We frankly admit that we are determined to become the leading factor, a
stabilizing factor, in East Asia. We tried to realize our ambition without
the use of force. We have not hesitated in taking recourse to arms wherever
our right to grow and prosper was obstructed or our national existence
endangered. We are proud of our defensive wars in the East. We shall
proudly rise on similar occasions in the future. If America does not want us
to use force, she must side with us in the removal of the causes that make
it necessary to utilize force.
It added that if the existence of Western colonies in the Far East was a license to
meddle in Japan’s affairs, then the Western powers ought to lose those colonies. 7
These bellicose statements notwithstanding, Saigon radio announced that
Tokyo had pledged not to send additional troops into French Indo-China and to
refrain from using Indo-China bases for attacks on Thailand or the Burma Road.
Indeed, the Japanese Embassy spokesman in Bangkok said that Japanese troops
in Indo-China were no threat to Thailand. Japan, he said, did not want war: any
outbreak of war depended upon Washington. 8
*
If diplomacy was at a standstill, other developments gave hope of a better
outcome. The arrival of the British battle f leet in Hong Kong was thought by
many to have raised the odds against war. These observers thought that a Japa-
nese victory in South Asia might have been easy a year ago; today, however,
Japan was faced with a desperate effort in which the chances of success were
remote. The change in the balance of naval power, it was thought, might force
Japan to abandon its more aggressive plans and return to the negotiating table. 9
Deeply lodged in the American psyche and coloring perceptions of America’s
role in the world crisis was a certain sense of disillusion, and of having been badly
used in its participation during 1917–18 in the World War. The always colorful
New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia spoke at the opening of a defense housing
project adjoining the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He contrasted it to the adobe hut with
a tent kitchen in which he had lived while his father served in the U.S. Army in
Arizona. He expressed regrets common at the time:
We were fooled once. We believed we had fought a war against war and
would never again be called into a defense program for the protection of
our rights as well as our shores. 10
94 Last Week at Peace: December 1–6, 1941
But facts were facts and American policy was creating enormous pressures
in what The New York Times did not hesitate to call the siege of Japan. It noted that Japan proper supported seventy-eight million people in an area smaller than
California and was surely far poorer in natural resources. Japan could scarcely
sustain herself in foodstuffs and had to rely on other nations for the materials
of war: petroleum, iron, steel, aluminum, lead, zinc, tin, machine tools, wood,
and cotton. These were the stuff of what The Times labeled “a rigid economic
blockade.” Conversely, American imports were down sharply, and the production
of Japanese textile factories, a leading Japanese industry, had been slashed by 50
percent. Then there were the financial pressures created by a vast military expen-
diture inevitably leading to inflation. 11 It was little wonder that while Japanese workmen were removing ferrous ornaments, fences, railings, and light posts for
scrap metal, the Japanese press was charging the United States with a policy of
encirclement aided and abetted by an alleged agreement with Australia for the
use of strategic bases. 12
America’s Role: Stern Editorial Realism
Arthur Krock in The New York Times thought that the pessimism of the U.S.
negotiators was not a ploy but represented reality. He reported a conversation
with an unnamed policy maker who expected nothing good in Japan’s response
to Secretary Hull’s statement. He added that it was conceivable that the Japanese
would move aggressively at any moment. In what direction? The answer: to the
south and to the west, through Indo-China and Thailand and possibly to the
Netherlands Indies and Burma. And, the informant opined, Japan had ample
troops to carry out such adventures.
But what would inspire such desperate acts, Krock asked. To which his infor-
mant replied that Japan had followed the policy of force and aggression so
long and so successfully, it had become ingrained in Japanese thought and out-
look: German pressure and bribery were additional incitements to this kind of
action. 13
Walter Lippmann, writing in The Washington Post , concurred that the country
was indeed on the verge of “actual all-out war.” But it was not the threat of the
war that the isolationists had so insistently raised. The isolationists had fought
for an arms embargo. They had fought against Lend-Lease, the transfer of U.S.
destroyers to Britain, the occupation of Iceland and North Atlantic antisubmarine
patrols. None of these issues played any part in the confrontation with Japan. The
isolationists had fought against American embroilment in the European conflict;
at the same time they had missed completely the real threat of war in the Pacific.
Lippmann indignantly denied that there was any truth in conspiracy theories
that the President had been maneuvering to engage the country in the war in
Europe. To the contrary, Lippmann concluded:
He [the President] has proved himself to be, whatever may be his other
failings, a cool and far-sighted judge of the strategy of the war and every
Thursday, December 4, 1941 95
important move he has made has been in preparation—not for the imagi-
nary war which the isolationists said was the duplicate 1917 but for this
very real war which is now so nearly upon us.
He has, it is true, often been indirect in his explanations and he has not
stated openly and explicitly to the nation the whole problem, as he saw it,
and his own intentions. That is regrettable, and the effect has been to cause
much confusion. 14
To Lippmann, the President had been negotiating patiently, searching for a way
to avoid war, faced by an opposition both reckless and not so much uninformed
as misinformed. 15
The Post ’s editorial page seconded Lippmann’s apprehensions. It surveyed the
range of possible theaters of Japanese aggression and called for the thoroughgo-
ing integration of defense plans by the Allied powers: the best chance for peace in
the Pacific was to make it unmistakably clear to Japan that any further aggression
would be met by a united defense. It further speculated that the Soviet Union
would join in when its defense against the German invasion permitted. 16
The Atlanta Constitution thoroughly approved of the President’s policy. He had
asked a simple question—about Japanese troops in Thailand—and asked for a
simple answer. This was the frank, honest, and open way; better than that, it was
the American way, and it did not hesitate to say that the American way was the
best way. To its editorialists the President’s question put Japan on the spot; she had
either to explain what she was about or deliberately lose any chance of
continued
peace with the United States and Great Britain. According to one observer, special
envoy Kurusu had brought a unique quality of politeness to the negotiations. But
to The Constitution , the time for politeness had passed and the future demanded stern realism. 17
*
Newspaper reports and editorial opinions were a study in challenge and response.
In front-page news, the Houston Chronicle reported Foreign Minister Togo’s statement that the Pacific crisis had become graver because the United States and
Britain refused to understand the Japanese position. East Asia, Togo said, had
sparked an unprecedented crisis. Great Britain, the United States and other coun-
tries simply refused to understand Japanese ideals and were hampering Japanese
attempts to create a new order in East Asia, and indeed permanent peace and
prosperity for all. 18
The Chronicle addressed the issue with Texan bluntness and panache under
the editorial headline “ ANSWER THIS ONE, MR. TOJO .” The negotiations, it
thought, must soon end. It had been a profitless discussion heading nowhere. The
President and the Secretary of State had asked a simple question but one difficult
to answer.
The nation, it confidently asserted, was “fed up on Japan’s double dealing.”
Japan had stretched American patience to the limit just as Japanese ingenuity
would be stretched to the limit to show any reason for further negotiations. 19
96 Last Week at Peace: December 1–6, 1941
America’s Role: On the Domestic Scene
Labor had gained new rights and new standing under the New Deal, not with-
out a good deal of turbulence exemplified by the sit-down strikes of the thirties.
Labor’s claims and the urgencies of the defense program were bound to collide.
It was especially strikes in the defense industries that had aroused congressional
concern. By a vote of 252 to 136, the House of Representatives passed an Anti-
Strike Bill, overriding the Administration’s request for less rigid legislation. Its
proponents denied that the legislation was antilabor or a threat to labor’s gains
under the New Deal. 20
*
In contrast to the buildup of the defense industries was the release of draftees who
had served their year and were eligible for an honorable discharge. In the 30th
Division 1,719 men were slated for discharge on December 10, with another
1,746 scheduled for release on March 1. The net result of discharges and transfers
brought the strength of the 30th Division down to only 9,000, a sharp decline
from 17,000 soldiers serving in the early fall. 21 Perhaps these numbers reflected the circumstances that had moved Selective Service to “tighten up” on its clas-sification and calls to duty. Draft boards were instructed to reexamine registrants
classified 1-B who had been deferred for minor physical defects. The boards were
also asked to reconsider some 19,000 single men deferred on the grounds of
dependents. Another straw in the wind: the possibility of accepting some illiter-
ates, hitherto ruled out.
Parallel with the reconsideration of class 1-B was a rehabilitation plan: men
with remedial physical defects could be treated by doctors and dentists at the
expense of the government. This would make available many thousands of regis-
trants who had previously been disqualified.
An analysis of registrants by race illuminates many aspects of the situation
of black Americans. Of white men, 20 percent were disqualified after having
been approved by their local board doctor; the comparable figure for blacks
was 28 percent. There was little to be proud of in these statistics. Colonel H.
Cliff Hatcher, Assistant State Director of Selective Service, called the number
of twenty-one-year-olds unfit for service “appalling.” He attributed it to “fast
living. ” 22
In a more global perspective, it was announced that only 200,000 draftees were
likely to be called up in the next seven months. The Army now had 1,600,000
men with plans for an army of 1,800,000 by the following June 30. Meanwhile
the Army was planning equipment for a force of 3,200,000. Columnist Paul Mel-
lon speculated that the Army would not bring in more than 2,000,000 soldiers
“unless all-out war starts. ” 23
There were those who viewed the situation more urgently and did not wait to
be called. Sixteen thousand Americans were engaged in the war as members of
the Canadian forces. 24
*
Thursday, December 4, 1941 97
One young woman’s sense of urgency matched that of Canada’s American vol-
unteers. But she expressed it in an entirely different way. Velma Atwood was a
twenty-three-year-old carhop at a drive-in restaurant. Unable to bear the thought
of being separated from her boyfriend, she took a Frontier-model revolver and
shot herself in the heart. At the hospital her condition was reported as serious.
Responding to police questioning she said she feared her boyfriend, Claude Ray-
mond Howell, age twenty-six, an escort motorcyclist for a mortuary, was about
to be drafted. In a stark case of cognitive dissonance, she said she could not bear
the thought of being separated from him. 25
America’s Role: A House Divided
Into the debate about America’s place in a world at war the Chicago Tribune
dropped a bombshell. It charged that the administration was preparing plans for
an army of ten million and an American Expeditionary Force of five million.
It based its charge on a September 1941 report by the Army and Navy Joint
Board, the high command of American forces, prepared pursuant to the Presi-
dent’s July 9, 1941, request to Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of the
Navy Knox to establish the economic requirements “to defeat our potential
enemies.” Who were the potential enemies? The report named Germany, Italy,
and occupied countries cooperating with Germany, Vichy France, Japan, Man-
chukuo, and possibly Spain and Portugal. The report envisioned the continua-
tion of hostilities against this combination of enemies even if Britain and Russia
were completely defeated. It saw Russia as militarily impotent by July 1942. The
report projected the initial cost of such a program at $40 billion, rising to $120
billion by July 1942.
At the same time, the Tribune reported on a White House conference of August 18, 1941, at which the President told congressional leaders about “secret confabulations
at sea,” with Prime Minister Churchill calling for a land invasion of the European
continent as the only feasible method of defeating Germany. Such an invasion, it said,
could only be carried out with the aid of “a vast American expeditionary force.”
The Tribune ’s hero was Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh, transatlantic aviation
pioneer and isolationist icon. He had, it explained, been stigmatized as a defeatist,
an appeaser and a Nazi sympathizer. It now insisted that the Joint Board report
vindicated Lindbergh and adopted his thesis that England and the powers now
fighting Germany could not defeat it. Nor were there sufficient bases in England
for a successful bombing campaign against Germany. 26
But the immediate problem facing a country on the verge of war in the Pacific
wa
s how the Joint Board envisioned an American response to the Japanese threat.
The Board foresaw a strong defense of Siberia with such Russian assistance as
might be available; a strong defense of Malaysia, an effective economic blockade,
air raids over Japan, and a Chinese offensive against the forces of the Japanese
occupation. 27
These reports inspired incredulity. Senator Alben Barkley of Kentucky rose
on the Senate floor to denounce the Tribune ’s story as “a deliberate falsehood.”
98 Last Week at Peace: December 1–6, 1941
Presidential secretary Steven T. Early indicated that there would undoubtedly be a
federal investigation of how the Tribune and other newspapers were able to come by copies of the Joint Board report. It was significant that Early neither confirmed
nor denied the story as reported in the Tribune . He only said that he had not yet talked to the President about it. 28
Early elucidated two aspects of the Tribune ’s report. He reminded his listeners that the United States operated on the basis of a free press, adding that it was the
duty of the armed forces at all times to prepare plans for all eventualities. This was
not to say that any single plan had been adopted much less put into operation.
The Tribune embellished its charges with a powerful front-page graphic show-
ing a group of helmeted patriots, chins upthrust, representing Chicago and the
states of the Midwest firmly repelling a cloud of “War Propaganda” emitting from
the Capitol dome. 29
Beneath the graphic was a boxed quotation of words spoken by the President
at Warm Springs, Georgia, on April 20, 1940:
The Republicans are seeking to frighten the country by telling the people
the present administration is trying to put this nation into war or that it is
inevitably drifting into war.
You know better than that. 30
The
Tribune was consistent in its isolationist position. On the same day it
released its war plans story it reported that the America First Committee, the pri-
mary isolationist organization, would campaign extensively in support of all rep-
resentatives and senators who had voted against war measures, irrespective of their
political affiliations. The list of scheduled speakers was headed, no surprise, by
Colonel Lindbergh and included Senator Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota; Sena-
Crucible of a Generation Page 16