So, let’s talk about Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor, I think, had to happen sooner or later, because the Japanese felt that the United States was putting embargos on them, pressuring them, that they had to hit back. And, you know, whether the exact details of it were known in the United States, I don’t know, but I think there must’ve been a sigh of relief among certain sectors who wanted to break the country from isolationism. Because the isolationist current in the United States is always very strong, and was even more so after the First World War. And there is an honorable side to that, too, saying it’s not our business to go and interfere in other parts of the world. Why should we? But against that, you had people who felt that US interests could only be defended by going abroad. They couldn’t keep out of this. And I think there’s no doubt that Roosevelt and some of the people close to him wanted to enter that war. It’s sort of public knowledge now.
So the point I make about Pearl Harbor was that it was very convenient. After it happened, the whole of the United States was committed to war. And a lot of things were done in the United States that really should never have been done, like the internment of the Japanese American population, that as a result of Pearl Harbor were accepted by the population as a whole. I always wondered, you know, just as a little footnote here, if the United States had decided in the weeks that followed 9/11 that every American Muslim should be put in a camp indefinitely what the reaction would have been. I fear there would not have been much reaction. I fear that. I mean, a good few people would have raised their voices, but in any case, to return to the Second World War, they did that, and Pearl Harbor became, I mean not surprisingly, then the cause of the United States going into battle. The point is this: after the United States declared war on the kingdom of Japan, the other Axis powers, Italy and Germany, declared war on the United States. Now they needn’t have done. Hitler was not told about the attack on Pearl Harbor. He could have said we were not part of this, we are not declaring war on the United States. Yet he did. And I think it was a rash move, because some people in the United States would’ve argued, let’s concentrate now on wiping out Japan, let’s go straight into the Pacific, let’s not deal with the Germans.
Isn’t it remarkable that, in November 1940, Roosevelt is elected on a platform of not going into the war? This is after England is under serious attack and is in jeopardy of falling. Many people have suggested that Roosevelt felt that England would fall.
Yes.
So he would be willing to give away—
England.
Europe?
I think so. And I think it was not only him. To be fair to Roosevelt, most people thought England wouldn’t survive.
If that’s the case, then I would think Roosevelt is thinking about a future world without England as controlling all these colonies. Would these colonies perhaps become available to Roosevelt?
Absolutely. I think that this was a big point of discussion within the United States ruling elite: the British Empire is collapsing, and we will have to take it over, as much as we can, in order to preserve and protect our own global interests. In one message to Churchill, Roosevelt said it would be a big tragedy if the British Navy fell into the hands of the Germans, so I suggest you send your entire navy to US ports so we can look after it for you. And Churchill was horrified, because the idea of defeat didn’t enter into the equation for him.
So the Atlantic Charter, the meeting in Newfoundland, plays a serious role here because Churchill comes over in early 1941, and makes a deal, so to speak, with Roosevelt, to defend what they called the Four Freedoms?
I think by that time the British had survived. It became clearer in 1941 that they were going to fight on. The Battle of Britain had taken place in the air, and hadn’t been followed by a German invasion of Britain. That’s the other interesting thing. The Germans stepped back when England was ready actually for the plucking.
And go instead to Russia.
Hitler decided that he had to go against Russia, and they began to plan Operation Barbarossa, another big strategic error made by the Germans. Just thinking from their point of view, either you go for Russia in the beginning and deal with it, and that’s what some of their generals were advising; or, if you’ve started to pulverize Britain, because you want the British Empire, then go for it. But at the last minute they changed their mind. So there was a lot of irrationality there.
Coming back to Roosevelt, I think once Britain had survived that initial German onslaught, he thought probably these guys are going to make it, and we have to do something now. But the fact that he came to power on a pacifist ticket, saying we’re not going to go into any wars, is an indication on how deep that pacifist isolationist feeling ran inside the United States.
Let’s follow the money for a moment. We know that many Americans are tied to Germany by birth, and we know there’s a lot of money in Germany. We know that perhaps we can make a deal with the Germans financially that could be lucrative. Bonds and stocks can be traded with Germany, as well as with Britain, but there’s a strong anti-British feeling in America.
There is, and I mean, Henry Ford, you know, one of the sort of great industrialists of the United States was very pro-German, did his deals with them, as did others.
And Charles Lindbergh.
And Lindbergh. And so, you know, the thing for them, I mean just thinking purely as captains of industry, capitalism essentially is color blind, gender blind. It’s a struggle for profits. And so why privilege Britain rather than Germany? That’s how they thought. And the fact that Germany had an anticommunist leadership, that was fine. In fact, it was even good.
To follow the money further, I wonder about Pearl Harbor. If you study the Japanese aggression from 1931 onward in China, Japan is clearly dying for empire, an Asian sphere, throwing out the white man, throwing out the foreigners. So Japan is seriously pursuing wealth, chopping up China, going toward Thailand and Indochina, Indonesia, the oil-producing crescent of South Asia. Japan is growing very rich, right? So why is America all of a sudden putting an embargo on Japan at that point? Why are they stopping the Japanese from getting rich at the same time that they are defending the interests of the British and French Empires in South Asia?
I think a significant proportion of leaders in the United States felt that it would be easier for them to take over the role of the British globally than it would be to take colonies away from the French or the Japanese. I mean, that was a tradition. That if it’s the Brits, if this falls totally into the hands of the Japanese, it’s lost to us forever, or for a long time to come. Whereas if it’s in the hands of the British or the French—
Or the Germans—
Or the Dutch, then it becomes much, much easier.