course, kept THE ATLANTIC CHARTER secret. Five years later, the truth came out at the hearings of the Joint Congressional Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack when Admiral Stark, who at the time the Japa nese embargo was imposed was the top Navy man in Washing ton, frankly admitted that all high officials in Washington had known it meant ultimate war. Roosevelt had pulled the wool over the eyes of the American public but not over those of Ad miral Stark. Stark did not even blame the Japanese. When Roose velt cut off Japan's oil, Stark felt that "if he were a Jap," he would go and take oil where he could find it. At the Congres sional hearings in 1946, Senator Ferguson put the question to him: "About the oil question, and your attitude toward Japan: Did you not testify before the Navy Court that after the imposi tion of economic sanctions upon Japan in the summer of 1941, you stated that Japan would go somewhere and take it [oil], and that if you were a Jap you would?"