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

Epilogue 849
from the governments of the United States, the British, and the
Dutch. Th is line was drawn west of longitude 100º East and
south of latitude 10º North—that is south and west of French
Indo-China (currently Vietnam).
Hitler attacked Russia on June 22, 1941 and two days later,
FDR “released Russian credits and promised American aid” in
line with his “[p]olicy of giving material assistance to any country
fi ghting Germany.”
As the war in the Atlantic heated up, German U-boats were
sinking British ships in large numbers. FDR extended the area
of the U.S. “Neutrality Patrol” to cover most of the Atlantic. In
July, we occupied Iceland and we soon began convoying British
ships in the North Atlantic. It wasn’t long before U.S. ships were
shooting, being shot at, and even sunk, with the loss of American
lives.
In August 1941, Roosevelt and British P.M. Churchill met personally
for the fi rst time in secrecy off the coast of Newfoundland.
Churchill pleaded with President Roosevelt to enter the war. FDR
reminded Churchill that in the United States, only Congress
could declare war: “I may never declare war; I may make war. If
I were to ask Congress to declare war, they might argue about it
for three months.” Th e two men discussed the Japanese situation
also. Although FDR said that, to strengthen America’s force,
he must seek to delay a break with Japan, he agreed to warn
Japan that if she encroached further in the southwest Pacifi c, the
U.S. “would be compelled to take counter-measures, even though
these might lead to war.” Moreover, he assured Churchill “that
the United States, even if not herself attacked, would come into a
war in the Far East. . . . [and] that if Japan ran amok in the Pacifi c,
we [the British] should not fi ght alone.”
In the spring of 1941, the U.S. and Japan had embarked upon
diplomatic negotiations in Washington in the attempt to settle
the China-Japan confl ict and establish peace in the Pacifi c area.