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

Air Raid, Pearl Harbor! This is No Drill! 337
and to his confi dence in the American Intelligence Service,
and in spite of the horror that war had actually been brought to
us, he had, nevertheless, a much calmer air. His terrible moral
problem had been resolved by the event. 83
Looking Back
A few weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR and his
confi dential adviser Hopkins dined alone together. On that occasion,
the president told Hopkins
about several talks with Hull relative to the loopholes in our
foreign policy in the Far East in so far as that concerned the
circumstances on which the United States would go to war with
Japan in event of certain eventualities. All of Hull’s negotiations,
while in general terms indicating that we wished to protect
our rights in the Far East, would never envisage the tough
answer to the problem that would have to be faced if Japan
attacked, for instance, either Singapore or the Netherlands
East Indies. Th e president felt it was a weakness in our policy
that we could not be specifi c on that point. Th e president told
[Hopkins] that he felt that an attack on the Netherlands East
Indies should result in war with Japan and he told [Hopkins]
that Hull always ducked that question. 84
Hopkins had talked with the president many times over the
previous year, and
it always disturbed him [FDR] because he really thought that
the tactics of the Japanese would be to avoid a confl ict with us;
that they would not attack either the Philippines or Hawaii but
would move on Th ailand, French Indo-China, make further
83Ibid., pp. 380–81.
84Sherwood, Th e White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins, p. 432, and Roosevelt
and Hopkins, p. 428.