Threshold of War

by Heinrichs, Waldo;

  The speech went through many drafts and did not turn out to be as explicit as Stimson hoped. It praised China’s struggle but carefully refrained from mentioning Japan or the fleet transfer. Struck out were references to the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, described as a “gangsters’ compact,” and the name of Finland from a list of victims of aggression. The possibility of Russia itself becoming a victim of aggression was not to be ruled out. The speech avoided delimitation of the Western Hemisphere because conventional definitions would have excluded the Cape Verdes and Iceland.70 In spite of such flattenings, however, the speech, delivered appropriately before an audience of Latin American diplomats, was one of Roosevelt’s most powerful and candid statements of purpose.

  The president’s first object was to make clear that Hitler wanted not just Europe or the Old World but the whole world. He warned of the “honeyed” words of peace after each conquest, the unlimited ambitions that lay behind them, and the sort of life Americans would lead in a Nazi-dominated world. Then he described the path of German aggression and the present threats to Spain, Portugal, northwest Africa, and the Atlantic islands. He pointed out that the Cape Verdes were only seven hours by bomber or troop-carrying plane from Brazil. The war was “approaching the brink of the Western Hemisphere itself … coming very close to home.” He stressed the importance of control of the seas. Germany recognized that it must “break through to command of the ocean” to win. Held to a continuing land war in Europe and the burdens of occupation it must lose: “{The} wider … the Nazi land effort, the greater … their ultimate danger.”

  For Americans, all freedom had always depended on freedom of the seas, from the quasi-war with France in 1799 to World War I. Now, however, with bombers and raiders and improved submarines, the problem of defending the sea routes was much greater. He described the Battle of the Atlantic, the ominous toll of British shipping and attacks on shipping “off the very shores of land we are determined to protect,” creating an “actual military danger to the Americas,” one emphasized by the foray of the Bismarck into “Western Hemisphere waters.”71

  Roosevelt now came to the essence of his argument. Iceland and Greenland in the north and the Azores and Cape Verdes in the south could serve as stepping stones for German attacks on Western Hemisphere neighbors of the United States and eventually upon the nation itself. As the Nazi seizure of Czechoslovakia began with the conquest of Austria, and the attack on Greece with the occupation of Bulgaria, Roosevelt said, the German attack on the United States could begin with the seizure of such Atlantic bases, and it would be “suicide to wait until they are in our front yard.” “Anyone with an atlas” would know better. National policy, therefore, was to resist every German attempt to extend domination to the Western Hemisphere “or threaten it” or gain control of the seas. National policy was also to ensure delivery of needed supplies to Britain. That was “imperative”: it could be done, must be done, would be done.

  He concluded with a series of ringing assertions: that the world was divided between human slavery and human freedom, that Americans chose freedom and would not accept a “Hitler-dominated world,” that (a salvo at the Japanese) the Americas could decide for themselves whether, when, and where their interests were attacked or their security threatened, and that American armed forces were being placed in strategic positions and would not hesitate to repel attack. He ended with a proclamation of unlimited national emergency which gave the president extraordinary powers over communications, public utilities, transportation, trade, and aliens.

  Roosevelt’s May 27 speech was a vitally important statement of policy, his only fully developed exposition in 1941 of the strategic threat as he saw it and what he was prepared to do to meet that threat. Though he did not deal with specific cases, the speech fully reflected his own conception of the problem and the plans and preparations under way to guard Atlantic outposts. His statement of imperative requirements and determination to use force if necessary gave full warning to the American people that the chosen course risked war. It was a speech that educated and led, and it received banner headlines and vociferous support in the press and letters to the White House. From April to June Roosevelt’s popularity rose from 73 to 76 percent.72

  The speech also reinforced rising public support for intervention in the Battle of the Atlantic by escort of convoy. The shift began in mid-April, most likely as a result of the blitzkrieg in the Balkans and airing of the escort issue in Congress and the press. Opinion in favor of escort rose from 41 percent April 15 to 52 percent May 13 and 55 percent June 9, while opposition declined from 50 to 38 percent.73 Americans remained opposed by margins of three or four to one to a vote for war, but they were prepared to accept the risk of war for the vital security interests set forth by the president. He was marching with prevailing public opinion.

  One unexpected result of the speech was to make the Azores operation infeasible for the time being. Only on May 26 had Roosevelt learned from the American naval attaché in Lisbon that the Portugese would accept American protection in the event they were forced by German attack to move the seat of government to the islands. But the president’s explicit reference to the Azores in his speech the next day raised fears in Lisbon of provoking a German attack. The key to the precarious neutrality of Portugal lay in a tacit understanding by Germany and Britain that a move onto Portugese territory by one would lead to a countermove by the other, and so neither made the first move. Now the Portugese felt obliged to defer an invitation to the Americans. A guarantee by the British, their ancient ally, would be less provocative, and this Churchill was glad to reaffirm.74 Roosevelt did not rest easy with these arrangements — the Azores project was not canceled — but he turned away from it to a more practical and immediately important project, the protection of Iceland.

  Iceland was by no means unknown territory to Roosevelt and his advisers. The ABC-1 plan for Anglo-American joint warfare on the Atlantic gave the United States responsibility for garrisoning Iceland, and the 5th Infantry Division was preparing for the assignment—scheduled, for planning purposes, in September. The navy reconnoitered the island in April with a view to establishing a base and ordered winter clothing for battleship and escorting destroyer crews. The commander of the Atlantic Fleet Support Force, expecting to operate patrol planes from Iceland, requested a second seaplane tender. As a base, Hvalfjordur fiord (“Havafajava” in navy parlance), a “dreary and unforgiving haven” on the western side of the island, offered little enough protection from roaring gales of those latitudes, which sailors claimed blew away anemometers at readings up to 120 knots and damaged catapults and davits, as well as propellers when ships dragged anchor and went aground.75

  Iceland offered two absolutely critical advantages to the British and American navies. Lying not far north of the usual convoy routes to Britain it provided an indispensable mid-Atlantic refueling base for destroyers in escort; the more westerly the U-boat war drifted, the more important Iceland became. In addition, Iceland controlled Denmark Strait, the passage between Greenland and Iceland favored by the German navy for raider breakouts into the Atlantic. Anxious to hasten the American arrival and straining to meet their own requirements, the British urged the Icelanders to approach the United States for protection of their shipping to North America, and on April 14 secret negotiations began with the Icelandic consul general in Washington for American protection of Iceland itself.76

  The idea of Iceland as a terminus for an American western Atlantic convoy escort service emerged and gained increasing relevance as U-boats began hunting south of Iceland and southeast of Greenland, within the American sphere. On April 10, Oscar Cox, an assistant to Hopkins for Lend-Lease, suggested American escort of American and British ships “to the end of the Western Hemisphere” and trans-shipment of goods at some intermediate point (such as Iceland) for delivery to Britain. On April 11 the president wrote Churchill of the possibility of “sending wheat and other goods in American ships to Greenland or Iceland.” On May 23
the British began destroyer escort of convoys all the way across the Atlantic. But westward expansion thinned the forces even more: escort groups operated out of St. John’s, Newfoundland, at half strength. The same day Churchill described the problem to Roosevelt and asked him to move his battleship patrols closer to the convoy lanes to report sightings and make raiders and U-boats “feel insecure.”77 Neither planning nor decision had occurred, but circumstances and thinking were pointing toward American escort in the western Atlantic.

  The Crete debacle and the global mathematics of naval power gave added weight to the argument for an American base at Iceland. In the Crete operation the British eastern Mediterranean fleet suffered crippling losses: three British battleships and one aircraft carrier damaged, three cruisers and six destroyers sunk, and six cruisers and seven destroyers damaged.78 Even before the Kithera battle the Royal Navy had pointed out that, unless the United States took over some cruiser and destroyer tasks in the Atlantic, it would be impossible to withdraw enough of these types to establish a balanced fleet at Singapore. The severe cruiser and destroyer losses at Crete added a sharp point to the British concern. The Royal Navy now asked that four American heavy cruisers be sent to Iceland for protection against raiders.79

  The American navy was impatient with the suggestion. On account of their “rash naval action” at Crete, wrote Admiral Stark, the British would be unable to bring naval strength against Japan. When the Mediterranean fleet was intact, the Japanese would have to assume it was transferrable to the Indian Ocean. Such was no longer the case, and this weakness together with the reduction in American Pacific naval strength were encouragements for Japan to move southward. It would be impossible for the United States to transfer any more cruisers from the Pacific.80 Nevertheless, once the four light cruisers already moving to the Atlantic arrived in mid-June to serve as escorts for the carriers, the existing heavy cruiser strength of the Atlantic Fleet would be available for service on the convoy routes and basing them or some of them at Iceland would not be illogical.

  These naval considerations were undoubtedly on his mind when President Roosevelt deliberated his next step. An Iceland base would offer other advantages as well. One acute source of army and air corps discontent was that precious B-17 Flying Fortresses assigned to the British were sitting on the tarmac at the Boeing plant awaiting pilots to fly them to England. To speed up movement of these and other planes, American pilots might deliver them to the British in Labrador or Iceland. Furthermore, American garrisoning of Iceland would relieve British troops for reinforcement of the Middle East.81

  Underlying argument about the positive advantages of Iceland was worry about its vulnerability. The northern flank of the Atlantic line had been a matter of concern since Germany’s occupation of Denmark in 1940. From bases in Greenland, Assistant Secretary of State Berle wrote, the Germans could bomb New York, Regarding Greenland as unquestionably Western Hemisphere territory, the Department of State sought to prevent British or Canadian occupation which might prompt a German countermove. The United States could hardly press the Canadians to desist, however, unless it took some responsibility for Greenland’s defense itself. This it did by establishing a Coast Guard patrol of Greenland waters and arranging with Greenland authorities for building air bases.82

  In 1940 the Germans had briefly established a weather station on Greenland, and President Roosevelt was acutely concerned that they might try again this summer. Until the Greenland bases were built, Iceland provided the only base for aerial surveillance of Greenland and the Denmark Strait. Air search was not enough for the president: he insisted that the navy mount an expedition to hold Scoresby Sound on Greenland’s eastern coast until the end of the summer. In May 1941 German troop and ship concentrations in northern Norway became the object of American concern. Some argued they formed the northern wing of a forthcoming attack on the Soviet Union. Others were not so sure. The troops had skis, but the terrain had no snow at that time of year and was impassable by tanks. It seemed more likely to Berle they were intended for Iceland or Greenland, over which German reconnaissance planes were flying with impunity. American fears for the northern outposts were no less vivid than those for the southern. Morgenthau noted at the cabinet meeting of June 4 that the president’s “whole interest … is in the Atlantic Fleet and getting first to these various outlying islands.”83

  President Roosevelt moved without hesitation to establish an American force and base on Iceland as soon as he received strong public approval for his speech of May 27. At lunch with Lord Halifax the following day he suggested an American garrison for Iceland.84 Churchill cordially welcomed the proposal on May 29 in a message received after the president departed for the Memorial Day weekend at Hyde Park. The day following his return, June 3, he saw Ambassador Winant and Admiral King, and in all probability the decision was made that day or the next. The army and navy received orders to mount an expedition immediately, to depart as soon as permission was obtained from Iceland. Sufficient troop lift existed for this operation but not for the Azores as well so on June 13 the latter was suspended.85

  The German-Soviet question bore on the Iceland decision in more ways than one. Respondek’s April reports to Sam Woods in Berlin, received in May, at least one of which Roosevelt saw, were increasingly positive about an attack on the Soviet Union. In order to maintain the military might necessary for extended war with the Anglo-American bloc, Respondek wrote, Germany would have to incorporate the productive forces of all Europe, especially Russia, into a general system under German control. Disappointing figures for acquisition of raw materials in April intensified the need. So “the liquidation of Russia is considered a necessity,” by armored penetrations and encirclement, while a defensive front was established in the west. After capture of the principal Russian industrial and railroad centers (Baku, Grozny, Minsk, Kiev, Kharkov, Rostov, Stalingrad, the Don basin, Yekaterinoslav, the middle and southern Urals, and the Kuznetsk region), Germany would easily invade Britain and capture the Mediterranean.86

  One indicator of the coming attack was the diminution of German air raids on Britain. ULTRA intelligence in May showed a stream of Luftwaffe units moving east. Indicating not merely intimidation but determination to attack regardless was the establishment of a prisoner-of-war cage in Poland. The British Joint Intelligence Committee remained unconvinced into June, but it is possible that Churchill provided Winant with some of the ULTRA data to take with him to Washington. Certainly the ambassador carried intelligence of great sensitivity, for his plane to Lisbon was escorted by RAF fighters and, once there, his papers were locked in the British embassy safe.87

  For every prediction of a German attack, however, there were two of a German ultimatum and Russian submission. American embassies retailed rumors of German troops already entering Bessarabia and the Ukraine with Soviet consent, of Soviet-German agreement for joint expansion in the Middle East, and of imminent Soviet signature of the Axis pact. Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s trusted lieutenant, interrogated after his dramatic flight to Scotland, admitted that Germany had demands to make on Russia which would have to be satisfied, as Churchill reported to Roosevelt on May 28. Tokyo, according to MAGIC, noted that German-Soviet relations had “suddenly cooled,” but before going to war Hitler was likely to scheme for lands on the Soviet border, so the outcome would depend “upon how the Soviet acts.” Adolf Berle, after lunch with the heads of British and American naval intelligence and J. Edgar Hoover, thought it “pretty clear that the Germans have already worked out some kind of agreement with the Russians.”88

  These opposing estimates—that Germany would attack and that Germany might not need to attack—both served to reinforce Roosevelt’s Iceland decision. If Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the Soviets were expected to last only one or two months, a short respite but long enough to secure the Atlantic islands while Germany was preoccupied. If the Soviet Union succumbed to German demands, the respite might even be shorter and the strategic necessity would be greater.


  By early June 1941 the Atlantic outpost line was clearly established in American strategy. In setting out to guard this line even at the risk of war, Roosevelt extended the sphere of American vital interest beyond territorial waters, beyond neutrality limits, beyond the midpoint of the North Atlantic, to the verges of Europe, and he gathered the warships to fulfill his aim. In the face of numbing exhibitions of German strength and widely divergent estimates of German aims, defense of the Atlantic line seemed only wise and absolutely necessary for the physical safety and existence of the nation. Helping England was not quite on such a fundamental level but vital too, and the Atlantic outposts could be bridges the other way.

  Roosevelt was also intent upon shoring up the weakening British position in the Middle East. Alexander Kirk, a diplomat seasoned by service in two wars at Berlin, newly arrived as ambassador to Egypt, expounded in cable after cable on the desperate position of the British there in the aftermath of Crete. He was particularly concerned with the destructive effect on British prestige in Egypt and the Arab world. At the same time, Kirk believed that British engagement of the Germans in Greece was better than declining battle for it showed the Germans that expansion did not bring peace. It was of “prime importance” for the United States to oppose Germany, he warned, if possible by war, if not by “planes and more planes.” Washington responded to the need with promises of additional shipments of tanks, artillery ammunition, trucks, and road-building equipment. Supplies for the Middle East now sailed in forty-four American ships. Plans called for fifty tankers and an aircraft ferry service to the Middle East by way of Brazil and Africa.89

  By late May, Washington was oppressively warm. The president worked with his coat off and the windows of the Oval Study open. Outside the southwest window, Robert Sherwood noted, was a magnolia tree said to have been planted by Andrew Jackson: “It was now covered with big white blooms and their lemony scent drifted into the study.”90 This languorous seat of decision contrasted so vividly with the swift and sinister unfolding of events abroad. Choosing his way with great care among the terrible uncertainties and incapacities he faced, Roosevelt determined to control the Atlantic and placed the nation on a path risking war to ensure it. Here his stubborn caution and traditional sense of American autonomy spoke. He also persisted in his policy of sustaining Britain in every practical way. In the Pacific he necessarily managed a holding action with defensive fleet deployments, rhetorical support for China, and dilatory diplomacy with Japan. Mostly he waited for ships and troops and arms to mobilize and materialize and above all for German intentions to come clear.