i do think that poverty, especially in the early 30's gets adequate coverage. and it was real poverty. no one denies that people were hungry or that monetary policy was often the early 30's. >> thank you. >> thank you for the wonderful presentation. [applause] [applause] >> now from the roosevelt reading festival david kaiser recounts president roosevelt preparation for american entry into world war two. >> before today. bob clark. the deputy director of the franklin d. roosevelt presidential library and museum. my pleasure to welcome you to this session of the 11th annual roosevelt really festival. as an archivist myself this is one of my favorite events of the year because it is an opportunity for all of the

wonderful authors to show off the fruits of their labor. so we're happy to have you and all of them participating today. just a couple of housekeeping matters. will everyone please take of their electronic devices and turn them also that our presentation is not interrupted? thank you. for those of you have not had a chance yet to see the new permanent exhibit that opened here last year this time of year, please come and find one of the library staff and we would give you one of these initial buttons we will get you into our exhibit galleries for free. thank you to our colleagues. there are great supporters of our programs. happy to have them back. let me tell you a little bit about how the program will go this afternoon. our speaker will speak for 35 minutes or so, and then we want the opportunity for a few minutes of questions paid after words are always galway to the store where he will be happy to sign the books you want to buy.

so david kaiser taught history from 96 until 2013 at carnegie-mellon, harvard, the naval war college and williams college just up from here in massachusetts. "no end save victory: how fdr led the nation into war" is his seventh book. others include politics and war, european conflict, american tragedies, kennedy, johnson, the origins of the vietnam war and the road to dallas, the assassination of john f. kennedy. op-eds and reviews have appeared in the new york times, "washington post," boston globe, los angeles times and elsewhere. he regularly puts contemporary events into a literary perspective. he now lives in watertown, massachusetts petallides it and gentlemen, david kaiser. [applause]

>> thank you very much for that kind introduction. thank you all for coming. i tried to do two different things and "no end save liberty." to begin with it focuses on 18 especially critical months an american and world history, mainly from about may 1940 until december december 1941. it also tries to put them within a much broader context of u.s. history. specifically the book is about how franklin roosevelt and his administration reacted to the world crisis and specifically to the fall of france and the fall of great britain in 1940. faced the united states to the truly critical situation in the short and medium run demanding an immediate response. the world situation of a became more complicated over the next 18 months, but meanwhile roosevelt and his collaborators reached and began to implement a series of decisions sunset by the

time of pearl harbor there were in a position not only to fight but to win the second world war whiff and only three and a half years. and i am going to spend most of my time talking about that. but more broadly, "no end save liberty" is about the role of roosevelt and his generation in shaping american and world history and really creating the world in which everyone in this room has been a privilege to spend our lives . i put this story within the context of cyclical history. it is a fact is the 18th century history of the united states and relieve the whole market lead to growth has been punctuated every 80 years by a great crisis that has put an end to an old order and created a new.

in the 19th century the american civil war has ensured the continuation of democracy. and a series of related events from europe happening about the same time instituting democratic regimes. a great crisis of the 20th century, of course, involve the depression and the second world war. for some time now the fourth great crisis here in the 21st century. now, this was identified in the 1990's by two brilliant amateur historians, but one of the striking things that i found in this book was that they were not the first to see history in this light. franklin roosevelt, in fact, some history and it in several of his most important speeches he specifically compared the time he was leading the country to the revolutionary war in the civil war and painted the three of them as part of the same process we

also know that he realized at least since 1936 that both american and world history were at a turning point and that the events that were taking place in the u.s. and the world were going to shape the future relations for some time to come. he was determined to make -- to shape so that democracy will survive and thrive and that a new world order would be created and with the help of his contemporaries and also with gender generations that is exactly what he did. ..

>> in 1936 in accepting his nomination for the election at the democratic convention, he announced, as many of you know, that his generation had a rendezvous with destiny. but what did he mean by that? well, he meant something very specific, and i'm going to quote from the speech. "in this world of ours and other lands, there are some people who -- in times past -- have lived and fought for freedom and seem to have grown too weary to carry on the fight. they have yielded their democracy. i believe in my heart that only our success can stir their ancient hope. they begin to know that here in america we are waging a great and successful war. we are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.

" thus, even then before the issue of armed conflict was on the table, he knew that by trying to make democracy work we were, in a sense, fighting a battle on behalf of the whole world. now, a year later in september 1937 after the sino-japanese war broke out, he gave the quarantine speech -- which i will return to -- in which he warned that the conflicts in europe and asia were inevitably, sooner or later, going to spread to the western hemisphere. and that is what, i think, he believed. i believe he tried in 1937 to arrange joint naval action with the british to try to force the them out of china, but neville chamberlain would not go along with it. in september 1938 when hitler, thanks to his presumed military

superiority, was able to bluff the british and the french into handing most of czechoslovakia over to him. this was a great shock in the united states, and it was at that point that roosevelt, first of all, talked about increasing aircraft production. but secondly, set in motion new military planning by the joint board, the senior military authority. and that planning, which was completed in 1939, was for a war potentially against germany, italy and japan without any help from any other power. in other words, they were already preparing for the situation in which hitler might have defeated britain and france. now, this nightmare suddenly seemed to be coming true this april and may -- in april and may of 1940. first, the germans, under the nose of the british navy, not only occupied denmark, but managed to seize norway. something which according to the

traditional rules of warfare they shouldn't have been able to do, but they used air power to negate that. then came the invasion of belgium, holland and france, and within six weeks the collapse of france, the armistice and virtually everyone thought the imminent invasion -- probably successful -- of britain. this threatened the united states with a truly disastrous situation, particularly at sea. the united states had one of the two leading navies in the world, equal to the british navy. the real mission of the american navy in the interwar period was to potentially fight japan, and it was big enough to do that. but the assumption was that the british navy would handle the atlantic. now there was a possibility that the united states would have to fight japan and germany and italy and that germany and italy would, in the meantime, avail themselves of much of the british and french fleets. that was a truly catastrophic situation, and it demanded an

immediate response. there were two specific fears about what the germans might do that dominated thinking for the next 18 months. and both involved direct threats to the western hemisphere. one was that they might leapfrog across the atlantic by repeating the norway operation first in iceland, then in gleanland, then newfoundland, labrador, and then they would be in bombing range of the united states. the second which was even more within their reach was they would send their army through the french liberia and even in west africa at dakar. at that point they would be able to seize some of the atlantic islands, the canaries and the asors and the cape verdes, and they would be only 1800 miles from brazil. and those were the nightmares that preoccupied us. so what was to be done? well, roosevelt in late may undertook a huge rearmament program. he immediately called for 50,000 aircraft, the largest air force in the world.

50,000 a year, in fact, and they met that been two years. and -- within two years. and in june and july the congress rushed through, almost without debate, a bill to virtually double the size of the u.s. navy. clearly, preparation for live anything this hostile world that might appear at our doorstep at any moment. but the ships were not going to be coming on line until 1944, and meanwhile, we were in a critical situation. and then after much debate that summer, we instituted selective service, the draft, in september, but with very significant provisions. the men were only to be drafted for one year, which caused a crisis a year later, and the draftees were not to be sent outside the western hemisphere, a clear indication of what the feeling was. but the policy was very sincerely the defense of the western hemisphere. that was all roosevelt or

anybody else was thinking about. that was all they thought they could do, and, in fact, they were very worried about whether they would be able to do that. in addition, roosevelt forms the first of a series of new agencies. this one was called the national defense advisory commission. including the secretary of the war and navy and representatives of labor and industry to help plan and encourage war production. and that went through several iterations over the next couple of years. the thing that saved us really during this period in the second half of 1940 and early 1941 was hitler's own priorities. he might very well have done many of the things that we tiered and, indeed, the german navy wanted very badly to go into northern africa and into the atlantic, but hitler was already focused on the soviet union, his real goal. and he told the navy, don't worry, we'll do all that, but only after the soviet union has

been taken care of. and if he had not done that, i think that history might have turned out very differently. roosevelt then had -- okay. i'm sorry. there were two other critical -- yeah, i'm sorry. the hemispheric defense priority is also reflected in the destroyer deal that he reached with the british in september of 1940 when he gave churchill 50 destroyers in exchange for bases in the british isles. those bases were not window dressing. they gave us positions in an arc through few foundland -- newfoundland and down to trinidad. this was pushing our line of defense out in the atlantic in case the worst happened. there were two other crate developments in that same month of september 1940. first was the tripartheid pact in which germany, italy and japan agreed that if the united states became involved in war either in europe or in asia, they would all go to war with the u.s. the second one was that roosevelt got a secret profit --

again, from the heads of the army and navy -- called the problem of munitions and war production which told him that it would be approximately two years until the fall of 1942 before the united states would have enough ammunition stockpile to undertake any major military operation. and i think that weighed very heavily with roosevelt for the rest of 1940 and most of 1941. after roosevelt was reelected -- and i enjoyed treating the election at some length in the book, but i won't go into that now -- there were some other interesting developments. first of all, admiral stark, the cno, wrote the dogma memorandum to save the british who were suffering very heavily from the u-boats before they fell. but roosevelt decided not to do that, which i think is very

interesting. and he made clear in the subsequent meeting in january that he was still living with the very strong possibility that the british might be invaded and defeated sometime in the first half of is 1941. then instead he introduced lend-lease, the plan to give him unlimited authority to transfer weapons to the british or really to anybody who he thought would be of interest to the united states. lend-lease, he said -- and i think he meant this very sincerely -- was the best way to keep the war from our shores. although he didn't say how long, and it's clear that he didn't know. but the real purpose of lend-lease, i'm convinced, was to give him an excuse to expand american war production significantly more and to go way beyond the requirements of hemispheric defense. he knew this was a world crisis, and he wanted us to be prepared to fight with everything we had.

now, there was a somewhat slow period in the wake of lend-lease during which some of his closest collaborators such as henry stintson, the secretary of war, who i'll talk more about later were pushing him to where the war, but he wouldn't do that. meanwhile, the british were not invaded, but they were getting the crap beaten out of them, basically, all over the mediterranean, and that wasn't looking too hopeful either. but then came the great turning point that moves things into a new phase in june. actually, we're on the anniversary of it, or we will be tomorrow, the german attack on the soviet union. and roosevelt was one of the few who realized immediately the enormous significance of this. he wrote his old friend, admiral leahy, in visual shi that if this turned out to be more than a diversion, in other words, if the russians could hold out, it would open up the possibility of ending german.com nation of --

domination of europe. and, in fact, roosevelt -- against the bitter complaints of stimson and general marshall who were desperately trying to prepare the american army -- insisted in the second half of 1941 on sending all possible help to the soviet union, just as he insisted on sending some help to the british before. everyone else expected the soviets to go down during the second half of 1941, but he did not. in any case, this did make him more aggressive initially along the same lines. he pushed the defense line still further out in the atlantic, he occupied iceland which the british had had before that, he began sending patrols further into the atlantic and head plans to convoy ships -- head plans -- made plans to convoy ships. something happened on the production front because roosevelt had left everyone in doubt in the first half of 1941

as to how much production there was going to be. he was pushing for more, but the existing programs was adequate to meet the existing objectives; namely, the defense of the western hemisphere. but in july roosevelt gave the war department a directive asking them to prepare a estimate of the requirements to defeat all of our possible enemies. in a coming war. this was the genesis of what became known as the victory program. it was finished in a couple of months, as we'll see. and it was a very important step towards not only fighting, but winning. meanwhile, the japanese also reacted to the attack on the soviet union. they had dreams of empire they were pursuing. they knew this meant the crisis was at hand. after a big argument, they decided not to attack the soviet union themselves, but they

decided in july that they were going to undertake what they called the southward advance which meant the conquest of malaya, the dutch east inn dees and also the philippines. and in the decision that the japanese cabinet reached, they said that they would not shrink from war with britain or the united states to carry this out. the first step in the plan was to occupy southern indochina, a french colony which the french couldn't defend because they had been defeated. we knew from our magic intercepts that that was only the first step towards more expansion, and it was at that point in late july that roosevelt agreed with some of his more bellicose advisers to cut off oil shipments to japan. that led to a last round of talks with the japanese to see if war could be avoided, but given the decisions that the japanese made, there was really not any chance of that. may i say, by the way, the oil

embargo was sometimes blamed for war. i think that's a mistake. in addition, roosevelt has been accused of seeking war in the be pacific to get into war in the atlantic. that, i think, is a misreading based on the fact that we know how it turned out, and they didn't know how it was going to turn out. what the situation was from their point of view was that by the second half of 1941, they expected to be at war in the atlantic before too long. and they knew -- again, from the magic intercepts of japanese diplomatic traffic -- that the japanese took the tripartheid pact very seriously and would become involved in the war if we became involved with germany. therefore, it doesn't make any sense to be nice to the japanese in the pacific since they were going to come into the war anyway when we got involved in the atlantic. then came the next big step, the meeting with churchill in august and warships off of newfoundland and the issuance of the atlantic

charter. now roosevelt publicly declared a new goal: the atlantic charter laid out the british and american plans for a new world order after, and i quote, "the destruction of the nazi tyranny." in other words, although the united states was not yet formally at war with germany, it was committed to the destruction of the nazi regime. and this is typical of the way all through this roosevelt gradually escalated his rhetoric as he gradually escalated our power. indeed, the phrase "no win save victory" comes from the state of the union in january 1941 which was the first time that he hinted that victory over the enemy powers might be the goal. in september the war department, through stimson, gave roosevelt the estimate he had asked for, the victory program. they called for the potential mobilization of eight million men for a huge air force for

everything that we would need. roosevelt received it calmly and confidently from stimson, but there was one big problem as stimson in particular recognized, there was no way that the administration could actually undertake this program with the disruption of the civilian economy it would cause until we were in the war. still, just a month later, in october, in a press conference roosevelt acknowledged in somewhat typically elliptical language that he had asked for the preparation of an all-out program. again, step by step letting the american people in on what the plans were. well, i have reached the eve of the war, but now i'm going to detour for a few minutes to get into the second part of the book. and particularly, turn to some broader issues involving roosevelt, his generation, his leadership of his administration and his leadership of the nation. now, following strauss and howe

and their books, i identified roosevelt as a member of what they called the missionary generation; the americans born roughly from 1863 do -- 1863 to 1883. roosevelt, as you know, was at the tail end of that period, born in 1882. his key cabinet members were actually all a bit older. now, as strauss and howe pointed out, the missionary generation occupied a parallel place in american history to my own boom generation, our baby boomer generation. and they are both what strauss and howe called profit generations who have a particular role in history. the profit generation is born in the wake of the last great crisis. roosevelt and his contemporaries in the wake of the civil war, i and my contemporaries in the wake of the second world war. they grow up hearing from their elders that all of the great problems of the world have been solved and that they have nothing to do but to go on as

before. but as young adults, they tend to rebel against that and carve out a new mission for themselves. eventually they are the ones who destroy the old order and put something in its place. now, they called them the missionary generation, but their mission was earthly. and their mission, i concluded, was to bring order out of the rather chaotic world of the gilded age into which they were born. and this is what roosevelt was trying to do, first of all, during the new deal and then in the war by creating a new world order. and critically, the missionary generation tried to create this new world order based on moral values that they thought had to be the foundation of national and political life. now just to make that point, i'd like to quote from the first inaugural address in which roosevelt is discussing the need to cope with the economic

crisis. and here is how he described where the crisis came from and how it was going to be solved. "practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men. the money changers have fellowed from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. we may now restore that temple to the ancient truth. the measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we can apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit. happiness lies not in the mere possession of money, it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. the joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profit." now, i would suggest to you that barack obama, when he took over in 2009, chose not to treat the serious crisis he faced in the

same way. he and his collaborators treated it simply as a temporary breakdown of a fundamentally-sound system requiring a couple of trillion dollars from the federal reserve, period. and the difference in his response, its effect and its effect on the country from roosevelt's i don't think needs any further elaboration. in the same way, when roosevelt addressed the world situation in the quarantine speech, he also referred to enduring values and to the threat that the japanese and other actions posed to them. this is september '37. quote, "the landmarks and traditions which have marked the progress of civilization toward a condition of law, order and justice are being wiped away. without a declaration of war and without warning or justification of any kind, civilians --

including vast numbers of women and children -- are being ruthlessly murdered with bombs from the air. nations are taking side in civil warfare in nations that have never done them any harm. nations claiming freedom from themselves -- [inaudible] to others. innocent people, innocent nations are being cruelly sacrificed to a greed for power and supremacy which is devoid of all sense of justice and humane consideration." and roosevelt continued to use this language all the way through to pearl harbor and after, and so did his closest collaborators. stimson and knox, henry stimson and frank knox, were two of the most critical ones. they were both prominent republicans. stimson had been hoor's secretary of -- hoover's secretary of state, knox had been a prominent newspaper publisher and, in fact, had been the republican vice presidential candidate in 1936 when he delivered the bitterest attacks on the new deal as a

socialist-communist experiment. yet roosevelt knew both men, he had relationships with both men, and in the late spring of 1940 on the eve of the republican convention, in fact, he brought them into the cabinet as secretary of war and secretary of the navy, forming, in effect, a national government. the republican party was very unhappy about this. but not only that, this leads me into roosevelt's extraordinary management style which was on display throughout the organization, throughout his administration but especially in these years. both during the new deal years and at this point, roosevelt surrounded himself with men and women of very strong views who were very articulate and who were not afraid to speak out. and he encouraged them to do so. and thus, in this case he allowed stimson and knox to make a series of speeches broadcast on the radio essentially advocating american entry into the war at various times during 1941, even though he was not yet

willing to do this. he wanted them helping to call the american people's attention to the danger. he wanted them to enyounger public opinion -- encourage public opinion. but he kept the reins of power and the power to make the decision very much in his own hands. now, the second aspect of his leadership is really the more important one. and i go into this in some detail in what is really my favorite chapter of the book. and it relates, again, to the new deal as well as to the war. what roosevelt did was to enlist the american people in great crusades, great tasks. he created new institutions to do this. again, he appointed dynamic leaders to those institutions, and he turned them into national figures. during the new deal era, the great tasks involved putting

millions of people to work, restoring the agricultural economy, soil conservation, taming the rivers of america with great dams, providing public power and so on. and the spirit caught on, and is organized labor, for instance, decided to use this opportunity to expand itself. and now, faced with a world crisis and particularly feeling as he did that production was going to be the key that would decide who would win the world, roosevelt did something very similar. he created the new production agencies. he got both business leaders such as william newson and labor leaders like sidney hillman of the amalgamated clothing workers involved. and the great thing about these enterprises, particularly the wartime enterprises, was that they inspired even the more excluded groups in america the

take part in them as a way of gaining ground. the labor movement viewed all these new aircraft plants that were going up as an opportunity to organize more workers, and that is what they did. the civil rights movement -- which was already an important political force, although its great victories lay ahead -- saw the draft and the war effort as a chance for negro-americans, as they were then called, to prove themselves. they wanted them in the military, they wanted them in every combat task in the military. they were not fully successful. they didn't get any help from some of the senior leaders in the war department, as i'm sorry to report. but they did make some gains, and they made, they laid the foundation for further gains. roosevelt had an extraordinary ability to get americans, including republicans and democrats and americans of all races, to think of themselves

merely as citizens. frank knox made a wonderful statement to congress about this when he was taunted about some of the things he had said about roosevelt in the past. i was very struck writing about the 1940 election by two editorials i wrote -- two of the few editorials, actually -- that supported roosevelt fir president. most of the -- for president. most of the press were against him in 1940 because of the third term. but these two were from black newspapers, the amsterdam news and chicago defender. the amsterdam news editorial sounded, may i say, very much like what you might expect to hear from a black publication, a commentator today. it said, well, roosevelt has disappointed us in many ways. the armed forces are still segregated, he hasn't had an anti-lynching law, but the new deal has done a great deal for the negro, and we're for him. but the chicago defender editorial moved me almost to tears because it simply said we are for roosevelt because he is for the great mass of the

american people and the people of the world. there was not one word in the chicago defender editorial that even told you this was being written by a negro newspaper. this ability to put the american people to work, to enlist them in real tasks that achieved things was, i think, his most striking achievement. and, again, sadly, the one which most differentiates his time, i'm sorry to say, from ours. so let me move now in just a few last minutes to the last crisis. in early japan -- in early november we began intercepting cables from tokyo to the embassy in washington stating that the talks had to be concluded by the end of november because something was going to happen then. and that that was the final deadline. we knew that that was going to happen. actually, a month -- at about the same time, war almost broke

out in the atlantic. a german battleship was going to sorority into the -- sorty, but the german battleship had engine trouble and had to turn back. the tension builds all through november. it was clear something was going to happen at the end of the month. in the last days of november, the talks with the japanese were broken off, the commands in the pacific were warned of imminent war. we knew that the japanese were about to begin the southward advance. their troop transports heading south had been sighted. there had been a great deal of discussion all year about the possibility of war beginning with a surprise attack on pearl harbor. but, alas, the washington authorities did not realize that the japanese might be able to do both at once. the great nightmare which preoccupied the administration was that the japanese might attack the british and dutch possessions in the far east and leave us alone. but they were prepared for that,

and they were definitely prepared to go to war if that happened. and, indeed, on december 5th fdr promised the british ambassador, lord halifax, that they would do so. as it turned out, that was not the problem that we were going to have to face, since they were determined to go to war with us as where. alas, and i can take questions about this too, admiral kimmel in hawaii -- although he had received a warning of imminent war on november 27th -- essentially didn't believe it. he had decided for his own reasons that war was not about to break out, and that was why he was not ready. now, there was never any chance either that we would fight only japan. on december 8th roosevelt asked for the declaration of war against japan. on december 9th, he gave a fireside chat stressing that japan and germany were acting as allies and, indeed, that japan was acting on germany's behalf. again, the magic intercepts had told us that the japanese had

warned the germans a couple of days before pearl harbor that there was likely to be a dramatic change in their relations with the united states and that the germans had assured them that, if necessary, they were quite willing to observe the terms of the tripar hide pact. and indeed, on december 10th, germany declared war on the united states. now, i'd like to conclude as i did the book with an extraordinary episode that took place on the 9th of december when the new production authority met. i mentioned the victory program that had been -- [inaudible] in september, and the original specifications of the victory program was they wanted what we needed to defeat our enemies, and they wanted it to be ready by july 1, 1943. and at this meeting stimson walked up to william newelled seven and said, well, how about it?

can we meet the target by july 1, 1943? and and nudeson replied, no, we can't. the united states had lost fleet, it was virtually defense less. we were terrified that west coast was going to be invadeed. but thanks to roosevelt's leadership, thanks to the thinking and work that these men had done over the year, at that moment newed seven was able to predict, essentially, when the great defenses in both the atlantic and pacific were going to begin -- offenses. and that's why there was, indeed, no end save victory. thank you very much. [applause] >> we have a few minutes for questions. and because of c-span, if you'd come up to the microphone to ask your questions. >> john herbert.

i have a question about the oil embargo. i didn't get completely what you were talking about, because people often say, oh, this is why the war started and why did we do it and all of that. >> the japanese, as i said, had already decided before the embargo that they would undertake the southward advance and even at the risk of war with britain and the united states. they were not going to be deterred by that. now meanwhile, i mean, really extraordinary what was going on in tokyo. at one point someone asked is it really necessary to attack the united states? and the navy said, yes, absolutely. and the reason the japanese navy said that was that without the attack on the united states, they would lose most of their budget allocation, and the army would get everything, and they were determined not to have that happen. so oil embargo or no oil embargo, they were going to go to war, and they were going to go to war with us. >> why did roosevelt decide to

do it then? >> for that reason that he realized that the dye was cast and the thing to do was to weaken them to the maximum extent possible. and even so -- and this is what i really like to stress, he was going on the offensive to a certain extent in the atlantic. he was convoying, he was about to start the convoy to and from iceland. they were going to be shooting, and they were. that might lead to war with the atlantic, in the atlantic at any point. and again, from the magic intercepts tokyo told washington again and again, we take the tripartheid pact very seriously. we are not going to go out of our obligations. so they would come in anyway. so there's no reason to keep sending oil to them. yeah. >> what was germany, from hitler's rationale, performing

the tripartheid pact? and also if germany hadn't declared war on the united states, would roosevelt have gotten us into a war with germany? >> the rationale in both tokyo and berlin, which was very optimistic, was that it would intimidate us from getting into the war. because we wouldn't want to fight everybody. also i think that it might intimidate the british to make peace, hitler was hoping for that too. no, i don't have any doubt that roosevelt would have immediately asked for a declaration of war on germany too and that we would have gotten it. but, again, before pearl harbor he had seen this cable traffic in which it was announced to the germans, hey, we're going to war with the british and the americans, and he said don't worry about a thing. and hitler did have this crazy idea, one of many, that he really didn't want the u.s. in

the war without japan on his side. but he thought that if japan were on his side, they would satisfactorily occupy the u.s. and, actually, for about a year that was true. but that wasn't enough. [laughter] >> i had not known about the development of the embargo on oil, but i remember -- and i don't remember the timeline -- reading a document, a state department document called "events leading to world war ii." and in it, it described that there were negotiations by the japanese to get trade concessions. we turned them down, and at that time the peace cabinet fell, and the tokyo war cabinet supposedly, from what i remember, was installed. and the secret plants, japan

started building up its navy and started planning for war. have you run across that documentation, and what truth or -- is there for that? >> a little but not that much. okay. we had been in talks with the japanese to see if we could adjust our relations and avoid war. going back to the spring. we were saying you must withdraw from indochina and china also. which they had no interest in doing. now, when we put on the embargo, they got more eager. now, the somewhat tragic figure -- well, tragic or pathetic, that's the question -- in this was the japanese premier who had been for about two years and who i think did want to avoid war with the united

states, but who was totally committed to the southward advance. and so he was insisting on continuing these talks, and he also wanted to meet with fdr. he asked to meet with him in hawaii or in alaska. but he really didn't have that much to offer, particularly with respect to the china question. and the thing dragged on. fdr refused to meet with him. and then, yes, he did fall. and that was a signal, but it really wasn't the fundamental change in policy. it was a change to the extent that then the japanese gave up. actually, it's very hard to say, but late in the process i felt that by the time of the fall of the tokyo cabinet, neither side expected the negotiations to work, neither side was very serious about them. the japanese just wanted to keep them going until they actually struck, and they did keep them going literally up to the moment of pearl harbor. and we were keeping them going for appearances sake to some

extent too. yeah. [applause] >> [inaudible] >> thank you all very much. >> next up from this year's roosevelt reading festival, michael golay on journalist lorena hickok's reports from throughout the country during the great depression. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon, everyone. good afternoon. hello. hello, good afternoon. you're all so excited because we're nearing the home stretch. my name is bob clark, i'm the deputy director here at the roosevelt library, and welcome