Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941

by Ian Kershaw

  But there were also great uncertainties. First and foremost, would the Soviet Union hold out against Hitler’s onslaught? The United States War Department advised President Roosevelt that Hitler’s forces would conquer the Soviet Union within a period of one to three months. British military authorities took a similar view. They thought Hitler’s eastern campaign would be over in six to eight weeks. After that, Hitler would transfer his forces to the west. The invasion of the United Kingdom could only be seen as temporarily postponed.1 With Germany, after defeating the Soviet Union, master of effectively the entire European continent, an invasion might not even be necessary to force Britain to the negotiating table. At any rate, the question of how the United States should react in the changed circumstances allowed more than one answer.

  In Britain, Churchill, exultant at the new development, did not hesitate for an instant and immediately committed Britain to aid for the Soviet Union, a step on the way to full-scale military alliance. Ideological differences were completely subordinated to practical necessity (even if Churchill, behind the public gestures, had in mind only limited measures of support, aimed at keeping the Soviet Union in the war).2 Britain had nothing to lose and everything to gain from such an alliance in the fight against Hitler. For the United States it was less straightforward. Hostility to Communism was both widespread and deep-seated. Many, not just among isolationists, thought it to be no bad thing if the Nazis and Bolsheviks fought themselves to a standstill, imposing maximum destruction on each other and avoiding in the process any American commitment to the conflict. Since neither posed an imminent threat, nothing like the same urgency as in Britain was felt about the need to jump into bed with Stalin. In any case, if victory in the east were to go Hitler’s way, and within a matter of weeks, there was little to be said for dispatching arms and equipment much needed for American defences to the Soviet Union. They would not arrive in time to make any difference in the conflict, and at the expected Soviet defeat would merely fall into the hands of the Nazis. A more sensible strategy would surely be to bolster Britain’s chances in the subsequent struggle when Hitler once more turned westwards, as part of the United States’ own defence.3 One option was, therefore, simply to wait and see how the war in the Soviet Union would turn out before taking any action.

  Another uncertainty was how Japan would react to the dramatic new turn of events. Thanks to the ability (through the appropriately codenamed MAGIC intelligence intercepts) to read dispatches from Tokyo to the embassy in Washington, the Roosevelt administration knew what was in the minds of Japan’s leaders, an inestimable advantage.4 The President’s advisers were aware of the sharp division of opinion in Tokyo about moving swiftly to take advantage of the German invasion by attacking the Soviet Union from the east (a policy fervently advocated by the Foreign Minister, Matsuoka Yosuke), or adhering to the previously agreed strategy of the southern advance. Fending off an attack from the east as well as trying to cope with the inroads Hitler’s troops were making in the west would plainly have weakened the Soviet Union’s chances of holding out. That in turn would have enhanced a policy of extreme caution in offering aid to Stalin. By early July, however, policy-makers in Washington had learned, through MAGIC, that Japan’s leaders had confirmed the southern advance and would make no strike against the Soviet Union, at least until they were sure that Hitler was conclusively winning. This was clearly a boost to Stalin’s chances of survival.

  On the other hand, the imminent expansionist course in south-east Asia pushed Japan inexorably towards a clash with the United States. Though President Roosevelt still hoped to keep Japan quiet in order to deal with what was still regarded as the greater threat of Hitler across the Atlantic, the question of what to do in the Pacific had become an urgent one. On 1 July, still unsure what course the Japanese would adopt, Roosevelt told Harold Ickes, his Secretary of the Interior, that it was ‘terribly important for the control of the Atlantic for us to help to keep peace in the Pacific’. He added: ‘I simply have not got enough Navy to go round–and every little episode in the Pacific means fewer ships in the Atlantic.’5

  A day later the Japanese decision not to reverse policy in favour of the northern option and to go south after all was made. Aware through MAGIC of Tokyo’s plans, the President now came under increasing pressure from the hawks in his administration to curb Japanese belligerency. On 10 July he let the British know that he ‘would immediately impose various embargoes, both economic and financial’, in the event of Japan taking ‘any overt step’ in south-east Asia.6 The Japanese invasion of southern Indochina which began on 24 July soon emerged as that ‘overt step’. Before the end of the month all Japanese assets in the United States were frozen and supplies of oil to Japan, essential for the construction of the ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’, were embargoed. With those steps, the showdown in the Pacific loomed.

  For now, however, we turn away from Japan to examine the ways in which the Roosevelt administration faced the greater threat, as it saw it, of the war in Europe in the changed circumstances following the German invasion of the Soviet Union. And here, though the circumstances had altered, Roosevelt’s basic dilemma had not. The issue that still faced him was how to provide maximum aid for Britain (and now, he thought an imperative, to the Soviet Union too), a policy supported by the majority of the population, without involving the United States directly in the war, which the American people overwhelmingly opposed.

  An immediate issue, already mentioned, was the question of providing material aid to the Soviet Union through extending lend-lease. Though no immediate decision was taken to do so, early measures were taken to meet Soviet orders for goods, and by November the Soviet Union had indeed become eligible for lend-lease.7 A second, and far more hazardous, question was how to approach, from the standpoint of neutrality, the battle raging in the Atlantic. Here, Roosevelt’s dilemma posed itself in increasingly sharp contours. It made little sense to provide goods for Britain if they were merely to find their way to the bottom of the Atlantic. But helping to protect the transit of the vital material against the raids of U-boats ran the obvious and increasing risk of dragging the United States into the war. Given the continuing voluble isolationist lobby, the high-decibel publicity campaign against intervention by the America First organization, and the strength of opposition (from a variety of motives) certain to be encountered in Congress to moves seen as likely to lead towards involvement in the European war, Roosevelt felt justified in continuing his difficult balancing-act of placating public opinion while running ever greater risks of armed confrontation in an ‘undeclared war’.

  On more than one occasion, the President would imply that he was seeking an incident to remove his dilemma. Yet when incidents did arise in the autumn months, he fought shy of exploiting them fully to take the United States directly into the war. Despite the convictions of many of his detractors, at the time and since, that the President was actively seeking to take his country to war, his actions suggest that he did want to avoid it as long as possible while simultaneously recognizing that America’s involvement at some point had become inevitable. He knew in any case that his chances, even as tensions rose across the autumn, of obtaining a declaration of war from Congress were as good as nil. But although only Congress could declare war, the Constitution of the United States, as Roosevelt was well aware, accords the President wide powers as Commander-in-Chief to make war, even without a formal declaration. Former Presidents had availed themselves of such powers. Later ones would also do so. Roosevelt sought legal confirmation of his constitutional powers to deploy the navy ‘in any manner that to him seems proper’ in the national interest–that is, in pursuing the ‘undeclared war’ with Hitler’s U-boats in the Atlantic.8

  As the war had widened over the previous twelve months or so, Roosevelt’s own options had, in fact, narrowed. In the aftermath of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the President faced the inexorable logic of the decisions he had taken earlier to assist Great Br
itain. True, he could have resisted the extension of lend-lease to the Soviet Union. He was under no pressure from public opinion to assist Stalin. And, certainly in the first weeks after the German invasion, there were differing views among his advisers on the merits of providing aid. Here, the President himself took the lead. He pushed for aid to Russia. It proved not only a logical step, but a vitally important one, which over time would make a significant contribution to securing victory for the Allies. On the issue of aid to Britain, the President, even had he wanted to do so (which he did not), could not easily have extricated himself from the consequences of the lend-lease decision taken at the start of the year. Only had Britain been overrun by Hitler’s troops and forced into capitulation following a rapid German victory in the east could Roosevelt have terminated lend-lease and pulled back from the commitment to the British war effort. But since more optimistic signs of protracted Soviet defence soon became evident, there was everything to gain from increased aid to Britain (as well as the start of supplies to the Soviet Union).

  The inevitable consequence of this was, as already noted, the increase of tension between the United States and Germany in the Atlantic, and the acute problem at home for the President of deciding what to do about the issue of armed escorts for convoys. Since, whatever steps he took, Roosevelt was determined to avoid asking Congress for a declaration of war and running the risk of near-certain political defeat that would completely divide the population and destroy any hope of national unity, this left him only with the option of continuing the policy he had begun the previous year: taking all measures in the fight against Hitler ‘short of war’. But ‘short of war’ had now come to mean ‘undeclared war’, even to the extent of armed clashes in the Atlantic which, despite the state of non-belligerency that technically prevailed in American-German relations, threatened to explode into all-out conflict. Roosevelt’s choice in the summer and autumn of 1941 had narrowed, therefore, to one effectively forced upon him by the decisions he had made earlier, and by the strategic constellation that had emerged. This was to push ever closer to the brink, without going over the edge.

  I

  In his powerful speech on the evening of 22 June 1941–heard by millions of Americans as they tuned in to their radios that afternoon across the Atlantic–Winston Churchill had specifically linked the fates of the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the United States in the fight against Hitler’s Germany. Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, he had stated, ‘is no more than a prelude to an attempted invasion of the British Isles’. Doubtless Hitler hoped, he added, ‘that all this may be accomplished before the fleet and air power of the United States may intervene’. Should this invasion of Britain take place, he warned, the scene would be set for the final act, ‘the subjugation of the Western Hemisphere to his will and to his system’. The conclusion was evident: ‘The Russian danger is therefore our danger, and the danger of the United States, just as the cause of any Russian fighting for his hearth and home is the cause of free men and free peoples in every quarter of the globe.’9

  President Roosevelt was of similar mind, though less decisive in action. A careful (though non-committal) statement put out on 23 June by Sumner Welles (Acting Secretary of State in the temporary absence through illness of Cordell Hull), which the President had approved, indicated that ‘any rallying of the forces opposing Hitlerism, from whatever source’, would benefit the United States’ own defence and security, and ended by reasserting the administration’s long-held view that ‘Hitler’s armies are today the chief dangers of the Americas’.10 But the statement offered nothing concrete. Next day, commenting on Welles’s statement in a press conference, Roosevelt was more forthright. ‘Of course we are going to give all the aid we possibly can to Russia,’ he stated.11 He now released Soviet funds in the United States–amounting to around $40 million–that had previously been frozen, and indicated his readiness to provide aid, noting, however, his ignorance of what was needed. Most significantly, the White House announced on 26 June that the President would not invoke the Neutrality Law against the Soviet Union. This meant that the port of Vladivostok, on the far-eastern rim of the Soviet Union, would, crucially, remain a lifeline for American ships to deliver supplies.12

  It all pointed in the right direction. But it was no more than a modest start. The President’s military advisers favoured a bolder course. Henry Stimson, Secretary of War, had sent Roosevelt a memorandum on 23 June, only a day after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, outlining the thoughts of the leading military strategists in the War Department, including those of the chief of staff, George Marshall. Stimson described Germany’s attack as ‘an almost providential occurrence’, allowing the United States a brief respite in which ‘to push with the utmost vigour our movements in the Atlantic theatre of operations’ as the best way ‘to help Britain, to discourage Germany, and to strengthen our own position of defence against our most imminent danger’. The respite, argued Stimson, would last from one to three months. That time allowed for no hesitation in seizing the initiative.13 Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy, agreed. Writing to the President the same day, he saw an opportunity, not to be missed, to ‘strike effectively at Germany’–‘the sooner the better’. The President, he asserted, should lose no time in seizing the psychological opportunity to start the escorting of ships. Admiral Harold Stark, chief of Naval Operations, joined in the chorus. With Knox’s approval, he proposed that escorting of convoys in the Atlantic should begin immediately, aware that this ‘would almost certainly involve us in war’, and considering ‘every day of delay in our getting into the war as dangerous’.14

  But the President continued in his policy of ‘making haste slowly’.15 Stimson, frustrated as so often by what he saw as Roosevelt’s unwillingness to grasp the nettle, thought that, while Hitler’s forces were making spectacular gains in their eastern assault, America had lost her way. He was uncharacteristically pessimistic in his diary entry of 2 July: ‘Altogether, tonight I feel more up against it than ever before. It is a problem whether this country has it in itself to meet such an emergency. Whether we are really powerful enough and sincere enough and devoted enough to meet the Germans is getting to be more and more of a real problem.’16

  Equally hawkish, as usual, was Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior. In a letter to the President on 23 June, he wrote: ‘It may be difficult to get into this war the right way, but if we do not do it now, we will be, when our turn comes, without an ally anywhere in the world.’17 Ickes suggested that an embargo on oil to Japan, certain to be popular, would make it possible ‘to get into this war in an effective way. And if we should thus indirectly be brought in, we would avoid the criticism that we had gone in as an ally of communistic Russia.’18 But the likely opposition in the United States even to providing aid for ‘communistic Russia’ made Roosevelt cautious. Before committing himself, he wanted to test opinion.

  It turned out to be predictably split. Isolationists momentarily had a field day. One isolationist Senator expressed the views of many when he said: ‘It’s a case of dog eat dog. Stalin is as bloody-handed as Hitler. I don’t think we should help either one. We should tend to our own business, as we should have been doing all along. The whole business shows the absolute instability of European alliances and points to the necessity of our staying out of all of them.’19 Vehement anti-Communist Catholics also railed against any support for Stalin’s atheistic regime. According to opinion polls, even so, very few Americans favoured a Nazi victory in the bitter struggle raging in eastern Europe. And important news organs recognized that, despite the dislike of Communism, practical realities necessitated as much support as possible for the Soviet Union.20

  Roosevelt also needed to know what the Soviet Union wanted, whether it could be delivered and that it was not going to be squandered in a rapid defeat by Hitler’s forces.21 On the last consideration, the President had been from the outset among the optimists–far more so than his military advisers–about the prospects of
the Red Army holding out. One of those encouraging such optimism, which in the face of the devastating German inroads initially seemed to rest upon little more than unfounded hope, was the former American ambassador in Moscow, Joseph E. Davies, now based at the State Department as Cordell Hull’s Special Assistant for War Emergency Problems and Policies. Davies had from the start been a forceful advocate of aid to the Soviet Union. ‘This Hitler attack’, he had written in his diary on 7 July, ‘was a God-given break in the situation for nonaggressor nations and Soviet resistance should be stimulated in every way possible.’22 In a memorandum compiled a few days later, Davies argued, on the basis of his extensive experience of the Soviet Union, that even should Hitler occupy White Russia and the Ukraine, the likelihood was that Stalin could retreat behind the Urals and continue to fight ‘for a considerable time’. It made sense, therefore, also in heading off any possibility of Stalin feeling forced to accept a negotiated settlement with Hitler, to let him know ‘that our attitude is "all out” to beat Hitler and that our historic policy of friendliness to Russia still exists’.23

  On the question of Soviet needs, initial soundings were taken in Moscow within a week of the German invasion. In Washington, a special committee was then immediately set up to deal with Soviet orders. Lend-lease was not contemplated at this stage. It was presumed that supplies would be purchased, not donated, though consideration was given to extending credit over five years or exchanging American equipment for Soviet raw materials. In fact, when the Soviet ‘shopping-list’ was put before the Cabinet on 18 July it turned out to be enormous. Included were requests for 6,000 planes, 20,000 anti-aircraft guns and industrial plant and equipment to the value of around $50 million. Not only was it a formidable list; the administrative machinery to dispatch any of it was nothing like so streamlined as the establishment of the committee to handle Soviet orders had implied. Foot-dragging and lack of coordination in the half-dozen agencies involved meant irritating inefficiency. The President himself intervened in peremptory fashion at the beginning of August, pointing out that in nearly six weeks little had been done to satisfy Soviet requests so that ‘the Russians feel that they have been given the run-around in the United States’.24 According to Ickes, Roosevelt’s intervention–mainly targeting the State Department and War Department–amounted to ‘one of the most complete dressings down that I have witnessed’. The President was only too well aware that if any attempt was to be made to help the Red Army to hold out until the onset of autumn rain and snow from October onwards could start to provide a much needed respite from the German onslaught, the hold-ups had to be bypassed and supplies hastened. ‘This was a time to take some risks,’ he felt.25