Threshold of War Read online

  Chapter 6

  August-September Crossing the Threshold

  At New London on Monday, August 4, President Roosevelt boarded the yacht Potomac ostensibly for a cruise along the New England coast, but after a day of well-publicized boating and fishing in Buzzards Bay he slipped into nearby Vineyard Sound to rendezvous with Admiral King’s flagship Augusta. Early the next morning he boarded the heavy cruiser, which, with another heavy cruiser and five destroyers, immediately departed for Newfoundland. Steaming at high speed in spite of fog, the task force arrived at Argentia on August 7, one day before Churchill’s earliest possible arrival in the Prince of Wales and two days before the scarred British battleship entered the bay.1 Though the American Lend-Lease base was on British territory, Roosevelt was determined to welcome the prime minister to North America.

  During the trip and the wait, the president received radio messages corroborating news accounts of the German slow-down in Russia. Welles arrived by air on August 8 with the latest intelligence. Dispatches indicated that the cool and skeptical attitude maintained by the embassy at Moscow was changing. On August 2 it had reported that the German drive had halted or slowed and that the Russians were manifesting “definite optimism.” Three days later it judged that “determined and courageous Soviet resistance” as well as the need for resupply had brought a respite, which the Soviets were likely to put to good use and further delay the German advance. Such a delay, the embassy concluded, would have a vital bearing on the “ability of the Soviet armies effectively to engage the bulk of the German armies until the advent of winter” and if necessary to withdraw eastward while continuing to fight.2

  The embassy at Berlin sounded an even more positive note. Heavy as Soviet battle losses appeared to be, it reported August 2, the “stopping even temporarily of the German offensive” more than compensated for them. On August 6 the embassy conveyed information from a source it considered reliable that Hitler had turned over the Russian campaign to the high command and left for Obersalzburg to plan future operations. The German schedule for defeat of the Red Army by August 15 and occupation of European Russia by September 30, it was said, had been modified “owing to unforeseen stubborn Soviet resistance.” Especially disturbing had been the discovery of a second Soviet defense line of more than 100 fresh Soviet divisions east of the so-called Stalin Line. Now the Germans aimed for the line of the Volga by winter, still a vast ambition but short of victory. German propaganda, the embassy reported on August 7, had been counteracting public uneasiness over the “unexpected difficulty” of the eastern campaign and the prospect “which has only recently been widely realized within Germany that the war as a whole will go into another winter.” On the basis of this sort of information, British intelligence officials were concluding that a German invasion in 1941 now seemed very unlikely and that the German objective in Russia would be consolidation.3

  “The German-Russian Front After Three Months of War”: New York Times, September 21, 1941.

  On arrival at Argentia the president called a conference of his military advisers, including Marshall, Stark, and Arnold, and gave them a glimpse of his intentions. Prominent in the review was his decision to increase the number of B-17s in the Philippines from a squadron of nine planes to a group of thirty-six. “That was a distinct change of policy,” Arnold later reminisced. “It was the start of a thought to give General MacArthur weapons for offensive operations.” A squadron of B-17s could do little more than assist in the defense of the islands, but a group could attack or threaten Japanese territory. To use General Marshall’s words to his British opposite, General Sir John Dill, at the coming conference, the reinforcement of the Philippines would act as a “serious deterrent” to Japan, especially in the winter months which were more suitable for high-altitude bombing, Roosevelt furthermore stated his intention to send twenty-eight P-40s a month to Russia for September, October, and November. That the Philippines project was linked in the president’s mind with the Russian situation is indicated by the fact that Arnold in his outline notes of the meeting placed the dispatch of the B-17s alongside the dispatch of the P-40s to Russia under the overall heading of “Russia.” The object was not simply to deter a southward advance but a northward advance as well.4

  Boarding the Augusta immediately upon arrival in the Prince of Wales was “Hurry Upkins” with full reports of his talks in Moscow. Wasted by illness but fiercely determined, Hopkins had flown back to Scotland in time to join Churchill for the voyage to Argentia. In conversations on July 30 and 31 he had found Stalin cooperative, forthcoming, and vitally concerned to secure help from the democracies. Hopkins undoubtedly found it curious to hear the leader of the Soviet state, which Churchill had described that spring as “an amoral crocodile lurking in the depths,” condemn Hitler Germany for lack of moral standards, but now, at least, views of Germany coincided.5

  At their second conference, with Maxim Litvinov as translator the only other person present, Stalin gave the first detailed exposition of the progress of the war so far provided the West. “Merely because German forces pierce the Russian line does not mean the Russians are lost,” he pointed out. Soviet mechanized forces were fighting far forward of their lines and with partisans were seeping in between the Panzers and the follow-up infantry. This infiltration forced the Germans to disperse their tanks and infantry to protect their lines of communication. With this difficulty and the lack of good roads, the Germans were finding that “moving mechanized forces through Russia was very different than moving them over the boulevards of Belgium and France.”6

  Pressure on his army in the last ten days had considerably lessened, Stalin went on; the Germans were tired. It would be difficult for them to continue the offensive after September 1 when the heavy rains began, and after October 1 they would have to go on the defensive for the winter. “He expressed great confidence that the line during the winter months would be in front of Moscow, Kiev and Leningrad— probably not more than 100 kilometres away from where it is now.” To capture the bulk of Soviet munitions plants, German forces would have to move 150 miles east of these centers. For the May 1942 campaign Stalin expected to mobilize 350 divisions. In rough comparison (the U.S. division was bigger), Roosevelt expected to have twenty divisions ready by the end of 1941.7 Stalin’s assessment contained much that was true about the battle at the moment. Needless to say, it was as positive as he could make it and far more positive in claims for the future than the staggering losses and bad generalship of the Red Army and the strength of the replenishing Wehrmacht justified.

  The most urgent Soviet needs, according to Stalin, were light antiaircraft guns, aluminum for planes, machine guns and rifles, and for the longer term tanks, planes, steel, oil, and other matériel already requested. Stalin urged American entry into the war and the most intimate cooperation, even to the extent of welcoming an American army on the Russian front and sharing Soviet tank designs. But by the next spring, he said, the problem of supply would be acute.

  Hopkins carried out the president’s instruction to deal with Soviet requests for aid in two categories: what could be delivered immediately—largely token quantities; and what could be shipped for a war that lasted into 1942. Long-term needs, Hopkins advised the Soviet leader, could be addressed at a conference in Moscow, at which American, British, and Soviet representatives would allocate munitions according to the strategic value of each front as well as national interests. Taking his cue from Stalin’s statement that the Soviet front should be stabilized by October 1, and mindful that it would be “very unwise” to hold a conference until it was established “whether or not there was to be a front,” Hopkins tentatively suggested a meeting about that date. The Russians were to be given maximum encouragement to fight on with token American assistance now and hopes for 1942 until the immediate outcome was clear. What could then be offered would be far more substantial and encouraging than the pittance that could be provided now.

  Hopkins also conferred with Foreign Minister V
. M. Molotov about Japan, the latter betraying considerable unease about the possibility of a Japanese attack on Siberia. He gave Hopkins the impression that “the Japanese would not hesitate to strike if a propitious time occurred.” The one thing which would prevent it, said the Soviet, was some kind of American warning—meaning, Hopkins supposed, a statement that the United States would come to Russia’s assistance if Russia were attacked by Japan. Hopkins replied that his government shared these concerns but had no desire to be provocative. Nevertheless, he would convey this message to the president.8

  The dominant cast of Argentia was gray, from the bleak, misty hills and cove to the warships riding at anchor. Enlivening the scene were pinpoints of color in flags, uniforms, and gleaming brasswork and the hum of small boats scuttling between the British battleship and the American cruisers. In spite of the convenience of the remote spot as a secret rendezvous, the symbolic value of an Atlantic meeting, and the delight both principals took in a naval encounter, the disadvantages were considerable. The difficulty of shuffling officials between ships, the constant burden of protocol for dignitaries aboard warships, and the wariness each side had of the other—strangers with differing purposes, one at peace, the other at war—led to a feeling of disorganization and desultory, fragmented decision-making. This sense of aimlessness, however, and the lack of immediate dramatic results should not belie the significance of the conference.

  Argentia was a critical juncture in the evolution of Roosevelt’s world policies. Churchill was right in saying that something big was happening, “something really big,” and it was not just the cementing of personal ties from the principals on down and the tears welling up during the singing of “Onward Christian Soldiers” at a common divine service on the afterdeck of the Prince of Wales, with American and British sailors intermingled under the big guns. The importance of Argentia lay not in radical departures and vivid consequences but in the congealing of tentative policies devised in response to the recent great changes in world politics and the balance of forces.

  Roosevelt’s chief purpose at Argentia was to establish the political basis for waging and winning the war. Not that he was seeking war. Rather, he was about to embark on courses of action in the containment of Japan and protection of the Atlantic which carried distinct risks of war, but which he nevertheless regarded as crucial for the nation’s security. He desired a public declaration of fundamental American convictions about the conditions of peaceful world order, the sort of peace his countrymen would feel justified entry into the war. At the same time he wanted it framed as a joint statement with Great Britain, not issued unilaterally like Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points. He sought an international standard, a banner for the anti-Axis coalition to rally around, and a promise for subjugated peoples.

  But first he wanted an answer to his question of July 14 as to whether Britain had made any secret commitments to the Soviet Union or any of the governments-in-exile regarding postwar territorial changes. London’s silence on this score was disturbing. However, Sir Alexander Cadogan, permanent under secretary of the Foreign Office, came with assurances. In a long talk with Welles on the first day of the conference, only a short time after the president and prime minister had first met, he said Britain had promised Yugoslavia in March to allow reconsideration of the status of Italian-owned Istria after the war, hardly a “firm commitment,” he pointed out, but he solemnly pledged that this was the only territorial undertaking his government had made. Welles and Roosevelt were satisfied.9

  Negotiation of a joint declaration of purpose was not completed until the day of departure, but there was never any likelihood of failure; that, said Hopkins, was “inconceivable.” The Atlantic Charter, as it came to be known, was mostly a restatement of familiar Wilsonian principles: non-aggrandizement, self-determination (with the “wish” for restoration of sovereignty and self-government to peoples “forcibly deprived of them”), freedom of trade, freedom of the seas, abandonment of force, disarmament, and ultimately, in some form, a world security organization. Point Six offered a gentle vision of world peace after the destruction of “Nazi tyranny,” one providing “all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and … assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want.” The only serious disagreement arose over free trade, with Churchill insisting that he must make an exception for existing agreements for trade preference within the Commonwealth, and Welles representing the deep-set convictions of Hull and his advisers in favor of an unconditional open door. Roosevelt settled the matter by siding with Churchill.10

  The Atlantic Charter was unremarkable because most people in the United States and Britain took for granted most of what it said. No other vision of world order had any standing. The strength of the Charter lay in the sharp contrast it drew between the multilateral world vision of the democracies and the self-serving aims of the Axis.

  Churchill’s chief purpose at Argentia, of course, was to range the United States as closely as possible with Britain, and it was his particular concern to do this in respect to Japan. The British government’s preferred course of action was to secure a guarantee of assistance from the United States, give one to the Netherlands for the East Indies, and use these as the basis of an explicit warning to Japan of war against further encroachment. Churchill expressed the view of the Foreign Office when he said that the way to deal with Japan was to use the “firmest language and strongest combination.” Indeed, some in the Foreign Office argued for “even hastening the issue” seeing this as the time, while Russia held out and the United States tightened the economic screws, “to settle accounts with Japan.” Australia pressed for an American guarantee for the opposite reason, the glaring weakness of British defenses in Southeast Asia. Of particular concern at this time were Japanese designs on Thailand, the next domino after southern Indochina. The British reported they had a secret message from the Thai prime minister that the Japanese were demanding under threat of force military as well as economic concessions. Japanese bases on the Kra isthmus would uncover the defenses of Malaya. The War Cabinet in London understood that Congress, not the president, had the power to declare war, but still believed (and so informed Churchill aboard the Prince of Wales) that Roosevelt might be induced to present an oblique war warning which they could join in.11

  Churchill agreed. The Americans were told that Britain had just given a pledge of assistance, limited to the forces at Britain’s disposal in the region, to the Netherlands in case of Japanese attack on the East Indies. Now how far could the Americans go respecting an attack on the Dutch and a movement into Thailand? Churchill proposed simultaneous British, American, and Dutch warnings to Tokyo that any further encroachment by Japan in the southwest Pacific would result in countermeasures by those countries even though these might lead to war. Further, according to the Churchill draft, the United States would warn Japan that if the British went to the assistance of the Netherlands, the president would request authority from Congress to give them aid.12

  Roosevelt preferred a less precipitate approach. He had not changed his mind about the need for firmness in dealing with Japan. The period of “extreme patience” had come to an end, Welles told Cadogan. Roosevelt was expanding the air reinforcement of the Philippines. He promised Churchill to maintain trade restrictions in full force, though he did not explain what that meant, whether limiting Japan to peacetime use of oil or continuing to withhold funds for any oil exports. The trick, as it must have seemed to him, was to curtail oil exports as much as possible without provoking Japan by a formal ban. Furthermore, while at every step now Roosevelt was stiffening policy, he was one to preserve as much flexibility as the situation permitted. The British did not learn then or for some time thereafter that trade had been suspended just before he left Washington.

  In Welles’ view the time for warnings had passed. Only a few days earlier he had pointed out to the minister-counselor of the Japanese embassy, who was retur
ning to Japan to report personally to Prince Konoe, that if Japan persisted in its drive for overlordship in East Asia and the south Pacific, hostilities were bound to ensue between their two countries. Given its recent sharply increased opposition to Japan, Welles told Cadogan, the American public was not likely to tolerate a Japanese attack on the East Indies.13 Of course the American was describing an historical process whereas the British, seeking deterrence, wanted sterner stuff. Nevertheless, a warning on the British model would in fact have been superfluous, for the principal Japanese decision-makers had already concluded that an attack on Malaya or the Dutch East Indies was bound to lead to war with the United States.

  Roosevelt understood that a Japanese attack on the Dutch East Indies would result in war. He said as much on the eve of the conference: if Japan attacked there, “we are vitally interested and will do our utmost to get them out.”14 But he was also undoubtedly influenced by his belief that the American people had not reached the point of supporting a declaration of war against Japan or Germany and that it would be unwise to commit them farther down this road than they had reached by themselves. It seems unlikely, however, that he regarded this as a hindrance, for it fitted his own fundamental belief that sound policy derived from American interest. British and American interests, while congruent, were not identical. He spoke of a vital interest in the Dutch East Indies but not in Singapore. He preferred to take responsibility for escort operations in the western Atlantic rather than to send an American destroyer force to the British Isles and to set his own course in adopting sanctions against Japan. Yet he was not a nationalist rather than an internationalist; he was both. He sought the most intimate cooperation, in fact coordination, with Churchill. But he resisted formal combination and commitment. Always he insisted on preserving control of the allocation of American resources and the timing and nature of American responses to Axis aggression.