December 1941 (36 page)

During the American embargo of Japan, the administration had decided not to include oil, as the country was wholly dependent upon oil imports from the United States and cutting it off might cause too much shock to the Japanese economy. All bets were off now, on that score, but no matter. Because of frugal policies, Japan had a stockpile, according to estimates, of up to a two-years' supply of the precious liquid.
¹⁴⁹

The shipping schedules for commercial ships were radically changed to suit the new priorities. First, they would no longer be published in the newspapers. Second, the war effort took priority. Also, because of the war conditions in the South Pacific, it would take twice as long for merchant ships to traverse the distance due to the presence of Japanese submarines. Also, the military expected a 50 percent reduction in the transport of nonmilitary items.
¹⁵⁰
The government announced “secret plans” to secure defense factories from saboteurs under the Plant Protective Service.
¹⁵¹
Aviation fuel took a front seat to refined gas for the civilian population. Because of the high performance nature of aircraft engines, they required additional lead in the gas to prevent what could be dangerous engine knocking, which meant the American car driver could look forward to their engines knocking for the duration of the emergency.

The industrial might of America had been ramping up for the past year, due to Lend-Lease, but now it would be turned up several more notches. A beneficiary of American generosity was the Free French government led by Charles de Gaulle, which a day after everyone else declared war on Japan.
¹⁵²

Yet there was a spiritual change to the country as well. “The tentacles of a great crisis are reaching down into the hearts and minds of all the people. And the full measure of the impacts upon the nation can be determined only with realization that a great international crisis has come to force readjustments in the lives and thoughts of all individuals.”
¹⁵³

The attack changed American attitudes and outlooks forever. Since the end of the Great War, America had become an increasing isolationist country, and it was reflected in her policies of high tariffs and tight immigration policies, as well as the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s. Americans told themselves that they were protected by two great oceans and nothing could ever befall their homeland. Columnist Walter Lippmann called the image of us sitting comfortably isolated and protected by the oceans a “deadly delusion.”
¹⁵⁴

The war in Europe often seemed very far away, with little impact on the daily lives of American citizens. But now, there was a new unity in the land not seen in its history. The factionalism that had been a hallmark of Americanism had dissipated. “Behind this determination stand not alone the members of our government. Behind it, dedicated with them to the extirpation of the counterpart in the Pacific of the criminal architects of ruin, pillage and slaughter in Europe, stand a people united as never before.”
¹⁵⁵

It was war. “This is the World War in the complete and literal meaning of the words—a war which can end only in our victory or in our defeat.”
¹⁵⁶

Deep in some newspapers of America it was reported that German embassy officials in Washington were burning papers as “bits of charred paper floated down” to the street. A truck arrived to deliver brown wrapping paper. A “society reporter” visited the embassy, and the charge d'affaires, Hans Thomsen, said, “Have you come to say goodbye?” To which she replied, “Well, have I?” Thomsen demurred, only saying it was “a little premature.”
¹⁵⁷

In Berlin, an official of the Third Reich told the Associated Press that his country was preparing to issue a “clarifying statement” on the war between the United States and the empire of Japan.
¹⁵⁸
The spokesman said America had been the aggressor in the Pacific, and according to the terms of the Tri-Partite Pact, Germany and Italy were duty bound to come to the assistance of their ally. Secretary of State Cordell Hull jumped into the fray and said he, too, had heard rumors that Germany was about to declare war on America.
¹⁵⁹
The White House announced that FDR was going to address not only the Pacific but Europe in his radio broadcast, including a “Nazi pattern.” Elaborating, the
Washington Evening Star
reported, “There was a strong implication . . . that Mr. Roosevelt's words tonight will be virtually a declaration of war against Nazi Germany.”
¹⁶⁰

And then a reporter for NBC, David Anderson in Stockholm, broadcast a story in which he “predicted” Germany would declare war on the United States “within a few hours.”
¹⁶¹
He elaborated, saying that American embassy officials in Berlin were already evacuating. And unconfirmed reports said a meeting was planned the next day in the Reichstag. A performance in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin was canceled because this was where the Reichstag met.
¹⁶²

CHAPTER 10
THE TENTH OF DECEMBER

“US Warships in Battle Off Manila, Berlin Says”

Sun

“Roosevelt Sees a Long, World-Wide War;
Japanese Invade Luzon, Fight in Manila;
2 Big British Warships Sunk, Tokyo Says”

New York Times

“Japs Sink Two British Dreadnaughts”

Birmingham News

F
ranklin Roosevelt appeared in good spirits and good health to the reporters who filed into the Oval Office. FDR was dressed in a grey suit, white shirt, black tie, and black armband for his mother, Sara, who'd died the previous September. “He was smoking a cigarete [
sic
] in an ivory holder . . . and he chatted smilingly with correspondents.”
¹
“He looks fine,” one reporter whispered to another and it was noted “there were no haggard lines in his face. His color was good. There was about him a calm confidence.” Another was heard to say, “He thrives on activity—and he has plenty of it now.”
²

He'd been confined to a wheelchair for years, only occasionally using the painful leg braces when in public. In all of his years in the presidency, he'd only been photographed in the wheelchair maybe three times. Secret Service men routinely confiscated photographs and negatives, and the White House press corps was in on the cover-up, berating new members not to photograph the crippled and confined president.
³

The security around FDR had increased appreciably, as reporters were asked repeatedly to show their press credentials before being allowed into the briefing with the president.
⁴
Yet by that evening during a long radio broadcast, the wear and burden of the war and the long day showed in his face. The stress of the war years with its never-ending long days and long nights, combined with his endless smoking of Camel cigarettes, contributed mightily to FDR's decline in health. Several years into the war, a young reporter assigned to the White House beat was appalled during his first day on the job when he realized the haggard, sallow-skinned decrepit man sitting before him was the president of the United States.
⁵

But at the dawn of the war, and flexing his new powers, FDR issued a proclamation saying that “all alien enemies are enjoined to preserve the peace . . . and to refrain from crime against the public safety and from violating the laws . . . and to refrain from actual hostility or giving aid or comfort to the enemies of the United States.” It was also noted that “violators [would] be interned.”
⁶
Japanese subjects were prohibited from leaving Hawaii, and local military commanders in the battle zones were given wide latitude to imprison those they deemed a threat.
⁷
Nationals from all three countries who were in America were “liable” as far as the government was concerned, especially Japanese because “an invasion had been perpetrated upon the territory of the United States by the Empire of Japan.”
⁸

The edict put a halt to the process for nearly 500,000 Japanese, German, and Italians wanting to live or stay in the United States. J. Edgar Hoover was keeping FDR apprised of the FBI's efforts, via Maj. Gen. Edwin M. Watson. “I thought it might be of interest to the President and you to have the inclosed [
sic
] charts before you, which show the number of Japanese, German and Italian aliens taken into custody by the FBI as of December 9. This gives the exact location of the number apprehended and places at which they were apprehended.” The memo was accompanied by a detailed chart of the forty-eight states, denoting pickups.
⁹

The administration was also getting ready to ask Congress for virtually unrestricted powers, including the ability to send arms and other support materiel to any country fighting the Axis powers and not just against Japan.
¹⁰
The White House was seeking nothing less than authoritarian powers in the conduct of war. It went even further.

With the help of the Federal Communications Commission and the War Department, the White House in essence nationalized the nation's radio industry. “President Roosevelt signed an executive order late today . . . to designate radio facilities for use, control or closure by the War or Navy Departments. . . . The effect of the order is to give the Government freedom to step in and supervise directly or make use of all radio facilities of the Nation.”
¹¹
The order also allowed “other agencies of the government” to step in and take control of private radio broadcasting facilities.
¹²

FDR was drawing broad support from many corners. Gen. John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, America's only five-star general, still on the active duty roster at the age of eighty-one, sent the president a letter, offering his services. FDR responded kindly, calling him “magnificent. I am deeply grateful to you . . . under a wise law, you have never been placed on the retired list.”
¹³

A dispute among constitutional scholars broke out over exactly when America went to war with Japan, fueled by FDR's language proclaiming “a state of war has existed” even though Congress had not formally declared war on Japan at the time. Most agreed that a state of war did not come into actual existence until 4:10 p.m. on the eighth, when the president actually signed the proclamation of war. Whatever the variances, all agreed that the president's powers were now vastly expanded. “Statutes which operate in such periods authorize the President to take over transportation systems, industrial plants, radio stations, power facilities and ships, and place some controls on communications systems,” reported the
New York Times
.
¹⁴

The mobilization of the political and business class to fight a highly industrialized global war, combined with the concentration of power into the hands of the commander in chief, was profoundly changing what had once been Fortress America. It marked the beginning of what would later be known as the Imperial Presidency. The expansion of presidential powers in response to Pearl Harbor also presaged the postwar National Security State, in which civil liberties were sometimes curtailed. This was all to come. But in December 1941, it was already clear to ordinary and powerful citizens alike that a major shift in American society was under way and that the republic as originally envisioned by the Founding Fathers was giving way to something different.

A quote from Alexander Hamilton from
Federalist 74
was bandied about to support the contention that wartime conditions allowed for the expansion of executive powers: “The direction of war implies the direction of common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength forms an unusual and essential part in the definition of the executive authority.”
¹⁵

Most believed President Roosevelt now had enhanced and broaden powers not only over the military but the citizenry, the economy, and labor as well. One euphemistic new example: “The Secretary of War may rent any building in the District of Columbia.”
¹⁶
In other words, the federal government now had the right to commandeer private property. Indeed, in his press conference, FDR suggested that a seven-day workweek in the war industries might be necessary and proposed convening a conference of business and labor to discuss the matter. The word
parley
was used, but in fact there would be little to discuss.
¹⁷
He also floated the idea of a “Conference on the Defense of [the] Western Hemisphere.”
¹⁸
Also proposed was the notion of “enforced savings” of the average worker that would automatically deduct “10 to 15 percent of all income and wages.”
¹⁹

The issue of who exactly was an American also came up in debate. The law said Japanese could not become naturalized citizens “under provisions of the act of Feb 18, 1875 amending the act of July 14, 1870 limiting naturalization to white persons or those of African descent.” Open to question was whether a child born in America, of Japanese parentage—
called “Nisei”—
was considered a naturalized American.
²⁰

The government was now monitoring or restricting the movements of over 1 million individuals, virtually all of Japanese, German, and Italian heritage. As of the tenth, the attorney general's office said they had now picked up over one thousand foreign nationals. FDR's proclamation instituting prohibitions on those still roaming free, including the ability to possess a firearm, “ammunition, bombs, explosives or material used in the manufacture of explosives; shortwave radio receiving sets; transmitting sets; signal devices; codes or ciphers; cameras; papers; documents or books in which there may be invisible writing; photograph, sketch, picture, drawing, map or graphical representation of any military or naval installations.” The directive went on with even more specifics and restrictions.
²¹
Arrests continued. “A Japanese was seized near Oakland Airport and another was arrested near the scene of an early morning fire in Oakland.”
²²