Threshold of War

by Heinrichs, Waldo;

  With such an immediate poverty of resources, how much of a contribution could the United States make by entering the Battle of the Atlantic immediately? Would it justify the probability of ensuing war with Germany and possibly with Japan as well? Would it justify the larger call on limited resources placed by the American armed services in case of war? Would it be wise to place scarce American naval vessels under British command in the United Kingdom when Hitler might yet strike through Spain toward Africa and the Atlantic islands or invade and defeat England before help came?

  Roosevelt had solid reasons for shying away from escort of convoy quite apart from the American people’s attitude toward a decision probably involving war, but public opinion certainly reinforced caution. Postmaster General Frank Walker and Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, just back from the West Coast, reported that opinion there was “unsettled”; “lethargy and ignorance prevailed.” The latest Gallup poll found that 83 percent of those surveyed would vote to stay out of war. At the same time, when asked whether it was more important to keep out of war or to help England, even at the risk of getting into the war, 67 percent chose to help England and risk war.36 Opinion was educable, as it had been in the past, but Roosevelt undoubtedly believed that the benefits of intervention now did not justify the risks, domestic and external. As Roosevelt told Stark during a similar dilemma in 1940, “When I don’t know how to move I stay put.”37

  Roosevelt did not plunge into the Atlantic war, but neither did he exactly stay put. On April 7 he ordered the battleships, aircraft carrier, cruisers, and destroyers of the Pacific reinforcement transferred to the Atlantic.38 On April 10 he disclosed further plans to his closest advisers. He wanted an extension of the American defense zone across the Atlantic to include the Azores, some of the Cape Verde Islands, and Greenland (but not Iceland). He arrived at a boundary running well into the eastern part of the North Atlantic at first by picking the line of 25 degrees west longitude, which bisects the distance between northwest Africa and northeast Brazil, as the limit of the Western Hemisphere. As plans developed, Roosevelt dropped a hemispheric definition of the American security zone as too confining, but for the time being he shifted to the twenty-sixth meridian, one degree closer to the United States, excluding the Cape Verdes.39 This was an historic departure. Before, American security had always depended on British control of the Atlantic. Neutrality patrols kept to the western side of the Atlantic. Now President Roosevelt incorporated the great basin of the North Atlantic in the American sphere.

  At this time Roosevelt wanted not control but presence, a constant display of naval power by sweeps, patrols, and cruises of the Atlantic Fleet. Contrary to naval advice, he ordered dispersion and rejected escort. The navy bowed and devised Western Hemisphere Defense Plan One.40 According to this plan the six battleships of the reinforced fleet, comprising Task Force 1, would individually patrol a set course running east in the latitude of Philadelphia to fifty degrees west longitude (the line of the west coast of Greenland), then northeast toward Iceland to the twenty-sixth meridian and the edge of the war zone declared by Germany and back. They would be like sentries marching toward and away from each other on their appointed path, parallel with the convoy lanes but several hundred miles to the east and south of them.

  The aircraft carriers, Task Force 2, would meet Churchill’s request for scouring untended waters. Each carrier would reconnoiter a slightly different wedge of ocean east of Bermuda toward the Azores. Task Force 3, the four old cruisers, would sail individually, with escort, from Puerto Rico or Trinidad southeastward toward Africa then back to Brazil and home. Task Force 4, the Support Force, would prepare for “distant service in higher latitudes.” The deployment, if not the patrolling assignments, followed the navy’s initial recommendation. All naval vessels were to trail the Axis ships they sighted and broadcast their location for British benefit.

  Western Hemisphere Defense Plan One also for the first time permitted use of force, though under narrow constraints. American warships were ordered to prevent interference with American flag vessels in the expanded defense zone. Furthermore, in waters close by—the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Caribbean, Bermuda, and otherwise within twenty-five miles of Western Hemisphere territory—patrols should warn away Axis ships (technically, vessels of nations having no territory in the Western Hemisphere) and attack them if they failed to heed the warning. Use of force extended to the defense of Greenland as well. In a direct challenge to the German combat zone proclaimed in March, the United States concluded an agreement on April 10 with the Danish minister in Washington bringing that entire Danish territory, even the portion east of the twenty-sixth meridian, under American protection.

  For the press Roosevelt described the patrols as a reconnaissance in force and likened them to the band of scouts sent out far ahead of a wagon train to find Indians and prevent an ambush.41 Roosevelt was barely edging into the Battle of the Atlantic. The novelties of Plan One were more symbolic than substantive. Nevertheless, it would establish a regular American naval presence in the central North Atlantic and raise the strategic question for the German naval command of whether to restrict operations or risk a major incident and war with the United States. Furthermore this established presence would endow American action in case of an incident with a defensive character, permitting Japan, if it chose, to avoid invoking its alliance obligations. And Plan One crossed a threshold in use of force.

  American assistance was not entirely symbolic. Roosevelt could spare, if not destroyers, Coast Guard cutters. On March 29 he had ordered ten of the sturdy little ships, which were practical for escort duty, into British service. Then he approved a large new shipment of arms including sixty amphibious patrol planes which were exceptionally useful in spotting submarines.42 In February the Admiralty had asked for repair in an American dockyard of the carrier Illustrious, its aircraft elevators damaged in a German dive bombing attack in the Mediterranean. That request was shelved while the Lend-Lease debate was going on. With Lend-Lease in hand the president immediately approved, and when Churchill asked assistance for the battleship Malaya, damaged by a torpedo, Roosevelt responded from his cruise that he would be “delighted,” offering the Boston, New York, and Philadelphia yards. Upon his return to Washington, with warnings from Britain that the shortage of dry-docks was critical, he sent Assistant Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal to London, where he and Harriman worked out an extensive, long-term warship repair schedule.43 Thus American ports became a sanctuary for the Royal Navy.

  By various devices Roosevelt also strove to thicken the “bridge of ships.” On March 29 he authorized seizure of sixty-five ships of Axis and occupied nations in American ports. Altogether the United States managed to convey to the British about one million tons of Axis shipping and arranged for time charter of other vessels. On April 2 the president approved funds for building 200 more ships for Britain. Repair facilities were extended to the British merchant marine. In the last nine months of 1941, British shipping under repair in American ports averaged 430,000 tons a month.44 The capture of Massawa in Italian Eritrea on April 8 cleared the Red Sea of Axis forces and enabled Roosevelt to remove it and the Arabian Sea from the list of combat zones forbidden to American ships. This opening permitted the United States to take over a major share of the supply of British forces in the Middle East. As Harriman suggested, British arms and supplies for that front could now be sent in what otherwise would have been empty bottoms to the United States for transshipment.45

  The logical corollary of deepening involvement on the Atlantic with risk of an incident and war was an easing of relations with Japan, particularly an effort to dissociate Japan from Germany as much as possible. The Roosevelt administration began a deliberate effort in April 1941 to explore the formidable issues that divided the two countries. The idea of wide-ranging discussions with Japan was novel, for no productive diplomacy had occurred between the two nations since the London Naval Conference of 1930. Talks about specific issues occu
rred from time to time in the 1930s but invariably led nowhere. With Matsuoka’s advent as foreign minister no discussion seemed possible.

  Yet, by 1941, not impossible. An encouraging sign was the appointment of Admiral Nomura Kichisaburō as Japanese ambassador to the United States. Roosevelt had been acquainted with Nomura when the latter was naval attaché in Washington during World War I. As foreign minister in 1939, Nomura had shown a keen interest in improving relations with the United States and was understood to be associated with anti-Axis elements in Japan. To Hull he looked different from most Japanese: “tall, robust, in fine health, with an open face.”46 Hull liked him and came to believe in his sincerity if not his skill. In February and March, Roosevelt and Hull repeatedly emphasized to Nomura their rising concern over Japan’s identification with the Axis, on one occasion specifically mentioning Matsuoka, “astride the Axis on his way to Berlin, talking loudly as he goes,” and stressed the importance of both countries finding ways of settling their differences peacefully.47

  Meanwhile a peculiar opportunity for opening talks arose outside the normal channels of diplomacy. In 1940 Father James M. Drought, Vicar General of the Maryknoll Society (a Catholic organization), a zealous missionary and intensely political person, seized on the idea of becoming peacemaker between Japan and the United States. Peace was essential to the furtherance of the society’s missionary enterprise in the Japanese empire and particularly in China. A letter from Lewis Strauss, whose New York investment firm, Kuhn Loeb and Company, had long-standing interests in Japan, introduced Drought to Ikawa Tadao, a Japanese banker with important connections, among them Prince Konoe. Drought hoped to serve as a go-between for the principals in both countries, bypassing rigid bureaucrats in the foreign ministries. He sought to draft an agreement and ease the path of conciliation by allowing each side to believe the other had initiated it. The Japanese army took an interest in the scheme, authorizing a staff officer, Colonel Iwakuro Hideo, to join Ikawa. The foreign ministry, while taking no responsibility and fretting that these amateur efforts would go amiss, was interested in seeing what might develop.

  During the winter, Drought, with the assistance of his superior, Bishop James E. Walsh, and U.S. Postmaster General Frank Walker, a prominent Catholic layman, spun his web of accord, gaining access to the White House, drawing in Ikawa, Iwakuro, and finally Nomura himself, and testing out peace formulas. The State Department, skeptical but observant, kept in touch. On April 9, Drought delivered a draft understanding to Hull which purported to have the support not only of the Japanese embassy but the Japanese army and navy as well.48

  The April 9 draft was far from realistic as a basis for resolving issues between Japan and the United States. It would have permitted retention of Japanese troops in China after a peace settlement for “joint defense against communism” and would have required cessation of American assistance to Chiang Kai-shek if he rejected Japanese terms. The draft in no way diminished Japan’s Axis obligations, but precluded American entry into “an aggressive alliance aimed to assist any one nation against another.” Even Matsuoka speaking to Steinhardt in Moscow was more flexible about Japan’s Axis obligations. If Germany declared war on the United States, he hoped America would consult Japan before making any move in the Pacific. If the reverse were the case, Japan would be obligated to go to war, but would consult Germany first. The vague and hortatory language of the draft agreement reflected the amateur quality of the Drought project.49 Nevertheless it provided a comprehensive statement of issues and thus a ready vehicle for discussion of concrete problems. The State Department could use it without having to take responsibility for its provisions or for having initiated it.

  These were days of deep anxiety. From the Balkans as well as North Africa the news was, in Berle’s words, “as bad as it can be.” The administration was dismayed at the rapidity and effectiveness of the German attack. Yugoslav resistance, in which the administration had placed great faith, according to New York Times columnist Arthur Krock, was simply vanishing. The official thermometer, he said, had dropped almost to the depths of Dunkirk. Officials feared the effect of another successful blitzkrieg on Turkey, the Soviet Union, Spain, and above all on American opinion, which might well revert to isolationism.50 Meanwhile the destroyer U.S.S. Niblack was venturing into U-boat waters to make a reconnaissance of Iceland for a prospective American base there under the ABC-1 plan, and navy planners were drawing up orders for American warships to patrol far into the Atlantic.51

  On Saturday, April 12, at 9:45 a.m., Admiral Stark phoned Secretary Hull, and a busy day followed at State. At 10:05 Hull saw Welles, at 1:30 Hornbeck, Maxwell Hamilton, chief of the Far Eastern Division, and Joseph Ballantine, the officer in touch with Father Drought. At 1:40 the secretary phoned Stark, at 1:45 Hopkins, and at 1:50 the president.52 Clearly an important issue was being decided, one involving the navy and Japan. What probably prompted these discussions was word from Stark about the president’s instructions for patrolling and reinforcements from the Pacific Fleet and the navy’s plans to implement them.

  The idea of talks with the Japanese was already under discussion. Ambassador Grew had recently sent a series of encouraging cables reporting the rise in influence of anti-German moderates in the Japanese government and Prince Konoe’s success in gaining control of “radical elements” in the army. Matsuoka, according to Grew, had failed to obtain anything in Berlin and was not likely to be any more successful on his return visit to Moscow.53 Some Far Eastern experts at State discounted such telegrams as another bout of Grew optimism, but the information fitted with what Drought, Ikawa, and Iwakuro were saying. At the very least, Hull and his advisers might tilt the balance slightly more against Matsuoka while the foreign minister was away and against the Axis forces in Tokyo. On April 11, Hornbeck drafted a counterproposal to the Drought draft of April 9, and Hamilton advised placing the Drought plan in Nomura’s lap and asking whether he wished to introduce it as his own. That day or the next, the busy Saturday, Hull arranged to meet Nomura on Monday, April 14 at 9:15 a.m., either at his apartment in the Wardman Park Hotel or at the office,54

  On Easter Sunday, April 13, news came of the signing of a neutrality pact between the Soviet Union and Japan. This was an unpleasant surprise. As late as April 11, Steinhardt had reported Matsuoka as doubtful about securing any agreement. The pact provided that if either nation became engaged in war with a third power, the other would remain neutral, and it also mutually recognized the independence of Manchukuo—the Japanese puppet state in Manchuria—and Outer Mongolia—a Soviet satellite in central Asia—both detached from China. Matsuoka had hoped for a considerably more substantial agreement, but Moscow, in spite of deteriorating relations with Germany, was not in the least disposed to make significant concessions to Japan. Hull was correct in telling the press that the significance of the pact could be overestimated as it really did not change circumstances. Yet privately both American and British officials considered the implications “very sinister,” to use Welles’ words. By offering some sense of security in the north, the pact provided an important argument for the southern advance in the internal debate over Japan’s course of action.

  In this connection, naval intelligence noted the shortening of Japanese lines in central China, the transfer of veteran troops from there and North China to Formosa and other staging points for southward advance, and the reorganization of Japanese fleets. Some Axis move such as a drive on Singapore seemed likely in order to prevent the diversion of American naval strength to the Atlantic. The director of naval intelligence estimated that Japan “will strike and soon.” Turner, War Plans director, disagreed, but most American policymakers believed the Soviet-Japanese pact enhanced the possibility of some Japanese move southward. Furthermore, the Soviet recognition of Manchukuo was a severe blow to China; any improvement in Soviet-Japanese relations would probably result in less Soviet aid to Chungking.55

  By Monday morning, April 14, Hull’s interest in talks with Nomura, i
nspired by Atlantic exigencies, was spurred on by those on the Pacific side. The two met secretly at the Wardman Park. Hull established that Nomura had collaborated in framing the Drought plan and would indeed be glad to present it as a basis for negotiations. The secretary of state then set conditions. First he would want to set forth the basic principles which the United States felt must undergird a settlement. Then Nomura, if he chose, could ascertain from his government whether a basis for negotiations existed. The two arranged to meet again shortly.

  Hull saw Nomura again at the Wardman Park, Wednesday evening, after consulting his Far Eastern experts at least six times, phoning Walker twice, receiving Father Drought, and seeing the president. Monday he had suggested that talks proceed by stages with agreement at each stage before proceeding to the next. This was the cautious approach recommended by his Far Eastern advisers, but it was not the way he conducted the Wednesday session. To be sure, he repeated his precondition that Japan fundamentally change its policies of conquest and use of force. He handed Nomura a paper listing the four basic principles of international conduct espoused by his government which Japan must adopt: respect for the territorial integrity of all nations, non-interference in their internal affairs, equality of opportunity, including trade, and non-disturbance of the status quo except by peaceful means. He made clear that the two sides had “in no sense reached the stage of negotiations,” and he denied “any commitment whatever” to the provisions of the Drought draft.