Threshold of War

by Heinrichs, Waldo;

  Roosevelt’s main difference with Churchill was his reluctance to bring matters to a head. He wanted a drying up of Japanese oil supplies rather than a formal severance of trade, a sobering realization not a sudden shock. A war warning, too, might precipitate matters when delay was vital. He wanted at least thirty days for Anglo-American reinforcement, in which the first echelon of Flying Fortresses might reach the Philippines and, as Churchill reported, “we may improve our position in the Singapore area.”15

  An opportunity to play for time had just appeared. On August 6, Nomura had delivered to Hull, now back at his desk, a Japanese reply to the president’s suggestion of the neutralization of Indochina, which had been lost in the swirl of events at the end of July. The Japanese picked up Roosevelt’s proposal and offered a deal: Japan would promise not to extend its military presence beyond French Indochina and would remove its troops from Indochina upon settlement of the China war provided the United States would halt its military buildup in the region, restore normal trade relations, and use its good offices to bring about negotiations with Chiang Kai-shek.16 This would have been the worst kind of Munich. In return for America’s relaxing all pressures, Japan would promise no further expansion. But the southern Indochina move would have to be accepted — and thus somewhat validated — until the United States facilitated an end to the China war. Roosevelt and Churchill agreed the terms were impossible, but Roosevelt was interested in the fact that the Japanese couched their proposal as a response to his own and that they offered negotiations. He proposed to take up the offer and enter into discussions on condition that the Japanese make no move while the talks were in progress. He would make no concessions and relax no pressures but, as a Foreign Office official described it, “keep the Japanese in play” for the next one to three months.17

  Although he had no intention of appeasing Japan, Roosevelt finally concluded he had to appease Churchill. After divine services on the Prince, of Wales the prime minister cornered Welles and pleaded with him “in the most emphatic manner” for a “clear-cut” warning. This was the only hope of preventing a war, he warned, in which Japanese cruisers would play havoc with British imperial communications in the Indian Ocean. Such a blow “might be almost decisive” to his government.

  The next day, Roosevelt outlined his delaying tactics and then agreed to a war warning substantially in accord with Churchill’s draft. He would tell Nomura that, if Japan refused these conditions for talks or made further advances, “in his belief” the United States would take certain steps in spite of his realization that these “might result in war.”18 The warning was not quite as unconditional as the British desired, but it used the word war. Furthermore, the president included Thailand in his neutralization proposal, in spite of the fact that before the conference he affirmed that an advance into Thailand should not be occasion for war. Presumably he was being educated on the strategic importance of southern Thailand. And he was prepared to extend the warning to include a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union and to so inform Moscow. Welles, however, more interested in the negotiations than the warning, advised a weaker statement of unlimited applicability. The two principals approved. No verbatim copy of the intended warning was given Churchill, but Roosevelt assured him “on more than one occasion,” said Churchill, that he would use the prime minister’s warning. “One would always fear State Department trying to tone it down,” Churchill radioed the War Cabinet August 12, “but President has promised definitely to use hard language,” and in this apprehensive yet hopeful frame of mind he left the issue. A message of his August 15 noted that the promised American warning also covered the Soviet Union, so “perhaps Stalin will line up, too.…” Such a combination, with the Dutch and Chinese, he believed, would keep Japan quiet for a while.19

  Roosevelt went to Argentia fully expecting to confirm the taking over of convoy escort operations in the western Atlantic. This was to be a fruit of the conference, a result of agreement about war aim, and so it was. Churchill took the initiative in his enthralling review of the war situation aboard the Augusta the first evening of the conference. The Royal Navy, he said, needed to withdraw its fifty-two destroyers and corvettes from escort operations in the western Atlantic to bolster convoy protection along the Gibraltar and West African routes where submarines were now concentrating. The Americans readily agreed. Roosevelt had told his advisers before Churchill arrived that the United States must protect cargoes as far as Iceland, in fact east of Iceland. Upon sending Hopkins to London in July he had given him a map torn from the National Geographic upon which he had drawn a line encircling Iceland some 200 miles to the east, about halfway to the Faroe Islands, and then running west and south as before along the 26th meridian. This was to be the zone of operations. Each convoy must contain at least one American or Icelandic-flag ship. American war vessels would be restricted to convoy protection, a responsibility broadly though vaguely defined: it would be too late for escorts to start shooting after an attack began, the president told his advisers. The two navies aimed at starting American escort on September 1.20

  Iceland had manifold strategic advantages: as a base for North Atlantic escort operations, as a link in the bomber ferry route, and now as the staging point for Arctic convoys to Russia. This last was a perilous route funneling a thousand miles between the Arctic ice and German air and naval forces in northern Norway, but in Stalin’s judgment it was the best. Vladivostok, he told Hopkins, was too far from the scene of battle, and it was obviously vulnerable to Japanese attack. The Persian Gulf-Iranian route was undeveloped. The Arctic passage was at least more direct, Murmansk was ice-free, and the coming fall and winter nights were protectively long. A British squadron was already reconnoitering the route. By taking over convoy protection in the western Atlantic, the United States would help open up a British convoy route to Russia for American and British war material.21

  Iceland was also the northern bastion of the Atlantic line described in Roosevelt’s speech of May 27. The new front in Russia eased but by no means dissolved the president’s concern for protection of the Atlantic. A stabilization of the front in the Soviet Union during the winter, the desired outcome, would have the disadvantage of permitting Hitler to withdraw the few divisions needed for a campaign through the Iberian Peninsula to northwest Africa. The situation in Spain, Churchill warned, was going from bad to worse. Hopkins returned from Argentia “much churned up over the likelihood of the Germans or Spain making a drive to the south, including the Atlantic islands—the Azores, Canaries, Cape Verdes.”22

  No less concern was expressed over French North Africa. The Germans appeared again to be pressing Vichy for bases, and American fears for Dakar once more intensified. Japanese “joint defense” arrangements with the French for southern Indochina could serve as a model. The Germans were said to be annoyed at Weygand’s collaboration with the Americans and to be pressuring Vichy to remove Murphy from the North African scene. Murphy himself, the coolest of observers, in an August 2 cable credited reports that “the tide in Vichy is running rapidly in the direction of concessions to the Germans in French Africa.” Stimson fanned public concern August 15 in a radio address noting German efforts to secure an invitation to Dakar. The government had reason to believe, he said, that a “major advance” would be made by Germany into North Africa.23 In fact the Germans had no such immediate intentions. It was an artificial crisis probably stirred up by the French North African authorities to gain American economic aid and by the Germans as well to divert attention from the Russian front.

  Roosevelt, however, was not prepared to second-guess such reports. The Atlantic barrier was no less a matter of vital interest to him in August than it had been in May. From Argentia he ordered implementation of plans to augment the Iceland garrison in early September. Numbers were less a problem, however, since the British, with invasion fears eased, were willing not only to retain their own contingent but also slightly reinforce it. Now only 5,000 instead of 10,000 American troops were neede
d to reinforce the Marine brigade already present.24

  Security of the Azores presented less a problem as well. Portugal’s President Salazar was now willing to accept American in place of British protection in case of German attack. The British could now transfer their attention to the Canary Islands, which, Churchill informed Roosevelt, they were preparing to seize after the September full moon on the assumption that Hitler would “almost inevitably” occupy Spain and Portugal, rendering Gibraltar unusable.25

  Little more could be done to cobble up the southern approaches to the Western Hemisphere. The army was planning expeditionary forces for the Azores as well as Recife and Natal at the northeast extremity of Brazil, the ports nearest Africa, but the troops and transports were nowhere ready. Admiral Stark told Admiral Pound, the First Sea Lord, that he still planned to send a task force to Gibraltar as provided for in ABC-1. Or if that base was unusable, to Freetown or South American ports. He was considering assigning the new battleships Washington and North Carolina to this southern blocking force. They would in any event be held in the Atlantic.26

  The Prince of Wales left Argentia on August 12 escorted by American as well as British destroyers. Memory of this heartening naval clasp was soon lost in the North Atlantic mists as the British party and, later, official circles in London, weary of two years of war and one year of lonely struggle, canvassed the meager concrete benefits of the meeting. The Soviet bid for vast quantities of American war material along with their own needs and those of the American armed services added up to far more than the Americans could produce. The two leaders followed Hopkins’ advice in suggesting to Stalin a meeting at Moscow about October 1 to decide how, when, and where among the three nations war supplies should be allocated. Russia was indeed a “welcome guest,” as Churchill said, but it was a “hungry table,” and in view of the president’s passionate concern to sustain the Soviet war effort, British leaders were deeply worried about having their own requirements met, especially for their forthcoming Mideast offensive.27

  The Atlantic Charter and the promised war warning were fine, but where was the substance? The United States Navy was taking over convoy protection in the western Atlantic—where U-boats were scarce. The Stars and Stripes would not be flying at Londonderry and Gare Loch after all, though work on the bases would continue. The destroyers as well as long-range submarines of the ABC-1 war plan would remain closer to home. No more Catalina patrol planes, the type that had spotted the Bismarck, were available.28 Furthermore, the new American battleships would not be available for assignment to Gibraltar or anywhere else until the end of the year. In builder’s trials the new lightweight machinery and hull form of the Washington and North Carolina had produced severe vibration in the propeller shafts at high speed which affected the fire control systems. “The problem must have been terrifying,” says one authority, because all battleships being built and some cruisers were following the same design. Experts advised substituting new propellers with fewer blades.29 These experiments would take months. So with no more American battleships coming from the yards or the Pacific, the Royal Navy would gain no substitutes for any battleships it might send to Singapore. It was not difficult to imagine that Roosevelt intended to supply the war to a limited extent indeed and otherwise stand on the sidelines.30

  The East Asian picture was no more encouraging. The Americans were asking the British to reduce their allocations of certain items to permit strengthening of the Philippines, which they argued would assist Singapore. The Admiralty doubted the practical value of the B-17 reinforcement of the Philippines. Americans had, they thought, “rather exaggerated hopes of the effect of operations, particularly air, from the Philippines against a Japanese expedition to the South China Sea.”31 Given the American refusal to accept plans for the defense of the “Malay Barrier” and British ignorance of how far Roosevelt was prepared to go in restricting oil shipments to Japan, the party aboard the Prince of Wales may well have voyaged eastward with a sinking feeling.

  Yet it would have been the wrong feeling. The importance of Argentia was less what the two leaders agreed to than what Roosevelt himself concluded. A burgeoning but still tentative interest in supplying the Soviet Union became a firm determination. In fact, maintaining a Russian front against Hitler became the centerpiece of his world strategy, with large consequences in all theaters. He was ready to enter the Battle of the Atlantic at the risk of war, tipping from most benevolent neutrality to active belligerency, in order to forward supplies to the Soviet Union no less than Britain. He was taking advantage of Hitler’s drive to the east and refusal to accept the American challenge on the Atlantic to intervene with less risk of war. Avoiding a confrontation with Germany reduced the chances of war with Japan. He thereby kept in abeyance the vast claims on American production a declaration of war would entail. But it is hard to believe that he did not understand that sooner or later, one way or the other, this course of action would lead to war.

  So far as Japan was concerned, he had three possible courses of action: the passive, the soft, and the hard. The passive route was simply to do nothing to provoke Japan, either by an oil embargo or by Asian reinforcements, in order to bring the full weight of American power to bear against Germany. But he undoubtedly perceived this to be the riskiest course, for it not only left the resources of Southeast Asia and Britain’s connections to Australia and New Zealand at Japan’s mercy but also offered no discouragement to a Japanese attack against the Soviet rear. The soft choice meant coming to an agreement with Japan which at least offered the possibility of preventing a further southward advance by some concession ending the China war, but at great cost to the American reputation as guarantor of nations resisting aggression, and probably with heightened risk of a Japanese attack northward once its southern flank was secure. He was moving along the third course, the hard policy, estimating it no doubt the least risky: severe containment of Japan risked war, but in that event more likely a southward than the more critical northward attack. Meanwhile, the draining of Japan’s oil supplies would progressively reduce its capacity for war. The risk would decline as American military power increased and in time far surpassed that of Japan.

  The decisions of the Atlantic Conference period were bold departures, and President Roosevelt surely did not take them without trepidation. So far American public opinion had been mobilizing behind his policies. However, administration confidence in public support received a rude shock on August 12, the last day of the conference, when word came that the House of Representatives had extended the Selective Service Act by a margin of one vote. The slimness of victory did not really signify a relapse into isolationism, but it indicated the limits of interventionism. Extension of the draft was an issue of great political sensitivity because many felt honor-bound to the conscripts to limit their service to the original term of one year. The vote drew these as well as hard-core isolationists, most Republicans and all Roosevelt-haters.32 It also drew the complacent. News readers of later July and early August could gain the impression that the Germans had met their match in Russia and that maintaining a large army for defense of the Western Hemisphere, which after all was the rationale for the draft, was no longer urgent. So the temptation to turn a deaf ear to Roosevelt’s and Marshall’s warnings and entreaties was powerful.

  Still, a margin of one was enough. American mobilization stayed on course. According to a Fortune poll, 72 percent of Americans believed Hitler would try to conquer the world and 58 percent that armed intervention was necessary to defeat him. A poll in Montana indicated that the most outspoken isolationist, Senator Burton K. Wheeler, would be defeated in an election now by at least 100,000 votes. The index of production rose steadily. The steel industry reached full capacity and mills worked through the July 4 weekend. Shortages began to appear. In two instances, at North American and Federal Shipbuilding, the military services took over plants to prevent longer work stoppages.33

  Public opinion and domestic political considerations gener
ally could not be ignored. Neither could international political and strategic requirements and military capabilities. So far Roosevelt had managed to keep his various autonomous imperatives in rough harmony. As he moved to a global framework of policy, this became increasingly difficult to do.

  The president returned to Washington on Sunday morning, August 17, refreshed and buoyant from his ocean voyage and settled course of action. Preceding him was Welles with the war warning and preceding Welles was a message asking Hull to set up a meeting with Nomura. The secretary of state, who was naturally averse to showdowns, and his advisers strongly disapproved of the warning for the same reason the president had been dubious about it: threatening language risked provoking Japan in a situation in which delay seemed imperative. Hamilton and Joseph Ballantine of the Far Eastern Division took out their pencils, and by the time the president returned the warning was a pale imitation of the Churchill original.

  Roosevelt agreed to the change, but for him the critical factor now was materialization of a better basis for conducting discussions with the Japanese, one requiring softer language.34 The Japanese government had now asked for a conference between Premier Konoe and President Roosevelt in Hawaii. The idea was not new: it had been among Father Drought’s proposals in the spring. Ambassador Nomura, who doubted that the Americans would be moved by anything but concrete proposals, had reintroduced it in a conversation with the secretary of state on August 8, but so gingerly that Hull virtually ignored it. MAGIC, however, showed that Nomura was acting under instructions and that his government attached great importance to the proposal. According to intercepts, the Konoe cabinet believed that the only way to relieve the “critically tense” situation was for the leaders to meet, “lay their cards on the table, express their true feelings, and attempt to determine a way out.…”35 On August 16, Nomura urged on Hull a return to the more comprehensive framework of the conversations conducted in the spring and interrupted in July as a preliminary to a leaders’ meeting, and indicated that his government “would make concessions in order to avoid war.”36