FDR - Jean Edward Smith [322]
On July 23 Japanese troops, already garrisoned in northern Indochina, moved into the southern portion of the country. Under a new protocol signed with Vichy, Japan acquired the use of eight airfields including Da Nang and Bienhoa, the naval bases at Saigon and Cam Ranh Bay, and the right to station an unspecified number of troops in the south. This provided the Japanese with a forward vantage point from which not only to interdict the remaining supply routes into China but to threaten Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines.
Cables from Ambassador William Leahy in Vichy as well as MAGIC intercepts alerted Roosevelt as early as July 14 that the Japanese planned to move into southern Indochina.* At cabinet on the eighteenth Morgenthau pressed the president for a response: “What are you going to do on the economic front against Japan if she makes this move?”
“Well, to my surprise [wrote Morgenthau] the President gave us quite a lecture why we should not make any move because if we did, if we stopped all oil, it would simply drive the Japanese down to the Dutch East Indies, and it would mean war in the Pacific.”34
FDR’s caution dovetailed with the military’s assessment. On July 21, 1941, Admiral Stark forwarded to the president a Navy Department memorandum emphasizing the paramount importance of the Battle of the Atlantic and suggesting that the Japanese were unlikely to move beyond Indochina unless the United States cut off the flow of oil. “An embargo would probably result in a fairly early attack by Japan on Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies, and possibly would involve the United States in an early war in the Pacific.” Stark added a handwritten postscript noting his concurrence.35 Marshall told Stimson essentially the same. “Collapse in the Atlantic would be fatal; collapse in the Far East would be serious but not fatal.”36
When Roosevelt met with his cabinet on July 24, the day after the Japanese occupation of southern Indochina, he spent much of the time whiplashing his subordinates to expedite aid shipments to the Soviet Union. He was annoyed by the Japanese move but had not changed his view that the United States should not overreact. “Notwithstanding that Japan was boldly making this hostile move,” wrote Ickes that evening, “the President was still unwilling to draw the noose tight. He thought it might be better to slip the noose around Japan’s neck and give it a jerk now and then.”37
The noose Roosevelt envisaged was a freeze on Japanese assets in the United States. That would require specific government approval before funds could be released to pay for exports to Japan. It would not embargo trade but would add a modicum of inconvenience and uncertainty. The Japanese would have to apply for an export license before each shipment. Much to the disappointment of the hawks in the administration, FDR said the United States would continue to ship oil and gasoline. Asked specifically by acting Treasury secretary Daniel Bell (Morgenthau was on vacation) how Japanese requests for petroleum should be handled, FDR said he was “inclined to grant the licenses for shipment as the applications are presented.”38
Roosevelt was more explicit later that day when speaking extemporaneously to volunteers from the Office of Civilian Defense. People are asked to conserve gasoline, he said. Why should they do so when we are shipping all of this gasoline to Japan?
Now the answer is a very simple one. There is a world war going on, and there has been for some time. One of our efforts,