The tenth loss of statesmanship was the refusal to accept the proposals which his (FDR) Ambassador informed him came from the Emperor of Japan for a three months’ stand still agreement in November, 1941. Our military officials strongly urged it on Roosevelt. Japan was then alarmed that Russia might defeat her ally, Hitler. Ninety days’ delay would have taken all the starch out of Japan and kept war out of the Pacific. As the Stimson (Sec’y of State) diary disclosed, Roosevelt and his officials were searching for a method to stimulate an overt act from the Japanese. Then Hull issued his foolish ultimatum and we were defeated at Pearl Harbor.
The train of losses and this Japanese victory in the Japanese occupation of all South Asia were incalculable. Further, with the loss of sea control, Hitler and Togo were able to destroy our shipping in sight of our own shores.
The eleventh gigantic error in Roosevelt’s statesmanship was demand for “Unconditional Surrender” at Casablanca in January, 1943, where without our military, or even Churchill’s advice, he was seeking a headline. It played into the hands of every enemy militarist and propagandist; it prolonged the war with Germany, Japan, and Italy. And in the end major concessions in surrender were given to both Japan and Italy. It held out no hope of peace to the Germans if they got rid of the Nazis. The war to the bitter end left no semblance of a structure in Germany upon which to build again.
President Herbert Hoover
Freedom Betrayed; Herbert Hoover’s Secret History of the Second World War
and Its Aftermath — pg. 879-880
