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

846 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
August 6, 1940, to three top U.S. military offi cers who were going
on another secret mission to London.
Early in the morning on September 1, 1939, Hitler’s forces
invaded Poland. England and France decided to honor their
commitments to go to the defense of Poland if she were attacked.
On September 3, both countries issued ultimatums to Germany
which were rejected. Europe was at war. On September 3, 1939,
FDR reconfi rmed U.S. neutrality and during the months that
followed, he continued to stress his determination to maintain
U.S. neutrality. Nevertheless, FDR began almost immediately to
help the British in their fi ght against Germany.
President Roosevelt instituted a “Neutrality Patrol” in the
Atlantic and instructed the U.S. Navy, to watch for enemy vessels,
to report sightings “in plain English,” so as to allow British ships
to investigate and destroy. When later Churchill asked for 40 or
50 of this country’s destroyers, FDR arranged for their transfer to
the British. And as Britain’s war expenditures mounted and she
was running out of gold to pay for military supplies, Roosevelt
gave the “green light” for her to order 12,000 aircraft. When
Hitler charged that such U.S. aid to the U.K. was “moral aggression,”
FDR replied that it was a defensive measure.
On the other side of the world, Japan, an ally of Germany
through the 1939 Tripartite Pact, was taking actions in southeast
Asia that the U.S. held could threaten U.S. and British interests
in that part of the world. In January 1940, the U.S. began blocking
exports to Japan of certain commodities that were essential
to Japan’s economy and military ventures—various chemicals,
munitions, iron and steel scrap, and especially petroleum products.
Upon the defeat of France in June 1940, Japanese troops were
admitted into the formerly French Indochina. And in September,
Japan established air bases and stationed troops there.
FDR announced that Pearl Harbor would be made the permanent
base of the U.S. Fleet. Th is was against the advice of his