Franklin D. Roosevelt and World War II, Research Paper Example

World War II was, without question, the most significant set of events in the 20^th Century. The war, and its aftermath, forever altered the course of history, reshaping global politics and economics in extraordinary ways. At the time, however, the question of U.S. involvement in the war was very much open. As the German Army began to overrun Europe in the 1930s, most Americans seemed to feel that the U.S. should not involve itself in the war, and that Great Britain, France, and other nations should deal with the German aggression themselves (Stinnett, 2000). On the other side of the globe Japan and China were engaged in hostilities, and this conflict threatened to not only engulf that part of the world, but also to spread towards and join with the European conflict. It was not until the “surprise attack” by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, that the U.S. finally entered the war. Though the attack on the U.S. fleet supposedly caught the U.S. off guard, a mountain of evidence has since come to light indicating that U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt was not only aware of an impending attack, he also took steps to provoke it, knowing that U.S. support for the war would result (Stinnett, 2000).

President Roosevelt was clear about his belief that the U.S. had to get involved in the war. Internal White House memos demonstrate his grave concerns about what would happen if Germany assumed complete control of Europe and Great Britain (Stinnett, 2000). At the time, however, the general public in the U.S. was largely unaware of just how serious a threat Adolf Hitler posed to Europe and to the rest of the world, and the majority of Americans opposed the idea of getting involved in the war (Stinnett, 2000). The U.S. was still suffering from the long-term effects of the Great Depression, and most Americans were far more concerned about what was happening at home than what was happening in Europe. Roosevelt and his aides felt that nothing short of an attack on the U.S. would be enough to get the American people to support U.S. involvement in the war.

When the Japanese bombed the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the U.S. public was shocked. Virtually overnight the American people began clamoring for retaliation against the Japanese, and the U.S. declared war on Japan soon after the attack. Though most Americans believed that the U.S. had, in fact, been caught off guard by the attack, numerous documents that were released in 1995 and later (after requests for them were made under the Freedom of Information Act) showed that Roosevelt was well aware that an attack was coming (Stinnett, 2000).

In the years and months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, officials from the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) began to press Roosevelt to instigate an attack by Japan against U.S. interests, or even against U.S. military forces. Lieutenant Commander Arthur H. McCollum of the ONI drafted a memo in October of 1940 that laid out several steps he felt Roosevelt should authorize, all intended to instigate a Japanese attack. Among them were the following:

1. The U.S. should arrange with Great Britain to send forces and ships to several British bases in the Pacific Islands
2. The U.S. should strike a similar deal with Holland, and send personnel and materials to Holland’s bases in the Dutch West Indies
3. The U.S. should offer “all possible aid” to the Chinese leader Chang Kai-Shek in his fight with the Japanese
4. The U.S. should send heavy cruisers into the Pacific, patrolling as near as possible to Japan
5. The U.S. should establish a complete trade embargo and blockade agains Japan cutting them off from needed materials and, especially, oil
6. Most significantly, McCollum suggested that the U.S. Navy should amass the bulk of their fleet near Hawaii, providing a tempting target that was relatively close to Japan while also being very much a U.S. target (Stinnett, 2000)

Roosevelt was not as concerned with the situation between Japan and China as he was with that in Europe, but he knew that an attack against the U.S. by Germany and the Axis powers was not going to materialize. If Japan attacked the U.S., however, Roosevelt could –and did- use that as an excuse to enter the war not just in the Pacific, but also in Europe. In his memoirs, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was the leader of Great Britain during World War II, expressed his belief that Roosevelt was well aware that the Japanese were planning to attack the U.S., and even accused Roosevelt of actually instigating the attack (Ray, 2000). Churchill was in a difficult position at the time, he wrote in his memoirs, because he desperately needed the support of the U.S. to fend off the Germans, yet he also felt that Roosevelt had acted “treasonously,” and that the “truth would come out” after the war, causing great problems for the U.S. (Ray, 2000).

Not every historian agrees with the conclusion that Roosevelt knew about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor, nor do they all agree that he purposely instigated it. By some accounts, the evidence supporting such a conclusion is flimsy, misleading, or entirely fabricated (Schweikart, 2008). As more and more evidence comes to light, however, the number of people who question whether Roosevelt actually knew about the attack continues to shrink. Those who doubt the recent conclusions point to minor discrepancies and contradictions among the various bits of evidence, and assert that such discrepancies prove that Roosevelt did not or could not have know about Japan’s intentions.

Despite the small number of people who continue to maintain that Roosevelt was as surprised as anyone by the attack on Pearl Harbor, the preponderance of the evidence seems clear: the U.S. not only knew the attack was imminent, but they took steps to trigger Japanese aggression. In hindsight, it may seem possible to justify Roosevelt’s actions; after all, the U.S. did help to bring an end to Hitler’s reign of terror over Europe. At issue, however, is not whether the end justified the means (it would be difficult to argue otherwise), but simply whether Roosevelt knew about, or helped along, the attack on Pearl Harbor. Leaving aside the moral questions posed by such a possibility, and looking at the available evidence, it is clear that, for better or worse, Roosevelt sacrificed the lives of hundreds of members of the U.S. Navy as a means of ensuring that the U.S. would have a reason to enter World War II.

Works Cited

Stinnett, Robert. Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor. Touchstone Publishers, New York, NY. 2000.

Schweikart, Larry. 48 Liberal Lies About American History (That You Probably Learned in School). Penguin Publisshing, New York, NY. 2008.

Merriam, Ray. World War II Journal: Pearl Harbor. Merriam Press, New York, NY. 2000.