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

U.S. Ties to Britain Strengthened 69
to Churchill, “He went so far as to say to me, ‘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’.” 43
Although Churchill hoped for a U.S. declaration of war, he
was generally pleased at the outcome of the Argentia meeting.
FDR had in eff ect agreed to issue an ultimatum to Japan along
the lines of Churchill’s suggestion. No further encroachment in
the southwest Pacifi c would be tolerated, or else “various steps
would have to be taken by the United States notwithstanding
the president’s realization that the taking of such measures might
result in war between the United States and Japan.” 44
Th e newspapers and newsreels of the day announced the
meeting at Argentia and showed the two men sitting at their ease
on the deck of the Augusta, or attending Sunday church service
on the Prince of Wales. When FDR returned to Washington, he
let it be understood that the only outcome of the meeting had
been the “Atlantic Charter,” 45 a plan for postwar world peace and
prosperity. Th e Charter, signed by both Roosevelt and Churchill,
set forth certain idealistic common principles. Force was to be
abandoned, peaceful trade and economic collaboration among all
nations was to be assured and it was hoped that “after the fi nal
destruction of the Nazi tyranny” all men in all nations would be
able to “traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance” and
to “live out their lives in freedom from fear and want.”
43 Ibid., p. 593, Churchill reporting by letter (November 9, 1941) to General
Jan Christian Smuts, prime minister of the Union of South Africa, on the
meeting at Argentia.
44 Department of State “Memorandum of Conversation” (signed by Sumner
Welles, undersecretary of state) between the president and Winston Churchill
at sea, August 11, 1941.
45U.S. Congress, Events, p. 293; Department of State, Peace and War, pp.
718–19.