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

42 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
FDR had replied that he was “not certain that it would be wise
for that suggestion to be made to the Congress at this moment.”
However, he talked with Chief of Naval Operations Stark about
the possibility of making such a transfer.
Stark was a serious, well-rounded naval offi cer. His manner
was genial and courteous, not at all gruff or rough. He had graduated
from Annapolis in 1903 and had risen up through the ranks.
He and Roosevelt had known each other since 1913, when FDR
was assistant secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow
Wilson. Stark had then been in command of a destroyer on
which FDR used to travel in Maine waters when visiting his
family’s summer home on Campobello, a small Canadian island
just across the border from Maine. Th e two men had become
good friends.
Roosevelt liked Stark personally and trusted him as a loyal
aide. In 1939, FDR appointed him Chief of Naval Operations.
FDR wrote Stark at that time that it would be
grand to have you here as C.N.O. . . . [Y]ou and I talk the same
language. My only objection is that if we get into a war you
will be a desk Admiral—but I cannot have you in two places
at once! 28
Stark took over as CNO on August 1, 1939. 29
When the question of releasing U.S. destroyers to the British
came up, Stark was opposed. A law prohibited the Navy from
disposing of anything that the Chief of Naval Operations could
not declare “unnecessary” for the defense of the country and
Stark believed those destroyers were necessary; they were then
28 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, 1928–1945 (New
York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), vol. 2, p. 864.
29 Julius A. Furer, Administration of the Navy Department in World War II (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Offi ce, 1949), p. 46n.