Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941

  By then, Roosevelt had been heartened by the firm show of British resolve in the ruthless action taken on 3 July to destroy the French fleet, anchored at Mers-el-Kebir in Algeria, with the loss of life of 1,297 sailors of Britain’s former ally. The President had been notified in advance of the action by the British ambassador in Washington, Lord Lothian, and had signalled his approval.144 But he still showed no readiness to comply with the British destroyer request. When Harold Ickes, the Secretary of the Interior, argued with him that the defence of Britain might depend upon acceding to the request, Roosevelt was adamant. ‘We could not send these destroyers unless the Navy could certify that they were useless to us for defense purposes,’ the President countered. And ‘it would be difficult to do this in view of the fact that we were reconditioning more than one hundred of them to use for our own defense purposes’.145 As he told Ickes a few days later, he also had to consider the fate of the destroyers should Britain be forced to capitulate to the Germans.146

  Critical though the situation was, the war in Europe tended for much of July to be superseded by domestic concerns as Roosevelt was preoccupied with the presidential nomination, to be decided at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in the middle of the month. The Republicans, a few weeks earlier, had chosen as their presidential candidate Wendell Willkie, a former Democrat, a striking personality, and, like Roosevelt, strongly in favour of giving all possible aid to Britain. Willkie posed a serious threat to the Democrats, especially since involvement in the European war was the central issue in 1940. The question of who should run against Willkie was, therefore, acute. One name that kept recurring in the list of hopefuls was that of Roosevelt himself. No one else was likely to defeat Willkie.147 The President had remained coy down to the Convention itself about whether he would be prepared to run for a third term, though his earlier assurances that he would not stand again had given way to equivocation. He diplomatically stayed away from the Convention. But the Roosevelt camp had stage-managed their hero’s nomination.

  On the second night, 16 July, a prepared statement was read to delegates, announcing that Roosevelt ‘has never had and has not today any desire or purpose to continue in the office of the President’. All at once the loudspeakers in the hall started to boom out: ‘Pennsylvania Wants Roosevelt! Virginia Wants Roosevelt!’, and so on across the states. The delegates started to take up the cry. Standards from the states were brought in and paraded around the hall. It transpired that the disembodied voice that began the clamour had come from Chicago’s Commissioner of Sewers, located beneath the hall. The organization of the ‘Voice from the Sewers’ had been provided by the Democratic Mayor of Chicago, Edward J. Kelly.148 And Kelly had discussed arrangements for the Convention with Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s right-hand man.149 It was a charade, and, in fact, little short of a scandal. But it served its purpose. Roosevelt was duly nominated next day with a massive majority over all other candidates.

  With the Convention over, Lord Lothian advised Churchill that it might be a good time to return to the destroyer issue.150 Churchill had repeated his request on 11 June, the day after Italy had entered the conflict, and he raised this issue once more three days later.151 On seeing the letter, Morgenthau had asked Grace Tully, one of Roosevelt’s personal secretaries, to inform the President of his belief ‘that unless we help out the British with some destroyers it is hopeless to expect them to keep going’.152 But again, the request had fallen on stony ground. And for almost two months since the fall of France, correspondence between Roosevelt and Churchill had lain dormant. The President had been taken up with his nomination for re-election. The Prime Minister and his colleagues might have felt it could be counterproductive to press Roosevelt too hard.153 But on 31 July Churchill took up the matter of the destroyers once again. German invasion could, it seemed, come at any time. Air raids and U-boat attacks on shipping could now be launched from the whole of the French coastline. A large construction programme of destroyers was under way in Britain, but the ships would not become available until 1941. Meanwhile, the rate of attrition was too high, and the next three or four months would be critical. Churchill felt, therefore, that he had to renew his request for ‘fifty or sixty of your oldest destroyers’, to be sent at once. ‘Mr. President,’ he declared, ‘with great respect I must tell you that in the long history of the world this is a thing to do now.’154

  The issue had already been taken up earlier in the month by the Century Group, a sub-organization of the Committee to Defend America, comprising a number of influential citizens of New York, and meeting periodically at the Century Association in that city. Since mid-June the Century Group had been engaged in a campaign to send all possible disposable military resources, including naval, to the Allies, seeing their fight as synonymous with America’s own, and advocating the abolition of neutrality and recognition of a state of war existing with Germany.155 On 11 July, at a meeting in New York, the Century Group proposed, as part of a strategy to meet the dangers threatening from Europe, supplying destroyers to Britain in exchange for a number of bases in British possessions close to American shores. This turned out to be a key proposal, and it came from a private initiative, not from within the administration.

  It was not in essence a new idea. In fact, the isolationist Chicago Tribune had long urged that such bases should be offered by the Allies in return for the cancellation of war debts. But the linkage now to the provision of the needed destroyers was a shrewd move. It offered in embryo the possibility of a deal that would suit America. And it held some appeal even to isolationists. One of the leading figures in the Century Group, Joseph Alsop, a well-known newspaper columnist with good connections to figures in the administration, now persuaded one of the President’s assistants, Benjamin Cohen, to compose a memorandum for Roosevelt, arguing that there was no obstacle to selling the destroyers. Cohen showed the memorandum to his boss, Harold Ickes, who brought it to the President’s attention (and subsequently wrote in strong support of supplying the destroyers).156

  Roosevelt, however, remained unconvinced. The United States had 172 over-age warships, many of First World War vintage. Supplying Britain with fifty or so of them would not have crippled the navy. But on 28 June 1940, Congress, showing its distrust of the President, had passed an amendment to the Naval Appropriations bill stipulating that no item of military material could be turned over to a foreign government unless either the chief of staff (Marshall) or the chief of Naval Operations (Stark) had certified that it was useless for the defence of the United States. Precisely that was difficult for Stark to do since he had recently upheld the potential value of the warships before congressional committees.157 Roosevelt referred to the barrier of the new legislation when he sent Cohen’s memorandum on to the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, on 22 July. ‘I frankly doubt if Cohen’s memorandum would stand up,’ the President wrote. ‘Also I fear Congress is in no mood at the present time to allow any form of sale.’ All he could suggest was that sometime later Congress might be prevailed upon to allow the sale of the destroyers to Canada, but only on condition that their use be confined to defence of the American hemisphere.158

  The Century Group, however, continued to press. Alsop talked to civilian and military officials in Washington and found an encouraging response. The British ambassador, Lord Lothian, was unsurprisingly supportive. On 25 July, in the light of Alsop’s soundings, the Century Group compiled a further memorandum, ending in the proposal that the destroyers be offered immediately in return for naval and air concessions in British possessions in the western hemisphere. A further point of significance now added was to tie the deal to a guarantee that the British fleet would, in the event of a successful German invasion, be neither scuttled nor surrendered but removed to Canadian or American bases from where it would continue to operate. Since the issue was so urgent, members of the group would lobby Roosevelt and urge him to act jointly with Willkie, the Republican challenger, to expedite the matter. Meanwhile, a further publicity campai
gn would aim to sustain the pressure. Roosevelt met three delegates from the group on 1 August, listened to what they had to say, but remained non-committal. The delegates left disappointed, feeling that the President was apathetic about the issue.159

  They were wrong in this. On 2 August Roosevelt raised the issue at an unusually important meeting of his Cabinet. Frank Knox, the Secretary of the Navy, had spoken at length to Lothian the previous evening, heard a desperate plea from the ambassador for immediate assistance in sending the destroyers and had met a positive response to the suggestion that Britain transfer land for naval bases on the Atlantic coast to the United States. Before the Cabinet met, Knox had talked over the proposition with Stimson, gained his backing, and that, too, of Harold Ickes.160 A powerful phalanx of support for the idea existed, therefore, when the Cabinet assembled.

  It soon proved, in fact, that there was unanimous support for making the destroyers available to Britain. But the necessary legislation was a stumbling block. It was recognized that if Roosevelt were to seek it without thoroughly preparing the ground, Congress would reject the proposal or subject it to ‘interminable delay’. A possible way round the problem was the transfer of British possessions. Discussion at Cabinet had indeed begun with Knox’s report of his lengthy telephone conversation with Lothian. Hull, just back from the Pan-American Conference in Havana, thought the transfer of British possessions might fall foul of the agreement reached with the other American republics upholding the policy of retention of existing territorial status in the western hemisphere. Roosevelt himself, agreeing with Hull’s objection, then suggested that leasing part of the territory (as was currently the case with a naval base in Trinidad) might provide a solution, an idea that met with general agreement. In addition, the Cabinet agreed to seek assurances from Britain that the fleet would not fall into German hands in the event of defeat. This, it was thought, would also help to assuage opposition within Congress. Hull pointed out that the transfer of the destroyers could only be accomplished through the repeal of the law prohibiting such sales. The best way of approaching this, he suggested, would be for the President and the Republican candidate, Wendell Willkie (already known to be sympathetic), jointly to back the proposal, thereby defusing Republican opposition within Congress. The President was left to contact William Allen White, the leading figure in the Committee to Defend America, to ask his help in brokering agreement with Willkie.161

  Belatedly, it was a start. But there now followed a protracted period of consultation and legal wrangling about the details of the embryonic deal. Churchill was unwilling, for reasons of morale at home, to give a public assurance about the fleet in the event of a British defeat.162 The British ‘shopping-list’, when it was supplied on 8 August, had been substantially enhanced and now stretched to 96 destroyers, 20 motor torpedo-boats, flying-boats, dive-bombers and 250,000 rifles. Above all, it was still an open question whether, even with Willkie’s support (and he proved cagy about giving explicit approval), the necessary legislation to permit the provision of the destroyers, accepting British willingness to transfer bases, could be pushed through Congress.163

  Two developments gave impetus to a process that threatened to become becalmed in legal technicalities. The first was the enormous campaign of agitation unleashed by the Committee to Defend America. The Committee managed to enlist in its cause the support of the revered military leader of the First World War, General John J. Pershing, whose broadcast stirred widespread public backing for the supply of the destroyers, mixed with some incredulity that it was proving so difficult to organize. Once the quid pro quo–the transfer of bases–became public knowledge, the demands for prompt action grew even louder. But so, too, did the voices of the isolationist opposition, warning that ‘the sale of the Navy’s ships to a nation at war would be an act of war’, and that ‘if we want to get into the war, the destroyers offer as good a way as any of accomplishing the purpose’. The second factor in the breakthrough was a letter to the New York Times by four prominent lawyers, arguing persuasively that the supply of the destroyers could be accommodated within the existing legal framework and urging the President to act on his own authority without delay.164

  Roosevelt still awaited legal clarification from his Attorney General, Robert H. Jackson. But, finally, on 13 August, after consulting Stimson, Knox, Morgenthau and Welles (standing in for Hull, who was taking a brief and well-earned recuperative break), and with England already facing mounting air attacks, Roosevelt decided to push ahead with the negotiations. Probably at this point, before hearing from the Attorney General, he still contemplated putting the case before Congress rather than taking executive action. But in any case, a lengthy message to Churchill drafted that evening, offering at least fifty destroyers, the motor torpedo-boats and a small number of planes, made plain that the President would accept his private assurances about the fate of the fleet, and outlined the possessions, to be acquired through purchase or a ninety-nine-year lease, in Newfoundland, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Trinidad and British Guiana where the Americans wanted to establish naval and air bases. Churchill replied straight away, accepting all the stipulations.165

  The way seemed finally clear. Or was it? The President still fretted about the isolationist opposition. He feared that acting without the backing of Congress could lose him the forthcoming election. His worries probably lay behind the deliberately misleading impression he unnecessarily conveyed to a press conference on 16 August when he insisted that the acquisition of British possessions was not related to the transfer of destroyers to Britain.166 Given the feeling in the country, it reflected undue sensitivity.

  His confidence grew on hearing the legal opinion of the Attorney General, who had concluded that the destroyers could be certified as not essential to national security–patently a piece of sophistry. Roosevelt told the Canadian Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, on 17 August that he did not need to submit the matter to Congress, and that Britain would have the destroyers within a week. That proved optimistic. Further fine-tuning of the draft agreement was only finalized at the end of the month. It was Churchill in these latter stages who delayed completion by insisting on redrafting the terms of the lease of the bases in order to obfuscate the reality of the deal to the British public: that the United States had come out of it inordinately well.167 Eventually, the minor but awkward difficulties were resolved. The President gave his approval on 30 August. On the evening of 2 September Cordell Hull for the United States and Lord Lothian for Great Britain signed the agreement. Admiral Stark certified next day that the destroyers were not essential to national security in the light of the acquired bases. The ships finally made their way to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and into British possession.168

  After the months of hesitation, delay, foot-dragging, legal wrangling and drafting complications, the destroyers proved of little practical value. Only nine were put into service by the Royal Navy before the end of the year, to meet the invasion that never came. And even these were less seaworthy than had been expected. As late as May 1941 no more than thirty were put to use. There were delays, too, in releasing the motor torpedo-boats and the rifles (which, amazingly, had been completely forgotten about in the final draft of the agreement).169 Nor, despite the flurry of activity in the summer crisis, did the bases pass rapidly into American possession. The precise arrangements for the base leases were not concluded until March 1941.170

  But the symbolism of the destroyer deal far outweighed any tangible benefit for either side. The reaction in Rome, Berlin and Tokyo was sufficient to demonstrate this. Mussolini purported to be indifferent to the deal. But he interpreted it as bringing the likelihood of American intervention in the war closer.171 The German reaction was stronger. The delivery of the destroyers was seen as ‘an openly hostile act against Germany’, marking closer cooperation between Britain and the United States. America, it was now taken for granted, would do everything possible to support Britain and damage Germany. Part of the response was contemplation of a
move to occupy the Azores and the Canaries. Hitler himself, however, shrugged off the deal. He thought American rearmament would peak only in 1945. Even so, from the summer of 1940 onwards America was a factor that had to be given the utmost consideration in German strategy.172 Such consideration, we might recall, played its part in the decision to attack and, it was presumed, rapidly destroy the Soviet Union the following spring. And the destroyer-bases deal helped to hasten the negotiations between Germany and Japan that culminated in the Tripartite Pact of mid-September, aimed at deterring the United States from participation in the war.173

  In the United States, Roosevelt was above all able to emphasize the huge advantages to American defences from the acquisition of the Atlantic bases. The popular reception was very positive. Isolationists were outflanked by the President’s move to tie in the bases with the supply of the destroyers. Traditional isolationism was now starting to run out of steam, even if fear of intervention was still strong. More importantly, as was widely recognized, the Americans had now effectively abandoned neutrality.174

  For the British, this was the key point. The United States was no longer neutral in any conventional understanding of the term. The totemic aspect of the destroyer deal, privately as well as publicly emphasized by British leaders, was the outward display of American military support for Britain. During the niggly negotiations in late August, the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, had remarked that ‘the idea of the English-United States tie-up on anything is of more value than either bases or destroyers’.175 Churchill himself had implied the same at the climax of his speech in the House of Commons on 20 August. He spoke of the destroyer deal, at that point still not completed, as meaning ‘that these two great organizations of the English-speaking democracies, the British Empire and the United States, will have to be somewhat mixed up together in some of their affairs for mutual and general advantage’. It was a process, he added, in a rhetorical flourish, that he could not stop even if he wanted to do so. ‘No one can stop it. Like the Mississippi, it just keeps rolling along. Let it roll. Let it roll on full flood, inexorable, irresistible, benignant, to broader lands and better days.’176 Rhetoric apart, it was a decisive moment, as Churchill hinted, in demonstrating American solidarity with Britain’s war effort. He later described it as ‘a decidedly unneutral act by the United States’, an event which ‘brought the United States definitely nearer to us and to the war’.177 And so it was, and so it did.