FDR - Jean Edward Smith [307]
At his press conference on April 25 the president was asked to distinguish between a patrol and a convoy. Was the United States planning to convoy British merchant vessels? “No,” said Roosevelt. The difference between a patrol and a convoy was similar to the difference between a horse and a cow. “You can’t turn a cow into a horse by calling it something else. It is still a cow. This is a patrol.”
Q: Could you define its functions?
FDR: Protection of the American hemisphere.
Q: By belligerent means?
FDR: Protection of the American hemisphere.
Q: Mr. President, if this patrol should discover some apparently aggressive ships headed toward the Western Hemisphere, what would it do about it?
FDR: Let me know. (Loud laughter.)42
Roosevelt’s elliptical response reflected his determination not to get too far in front of public opinion. Gallup Polls in April showed overwhelming support for all-out aid to Britain, and FDR’s approval rating stood at 73 percent. But the country was evenly divided on whether the Navy should be placed on convoy duty, and a whopping 81 percent opposed America’s entry into war.43 Roosevelt’s caution rankled the hawks in the administration. “The President is loath to get into this war,” noted Morgenthau. “He would rather follow public opinion than lead it.”44 Stimson, Knox, and Ickes concurred. Even the military chimed in. “How much a part of our Democratic way of life will be handled by Mr. Gallup is a pure guess,” Admiral Stark complained to the commander of the Pacific Fleet.45 A more understanding assessment was offered by King George VI, who watched Roosevelt’s helmsmanship with undisguised admiration. “I have been so struck” he wrote the president, “by the way you have led public opinion by allowing it to get ahead of you.”46 Roosevelt’s stance involved more than public relations. Like Lincoln before Fort Sumter or Wilson prior to World War I, FDR told his cabinet he was “not willing to fire the first shot.” If the United States went to war, it would be because it was attacked.47
Despite the expanded American patrol zone in the Atlantic, British losses continued to mount. In the first three weeks of May, twenty merchant vessels were lost to German submarines in the area Roosevelt had staked out.48 The war was going badly elsewhere as well. In the Balkans, German troops swept through Yugoslavia and expelled the British army from Greece. In North Africa, the Wehrmacht had superseded the Italian Army in Libya and pushed eastward to the Egyptian border. Crete was about to fall, Syria and Iraq were in danger, and the neutral nations—Spain, Portugal, and Turkey—were threatening to jump on the German bandwagon. On May 3 a despondent Churchill asked Roosevelt to intervene. “Mr. President, I am sure you will not misunderstand me if I speak to you exactly what is on my mind. The one decisive counterweight I can see … would be if the United States were immediately to range herself with us as a belligerent power. If this were possible I have little doubt that we could hold the situation in the Mediterranean until the weight of your munitions gained the day.”49
Roosevelt responded on May 10. He ignored Churchill’s plea for the United States to enter the war and reassured him that aid was on the way. “Thirty ships are now being loaded to go to the Middle East. I know your determination to win on that front and we shall do everything that we possibly can to help you do it.” The president reminded Churchill, “this struggle is going to be decided in the Atlantic. Unless Hitler can win there he cannot win anywhere in the world.”50
On May 27 Roosevelt notched public awareness a step higher with his first fireside chat of the year. The speech, as Assistant Secretary of State Adolf A. Berle observed, was “calculated to scare the