Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy - Ludwig von Mises ...

114 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
not want this country to become involved in the war, the climate
of opinion was gradually shifting. Antiwar sentiment was beginning
to decline.
Washington’s Far Eastern Policy
—Warn Japan, Delay Operations to
Allow U.S. Build-up in Pacific
Rather than wanting to conciliate Japan, Secretary of State
Hull was in favor of issuing an additional warning. Before doing
so, however, he sought to determine the Army’s and Navy’s state
of readiness. Would the military authorities be ready to support
further State Department warnings?
On November 1 the State Department held a meeting on the
far eastern situation. Messages from Generalissimo Chiang Kai-
Shek, China’s head of government at Chungking, and General
John Magruder, chief of the American military mission to
Chungking, were discussed. Chiang was urging that the United
States warn Japan against attacking China through Yunnan, a
province in southern China. To present the Navy viewpoint, Chief
of Naval Operations Stark and Captain Schuirmann, the Navy
liaison with the State Department, were present. Th ey pointed
out that Japan had already been warned. Th e president had told
Japan on August 17, when he returned from meeting Churchill
at Argentia, that if she continued military aggression against her
“neighboring countries,” the United States would be “compelled”
to take action. 5 According to Schuirmann, Hull “desired to know
if the military authorities would be prepared to support further
warnings by the State Department.” 6
5 Department of State, Peace and War, pp. 713–14. FDR’s oral statement to the
Japanese ambassador, August 17, 1941.
6 79th Cong., 1st sess. Joint (Congressional) Committee on the Investigation
of the Pearl Harbor Attack. Pearl Harbor Attack, 39 vols. (Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Government Printing Offi ce, 1946), part 14, p. 1063.