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

32 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
large and small, military and private (tugs, yachts, fi shing smacks,
launches). Th us, more than 200,000 British, French, and Belgian
troops eluded the encircling Germans (May 26–June 4).
By June, the German Blitzkrieg was bearing down on Paris.
Reynaud described France’s desperate plight to Roosevelt on
June 10: “For 6 days and 6 nights our divisions have been fi ghting
without one hour of rest. . . . Today the enemy is almost at the
gates of Paris.” 6
Bullitt wrote Roosevelt (May 31, 1940) on behalf of French
Foreign Minister Paul Reynaud that the French were
most grateful for the presence of your fl eet in the Pacifi c.
Without fi ring a shot, it is keeping the war from spreading to
the French and British Empires in the Far East. We hope it
will stay there.
Reynaud requested that the U.S. Atlantic Fleet be sent to
the Mediterranean. By keeping the enemy at bay there, “Your
[Atlantic] fl eet,” he said, “can play exactly the same role in the
Mediterranean” as the U.S. Fleet is now playing in the Pacifi c.
“Incidentally,” FDR wrote Reynaud in longhand, “further strong
steps were taken yesterday by me in regard to the Mediterranean
threat.” 7
Roosevelt again, on June 13, appeared to hold out hope to
Reynaud: “[T]his Government is doing everything in its power
to make available to the Allied Governments the material they
so urgently require, and our efforts to do still more are being
redoubled.” 8
6 Deparment of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers,
1940 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Offi ce), vol. 1, p. 245.
7 Th e New York Times, April 26, 1970, pp. 30–31.
8 Department of State, Diplomatic Papers, 1940, p. 248.