December 1941

by Craig Shirley

  CBS had inaugurated a new radio show just a year earlier, Report to the Nation. It was created in response to “the problem of allocating radio time to the numerous Government agencies that wanted it.” Though the hour-long show covered Washington and the events there, it used “actors and actresses . . . about two-thirds are daytime Government employees” for its usual all-news and commentary format.55

  Everybody smoked cigarettes in 1941, and everybody smoked cigarettes everywhere. In the movie theaters, in restaurants, on airplanes, in trains, at sporting events, at the office, even in classrooms, Americans smoked ’em if they had ’em. Favorite brands were Camels, Lucky Strike, and Chesterfield. Smoking had increased in America despite some then-obscure reports linking the activity with a shortened lifespan. The average American in 1940 consumed 2,558 cigarettes, double that of ten years earlier.56 Ads pitched Camels as great Christmas gifts because their packaging was “so gay and colorful.” They also contained “28 percent less nicotine.”57 Old Gold made it clear in their ads that smoking helped women lose weight.58

  Technically, one had to be of an ambiguous legal age to purchase and smoke cigarettes, but it wasn’t unusual to see young teenagers smoking cigarettes, and cigarette ads screamed out from every publication and billboard in America. Someone often really was calling for “Phillip Morris,” as the bellhop in the ad in every publication was. Smoking Phillip Morris was important, as “eminent doctors” said it was easier on the throat than other “leading brands” because “all smokers sometimes inhale.”59

  Many ads also made clear the importance of a “good purge,” which seemed very important in 1941. In one magazine ad for Kellogg’s All-Bran cereal, the figure of a grey uniformed Civil War vet encouraged readers to “join the ‘regulars’ with Kellogg’s.”60

  Sports fans had a lot to talk about. Football was in full swing, and fans were looking forward to the coming college bowl season with Duke pitted against Oregon State in the Rose Bowl and Fordham versus Missouri in the Sugar Bowl. “As always, the selections stirred a few dissents.”61 The Yankee Clipper, Joe DiMaggio, had a newborn son, Joe D. III, with his wife, actress Dorothy Arnold.62 And the “hot stove league” was hot with rumors that the great Jimmie Foxx was about to leave the Boston Red Sox and rejoin his old boss, Connie Mack, owner and manager of the Philadelphia Athletics.63

  Other news of the day included a sixty-two-year-old North Carolinian mountaineer, Joe Downs, who wed fifteen-year-old Estelle Pruitt.64 The photo of the scowling elderly man and his bucktoothed bride was published in hundreds of newspapers. In New York City, parents protested in front of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia’s home against the rising crime wave in the city’s parks.65 Six members of the Ku Klux Klan were convicted in Atlanta for conducting a widespread campaign of “flogging” people there—seizing people from their homes and whipping them. Despite pressure, Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge refused to pardon them.66 He told them he’d once “helped flog a Negro himself” and then had the audacity to compare himself to the apostle Paul. “The Apostle Paul was a flogger in his life, then confessed, reformed and became one of the greatest powers of the Christian Church.” Life magazine noted that Talmadge “frankly and deliberately stirs up racial hatreds.”67

  And 1940 GOP nominee Wendell Willkie decided to defend in the Supreme Court a self-admitted communist who had had his citizenship invalidated as a result of his political affiliations.68

  The women’s pages of the nation’s newspapers were filled with articles on fashion, wedding announcements, landing a husband, and the proper conduct in the workplace. Life magazine detailed how the Latin American women preferred wearing black and now it was taking over American women’s fashions. “Black hats, black shorts, black slacks, black bathing suits, black skirts . . .” had all been inspired when a fashion designer saw “barefoot peasants of inland Mexico” attired in black.69

  All newspapers had event-filled “Social Calendars.”70 A cartoon in the Greeley Daily Tribune women’s page depicted a beat-up young woman, one eye blackened, head bandaged, and sporting a broken arm as she cheerily told three friends, “My boyfriend always starts a little spat just before Christmas.”71 But dozens of tamer cartoon strips were enjoyed by American parents and children. “Li’l Abner,” about a hayseed in Dog Patch; “Alley Oop,” a cave man in present times; “Blondie,” a ditsy wife and her equally ditsy husband, Dagwood; “Prince Valiant,” a knight of the Round Table; and “Bringing Up Father,” about Jiggs and Maggie, two socialites seemingly caught in the time warp of 1922. Meanwhile, “Little Orphan Annie” was battling German spies in her comic strip and seemed to have a better plan for dealing with them than the U.S. government did.

  Of course Annie didn’t have to worry about politics, and war is nothing if not political.

  In May 1941, German U-boats sunk an unarmed American freighter, the Robin Moor, and yet there was no great push to get America into another European war.72 Few wanted war, and few believed it was coming to America.

  Later in the year, Adolf Hitler upped the ante by ordering U-boats to fire on American naval ships. In turn, FDR ordered American vessels to defend themselves. On October 31, the Germans sank the Reuben James, an American destroyer, leaving a few dozen survivors. Earlier in October, German U-boats also torpedoed the USS Kearny, though she did not go down.73 The Kearny had responded to the mayday call of a Canadian convoy, which U-boats were sinking at will.74 The Kearny dropped depth charges, though it was not known if the American vessel sank any Wolf Pack subs. The sea battle lasted three hours with ten killed on the tough little American destroyer after being struck by a torpedo.75 American freighter ships operating in the Atlantic began to outfit with fixed guns, and seven Americans serving in the British merchant marines were killed by enemy fire.76

  Despite this Nazi aggression, there was no real groundswell for war with Germany, and no one in the country really thought war was imminent. That’s not to say that there were not strong opinions about it. The political factions were pretty clear-cut on this one. America had those, like Henry Luce, head of a powerful media empire that included Time and Life, who wanted to jump into the European mess with both feet. Others, like Ambassador Joe Kennedy, thought England was finished as a country and unworthy of support.

  Kennedy’s public utterances were increasingly construed as isolationist, even pro-Nazi. Though he sported a patina of Brahmin respectability, the Harvard-educated Kennedy made his fortune as a stock swindler, bootlegger, and movie mogul. In what would prove to be a lasting Kennedy hallmark, Joe cultivated powerful alliances with the press, particularly the newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, who throughout the 1930s would dutifully print sycophantic stories about Kennedy’s successes. The Kennedy paterfamilias would later abhor the liberalism of his sons, but in 1941 Joe was an archconservative and apologist for Hitler. FDR neither trusted nor liked the brash and ruthless Irishman and privately excoriated him. Kennedy became such an embarrassment to FDR that he was recalled as America’s representative to Great Britain.

  And yet, many Americans shared Kennedy’s anti-interventionist view. Of this new war Americans would typically shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, I hope Roosevelt doesn’t get us into it,” or “Let’s hope it doesn’t come over here.” All through the 1930s Congress passed—and Roosevelt signed as a nod to rural and Southern constituencies—various Neutrality Acts that banned certain forms of trade with Europe, particularly sales of military equipment. Other laws passed in the 1930s prevented U.S. troops from leaving North America.

  The largest and most vocal opponent of joining the war was the America First Committee, which had widespread and significant support, including famed transatlantic pilot Charles A. Lindbergh. The America First movement had sprung up after the German invasion of Poland in September of 1939, heralding the beginning of the new World War in Europe. They possessed such influence over the foreign policy debate that FDR pledged to the nation’s “mothers and fathers” during his 1940 reelection bid �
�your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”77 Even as Hitler stormed across the European continent and England was fighting to the last, Americans were unmoved to get into it.

  But by early 1941, FDR had craftily shifted the debate. The advent of Lend-Lease, a program to supply arms and equipment to American allies while staying otherwise uninvolved in the war itself, allowed America to avoid intervention as well as isolation. The old Neutrality Acts were abrogated, and Lend-Lease passed in March 1941.

  It was originally pitched as a plan for Great Britain to operate on a “cash and carry” basis. But as Winston Churchill’s government ran low on funds, the plan was radically altered so the English could “borrow” old American battleships and other war materiel and pay the U.S. government later. Many editorialists squawked. So, too, did the America Firsters.

  FDR, the old master, had sold his argument to Congress and the American people with the rather tenuous allegory that if your neighbor’s house was on fire, you wouldn’t refuse him your garden hose, because his house fire threatened your house. You wouldn’t sell him the hose; you’d loan it and get it back when he was done. Of course no one expected battleships and other war materiel to come back in the same shape as which it had been lent. As Senator Bob Taft wryly observed, there were two things people did not return: used military equipment and used chewing gum. But that unappetizing comparison didn’t stop FDR from carrying the day.

  The morning of December 1, 1941, Americans still believed they would be able to avoid any of the conflict, but by that afternoon, things had noticeably changed. The morning papers carried headlines saying the Japanese wanted to continue talks. By the afternoon, many were reporting of a worsening situation, especially after a 10:00 a.m. meeting between U.S. secretary of state Cordell Hull and the Japanese envoys that took just over an hour. They had also met the day before, on Sunday, in an extraordinary and top-secret meeting.78

  Hull had also met in secret with British ambassador Lord Halifax, where Halifax briefed Hull on British and Japanese developments in the Far East.79 A reporter asked Kichisaburo Nomura if the Americans and the Japanese could reach some sort of accord, and the ambassador replied ominously, “I believe there must be wise statesmanship to save the situation.”80 And “Japan voiced a preference today for further negotiations with the United States for peace in the Pacific in place of war.” This was despite “great differences in the viewpoints of the two governments.”81

  In a previous meeting, Special Envoy Saburo Kurusu gave some odd comfort to Hull, telling him, “You are on Hitler’s list before us.” The accepted wisdom was that the Japanese were “subservient” to Hitler and would not make a move without his approval, and that if things turned bad for Hitler on the Russian front, the Empire of the Rising Sun would shrink from any military actions against the British or the Free French in the Far East.82

  The combustible premier of Japan, Hideki Tojo, was less sanguine. He’d just issued a statement announcing that “Japan will have to do everything to wipe out with a vengeance British and American exploitation in the Far East.” He also used the word purged in reference to the Americans and Brits presence in the Far East.83 Noncombatants in Shanghai and Thailand were warned by their governments to evacuate soon, including Americans.84 The British were readying their forces to defend the Burma Road.85

  Nomura was also asked about Tojo’s over-the-top remarks and replied that the premier had been “‘badly misquoted’ in news dispatches.” He was also asked about resuming negotiations with Secretary Hull and he replied, “They have never been broken off.”86 Most indications were that both parties wanted to continue negotiations to forestall any further problems in the Pacific. Indeed, it was reported that Japan wanted to continue negotiations for another two weeks, to reach a solution to the impasse.87 The Japanese cabinet “had decided to continue negotiations despite great differences in the viewpoints of the two governments” after meeting in a “special cabinet session.” This communiqué came from Domei, a Japanese government-run news agency.88 Hull also met with the Chinese ambassador, Dr. Hu Shih, Australian minister Richard Casey, and Netherlands minister Dr. A. Louden.89

  Just a few days earlier, President Roosevelt had journeyed south to Warm Springs, Georgia, where he had availed himself of the hot mineral waters for years, in a vain attempt to cure his polio. He bought a house nearby that was nicknamed the “Little White House” by the press corps.90 He was photographed carving a turkey for the patients at the Warm Springs Foundation, where together they were celebrating a “delayed Thanksgiving.”91 At a cocktail party in his honor, FDR downed several of his favorite cocktails, an old fashioned, saw his former longtime secretary Marguerite “Missy” LeHand, now herself a victim of “acute neuritis” and a patient at Warm Springs, and ate heartily of the postponed Thanksgiving feast. FDR always had a big appetite and had several helpings of turkey, “gingered fresh fruit in cider . . . oyster-corn stuffing [and] pumpkin pie.”92

  The president had looked forward to spending an extended time in Georgia, until he took a confidential call over the weekend from Secretary of State Hull. Hull advised FDR that things in the Pacific had suddenly taken a turn, possibly for the worse.93 Hull was in ongoing tense discussions with Special Envoy Saburo Kurusu and Ambassador Kichisaboro Nomura. Kurusu’s wife was the former Alice Little, formerly of Chicago, Illinois. The men were photographed in America’s newspapers, smiling, polite,94 although it was also reported they had emerged from one meeting with Hull looking “grave.”95 All told, FDR was in Warm Springs for about twenty-six hours, only got in a short swim and departed for Washington looking “grave.”96 Roosevelt’s hurried departure on his special train, the Ferdinand Magellan, was “without the usual gay hand-waving to the crowds of back-country farmers, out to see the caravan whoosh past.” He arrived at the White House at 11:30 the morning of the First.

  By the afternoon of Sunday, December 1, Americans knew about the call between Hull and FDR the previous evening and the president’s speedy return to Washington as result. Roosevelt was spotted looking “grim,” an affliction that was apparently spreading. “ The New York Times reported that if negotiations broke down, “the American fleet in the Pacific . . . had instructions for . . . what to do if hostilities start.”97 It was later reported that FDR had met in secret with the chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold R. Stark.

  Just the night before in Georgia, he’d given a startling speech in which he altered course, radically, saying, “It is always possible that our boys may actually be fighting for the defense of these American institutions of ours.” within the year.98 It was the first reference to the possibility of American boys dying on another continent.

  White House reporters knew of the president’s return by the sudden appearance of his beloved Scottie, Fala. The dog trotted into a room full of reporters, barking and wagging his tail. “Ah, the President’s home,” said Mrs. Roosevelt when she saw the dog.99 The White House refused to say exactly why FDR had cut short his trip to Warm Springs.

  Upon his return, FDR met in private with Hull in the Oval Office, after the secretary’s meeting with the Japanese representatives. Several days earlier, Hull had given the Japanese envoys a response in writing, stating the Americans would not cease their embargo until and unless the Japanese withdrew their forces from China.100 The Japanese made it clear they had no intentions of slowing their drive down the Asian continent, rejecting the U.S. position as “fantastic.”101

  Waiting on FDR’s desk the morning of the first was a confidential memo from his “real world” eyes and ears, John Franklin Carter. The memo detailed the Japanese population along the Mexican border around Corpus Christi and Galveston. In summary, there were very few Japanese in the south of Texas in late 1941. “Everything very quiet along the border. There seems to be more anti-Japanese prejudice in Texas than in California, also more suspicion.”102 Most who saw him thought he looked good and healthy, even if he did not have the suntan he was usually known for,
because of extra-long hours of work in the Oval Office.

  The National Industrial Conference Board estimated that the “economic blockade” of Japan by the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherland Indies had “cut off 75 per cent of her normal imports.”103 Japan had a population in 1941 of 73 million occupying a land mass smaller than California.104 The embargo was hurting the empire of Japan and her people, but it was also hurting American exporters.

  An AP report clacked, “Whether the Japanese decision is a step toward a final settlement which conceivably might take Tokyo out of the Axis camp or a mere temporizing in the hope of a more propitious day for hard talk with the United States remains to be seen.”105

  FDR, after meeting with cabinet members about the Far East developments, saw his doctor that evening at 7:15 and then dined alone in his study at 7:30 before retiring at 11:00 p.m.106

  Some afternoon papers reported the situation as “grave” and that no more talks between the Americans and the Japanese were contemplated107 while other reports said they wanted to continue them for “at least two weeks.”108 The headline of the Panama City News-Herald said, “Nazi Reversals Cause Japs to Ask More Time.”109

  Newspaper reports were often contradictory. But Americans also read of private meetings in the Philippines between Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Adm. Thomas C. Hart to discuss “emergency steps.”110

  CHAPTER 2

  THE SECOND OF DECEMBER

  “Japan Renews Talks, but Capital Is Skeptical”

  New York Times

  “U.S. Asks Japan to Explain Troop Moves”