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

ROOSEVELT, THEODORE • 217
Following Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt grappled tirelessly with both
the military and the longer-range political problems that defined that
conflict. Nonetheless, his ideas concerning post-surrender Japan—
even in the dark days of early 1942 when Japanese forces overran the
western Pacific, neither Roosevelt nor his advisers seriously contemplated
the possibility of a Japanese victory in the Pacific—remain an
unknown quantity. Certainly, he was an advocate of a “hard peace”
for Germany, and there is every reason to believe that he envisioned
nothing less for Japan. See also UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER;
YALTA CONFERENCE.
ROOSEVELT, THEODORE (1858–1919). President of the United
States from 1901 to 1909, Theodore Roosevelt was convinced that
the Pacific Ocean represented the future for American policy and
power. Despite his usually racist perspective, he held the Japanese in
high esteem. Born into a wealthy New York family in 1858, Roosevelt
graduated from Harvard University in 1880. He subsequently
entered Columbia Law School, although he dropped out in 1881 to
pursue a political career. President William McKinley appointed
him assistant secretary of the navy in 1897. In this position, Roosevelt
worked with McKinley to have the U.S. Asiatic Squadron attack
the Spanish colony of the Philippines. An avid reader of the
naval theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan—who, among other things,
urged both the construction of a massive American fleet and the acquisition
of naval bases in the Caribbean and Pacific—Roosevelt
pushed vociferously for the annexation of the Philippines.
Included as McKinley’s running mate in the 1900 election, Roosevelt
rose to the presidency in September 1901 following his boss’s
assassination. He was elected president in his own right in 1904. In
the realm of foreign affairs, Roosevelt sought a position of leadership
for the United States in world affairs. Sea power held the key to his
aspirations. At the same time, Roosevelt recognized the limits to his
nation’s power and thus was not averse to diplomacy. Nowhere was
this more visible than in his dealings with Japan.
Roosevelt viewed Japanese–American relations through the prism of
the Far Eastern balance of power. Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Russia,
and the United States all had interests in the region, most of which
centered on China. Roosevelt was nonplussed by Russian designs in