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

U.S. International Policy: 1933–1940 23
served as Roosevelt’s “designated agent from September 1939
to April 1940, for dealing with the Anglo-French Purchasing
Mission,” newly established to handle British and French procurement.
His sympathies clearly lay with the Allied cause. He
felt frustrated by the Neutrality Act, which put all purchases on
a “cash and carry” basis, thus limiting the assistance that could be
given England and France. “It was his [Morgenthau’s] intention
to help the democracies as much as possible.” He “was making an
unparalleled eff ort to supply the Allies” 37 and “he encouraged the
British and French to make purchases as large as possible, for he
believed they were not arming fast enough.” 38
Although the United States was still offi cially neutral in the
confl ict between Germany and Great Britain, Morgenthau, as
FDR’s intermediary, was seeking for the “allies” some of the newest
superchargers developed by the U.S. armed forces, but not yet
released, as well as certain engines and designs classifi ed as secret.
Secretary of War Harry Hines Woodring, who had assumed that
post in 1936, and Commanding General of the Army Air Corps
Henry Harley (”Hap”) Arnold refused the necessary permission.
“Morgenthau had therefore once again to take the Allies’
case to the president.” 39 At a White House conference March
12, 1940, he told the president “if he wanted me to do this job
[the Anglo-French Purchasing Mission] . . . he would just have
to do something” 40 to halt the opposition coming from the War
Department and the military. Roosevelt then announced that, in
Morgenthau’s words, “there was to be no more resistance from
the War Department. . . . Uncooperative offi cers would fi nd themselves
assigned to duty in Guam. . . . ‘Well, [FDR said] if Arnold
37 John Morton Blum, From the Morgenthau Diaries: Years of Urgency, 1938–
1941 (Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1965), p. 109.
38 Ibid., p. 113.
39 Ibid., p. 117.
40 Ibid., p. 118.