JohnnyAnt and Roberto: Found it. The reference to staking the 7th Fleet at Pearl Harbor like a sacrificial goat to lure a tiger (my words) was in an article in the Jan. 20th issue of The New American magazine titled 'FDR vs. Lindbergh: Setting the Record Straight' by John J. Dwyer. Relevant quotes (including those in brackets):
"In the run-up to the 1940 presidential election, Roosevelt sought to outstrip his Republican opponent, Wendell Wilkie, with solemn pledges to the public to steer clear of war. 'I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again,' Roosevelt assured American mothers and fathers, 'your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.' Yet privately, he sounded a different tune. 'Of course, we'll fight if we are attacked,' he told staff members. 'If somebody attacks us, then it isn't a foreign war, is it?' And he did everything in his power to make sure America was attacked...
"After later meeting with Roosevelt, Churchill told his Cabinet that the president was 'obviously determined' to come into the war and 'said that he [Roosevelt] would wage war [including against German subs anywhere] but not declare it, and that he would become more and more provocative. If the Germans did not like it they could attack the American forces.'...
" Roosevelt loosed ships, such as the U.S.S. Greer, on German U-boats in aid of the British. Other American vessels such as the U.S.S. Niblack themselves attacked U-boats in waters thousands of miles from the United States...
"And while Hitler went to extremes to prevent German attacks on Americans, even forbidding attacks on U.S. ships in self-defense, Roosevelt publicly denounced the Germans for attacking U.S. naval vessels. Key Roosevelt lieutenant Robert Sherwood wrote following the war: 'If the isolationists had known the full extent of the secret alliance between the United States and Britain, their demands for impeachment would have rumbled like thunder throughout the land.'
"Nonetheless, Roosevelt failed to provoke Hitler into committing overt acts of war against American vessels, as the German dictator was determined to avoid a Great War-like two-front European land war. So Roosevelt turned his efforts to the Pacific and the Japanese, to bait them into attacking the United States. Of course, provoking a Japanese attack also provided a back-door strategy to U.S. entry into the war in Europe because of Japan's alliance with Hitler...
"After meeting with the president on October 16, 1941, Republican Secretary of War Henry Stimson, a staunch internationalist and member of the world-government-promoting Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in his diary: 'We face the delicate question of the diplomatic fencing to be done so as to be sure Japan is put into the wrong and makes the first bad move - overt move.' A diary entry six weeks later following a meeting of the War Cabinet - less than two weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor - clarifies what Stimson meant by 'overt move': 'The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.' After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Stimson confessed that 'my first feeling was of relief…that a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people.' After the war, he added that, 'We needed the Japanese to commit the first overt act.'
One can debate the value [I meant the merits - Ed.] of all this geopoliticizing. But not the facts.
No comments:
Post a Comment