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

142 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
The U. S. Proposes 3 -Month MODUS VIVENDI
Th e U.S. counterproposal to the Japanese modus vivendi went
through several drafts. Th e one fi nally approved—by both the
War and Navy departments and then later, at a White House
meeting, by FDR’s so-called “War Cabinet”—provided for a
three-month respite.
Th e United States was still, of course, offi cially neutral and
nominally at peace. However, a War Cabinet had been set up
as an informal body to coordinate the activities of the civil and
military branches of the executive department. Th is War Cabinet
consisted of the president; the secretaries of State (Hull), War
(Stimson), and Navy (Knox); the Army chief of staff (Marshall),
chief of naval operations (Stark), and occasionally the commanding
general of the Air Force (Arnold).
It was a sort of clearing house for information, a gathering
place for discussion of policies, so that each of the independent
actors in the scene would know what was going on and would
have information to guide him in making his own decisions
that were more or less independent, but at the same time also
somewhat dependent on the action of other members of the
group. 22
Th e U.S. proposal called on Japan to withdraw her troops
from French Indochina and to make no further advances in Asia
or the Pacifi c. Th ese provisions would accomplish the administration’s
goals of restraining Japan and protecting China. In return
22 Joint Committee, Pearl Harbor Attack, part 39, p. 135. Quotation from
Army Pearl Harbor Board Report. See also U.S. Congress, Report of the Joint
Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, Congress of the United
States, Pursuant to S. Con. Res. 27, A Concurrent Resolution Authorizing an
Investigation of the Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and Events
and Circumstances Relating Th ereto and Additional Views of Mr. Keefe Together
with Minority Views of Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Brewster, 79th Cong., 2nd sess.
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Offi ce, 1946), p. 513.