by Ian Kershaw
1. Robert E. Sherwood, The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins, London, 1948, vol. 1, pp. 304–5; Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt. A Rendezvous with Destiny, Boston, 1990, p. 373.
2. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3: The Grand Alliance, London, 1950, pp. 330–33. The ‘token assistance’ which Churchill was prepared in practice to offer the Soviet Union, despite his forthright expressions of vocal support, is emphasized by Sheila Lawlor, ‘Britain and the Russian Entry into the War’, in Richard Langhorne (ed.), Diplomacy and Intelligence during the Second World War, Cambridge, 1985, pp. 171–4.
3. William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Undeclared War, 1940–1941, New York, 1953, p. 537. This was essentially the view in the State Department. When Roosevelt decided to aid the Soviet Union, he did so (as has been said) ‘with only hope and intuition to guide him’ (Warren F. Kimball, The Juggler. Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman, Princeton, 1991, pp. 27, 40).
4. On MAGIC, see I. C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot (eds.), The Oxford Companion to the Second World War, Oxford/New York, 1995, pp. 706–9.
5. The Roosevelt Letters, vol. 3: [1928–1945], ed. Elliott Roosevelt, London, 1952, p. 375.
6. Quoted in Herbert Feis, The Road to Pearl Harbor. The Coming of the War between the United States and Japan, Princeton, 1950, p. 227.
7. Waldo H. Heinrichs, Jr., Threshold of War. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Entry into World War II, New York/Oxford, 1988, pp. 104–5, 174, 206.
8. Thomas A. Bailey and Paul B. Ryan, Hitler vs. Roosevelt. The Undeclared Naval War, New York, 1979, pp. 263–4.
9. Winston S. Churchill, Great War Speeches, paperback edn., London, 1957, p. 109.
10. Quoted in Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 541.
11. Quoted in Robert A. Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent. American Entry into World War II, New York, 1965, p. 123.
12. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 541.
13. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 303–4.
14. Quoted in Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 538; and James McGregor Burns, Roosevelt. The Soldier of Freedom 1940–1945, London, 1971, p. 104.
15. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 309.
16. Yale University Library, Henry L. Stimson Diaries 1909–1945, Reel 6, entry for 2.7.41; also in Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War, New York, 1948, p. 371.
17. Quoted in Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 538.
18. Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, vol. 3: The Lowering Clouds 1939–1941, New York, 1955, pp. 557–8.
19. Quoted in Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 542.
20. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 542–6.
21. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 309.
22. Joseph E. Davies, Mission to Moscow, New York, 1941, p. 488.
23. Davies, pp. 494–5, 497; also printed in Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 306–9.
24. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 560–61; Burns, pp. 114–15.
25. Quotations from Ickes, vol. 3, pp. 592–3.
26. Quoted in Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 561.
27. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 545, 558–63; Freidel, p. 374. Nor was the initial help from Britain, which dispatched the first Arctic convoy to the Soviet Union in August 1941, of great value. The materials shipped to aid the Soviet fight against Hitler’s forces began, however, to play a significant role in 1942.
28. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 319.
29. Kimball, The Juggler, pp. 22, 31–4, 36.
30. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 313–22; Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, pp. 377–8, for Hopkins’s talks in London.
31. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 324–49, for the Moscow visit; p. 325, for the hat.
32. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 329.
33. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 337.
34. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 335–42, 347.
35. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 342–4.
36. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 350; Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, p. 381.
37. Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent, p. 129.
38. Freidel, p. 375.
39. Heinrichs, Threshold of War, pp. 174–5; Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, pp. 417–19, for the British contribution.
40. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 396.
41. Ickes, vol. 3, p. 620.
42. Freidel, p. 376.
43. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 818–19; Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 399–400; Freidel, p. 376. When the Lend-Lease bill had first come before Congress early in 1941, it had already prompted opposition from those unwilling to see aid extended to the Soviet Union (Warren F. Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act. Lend-Lease 1939–1941, Baltimore, 1969, p. 189).
44. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 560; Freidel, p. 376.
45. Quoted in Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 544.
46. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 738; David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear. The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945, New York/Oxford, 1999, pp. 486–7; David Reynolds, The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance 1937–1941. A Study in Competitive Co-operation, Chapel Hill, NC, 1982, p. 212; Mark A. Stoler, Allies and Adversaries. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Grand Alliance, and U.S. Strategy in World War II, Chapel Hill, NC/London, 2000, pp. 47, 49, 50, 55; substantial extracts from the text in Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 413–23.
47. Quoted in Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 544.
48. The Roosevelt Letters, vol. 3, p. 378.
49. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 539, 579.
50. Burns, p. 104; Stimson Diaries, Reel 6, entries for 6–7 July 1941, indicate Knox’s disappointment and frustration at Roosevelt’s lack of boldness.
51. Heinrichs, Threshold of War, p. 110; Freidel, p. 383.
52. Quoted in Burns, p. 105.
53. Joseph P. Lash, Roosevelt and Churchill 1939–1941. The Partnership that Saved the West, New York, 1976, pp. 341–2.
54. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 576; Ickes, vol. 3, p. 571.
55. Bailey and Ryan, p. 155.
56. The Churchill War Papers, vol. 3: The Ever-Widening War, 1941, ed. Martin Gilbert, London, 2000, p. 914 (9.7.41); Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 578.
57. Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, p. 208.
58. Burns, p. 105. In the Far East, too, the imposition of oil sanctions makes it possible to view July 1941 as a turning point in American strategic thinking and diplomacy. See David Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt’s America and the Origins of the Second World War, Chicago, 2001, p. 143.
59. Ickes, vol. 3, p. 571; Bailey and Ryan, p. 156.
60. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 577.
61. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 578. See Lash, p. 343, for the muted isolationist protest.
62. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 367.
63. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 367–9; Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 570–74; Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent, pp. 129–31.
64. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 368.
65. Stimson and Bundy, p. 377; Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 574.
66. Quoted in Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 368.
67. Quoted in Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, p. 169.
68. Both quotations in Lash, p. 391.
69. See Lash, p. 392.
70. Extensive coverage of the conference in Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 350–66; Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, pp. 385–400; Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 663–92; Lash, pp. 393–400; Heinrichs, Threshold of War, pp
. 148–61; and, especially, Theodore A. Wilson, The First Summit. Roosevelt and Churchill at Placentia Bay 1941, London, 1970.
71. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 670–77; Wilson, pp. 112–13, 117, 119, 163–6, 215, 241–4.
72. Freidel, p. 386.
73. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, pp. 388–9; Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 356; Wilson, pp. 88, 160–63; Heinrichs, Threshold of War, p. 157.
74. Wilson, p. 144.
75. Wilson, p. 145.
76. Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, p. 216; Freidel, p. 392; Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent, p. 143.
77. Heinrichs, Threshold of War, p. 164.
78. Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945, New York, 1979, p. 286.
79. Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, p. 217.
80. Quoted in Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, pp. 214–15 (where it is pointed out that some of Churchill’s Cabinet colleagues were sceptical of his positive account); and Dallek, p. 285.
81. Text in Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, pp. 393–4; Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 687–8; and Wilson, p. 206.
82. See Wilson, pp. 174, 260–62.
83. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, pp. 384, 394 (for the quotation); Wilson, pp. 108–11 for a description of the service.
84. Quoted in Wilson, p. 111.
85. Wilson, p. 203.
86. Freidel, p. 385.
87. Wilson, pp. 210–11; text in Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, pp. 395–6.
88. Wilson, p. 203; Heinrichs, Threshold of War, p. 159.
89. Wilson, pp. 212, 214.
90. See Wilson, pp. 223–4 and 231–4, 266–7, for reactions in the United States.
91. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 369.
92. Freidel, p. 389.
93. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 374.
94. Bailey and Ryan, pp. 168–73.
95. Bailey and Ryan, pp. 173–4.
96. The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, ed. Samuel I. Rosenman, vol. 10 (1941), New York, 1950, pp. 374–83; Bailey and Ryan, pp. 175–6.
97. Bailey and Ryan, pp. 171, 173, 175.
98. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, pp. 371–3 (quotation p. 373). Stimson told Hopkins that he had not been consulted about the speech, but took the view that ‘unless the President was prepared to say something good and strong, it were better for him not to speak at all’. When he heard it, he thought Roosevelt’s speech ‘the most decisive one which he has made’ (Stimson Diaries, Reel 7, entries for 9–10.9.41). In his memoirs, Cordell Hull mentions his agreement on the evening of the 10th that the President ‘should make it emphatically plain that our naval vessels in the Atlantic would fire on any Axis submarines or surface warships seeking to intercept shipping in our defensive waters’, though does not refer to his intervention the next day in the hope of toning down the speech (Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, New York, 1948, vol. 2, p. 1047).
99. Lash, p. 417.
100. Public Papers and Addresses, vol. 10, pp. 384–92; FDR’s Fireside Chats, ed. Russell D. Buhite and David W. Levy, New York, 1992, pp. 189–96.
101. FDR’s Fireside Chats, pp. 188–9.
102. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 742, 746.
103. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 746.
104. Heinrichs, Threshold of War, p. 168.
105. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 747; Lash, p. 419.
106. Bailey and Ryan, pp. 177 n. and 182 n.
107. Quoted in Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 747.
108. Quoted in Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 747.
109. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 749.
110. FDR’s Fireside Chats, p. 196.
111. Even so, Roosevelt’s short-circuiting of Congress through executive action resting upon the presentation of misleading information, even in a good cause, has been interpreted as establishing a harmful precedent for later action in Vietnam (Lash, pp. 420–21).
112. Quoted in Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 749.
113. Quoted in Dallek, p. 289. Robert Divine’s comment, ‘the public reaction [to the introduction of escorting] was so favourable that Roosevelt could have begun convoys months earlier with solid public support’, takes insufficient account of the fundamental contradiction in American public opinion (and the President’s perception of this), even though figures from Gallup polls reflecting it are presented on the same page (Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent, p. 144).
114. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 751.
115. Bailey and Ryan, pp. 188–91.
116. Bailey and Ryan, pp. 191–2, 195–6.
117. Bailey and Ryan, pp. 196–7.
118. Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, p. 219; Nicholas John Cull, Selling War. The British Propaganda Campaign against American ‘Neutrality’ in World War II, New York/Oxford, 1995, pp. 170–73.
119. Public Papers and Addresses, vol. 10, pp. 438–45.
120. Public Papers and Addresses, vol. 10, pp. 444–5.
121. Quoted in Dallek, p. 289.
122. Freidel, p. 394; Bailey and Ryan, p. 208; Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent, p. 146.
123. Hull, vol. 2, p. 943.
124. The Senate’s leading spokesmen on foreign affairs had told Roosevelt that, while in their view there was a majority in favour of revision, there would be prolonged debate and isolationist filibustering (Lash, p. 426).
125. Hull, vol. 2, pp. 1046–7.
126. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 380.
127. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 752.
128. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 752–6; Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 381.
129. Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent, p. 146.
130. Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 383.
131. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 757.
132. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 758; Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent, p. 147.
133. See Dallek, p. 292.
134. Quoted in Bailey and Ryan, p. 209.
135. See Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, p. 218.
136. Some of the following points are presented in Bailey and Ryan, pp. 260–63; Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, p. 218; and Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, p. 157.
137. This was explicitly stated in a memorandum by Admiral Stark in late September, relating to the issue of whether to press for a revision of the neutrality legislation. But Stark, who had consistently pressed for direct American involvement in the war, was of the opinion that ‘the United States should enter the war against Germany as soon as possible, even if hostilities with Japan must be accepted’ (quoted in Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 381). Roosevelt, as we have seen, had not been ready to follow such a course of action.
138. Quoted in Dallek, p. 289; and Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, p. 353 n. 114.
139. Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, pp. 219–20.
140. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 923; Kennedy, pp. 487–8.
141. Kennedy, p. 487.
142. Quoted in Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 415.
143. In autumn 1941, Roosevelt still thought, it seems, that he could possibly avoid sending troops to fight in Europe if the Soviet Union could hold out, and saw provision of aid to Russia as a vehicle to help prevent the use of American ground forces. The army, however, took the view that the Soviet Union and Great Britain would be incapable of defeating Germany without American deployment of troops. Aid to both countries was, from this perspective, aimed at sustaining military resistance until American rearmament was complete. In the event, lend-lease to the Soviet Union equipped approximately 101 army divisions and meant that American deployment in Europe was smaller than that envisaged in the Victory Program (Stoler, pp. 55–8,
and 285 n. 64).
144. Quoted in Sherwood, White House Papers, vol. 1, p. 419.
CHAPTER 8. TOKYO, AUTUMN 1941
1. Nobutaka Ike (ed.), Japan’s Decision for War. Records of the 1941 Policy Conferences, Stanford, Calif., 1967, p. 72.
2. The deliberations about the northern option can be followed in the essay by Hosoya Chihiro, ‘Northern Defence’, in James William Morley (ed.), The Fateful Choice. Japan’s Advance into Southeast Asia, 1939–1941, New York, 1980, pp. 94–112. The emergence of the navy’s stance on the southern advance is explored in the essay in the same volume by Tsunoda Jun, ‘The Navy’s Role in the Southern Strategy’, esp. pp. 287–95.
3. Figures in Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, London, 2001, p. 400.
4. Akira Iriye, The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific, London/New York, 1987, p. 148; James William Morley (ed.), The Final Confrontation. Japan’s Negotiations with the United States, 1941, Columbia, NY, 1994 (translated essays of Tsunoda Jun, based upon Japanese documentation), p. 159.
5. David Reynolds, The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance 1937–1941. A Study in Competitive Co-operation, Chapel Hill, NC, 1982, pp. 234–6; William Carr, Poland to Pearl Harbor. The Making of the Second World War, London, 1985, p. 153; Iriye, Origins, pp. 149–50.
6. Iriye, Origins, p. 147.
7. Iriye, Origins, pp. 148–9.
8. Bix, p. 401.
9. Sheffield University Library, Wolfson Microfilm 431, Diary of Marquis Kido Koichi, doc. no. 1632W (63) 31.7.41, (63) 2.8.41, (66) 7.8.41; Carr, pp. 154–5.
10. Herbert Feis, The Road to Pearl Harbor. The Coming of the War between the United States and Japan, Princeton, 1950, remarks (p. 244): ‘From now on the oil gauge and the clock stood side by side. Each fall in the level brought the hour of decision closer.’ Using a similar analogy (p. 270), he comments: ‘Time had become the meter of strategy for both governments. But one did not mind its passing, while the other was crazed by the tick of the clock.’
11. Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 157; Foreign Relations of the United States. Japan 1931–41, vol. 2 [= Japan II], Washington, 1943, pp. 549–50.
12. Sheffield University Library, Wolfson Microfilm 437, copied from National Archives, Washington, Record Group 243: Records of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, File 1d (10), Memoirs of Prince Konoye [Konoe] [=Konoe Memoirs] March 1942, fols. 29–30.
