EQUATIONEQUATIONEQUATIONEQUATION FOR HUMAN EXISTANCE CIRCA 1920 FOR HUMAN EXISTANCE CIRCA 1920 FOR HUMAN EXISTANCE CIRCA 1920 FOR HUMAN EXISTANCE CIRCA 1920----1939:1939:1939:1939:

PRECEDENT-SETTING CARNAGE + REALLY GOOD INTENTIONS = FUZZY GOOD

VIBRATIONS . . .

NOT NECESSARILY!

IE: Failed Attempts at World Peace in the 1920s and 1930s and the Slide into Global War Another Scalia “Bump and Stumble” Through the 20th Century

©2005 Joseph M Scalia. Do not reprint without permission.

A World Safe for Democracy? C’mon, Woodrow . . . really?

At least he meant well. Woodrow Wilson’s intent to make the world “safe for democracy” by virtue of America’s participation in World War I, the Fourteen Points and League of Nations, and the Treaty of Versailles sounded wonderful at the moment, but as the Treaty’s (and Woodrow’s) credibility eroded in the face of the Senate’s refusal to ratify the Treaty, many Americans wondered what the country had actually gained from the war. After all, the war ended and America watched as A. Mitchell Palmer conducted raids to root out all of those anarchists and communists that had infested American and were bent on the destruction of the American way of life; the stench of racism had forged a violent path into all corners of the country; and war veterans shocked Americans with stories of untold horror and destruction seen in the trenches of France. The cumulative result of these factors was a strong desire to return to a policy of isolation to seal America off from the corrupt evils of the rest of the world, especially Europe and Asia.

Indeed, during the 1920s, while Americans wallowed in the excesses of times, few (including presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover) paid much attention to events erupting throughout the world. To be fair, there was much going on at home to keep Americans preoccupied. The Roaring Twenties came to an abrupt end, however, and by 1930, the Crash of 1929 and the onslaught of the Great Depression shocked Americans to the hidden weakness of laissez faire and dangers of unchecked capitalism. Even though the Depression was a worldwide catastrophe, most Americans understandably remained focused on American problems, and frankly could care less about international events. Why? Because we were isolationists, dog-gone it, and would darned well stay that way . . . right? Isolation Yeah, right . . . America’s desire for post-war isolation manifested itself in different, somewhat subtle ways. America’s reaction to the Great War was evidenced by a return to isolationist laissez-faire

Republican presidents; the restrictive immigration laws of the 1920s sent a definite message to foreigners that the doors to America were closed. In addition higher tariffs signaled resistance to the influx of foreign goods into America, and Nativist “100% Americanism,” fueled by xenophobia, resulted in the Red Scare which introduced paranoia into the mix.

However, America could not remain entirely isolated from world events. American business had economic interests in a variety of foreign countries, America’s overseas possessions in the Pacific thrust the US into world affairs, and the necessity of recovering war debts from our lovely European allies thrust America smack in the middle of an uneasy world. American isolation? Well, it sounded good, but it was a pipe dream at best, and one that eroded quickly as the world stumbled into an absolute mess. The European War Debt You know, everyone’s your friend when they need money because they are facing total destruction in the face of a brutal enemy. However, when the bad guys are driven away, and you want your money back . . . well, that’s a different story. Nothing increased anti-American feelings abroad—or increase a desire for isolation at home—than the war debts controversy. In 1914 the United States began loaning France and Britain huge sums of money, first to stave off the German invasion, and later to rebuild their devastated countries (especially France). Most Americans didn’t mind this aid to traditional Allies; it was, after all, a moral obligation, and surely our “friends” would pay us back. Looking back from the perspective of 2010, this seems insanely naïve.

Of course, after the war, both Britain and France claimed poverty, and told America that the only way that either could pay off their loans was from their share of the German reparation payments. However, because Britain and France had devastated Germany’s ability to make enough money to pay anything to anybody by seizing the industrial Rhineland, the prospects of Americans receiving repayment was slim. In 1924, in an effort to start a flow of money that might put a repayment plan in motion, American banker Charles Dawes negotiated a plan by which America would funnel money into Germany, which would then be used by the Germans to pay their reparations to France and Britain. What would these two do with this money? You guessed it—they would use the German payment to pay off the American debt. This exercise in sound money management was the Dawes Plan, and while it did give Germany a little cash with which she could start new industry, it was too little too late and, as you may have guessed, it failed. While it did provide a small measure of financial support abroad, it was all an illusion because it was based, like everything else in the 1920s, on credit and borrowed money, and not actual cash. Obviously, if the Sugar Daddy in this scheme (the United States) suffered a hit to its economy, the whole thing would come crashing down, and that’s exactly what happened when the Stock Market crashed in 1929. Back to square one.

For his part, Hoover tried to compromise with our European allies. I mean, what else could he do; it’s

not like he had a cousin Guido that could go to Europe and break people’s knee caps with a baseball bat. Knowing full well that no one cloud afford debt repayments in the growing global depression, in 1931 Hoover negotiated a moratorium on French, British and German debt payment. Now, note that a moratorium is a temporary suspension, a period of time where your debtors can develop a repayment plan. Our friends? Not

quite; by the time Hoover’s moratorium expired in 1932 practically all of our European debtors defaulted on their loans.1

Result? Bad feelings and mistrust on all sides. Germany got no money, France and Britain got no money, the US got no money . . . all God’s children got no money. Amid this mess you can add Herbert Hoover’s inexplicable stab at government intervention . . . the ridiculous Hawley Smoot Tariff (the highest in US history) . . . which resulted in a devastating trade war. Taken en total, can you see where perhaps the inmates are running the asylum here?

Throw Away Your Weapons and Smile, Smile, Smile: Let’s Disarm!!!

You know, we Americans are so doggone predictable; this is why foreign countries rarely take us

seriously. Even with increased isolationist sentiment of the 1920s Americans somewhat felt a tinge of guilt in not joining Wilson’s League of Nations. I mean, come on now: this thing was going to provide a platform to engineer world peace. Jeez, what does that make us look like? Guilt being what it is, some Americans (although by no means a majority) feared their country appearing to be a selfish monolith with little or no regard for global peace and harmony. As a result, the Harding Administration embarked on the newest fashion of international cooperation—the Disarmament Craze.

There were several disarmament conferences, but the biggest and most important one occurred in 1921 in DC. The Washington Armaments Conference resulted in a series of agreements designed to stave off not only future arms races, but also to give the world a warm and fuzzy feeling regarding potential areas of conflict. The overall result was two-fold:

1. The conference set up a ratio system designed to reduce the size of the war fleets of the five major victors of World War I (Britain, the US, France, Italy, and Japan).2 *An interesting side note here: the ratio actually allowed Japan to build two new battleships, the Mushasi and Yamato, the largest battleships ever built, while prompting the United States to actually sink seven battleships (they were used for target practice off of Cape Hatteras in North Carolina) and cancel construction on fifteen more. One battleship that barely missed being destroyed? The USS Texas, that big blue monstrosity now berthed at San Jacinto.

2. Because everyone was nervous about those pesky Japanese, who had an insatiable thirst for China, the conference passed a resolution guaranteeing Chinese self government. Japan agreed to this, but for how long?

In 1922 the US, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy signed the Five Powers Naval Treaty, which called for:

1. A ten year moratorium on all naval construction 2. A promise to refrain from fortifying Pacific possessions.

This treaty, in effect partitioned the Pacific world into two spheres of influence: the Japanese sphere of the western Pacific, and the American sphere of the eastern Pacific (including the Philippines). So much for the Open Door, huh? Not so fast . . . . in 1923 nine Pacific colonial powers (the US, France, Britain, Japan, Italy, Belgium, China, Portugal, and the Netherlands) signed the Nine Power Treaty, which promised to respect the integrity of Chinese sovereignty, as well as support the principle of John Hay’s Open Door.

1 WE WON”T BE FOOLED AGAIN!! Due to this massive default Congress passed the 1934 Johnson Debt Default Act, which forbade private loans to foreign governments (a stab at JP Morgan) and put a cap on government loans. 2 The level of disarmament came in the infamous 5:5:3:1.5:1.5 tonnage ratio. Britain and the US could maintain 5 million tons each, Japan 300,000 tons, and France and Italy 1.5 million tons each. Japan regarded their reduced amount of tonnage an insult, until they noted that the ratio only applied to capital ships . . . that is, the big boys, ie battleships and armored cruisers. NO mention of, oh say, smaller anti-submarine destroyers or that exercise in Japanese science fiction, the aircraft carrier . . . . C’mon, now, get real: flying airplanes off of the deck of a ship? Someone’s been drinkin’ too much warm saki.

Note: Regarding these treaties, where does the majority of concern fall? That’s right: the Pacific. And who are the two major players out there? Right again, the US and Japan (man, I am giving you guys a TON of credit for being right here). And what do we know about American/Japanese relations? Well, look back at the Gentleman’s Agreement, Taft-Katsura Agreement, Lansing-Ishii Agreement and stay tuned . . .

When disarming just isn’t enough . . . Largely due to a desire to live in a world free of war (now THAT’S reality; we’ve done it, like NEVER), many Americans, as well as Europeans, organized and joined peace societies3 throughout the 1920s. This anti-war and pro-peace movement was led primarily by women, traditionally the foundation of social reform movements. The culmination of this movement was the 1928 signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which for all practical purposes outlawed war as a means of national policy. Technically, the pact was specifically intended as an agreement between the US and France, who jointly pledged not to wage war on each other . . . easy to see why they thought that would work, what are the chances we are going to fight the French?4 However, American secretary of state Frank B. Kellogg (of later corn flake fame) decided to offer the pact to any country willing to make such a bold promise. Eventually and perhaps pressured by a global public drunk on the prospect of no more war, sixty-two countries signed the pact.

If you think you smell a rat here, well, you should; each country reserved the concept of “self-defense” as an “escape hatch” should they feel a need to flex their military muscle. One Virginia senator commented that the pact was “a perfectly harmless peace treaty that I fear will confuse the minds of many good people who think that peace may be secured by polite professions of neighborly and brotherly love.” One lonely voice of reason in a world of madness . . . . To show how much confidence the world had in this pipe dream, the world met again in Geneva, Switzerland, and signed the Geneva Convention, which, among other things outlined the proper conduct of nations at war, as well as guidelines for the humane treatment of prisoners of war. I know, I know, this contradicts the entire reason for Kellogg-Briand: if war is outlawed, why the need for the Geneva Convention? You tell me . . .

The Journey to the Brink You would think that centuries-old countries such as Britain and France would know that you can only

punish people just so much. You’d also think that they would appreciate the concept of nationalism and it’s inherent—and dangerous-- factor of national pride. Well, guess again. Both Britain and France were deliriously drunk with the prospects of removing Germany as a threat in the 20th century, in addition to the fact that Japan . . . well, who takes them seriously anyway? A study of Japan’s and Germany’s collective rise to world power is a study in contrasts: Japan—like Italy-- emerged from World War I on the side of the victors, and was subsequently able to parley this status into a position of strength (Italy never approached Japan’s strength by virtue of her limited national goals, restrictive domineering fascist government, and future dependency upon Germany); while Germany, on the other hand, crawled from the First World War a devastated, humiliated nation burdened with a responsibility calculated to remove her from ever becoming a prosperous country again. Walking along a razor’s edge of total anarchy and an impending slide into communism, she became a pathetic shell of her former self—a situation into which some Germans refused to be thrust. All in all, the rise of the great totalitarian powers of the 1920s and 1930s was in some instances somewhat masked, in others somewhat predictable. Regardless of the nature of their ascendancy, by the time the free world saw fit to reign in the excesses of imperialism and terror—it was too late.

3 One of the largest societies was founded by Jane Addams of Hull House fame; she went on to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1931. 4APOLOGIES to all you Francophiles, but sorry, I can’t resist . . . (a) Oxymoron: French army; (b) “Raise your hand if you like the French . . . Raise both hands if you are French.” George S Patton; (c) “We can stand here like the French or we can do something about it.” Marge Simpson; (d) “The only time France wants to go to war is when the German Army is sitting in Paris sipping coffee.” Patton again.

JAPANJAPANJAPANJAPAN: 1931: 1931: 1931: 1931----1941194119411941

With the restoration of the Emperor Meiji in 1868, Japan began to regard herself not as an ancient, feudal, isolated society, but rather in western terms as an industrial, modern, global power. Why in the world would a successful, pristine society want to corrupt itself, western-style? Well, when Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo Harbor in 1854 and forced the Japanese to open their closed economy to world trade . . . and when the Japanese looked out over the globe and saw the British settled in places where they had no business being . . . hmmm. Maybe there IS something to this expansionist, imperialistic madness after all. What did the round-eyes (Americans) call it . . . Manifest Destiny? Whatever her reasons, Japan had the two best examples of how to accomplish her expansionist dreams: the United States and Britain, authors of The

Dummies Guide to Imperialism. In any event, throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Japan flexed her imperial muscle, first in

China (the Sino-Japanese War 1895-1895) and later in Korea and southeastern Manchuria (The Russo-Japanese War 1901-1092). Japan was a reluctant ally in World War I, only joining the Allies in order to seize the German island possessions in Micronesia as well as the old German sphere of influence in the Shantung Peninsula in China . . . all BEFORE Germany was forced to give up her Asian possessions through the Treaty of Versailles’ Mandate System. The Japanese knew that such bold imperialist maneuvers would be looked upon by a disapproving West, so in 1917, immediately after America’s entry into World War I, the Japanese foreign secretary visited Washington and informed Robert Lansing, the American secretary of state, that Germany was bribing the Japanese to leave the Allies and become a Central Power: a fact supported by its mention in the infamous Zimmerman Telegram. Fearful of losing an ally, Lansing agreed to sign the Lansing-Ishii Agreement of 1917, in which the United States rather ominously agreed that “Japan has special interests in China.” This recognition of Japanese hegemony in China followed a dangerous pattern; both the earlier Taft-Katsura and Root-Takahira Agreements had pledged US recognition of Japanese possessions in Asia. The ultimate, and understandable result, was Japan’s assumption that America recognized her status as the center of a growing, aggressive Asian empire. Subsequently, by 1929, masked by the global panic over the Stock Market Crash in America, Japan declared that China was in fact Japanese territory, and sought to claim it as her own, by conquest if necessary. No one complained or muttered a word of protest.

By the late 1920s China had begun the long bloody path into civil war between Chiang Kai Shek’s pro-western Nationalist Chinese forces s and Mao Zedong’s Red Communists. Japan, for her part, was looking for a way to barge into the middle of this mess and seize chunks of China for herself. Smart move: let the Chinese kill each other and we Japanese will swoop in like vultures to feast on the carrion. In 1931, in an attempt to stop an increasing number of border clashes between the Nationalists and those pesky Soviets (who, as communists, supported Mao’s forces) in the Chinese province of Manchuria, Japan deployed the Kwangtung Army, which was specifically designated for Chinese service and obviously meant to be an army of occupation to the small town of Mukden. Why Mukden? Because during the border skirmishes a vital section of the Japanese-controlled Southeastern Manchuria Railway railroad had been “mysteriously” destroyed in an explosion.5 In this, the famous Manchurian (or Mukden) Incident, Japan naturally blamed the explosion on the Chinese communists, and subsequently let loose the flood gates, occupying all of Manchuria in the name of “national interests and security.” By 1932, Japan declared that Manchuria no longer existed, replaced by the new Japanese empire of Manchukuo. (Mukden? Manchuko? Where do they get these names? You think Dr. Seuss might have been Japanese?)

Now, you should be thinking: Wait a minute . . . didn’t the Japanese sign some treaty that recognized the Open Door and Chinese self-government? (OK, so you’re not thinking that. In fact, if you even thought “this ain’t right” I’ll be happy). Anyway, you’d be correct; the Manchurian occupation was a flagrant violation of the Washington Naval Conference, the Nine Powers Treaty, and as well as the blockbuster Kellogg-Briand Pact. Hey, y gotta give ‘em credit: if you’re going to break treaties, break ‘em right! In any event, when Chiang Kai Shek appealed for American help and intervention, President Hoover refused--just as the Japanese suspected he

5 I hope I have made you cynical enough so that you’re not buying this. Post-World War II proved what the rest of the world knew all along: the Japanese themselves sabotaged the railroad as a pretext for a Chinese invasion and occupation.

would (remember how John Hay had stated in the late 1890s how the US would enforce the Open Door Policy? Those Japanese have long memories). Subsequently, in 1932, to complete their conquest of China the Japanese embarked on the indiscriminant bombing of cities and civilian populations in both Manchuria and Shanghai, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people. The League of Nations, backed by worldwide public outrage, condemned these actions, to which Japan countered by thumbing her nose and canceling her League membership. Suddenly the world began to get the uneasy impression that Japan didn’t give a rat’s patoot about her treaty obligations.

The Japanese Occupation of China, 1900-1945

New American president Franklin Roosevelt’s secretary of state Henry Stimson responded with the

Stimson Doctrine, which cancelled all former American-Japanese treaties by announcing that America would recognize no Japanese territorial gains in China, even though the US had previously agreed to accept Japanese hegemony in China (see paragraph 2). Now, Japan was pretty ticked off by this, and it furthered her disrespect for the “word and honor” of the United States. However, the Japanese were wise enough to realize that they could only hope for just so much leniency from the global community, so they temporarily suspended military operations in China under the international heat died down. There was, however, another, more strategic reason: Japan needed a timeout to step back and to lick her wounds, as the Chinese Communists and Nationalists had signed a temporary truce and had joined forces to fight the Kwangtung Army. The Chinese were putting up fierce resistance, employing unconventional guerilla warfare tactics that resulted in far too many Japanese combat deaths. The Japanese needed time to regroup, reassure the home folks, and convince a skeptical Emperor Hirohito that the China venture was indeed a worthwhile war. This uneasy peace would last

four years, be interrupted by a vicious governmental takeover by Japanese militaristic radicals in Tokyo, and would resume fueled by a thirst for revenge which resulted in a level of brutality and horror seldom seen in warfare of any age. In any event, the League of Nations had shown how useless it truly was, and the Open Door was rapidly being slammed shut by Japan.

The 1930s were the Golden Era of Japanese imperialism. New radical nationalist prime minister Hideki Tojo recognized that Japanese aggression was starting to make the world a bit nervous, so he sought to solidify her political status in 1936 by initiating alliance talks with another growing aggressor, Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Also in 1936, infected with a desire to render “Asia only for Asians” (or rather, “Asia only for Japan”), Japan issued what amounted to a Japanese “Monroe Doctrine,” and warned the west (this means YOU, America!) to stay out of Asia. By 1937, the alliance talks were completed, and with the inclusion of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy formed the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis. On 7 July 1937, Japan sent a strong message to the rest of the world when Japanese troops engaged in brutal fighting with Nationalist Chinese forces in the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, after which Japan formally declared war on China (the Second Sino-Japanese War). In this battle, Japanese soldiers gave a horrific indication into what the Chinese could expect from Japanese occupation, as they inflicted brutal atrocities on the civilian population, featuring public torture and executions.6

Most Americans felt sympathy for the suffering Chinese, but the overwhelming desire for isolationism prevented any direct American aid. In October 1937, in response to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Franklin Roosevelt issued the Quarantine Speech, in which he warned the Japanese that unless their obvious war of aggression did not cease, the United States would be forced to impose economic restrictions on Japan. The Japanese, knowing full well that these could include embargos on vital raw materials of steel, rubber, and especially oil, were outraged at what they perceived to be an issue that was none of Washington’s business. In response, Japanese soldiers increased attacks on American property and citizens in China, violations which included destruction of American business, kidnapping, murder, and even rape. This violence hit its peak when, in December 1937, Japanese warplanes attacked the American gunboat USS Panay, which was deployed to the Yangtze River to protect American citizens.

Ok, here’s a bit of irony for you. The attack on the Panay occurred while an American warship was in foreign waters protecting American citizens (primarily relief workers, priests, and nuns) from harassment. While the American people were understandably outraged, however, many agreed with Japan that the Panay

had no business in China in the first place. As a result Washington settled for a Japanese apology and 2.2 million dollars in reparations. The irony? Where was the indignity and war fever that accompanied the sinking of the USS Maine in 1898? The Lusitania in 1917? Ya think the memory of World War I was lurking about?

The US and Japan: Intimidation, Provocation, Escalation Bolstered by the apparent weakness of any international opposition, especially those lily-livered

Americans, Japan became emboldened. In 1938, she introduced to the world the Asian New Order, which once and for all destroyed the Open Door by declaring null and void all pre-existing agreements in China. The United States responded in 1939 by canceling the US-Japanese commercial treaty, in which Japan enjoyed a tariff-free trade relationship with the US. Japan, angry that the US would not recognize her growing sphere of influence in Asia, announced in the summer of 1940 the official political existence of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, or, in other words, the Imperial Japanese Empire. FDR, feeling growing pressure from not only Americans but also European allies to cease all raw material shipments to Japan, decided to wait instead for a strengthening of the so-called ABCD Powers (the American-British-Chinese-Dutch alliance in the Pacific). Isolationist Americans would accept American intervention into Japanese aggression IF

6 One such incident was the infamous December 1937 Rape of Nanking, in which thousands of Japanese soldiers simply went berserk on the civilian Chinese population. The amount and degree of torture and outright murder need not be recounted here; trust me it was unbelievably horrid, so much so that even the Nazi representatives to China protested the depth of degradation. In 1995, historian Iris Chang wrote the definitive account of this atrocity and subsequently embarked on a global campaign to force Japan to formally recognize and apologize for the incident. As of this date, Japan has refused to even recognize the Rape of Nanking. As for Ms. Chang, in 1999, after years of dealing with the horrible reminders of that which she had written and the refusal and condescending nature of the official Japanese response, she could stand the horror no more, and committed suicide in Los Angeles. Now you know why the flag came down when the Chinese educators came to visit . . . out of respect for those innocents murdered at Nanking.

the US were part of an alliance. Now get real: FDR comes off looking ridiculous here; the ABCD alliance was a mere pipe dream because (here’s MY version of the ABCD’s): (a) The Chinese have enough problems at home, (b) the British, having been shoved off of the European continent at Dunkirk are fighting for their lives in the Battle of Britain, (c) The Dutch are reeling from the German blitzkrieg that blasted through Holland, and (d) what the heck kind of help are you going to get from Holland anyway that can blunt the aggression of the Japanese juggernaut? What are you going to do? Throw wooden shoes and/or tulips at them? Perhaps some Gouda cheese? C’mon, man, THINK!!!!

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

(Note the Presence of Raw Materials)

Japanese Propaganda Extolling the Virtues of the Co-Prosperity Sphere

Once FDR came to his senses and realized that this ABCD scheme was recognized for what it was--a

transparent attempt to stall a decision regarding Japanese occupation of the Pacific—he finally took action that actually had some teeth. In July 1940, the President notified the Japanese that the United States would not stand idly by while the Japanese ravaged China using weapons made of American steel, rubber, and running on American oil. To drive his point home he suspended all shipments of aviation fuel to Japan. Japan, in a move that indicated how little respect and regard she held for those American buffoons, announced in September of 1940 that she had added military muscle to her alliance with Germany by signing the infamous Tri-Partite (or Three Party) Pact, in which the three signatories—Germany, Italy, and Japan—pledged a mutual defense agreement. In other words, if one country was attacked all three would declare war on the aggressor. Brilliant move on Japan’s part: if the US decided to use force to stop Japanese Pacific land-grabbing, then all Japan had to do was to declare war, and America would find herself smack-dab in the middle of an all-out, full fledged, two-front, two-ocean global war for which she was ill-prepared. Not only this, but the unprepared Americans would be fighting a three-headed enemy that featured the strongest land army on earth (Germany’s Wehrmacht), the mightiest navy on earth (Japan’s Imperial Kaigun), and the . . . uh, well, let’s hold out an opinion on Mussolini’s being the best anything. WAIT!!!! FOOD!!! Yeah, food; Mussolini’s army had the best food. Yep, that’s it; can’t defeat an army that marches on fettuccini, cannelloni, and Chianti.7 In any event, Japan’s joining the Tri-Partite Axis was a security-wise stroke of genius, designed to make American think twice before getting too arrogant.

7 First person knowledge here; my grandfather and namesake Pascuale Guiseppe Scalia was a cook in the Italian navy.

German and Japanese Officials Celebrate the Signing of the Tri-Partite Pact 1940

This obvious threat to American involvement (you know, “C’mon, America. Try and beat me up and I’ll tell my big brother Adolph!) prompted FDR to respond in kind, and on 26 September 1940, he issues an all-out embargo on steel ONLY. While this angered Japan, it did not prompt retaliation, primarily because OIL is the number one factor here. A loss of steel, Japan can deal with; oil she cannot do without.

Regardless, Japan knew that conflict with America is for all practical purposes a matter of time. To strengthen her position, she stuns the world with her signing of a Non-Aggression Pact with the USSR in April 1941. This pact guarantees that, whatever happens, Japan cannot be attacked by the USSR from her weak Chinese flank, thus eliminating the prospect of a two-front war. Again, very smart move; wonder why the US didn’t see the ominous nature of this pact? Feeling confident that the Americans are full of hot air and no threat at all, Japan sets out to find her own source for steel and rubber by invading French Indochina, what we today call Vietnam and Cambodia. In response, FDR has had enough and (1) freezes all Japanese economic assets in the US, and (2) finally places an embargo on all supplies of oil going to Japan,8 a move which guarantees that the two countries will soon be at war. Japan, a country that heavily depended on her oil-gulping navy and which imported 60% of her oil from America, has only 12 to 18 months of an oil supply with this source cut. She is backed into a corner, and will have to do something . . . quick.

8 In a show of solidarity, Britain and Holland also froze Japanese assets and ceased shipments of oil to Japan.

GERMANYGERMANYGERMANYGERMANY: 1920: 1920: 1920: 1920----1939193919391939

“The German nation is sick of principles and doctrines, literary existence and theoretical greatness. What it wants is Power, Power, Power. Whoever gives it Power, to him it will give more honor than he can ever imagine.”

Julius Fröbel, 1848

Any account of Germany’s astonishing rise to dominance in the 1920s and 1930s must begin and end

with the Treaty of Versailles. Her staggering $3.2 billion dollar reparation debt, crippling depression of catastrophic proportions,9 humiliation by virtue of the War Guilt Clause, and subsequent miraculous rise from oblivion was as much the fault of the short-sighted victors of World War I as it was the result of the desperation of the German people that cumulated in their installing an insane megalomaniac at the helm of their country. Well, one person’s madman is another’s savior; and while Adolph Hitler’s National Socialists impressed some and frightened others, it must be understood that, throughout the 1930s, he promised and achieved an economic miracle the likes of which depression-ridden America could only dream. Whatever the outcome of his ill-fated Thousand Year Reich, during the times when Germany needed him—or anyone—most, Hitler delivered. In short: he did exactly what he told the German people he would do--and they worshipped him for it. Why? Because when people are unemployed, starving, have lost their national pride, globally humiliated, and are staving off the specter of bloody Stalinist communism they could care less how things get better . . . as long as they do get better. Hard to argue with that logic.

German Hyperinflation of the 1920s:

German Children Playing with Billions of Deutschmarks

9 By the late 1920s, Germany’s inflation was the worst in history. It took 4.2 trillion Deutschmarks to equal one US dollar, a rate so absurd that German money was nowhere near worth the ink and paper on which it was printed.

Germany’s immediate situation after the Treaty of Versailles is fairly easy to describe: hopeless and dangerous. She had been forced to surrender the Rhineland (her rich Ruhr and Saar Valley industrial sectors) to French occupation (a fate worse than death to most Germans), therefore removing her status of one of the world’s foremost industrial nations; her once-proud military and navy was eliminated by treaty,10 and she was left only with a token 100,000-man police force; her eastern border had become a sieve for communist infiltration, who saw rich recruiting ground (desperation always is) for an expansion of Lenin’s (and now Stalin’s) revolution; and, perhaps most ominously, she had to suffer the indignity and shame of accepting blame for a war that she neither began nor really wanted. Germany was humiliated in defeat, an insult made all the more painful by the memory of Woodrow Wilson’s promise of an equitable treaty—remember the “Peace Without Victory” business?—based on his Fourteen Points. Of such situations dangerous times are born.

The initial sign that something wasn’t quite right was Germany’s forced experiment with democratic government. One of the provisions of the Versailles Treaty was the Allies’ insistence that Germany reform her government as a democracy. In response, Germany began the 1920s governed by the Weimar Republic, which lasted about as long as you might imagine. First of all, the Weimar’s capitalistic, laissez faire economy was not designed to combat the increasing throes of Germany’s depression (no purely capitalist economy is; remember, this is the system that claims non-regulation as the answer to all problems), secondly, German society was so unstable and racked by communist and anarchist threats that any form of government—save for a direct authoritarian government—could have kept social order. Regarding the increasing depth of human suffering throughout Germany, well, those Communists can make an awfully-convincing argument. Better Red bread than no bread. The result of the Weimar experiment? Predicable; German chancellor Gustav Stresseman, who was actually making progress, was assassinated, presumably by the communists, thus sending Germany into a political free-for-all. Throughout the 1920s, Germany rolled and boiled with revolution and violent internal factional wars between conservatives, communists, anarchists, and nationalistic groups. Meanwhile her people starved and looked for both answers and scapegoats.

One such group, the National Socialist German Worker’s Party (the NSDAP, or as we tyipically call them, the Nazis), was led by German World War I hero general Erich von Ludendorf and an unknown World War I private named Adolph Hitler. In 1923, the pair tried to overthrow the civic government of Munich in the famous Beer Hall Putsch¸ which, of course, failed. Von Ludendorf was banished from Bavaria, but Hitler was arrested and served nine months in Landsberg Prison. While in prison, Hitler laid out his vision for the future of Germany in his now-infamous paean to hatred Mein Kampf: a book that was read by far too few westerners and far too many Germans.

The Defendants of the Beer Hall Putsch

10 In the case of the Imperial German Navy, it had been scuttled by its officers and sent to the bottom of the British naval base at Scapa Flow in Scotland, rather than to allow it to fall into the hands of the hated British.

A Masterpiece of a Twisted Mind: Mein Kampf

At the same time, General Hans von Seeckt, head of the German General Staff (which had not been

dismantled at Versailles) contacted Soviet officials about a covert plan involving something called “Special Group R.” This plan proposed the construction of a new German army in Russia, where it would be out of sight and mind of the Versailles commissioners. In secret negotiations Germany pledged to join a joint military alliance under dual command of German and Soviet officers in exchange for Soviet cooperation in constructing a new German military, specifically the army and air force. This agreement with the Lenin government (Lenin would die in 1924) was finalized in the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo,11 and the development of what would soon become the mightiest fighting force on earth commenced. Throughout the 1920s, Germany developed and experimented with thousands of tanks, shells, and all-metal aircraft, including the aircraft that would come to symbolize German terror in the 1940s, the JU-87 Stuka, years before any such animals appeared on Allied drawing boards. German commanders were instructed in land warfare tactics by the brilliant Soviet Marshall Mikhail Tuckhachevski, attended Soviet military academies and seminars, and experimented with new, radical airborne and armored assault tactics. Out of sight of the Allies, who avoided monitoring the Soviet Union or anywhere else that even smelled of communism, Germany became “an army in search of a country.” How could such a massive undertaking proceed undetected? You should have figured this out. There was something of far more concern to the Allies than German rearmament: what else? Money. See, while Germany secretly rearmed, she was simultaneously paying no war reparations (with no money nor way to make money, how could she?). In response, the British and French began to tighten the screws, primarily because the US was tightening the screws on them due to their war debt non-payment.

Couldn’t the French and British see that Germany lie prostrate at the feet of the world, a position into which they placed her? Well, yes and no. The primary reason France and Britain were screaming for reparation payments was that both of them owed the United States a huge war debt, both to the government and to private investors, to the tune of over $7 billion. As early as 1923, both countries notified the US that they

11 The Rapollo Treaty called for a joint German-Soviet army that would eventually wage war against the French and British for control of the continent. In a telling commentary, von Seeckt told Lenin’s representative to the treaty that “it is possible that Germany and the Red Army might fight against France, but not with a German Red Army.” .

could not pay their debts,12 NOT because they didn’t have the money, but because any American debt payment would have to come from German reparation payments. To be fair (HEY!! I can be fair if I have to!), both countries were suffering from the same economic ills as was the rest of the world. However, placing the burden of their debts squarely on the backs of an already-devastated Germany produced two results: first, it increased the pressure on Germany to produce the payments lest France occupy even more German territory as a penalty; and second, German resentment began to reach the saturation limit. Like I said at the before, you can only push people so far. Germany in the late 1920s became ripe for someone with ambition, anyone with nationalistic pride and political charisma that knows the depth of resentment and how to manipulate it, to take firm control: especially if he can deliver. Things get serious in Germany Adolph Hitler (you have perhaps heard of this guy? jeez, Louise, how could anyone forget him?) was by no stretch of the imagination a great man, but he was undoubtedly a political genius with a talent of knowing just which buttons to push. Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, Hitler was the right man in the right place at precisely the right moment in history. He pointed to Germany’s social unrest and debilitating depression and reminded the German people that the Fatherland had been dealt her present situation of bitter defeat and humiliation by the hands of her hated, traditional enemies, Britain and France. As a result, Hitler uncovered and nurtured a growing faction of Germans that harbored severe psychological resentment, and subsequently thirsted for revenge. This dangerous faction was politically countered by an equally rabid group who felt that the First World War had proven the disastrous folly of capitalism, and that communism offered Germany its only path to the future. One wonders that, without knowledge of Stalin’s brutal purges, if the Communists might have gained control of Germany? In any event, by 1933 Germany faced a political crossroads, one for which Hitler had prepared since 11 November 1918.

Hitler and Nazi Campaign Posters, 1933

12 France’s favorite “explanation (we’d call it an excuse) was this: When one business loans another business money, it is with the intention that the loans will be used to created profit, form which the loaner business can be repaid. Since the Americans loans were for armaments, from which obviously no profit can be made, the United States should not expect repayment, and in fact should apologize to Britain and France for even suggesting such an insult. Yep, these are our friends.

The election of 1933 in Germany was possibly the most critical in that nation’s history. The general fear

was that the Communists had become so popular due to promises of bread and jobs, especially in Munich, that there as a real danger that Germany would go Red. By the time of the election, only two viable parties stood for election: the German Communists and Hitler’s National Socialists. In a vote that was as much reactionary to the fear of Communism as it was for a genuine preference for the National Socialists, Germany elected popular moderate, World War I hero, 80-year old Christian Democrat, and totally inept Paul von Hindenburg as president, with Hitler his chancellor.

Hitler was a master politician, gaining favor with conservative German industrialists with his anti-Communist rants while, at the same time, ingratiating himself to middle class Germans, many of whom today still refer to him as “Uncle Adolph.” His political charisma, which manifested itself in manic, railing rhetoric against the War Guilt Clause and Versailles Treaty, as well as his placing the blame for Germany’s economic ills on the country’s relatively prosperous population of Jews,13 quickly captured the imagination of the German people and ignited a rebirth of the German nationalist spirit long buried with Frederick the Great and Otto von Bismarck. Hitler promised a reinvigorated Germany, one that would rise from the shame and humiliation of Versailles to take her place as primary among nations. This global ascendancy was guaranteed by virtue of Germany’s Prussian bloodlines and the superior qualities of the “Aryan Race,”14 of which no racial “pollution” would be allowed. It is this appeal, this cognizance of supposed ethnic and racial superiority that prompted Germans to regain their surrendered national honor and once again find pride and value in being German. In the depressed social and economic state of 1920s and 1930s Germany, Adolph Hitler played to an amazingly attentive . . . and restless . . . crowd.

13 Hitler, who had always held the Jews responsible for everything from economic ruin to runny noses, pointed to the victors of Versailles, and used the large Jewish population of Britain, France, and the United States as proof that “international Jewry” had not only dictated the Versailles Treaty to Germany, but was also determined to destroy European culture and Germany in particular. Desperation makes such nonsense believable, and Hitler had plenty of desperation with which to work his magic. 14 While it can be argued that “Aryan” may represent an ethnic cultural trait, it is by no means a race, much less a master race.

The result? In the astonishing six years between his election as chancellor, Hitler proclaimed himself dictator of Germany15 and subsequently elevated Germany to the mantle of Europe’s—and at the time, the world’s—strongest military power, he forcibly gained control of both the German General Staff and foreign policy, he brazenly flaunted the Versailles Treaty by openly revealing the secret rearmament program16 (while daring the French and British to stop him), and placed Germany at the top of Europe’s economic fortunes by practically eliminating unemployment by either putting Germans to work either with public projects or drafting them into the military. All in all, Hitler performed an economic and political miracle in the one place in which no one thought it could ever happen. However, there was collateral damage: along the way Hitler destroyed any vestige of German democracy, eliminated his political rivals, and decimated Germany’s educated Jewish population.17 Drunk with his accomplishment and seething for further revenge, in spring 1936, Adolph Hitler set Europe—and the word—on a course that would result in a global war of which humanity had never seen the likes. Aggression In March 1936, Hitler drove his Wehrmacht deep into the French-occupied Rhineland, Ruhr, and Saar Valleys, fortified and reclaimed them for Germany. Hitler to France: “Stop me.” France to Hitler: “Can we offer you some wine with that bread and cheese while we get the heck outta here?”18 In early 1938, Hitler announced his plan to annex his homeland of Austria in what he called the Anschluss; a directive in which Nazi agents infiltrated Austria and were so effective that, by March, Hitler was able to annex the country and its six million Germans to his new German “Thousand Year Reich.” Hitler to Britain and France? “Stop me.” Britain and France to Hitler: “Well, we suppose we can let you have Austria, but please don’t do this again. OK?” These tepid responses to outright violation of the Versailles Treaty showed Hitler than neither France nor Britain were willing to risk another war for the sake of Austria or any other two-bit Eastern European country; this assumption is known as a policy of appeasement, that is, giving something small up with the intention of preventing something larger and worse later on. Hitler defined it as buying time. Preseason In 1936, pro-Catholic forces under Generalissimo Ferdinand Franco rose up to overthrow the republican, anti-cleric, democratic government of Spain. A mere sore spot at first, this revolution resulted in the Spanish Civil War. Franco was outwardly supported by German and Italian troops, who used the brutal conflict as a dress rehearsal for bad things to come later. In Spain, Germany perfected armored and airborne assaults, as well as devised a brilliant quick-strike offensive known as blitzkrieg. All in all, Germany gained valuable practical wartime experience, and while the world looked on with alarm, still no one raised more than an official protest. Once again, German militarism and aggression proceeded unchecked.19 Presenting Neville Chamberlain, the King Goober of them All!! By 1938, the world looked upon Nazi Germany with a combination of awe and fear. In America, secretary of state Stimson responded to rumors that the Nazis were persecuting Jewish civilians by publicly branding Hitler a “brutal dictator,” a statement that horrified British officials (they actually asked FDR to muzzle Stimson) who wanted to keep Adolph happy at any costs lest he start another European war. Hitler, who you must realize is NO DUMMY, sensed trepidation at this news; while he laughed at French and British attempts to curb his ambitions, he was genuinely concerned about the Americans and their industrial and military potential (he remembered that the Americans were the

15 Hindenburg kicked the bucket in 1934, and Hitler claimed himself Fuehrer, or leader of both the Nazi Party and the German people, or in his words: ”ein volk, ein Deutschland, ein Fueher.” 16 Hitler justified his rearmament on the grounds that the victors of Versailles failed to disarm themselves adequately at the armament conferences. This, Hitler claimed, was proof that the Allies had no intention of peace, and therefore Germany was justified in rearming to protect herself. Convincing argument. 17 Most Jewish educators and professors fled Germany after Hitler closed the universities in 1936. One of these émigrés was Albert Einstein, the man that in 1940 told FDR that Germany had been working to build an atomic bomb since the early 1920s. How did he know this? Einstein and Werner Heisenberg directed the German effort: the Jewish Einstein fled to America while the German Heisenberg remained in Germany to continue his ominous work. 18 See French jokes in footnote 4. 19What a strange war! The democratic republican Loyalists, although supported by the US, received no help from America. Why not? Because they also received aid from the Soviets, who were fighting National Socialism anywhere in hopes of wresting Germany away from Hitler. Americans could not bear the thought of helping Communists do anything, and sacrificed republican Spain for this principle. Does it strike you as ironic that Germany is fighting Russia by proxy with the same weapons and tactics that the Soviets helped them build back in 1922? Like I said, strange war. Oh yeah, Franco, with his German and Italian thugs, won.

deciding factor in World War I). As a result, Hitler would keep a keen ear tuned to America, while still grabbing as much of Europe as he could.

In the fall of 1938, Hitler announced a new German policy of Lebensraum, which called for German occupation of eastern European areas for German living space. In his first application of this policy, Hitler demanded that Czechoslovakia return the German-speaking southern section of the country, which he named the Sudetenland, to Germany. The gutsy Czechs, who had no intention to give Hitler anything other than the fight of his life, amassed their small army at the German border and prepare for a joint German-Italian invasion. Part of this bravado was based upon the fact that the newly-formed nation of Czechoslovakia was designated a mandate at Versailles, and as such had guarantees of British and French defensive help in matters such as Hitler’s threats. Hitler knew that neither Britain nor France would risk a war over part of Czechoslovakia, and subsequently presented the Czechs with a deadline for compliance. However, Hitler wasn’t the only one who knew that the French and British would welch on their agreements.

FDR also knew it, and personally called both Mussolini and Hitler to try and reason with the pair. Of course, FDR’s request did nothing, but the possibility of US intervention caused the dictators to offer a compromise to Britain and France, whom they knew they could intimidate. This compromise resulted in the September 1938 Munich Conference, sometimes infamously known as “September in Munich,” which would go down in history as one of the greatest sell-outs of all time.

At Munich, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the poster boy of appeasement, agreed to give the Sudetenland to Germany in exchange for a promise that Hitler would seek no further territory in Europe. (Wondering of anyone asked the Czechs for their opinion? Your right: no one did.) Hitler, obviously choking back the laughter, agreed, and Chamberlain returned to England the next week with a promise that he had achieved “peace in our time.” Hitler, of course, had no such intention. Think about it: why should he compromise? Both Britain and France were intimidated to the hilt by German aggression, and Hitler knew that he could do whatever he darned well pleased. The potential of war with Britain and France? Bring it on. Hitler’s concerns lie not in London or Paris, but rather across the Atlantic in Washington. And as we will see later, he had sufficient reason to also not fear the Americans. For the record, historian Carl Sulzberger put it best when he labeled Munich as “surrender on the installment plan.”

Neville Chamberlain Tells the British People he has achieved “peace in our time.” What a tool.

Munich, Shmunich You guessed it. It only took until March of 1939 for Hitler to invade and seize ALL of Czechoslovakia. After the expected British and French protests, Hitler offered up one final (according to him) demand: Poland, another mandate country created after World War I. The northern section of the country, which included the German state of Prussia, was divided by the Treaty of Versailles in order to give Poland a route to the North Sea deep-water port of Danzig. This stretch of land which connected land-locked Poland to Danzig was known as the Polish Corridor, and was a thorn in Hitler’s side. Hitler wanted to unify East Prussia with the rest of Germany, and told Britain and France that he intended to do just that. This time, stung by world criticism along with the farce that was Munich, the two Allies gave notice: Touch Poland and we will declare war.

German Aggression 1936-1939: Versailles? What’s Versailles?

Hitler, again no dummy, absolutely took the two Allies seriously; after all, who better than he understood humiliation? As a result, he made a bold stroke of stunning diplomatic genius to stave off any Allied reaction to his Poland plans. The result would shake the world.

The one country that feared Hitler’s Nazi regime, who considered the Communists just a tad better than Jews, worse than any other was Stalin’s Russia. Upon hearing of Hitler’s Polish scheme, Stalin approached the Allies to seek out a defensive alliance. However, no free country would even entertain being an ally of Stalin’s;

the rumors of his brutal purges20 were legendary, and sickened the world. Therefore, Stalin was stunned when German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop showed up on his doorstep and offered the Russians a treaty that would grant them the security from Nazi aggression that the Allies refused to grant. In August 1939, Germany and Soviet Russia signed the Russo-German Non-Aggression Pact, which provided the following: first, Germany pledged not to invade the Soviet Union. Secondly, Germany agreed that, upon conquest of Poland, that she would divide the country into two security buffer zones for both Germany and Russia. However, to get these zones, the Russians had to participate in any invasion of Poland. Hitler didn’t give away land for free. As far as the rest of the world was concerned: this could only mean trouble; the unholy vision of a Nazi/Soviet/Imperial Japanese empire appeared all too possible . . .and still no one worried about Mussolini and his Italian fascists . . .21

WHEREFORE ART THOU AMERICA?WHEREFORE ART THOU AMERICA?WHEREFORE ART THOU AMERICA?WHEREFORE ART THOU AMERICA?

Now that you see the horrible condition in which the world found itself, in addition to the rapidly-

shrinking prospects of peace by 1939-1940, we can go back and analyze America’s response to dictatorial and imperial aggression. Remember: the key idea here is the American people’s demand for ISOLATION, and it is this factor that will hinder Franklin Roosevelt’s reactions to German, Italian, and Japanese aggression and ultimately cause him to trash American law, as well as the Constitution, to get what he wanted as well as where he wanted the nation to go.

Warning: it ain’t pretty.

AMERICA: THE ONLY EASY DAY WAS YESTERDAY

Japan With her acquisitions of Guam, Wake Island, Hawaii, and most importantly, the Philippines, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries the United States laid claim to the Pacific Ocean as a quasi-American lake. I mean, realistically, who in the world could match the might of TR’s Great White Fleet or the morality of American Manifest Destiny? To entertain any other possibility was laughable . . . and if you didn’t laugh, well, you might discover one morning a battleship at your front door. I’d laugh if I were you.

The biggest goof that TR made was letting the Japanese see his hand, or what they would have to contend with in a confrontation with the United States. I mean, you just don’t float up into Tokyo Harbor with your fleet (painted white no less) and let the bad guys assess your strength. The result was that Japan knew that, if she ever had to confront the Americans, she knew exactly what she needed to build . . . and to what extent she needed to perfect or improve upon it. Smart.

Japanese incursions into China violated the American concept of the Open Door, but it was really the unsettling fact that American steel, rubber, and oil propelled the murderous Japanese war machine China. As a result, the primary reason that the Japanese paid any attention at all to US policies such as the 1932 Stimson Doctrine was the potential loss of American raw materials, especially oil (remember how quickly the Japanese apologized for the Panay Incident). You have seen the dangerous path that FDR tread in that regard; by November 1940 Japan was facing desperation, as well as an American ultimatum. More on that later.

It is important to realize that America’s foreign policy regarding Japanese aggression was reactionary; in other words, Japan would do something and the US responded. However, you will see

20 Upon seizing power by murdering his competition, Stalin solidified his power by initiating one of the greatest mass-murders in history. In the infamous purges of the 1920s and 1930s, he eliminated any suspected enemy to his regime—both real and imagined—through brutal force, murder, mass arrests and imprisonment in the work camps in Siberia. Most horrific, however, was his man-made famine of 1934, in which millions of middle class and poor peasants in the Ukraine died of starvation. No poison gas needed here. Original figures placed the death count at upwards of 40 million; however, with the 1989 fall of the USSR and subsequent opening of the former Soviet Archives, the number is believed to exceed 60 million. Stalin, beyond any doubt, made Hitler’s Nazis look like mere rookies when it comes to mass murder. The sickening irony here? Guess with whom the United States allied herself in World War II? 21 Primarily because, and this is painful, Mussolini’s Italian thugs were total buffoons and idiots. For the record, Mussolini never traveled in Sicily due to the threat of assassination by jealous Mafia chieftains.

that American foreign policy regarding Europe was precautionary; in other words, formulated in advance of actions. This should start you thinking: WHY?? The Basis of American Neutrality 1920-1939 US neutrality during this period is often called a “storm cellar” measure because it was designed to be a temporary fix that would allow other countries (France and Britain) to solve the world’s problems while the US “waited out the storm” under the claim of neutrality. The desire for American neutrality was prompted by four primary causes.

1) Post-war disillusionment. After the promise of Wilson’s Fourteen Points, their dismemberment by the French and British, and the subsequent failure if the Treaty in the Senate, many Americans were sick of global war and/or Wilsonesque diplomacy. They simply were sick and tired of Europe, Japan . . . practical anywhere save for the good ol’ USA. Let those idiots kill themselves off, just leave us out of it.

2) War Debts. You know, Americans do harbor a sense of fairness, but the Allies’ upper handed refusal to pay their debt to America left a sour taste in American taxpayers’ mouths. I mean, where would these welchers be if the US hadn’t entered the war in 1918? And where do they get off refusing to pay what they owe? Is this what American boys died for in the mud of France? The heck with them. Let them fight off the Nazis themselves; you get what you pay for.

3) The Great Depression. Nothing mattered more to Americans than recovery from the Great Depression. Simply put, nothing in Europe or the Pacific could even remotely reach the desire to go back to work to feed and clothe one’s family.

4) The Merchants of Death. In the years leading up to American participation in the war (1914-1917), American financiers (led by our boy JP Morgan) and munitions manufacturers (Colt, DuPont among others) profited handsomely from Europe’s warring powers, both Allied and Central. In 1923, American muckrakers and yellow journalists began printing exposes about the millions that Americans companies made off of death and destruction, the so-called “merchants of death.” So great was the clamor and public outrage that Senator Gerald Nye formed a Senate investigative committee; the Nye Committee found that some Americans indeed had made immoral fortunes off of the paraphernalia of war. Public revulsion prompted two reactions: First, all of a sudden, American cries that unrestricted submarine warfare was immoral seemed unimportant and hypocritical, and second, World War I became not a heroics crusade to “make the world safe for democracy,” but rather a colossal blunder in which the United States should have never found herself.

The cumulative result of these factors was an intense desire to isolate America from the madness

of the world, and regarding official diplomacy ensure that America was, and remained, steadfastly neutral.

Britain, Germany, and American Neutrality With the realization that Hitler may cause problems similar to those present in World War I, in 1935 the United States passed the first of a series of Neutrality Laws that would lay out in distinct detail what foreign countries (you listening Britain and France?) could expect from the United States during this time of crisis in Europe.

OK, there you have it. This is the state of official American neutrality as it exists at the dawn of hostilities. However, it is difficult to appreciate the immediacy and reasoning behind these if you cannot place them into context with the events which prompted their formation. So, as a continued public service to you, the next—and last—installment of this chapter will trace America’s slide into World War II on both fronts—Pacific and European—as well as America’s response to the escalation.

Hold on.

1939-1940

EuropeEuropeEuropeEurope In September 1939, Hitler once again proved that he didn’t take anything the French and British

said seriously, and brutally invaded Poland by virtue of the Wehrmacht’s “blitzkrieg” strategy.22 With the help of his Soviet co-conspirators, he crushed Poland within the month. Two days after the invasion, Britain and France declared war on Germany. World War II in Europe had begun.

The months after the fall of Poland became sardonically known as the “sitzkrieg,” primarily because

nothing happened. Most observers thought that Hitler was at last satisfied, and began to write off the Poland invasion as merely an incident. However, in the spring of 1940, the so-called “Phony War” erupted with vicious ferocity as German troops blitzed their way though Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, and, most importantly of all, France. In fact, Hitler forced French officials to sign the instrument of surrender in the same railcar in which Germany was forced to sign the Armistice in 1918. Must’ve been sweet, and I can’t say that I blame him.

22 In the Blitzkrieg, a rapid deployment is necessary to surprise the enemy. The trick is to hit the enemy as hard as you can as quickly as you can, and occupy his territory before he can mount any serious countermove. It worked really well, and was well-suited to Germany’s army and tactics. It would prove deviously effective until Hitler got greedy and thought that such a short-term strategy might work on the expansive tundra of, oh, say, Russia . . . .

The 1940 offensive absolutely scared the bejeezus out of Americans, so much so that FDR immediately called for two overtly anti-neutrality measures. First, he called for and received a congressional appropriation of over $18 billion to devote to American preparedness, and second, he instituted America’s first peacetime conscription act. Again, remember that this is in response to Hitler in Europe, NOT Japan in the Pacific.

The The The The PacificPacificPacificPacific By the end of summer 1940, FDR had cancelled the US-Japanese commercial treaty, banned the sale of

aviation fuel to Japan, and Japan had proclaimed her empire as the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In addition, in September 1940, directly after the invasion of Poland, Japan, Italy, and Germany all signed the Tri Partite Pact, which pledged each of the three to the other’s defense if attacked. The US, tired of playing around with the Japanese and becoming increasingly aware of events in Europe, sought to shut the Japanese up by placing an embargo on steel shipments to Japan.

EuropeEuropeEuropeEurope In response to the increasing number if U-Boat attacks on British shipping, on 3 September 1940 FDR

issued an executive order (NOT a law that was passed through the senate) that resulted in the Destroyers for Bases Deal. In this scheme, Britain would receive fifty “obsolete” American World War I-era destroyers(ideal for anti-submarine warfare) in exchange for eight bases in Canada and the Caribbean, officially listed as “gifts” of the British government. This act was a direct violation of American neutrality and unconstitutional at best. FDR’s explanation? “It would take to long for Congress to deliberate, and the window of opportunity might very well close.” Yeah, right: The British, desperately in need of anti-submarine protection and only weeks away from starving to death, are going to try and squeeze the Americans.

The destroyers deal was shortly followed by the Cash and Carry program, in which “anyone” (uh-huh) could purchase American supplies provided they (a) pay cash and (b) take delivery in their own ships, conditions designed to cloak the program in the veil of neutrality. The fact that Germany could not get past the British blockade in the North Sea sorta limited their chance to get in on the goodies . . . wait!! Ya think that may have been the intention all along? Well, in any event Cash and Carry didn’t last long as Brittan began to run out of cash. Consequently FDR was forced to find a new way to keep Cousin Churchill solvent . . . and alive.

FDR’s newest venture into the troubled waters of wartime neutrality came in November 1940 with the famous Lend-Lease deal. FDR, criticized during the election of 194023 for his playing fast and loose with American neutrality, knew he could not lend money or directly give military aid to Britain, so he came up with this little gem. He explained its guiding principle thusly: “Say your neighbor’s house is burning down, and if it does, it will also threaten your home. Well, of course you would loan him a garden hose to put the fire out with, with the knowledge that he would return it when the fire was put out. That’s what we are going to do with our British neighbor: loan him a fire hose with which to put out his fire, with the understanding that we will get it back when the fire is out.” Brilliant, right?; and downright Lincolnesque in analogy. I mean, how many tanks, planes, etc do you realistically expect back after a war? Senator Robert Taft assessed Lend-Lease like this: “Well, if my neighbor was dying of starvation, I’d give him some chewing gum if that’s all I had. But I damned sure would NOT want it returned; of what value would it be?” On 11 March 1941, a reluctant Congress, assured by Roosevelt that this measure would eliminate any fears of American entrance into the war, barely passed in Congress. Any vestige of American neutrality was now but a memory; any claim of such was the epitome of hypocrisy.24

23 This election is notable for two reasons. First, FDR challenges and defeats the American presidential tradition of two terms. Secondly, FDR solemnly promises Americans that he will NOT send American boys off the fight in a foreign war. Lyndon Johnson will likewise make an idiot of himself in 1964 regarding Vietnam. 24 Your brains should be screaming here . . . why in the world would Congress agree to such violations of neutrality? What could possibly trump the American people’s demand for isolation? You got it: THE GREAT DEPRESSION!!!! Building armaments to sell to Britain required workers, and Lord knows the US had plenty to spare. Now, if you consider that FDR’s New Deal programs such as the NYA and CCC funneled young men into organized work projects/training, the WPA took on the task of public works, and

1941

The North AtlanticThe North AtlanticThe North AtlanticThe North Atlantic

In early 1941, British and “neutral” (sarcasm intended) American governmental officials met in a secret naval conference off the coast of Newfoundland and arrived at what became known as the Atlantic Charter. The Charter concluded that:

1. The two countries agreed to coordinate Lend Lease with armed American naval vessels if needed (a violation of neutrality)

2. The two countries agreed to levels of American military aid once America entered the war (not if, but when)

3. The two countries agreed that, in the event of a Japanese declaration of war, both countries would embark on a “Europe First” policy; obviously, the Japanese were laughable as an enemy compared to the Germans. It is through this means that FDR plans to fight a global, two-front war. Works well if you are first priority by virtue of your fighting in Europe; really sucks if you are considered second-best by fighting in the Pacific . . . lots of marines and sailors still resentful about this.

After this point, things begin to escalate:

• In April 1941, in a move designed to protect British ships from U-boats, FDR orders the US Army to occupy the Danish possession of Greenland for use as a naval base; no one asks the Nazi-puppet Danish occupation government for permission. In May 1941, Congress authorizes the US Navy to seize any Axis-owned vessel in American ports; they will be turned over to the British. This action is necessary, according to FDR, due to an impending “unlimited national emergency.”

• April 1941: FDR authorizes US patrol boats to track and radio U-Boat positions to British warships and aircraft; this measure is necessary to “guarantee US neutrality.” Also, the US Navy begins to escort British merchant ships in the convoy system; however, they will not go beyond Iceland with their escort.

• April 1941: USS Niblack depth-charges a German U-boat; FDR admits to no casualties despite German claims that the entire crew was killed.

• July 1941: FDR announces that the United States will occupy Iceland to further its reach in protecting Britain’s merchant fleet.

• On 21 May 1941, the US Merchant ship Robin Moor is torpedoed in the South Atlantic by a U-Boat. The Germans claim that Moor was carrying munitions to British South Africa, a claim that no one in America disputes. FDR, in response, freezes German and Italian assets in American and expels German and Italian diplomats. The Axis partners respond by doing the same.

• September 1941: USS Greer reports that two torpedoes were fired at her unprovoked, and in retaliation Greer depth charged U-Boat. Submarine sunk with all hands lost; it is later revealed that Greer had tracked and radioed U-boat’s position to a British destroyer for three hours prior to U-boat’s attack on Greer. FDR responded with orders to all US ships to shoot any U-boat on sight, no warning required. US is engaged with full-fledged undeclared naval war while still maintaining neutrality.

• October 1941: FDR requests that the Neutrality Act of 1939 be revoked; he barely gets this after heated debate in Congress. Later in the month, the USS Kearny is damaged by an encounter with a U-Boat. FDR’s indignation was tempered when it was revealed that Kearny had been trailing the submarine for four hours, relaying her position to British anti-submarine vessels.

American war industry was stirring due to Allied demands . . . friends, this is the same program by which Hitler ended Germany’s depression. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

• November 1941: USS Reuben James is sunk in the North Atlantic, the first American warship sunk by a Germany U-boat. Hitler was furious; his U-boat commanders had explicit orders NOT to engage American ships. America’s entry into the war at this early stage would be cataclysmic for Germany, and Hitler needed to bide his time. As a result, the undeclared naval war between the United States and Germany continued.

At this point, perhaps you can see where tense American eyes were trained on Europe and the North Atlantic. Practically everyone expected a declaration of war any day from Hitler, consequently the hit, when it came, would surely come from Europe. It didn’t.

JapanJapanJapanJapan In April, Japan and the USSR signed the Russo-Japanese Non-Aggression Pact, which solidified Japan’s

western and Chinese borders from attack. In June, Japan, convinced that war with America was inevitable, decided to seize her own oil source by invading Indochina, a move which FDR countered by freezing Japanese assets and cutting off Japan’s oil.

Japan Occupies Indochina

At this juncture, Japan has only 12-18 months of oil reserves. In September, Japanese Prime Minister

Konoye offered to discuss peace in Hawaii; however, American officials see this as only a propaganda ploy, and refuse. As a consequence of this failure, Konoye is removed from office and replaced by Hideki Tojo, an aggressive supporter of war with America. It is apparent to anyone that knows this brute what his preferred course of action is.

o 1 November: Foreign Minister Kurusu arrives in Washington DC to conduct what he believes to be serious negotiations designed to prevent a war. In actuality, and unknown to Kurusu, he is nothing more than a delaying tactic to buy time.

o 20 November: The Japanese government presents the United States with its final offer for avoiding a conflict. In this offer:

1. Japan agrees to withdraw from southern Indochina only.

2. The US must resume steel and oil shipments to Japan. 3. The US must not act to stop Japanese expansion in China.

o 26 November: US Secretary of State Cordell Hull responds to this offer with the Hull Memorandum. This is possibly the most important American foreign policy document of the 20th century; its contents virtually guarantee that the United States and Japan will soon be at war. Its provisions are:

1. Japan must evacuate China immediately. 2. Japan must agree to support Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai Shek in his war for a

democratic China against Mao’s Chinese Communists. This is the same general with whom the Japanese have been at war for over a decade.

3. Japan must sign a non-aggression agreement with the United States. 4. In return, the United States will resume trade with Japan; this includes the resumption of oil

and steel shipments.

The Japanese regard the Hull Memorandum to be insulting; they regard its provisions as disrespectful due to Japan’s perception that America wants to forget ten years of Japanese sacrifice and blood in China by covering the entire Chinese episode up with money. As a result, Japan decides to show the United States that she cannot be bought.

o 1 December: In a surprise move to Washington (and further proof that no one in DC understands the Japanese mindset) the Japanese thoroughly reject the Hull Memorandum. In Tokyo, the Naval Ministry notifies its chief of operations, Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, to proceed with his operational military plan designed to remove the United States as a obstacle to Japanese expansion into Indochina. This plan includes the launching of a pre-emptive strike from a six-carrier task force, traveling under the cover of an eastward moving storm front (a “sign from the gods; a gift from the Emperor”) to stand off the United States Pacific Fleet anchorage at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. At present, an attack is only an option; the force can be recalled within a twenty-four hour window if necessary, and any attack order must come from Yamamoto himself. To keep prying American eyes away from the task force, several divisions of troop ships are to set sail for Malaysia and most ominously, the Philippines. (Practically all Americans officials expected a Japanese attack to come at the Philippines; the movement of troop ships in that direction guaranteed the security of the carrier task force.) Premier Tojo, an army general, is in violent opposition to holding off on an attack, but Yamamoto refuses to initiate any plan of any nature unless negotiations for peace are included. To Yamamoto, any attack must come if, and only if, negotiations fail, diplomatic relations are severed, and war is officially declared against the United States. The two Japanese leaders have conflicting perceptions of this plan: Yamamoto sees this as a promise of a possible avoidance of a war; Tojo regards such caution as a smoke screen designed to lull the Americans into a false sense of security while they are occupied with the undeclared naval war against Germany. You see, all the world is a matter of perception.

o 2 December: British and Dutch intelligence notify the United States of the troop ships moving towards the Philippines. When FDR demands an explanation from Tokyo, he hears nothing in reply. While some American officials see these moves as far too obvious, most are not certain enough to discount them. American attention becomes focused on the Philippines.

o 6 December: FDR, becoming increasingly worried, appeals directly to Emperor Hirohito for an explanation and pleads for a halt to Japanese aggression. Tojo instructs his intelligence officers to intercept FDR’s message and destroy it before it reaches Hirohito. Later in the day a curious fourteen-part diplomatic message begins to arrive in Washington from Tokyo.

o 7 December: As the sun begins to rise at sea, 250 miles northeast of the Hawaiian Islands, the Japanese task force is given the order “Climb Mt. Nitaka,” the code to launch her aircraft for a raid on Pearl Harbor. However, at Yamamoto’s insistence, no attack is to be initiated until the coded message “Tora! Tora! Tora!” (Tiger, Tiger, Tiger) is broadcast to aerial squadron leaders. This message is to sent under only two conditions: first, negotiations with the United States have failed and war has officially been declared, and second, total surprise has been achieved. On his approach to Pearl Harbor, Lieutenant Genda, the lead pilot and formation leader, announces that total surprise has indeed been

achieved; he is subsequently given the order to commence the attack. It is 7:00 AM Hawaiian time . . . 2:00 DC time.

In Washington, Japanese cryptologists begin the laborious task of decoding the message from Tokyo, which outlines in excruciating (and time consuming) detail the many steps necessary for an avoidance of war. This task is made all the more frustrating due to a substitute decoding clerk; the regular clerk was ill and could not come to work that day. The substitute clerk labors throughout the day deciphering the code, and by the time he has completed the task. It is 2:30 PM Washington time . . . 7:30 AM Hawaiian time.

The last part of this message contains this ominous instruction: “Be prepared to destroy all diplomatic and sensitive materials, as things will already be in motion. If negotiations fail, the Empire of Japan will formally declare war on the United States at precisely 1:30 PM Eastern Standard Time (6:30 AM Hawaiian time). This message must NOT be delivered late.” By the time US Secretary of State Hull hears this message from Foreign Minister Kurusu, Genda’s attack is already an hour old. o 8 December: Japanese troops launch invasions throughout the southeastern Asian islands,

including Malaya and the Philippines. FDR asks for and receives a declaration of war against Japan, telling Congress that December 7, 1941 is a “date that will live in infamy.”

RESULTSRESULTSRESULTSRESULTS

1. Japan unintentionally (and tragically) attacked Pearl Harbor before an official declaration of war—an American propagandists dream come true. This turns the war against Japan into a war of revenge, and

conveniently covers up the countless military and intelligence blunders that led to the catastrophe. 2. Admiral Yamamoto, who attended college at Harvard and knew the Americans better than any other Japanese military official, had insisted that the Japanese abandon traditional strategic procedure . . . particularly the tactic of surprise attack that had served the Japanese navy so well against the Russians at Port Arthur in 1901 . . . and attack Pearl Harbor ONLY after an official declaration of war. Radical military leaders, particularly Tojo, ignored his advice. 3. American isolation is no more. 4. Three days after Pearl Harbor, Hitler and Mussolini fulfill their parts of the Tri-Partite Pact and

declare war on the United States. Despite public statements to the contrary, Hitler is not pleased. 5. The final word on the attack on Pearl Harbor comes from the architect of the raid, Yamamoto himself.

Upon hearing of the raid’s success Yamamoto immediately asked whether war had been declared prior to the attack. Upon hearing that war had not been declared, the great admiral responded that “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill it with a great resolve.” He then announced that, given the decimated state of the American fleet, he could “run wild for 18 months,” at which point Japan would face certain defeat due to the power of American industry and the relentless will of the American people to seek revenge for Pearl Harbor. If an armistice could not achieved within the 18 month period, the Japanese Empire was doomed.

Quite prophetic from a man of genius; they should have listened to him.

THE IRONYTHE IRONYTHE IRONYTHE IRONY Contrary to popular belief:

1. Hitler was furious with his Japanese allies; the initiation of hostilities with the Americans came far too soon for the Germans. Hitler’s deep water (ie GLOBAL rather than REGIONAL) navy, including the first German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin, was not schedule to be ready for active operations until at least 1943. As it turned out, Graf Zeppelin never sailed.

2. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a strategic failure. While the raid did decimate the American battleship fleet, this fleet was old, obsolete, and of World War I vintage. The true Japanese failure occurred with the strike force’s inability to locate and destroy the three American aircraft carriers . . . the only three in the entire American fleet. During the week preceding the raid, the carriers had been suddenly ordered to sea . . . a fact that still leads conspiracy theorists to suspect that FDR knew about the attack before December 7.

a. The irony? Her interwar realization of the importance of the aircraft carrier gave Japan its only true advantage over the Americans. Her failure to destroy that same factor in the Pearl raid is supreme irony, and ultimately led to Japans’ doom.

3. In that same vein, Pearl Harbor showed the world the effectiveness of carrier-based warfare; without this dramatic demonstration the United would have continued to build battleships, the days of who’s dominance ended in 1918 at the Battle of Jutland. In other words, the Japanese showed the Americans how to defeat them, just as TR’s Great White Fleet showed the Japanese how to counter the Americans.

4. The Japanese, drunk with the success of their surprise attack on Battleship Row, ignored their secondary target: the substantial oil reserves in the Hawaiian Islands, constructed during the days of Hawaii’s status as a coaling station. This oil was vital to the re-emergence of the United States in the Pacific; had the Japanese attacked and destroyed them Admiral Yamamoto might have indeed been granted his 18-month window.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR, THE DEFINING EVENT OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, WAS

ON. THE WORLD WOULD NEVER AGAIN BE THE SAME, NEVER AGAIN BE ABLE TO CLAIM INNOCENCE.

Death on the installment plan; destruction on a global, industrial scale became reality.