Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan ... - Bakumatsu Films

216 • ROOSEVELT, FRANKLIN DELANO
Summarizing Roosevelt’s presidency (he won reelection an unprecedented
three times, serving until his death in April 1945) is
fraught with difficulties. He left little in the way of written records,
and he was (in)famously flexible and deceptive. His first term saw
little in the way of foreign policy initiatives. It was characterized instead
by the belief that foreign policy must play a secondary role until
the domestic economic crisis was eased. As a result, many historians
(most notably Robert Divine) have portrayed Roosevelt as an
isolationist who painfully metamorphosed into an interventionist
sometime after the Munich crisis of 1938.
Other historians have depicted Roosevelt as a fairly consistent internationalist
(in his thought, if not always in his actions). After all,
he reversed the policies of his predecessors when, in 1933, he established
diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union—purportedly for
the purpose of fostering strategic cooperation against Japan. Following
the outbreak of the Sino–Japanese War in 1937, he delivered his
so-called Quarantine Address, which amounted to an unsuccessful effort
to prepare the American people for a greater role on the world
stage.
Whether Roosevelt’s sympathies lay with the isolationists or the
internationalists, there is no mistaking that his administration adopted
an increasingly proactive stance following conclusion of the
German–Japanese–Italian Tripartite Pact of September 1940. (This
has itself given rise to historical controversy, with Charles Beard and
the violently anti-British Charles Tansill blaming an ostensibly conspiratorial
President Franklin D. Roosevelt for American intervention
in the war.) Denouncing the Tripartite Pact as an “unholy alliance”
that sought “to dominate and enslave the entire human race,” Roosevelt
called on the American people to “support the nations defending
themselves against the Axis.” Having, however, assigned priority
to the defeat of Germany, and furthermore not in possession of a twoocean
navy, the Roosevelt administration until at least late November
1941 trod a delicate diplomatic line toward the Japanese. Whereas,
on the one hand, there was an unmistakable display of firmness toward
Japanese hegemonic pretensions, on the other, there was a determined
effort not to shut the door on the possibility of conciliation
should the Japanese dissociate themselves from Adolf Hitler and his
brand of militaristic aggression.