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

Epilogue 845
surprise to the administration offi cials. As a matter of fact, it
is now apparent also that the president himself, even before the
attack, had intended to order the U.S. armed forces to make a
pre-emptive strike against the Japanese in the southwest Pacifi c
in order to assist the British in southeast Asia. But the Japanese
“jumped the gun” on him by bombing Pearl Harbor on December
7, 1941. Th us, the attack was President Roosevelt’s excuse, not his
reason, for having the United States go to war with the Japanese.
Historical Review
By the mid-1930s, the world was in turmoil. In 1933, shortly
after FDR became president, the United States recognized and
established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. Hitler
had come to power in Germany and was becoming more and
more militaristic, laying claim to territory beyond his country’s
borders. On October 3, 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia. A civil war
opened in Spain in July 1936. In July 1937 Japan was drawn into
war with China. However, the people in this country did not want
to become involved in any of these confl icts.
In 1935, Congress enacted and on August 31, the president
signed the fi rst Neutrality Act which prohibited “the export of
arms, ammunition, and implements of war to belligerent countries”
and their transportation in U.S. vessels.
Roosevelt had long sympathized with Britain personally and
step-by-step he abandoned U.S. neutrality. Two years before the
war actually began, he started “to explore with the British what
we could do if we both found ourselves involved in a war in the
Far East with Japan.” He personally instructed U.S. Admiral
Royal E. Ingersoll when he left in December 1937 for a conference
in London to discuss arrangements in case of a U.S.-
British-Dutch-Russian-Chinese war against Japan. Th en after
the war had started in Europe, Roosevelt gave instructions on