If Hitler hadn't

National Review, Dec 16, 1991 by Alistair Horne

FDR could not have brought America into the war without Hitler's help.

WHEN Pearl Harbor was bombed in December 1941, I was an evacuated British schoolboy at Millbrook School in New York-by happy chance, as an exact coeval of NR's Editor-at-Large. Though I was just 16, every detail of that "Day of Infamy" remains engraved in my memory. I later wrote of "the awful feeling of exultation and relief that I felt my face would betray."

For I was thinking the same thoughts Churchill later made coherent: "We had won the war. England would live." But at the same time I felt a tinge of shame that what to us meant salvation had been bought at the cost of appalling tragedy to the people who had taken us so unreservedly into their homes and their hearts.

In fact, it was still not certain that America would enter the war against Germany. Not until four days later did Adolf Hitler actually precipitate the issue by declaring war on the U.S.

Supposing he had not done so? What might the course of history have been then? In recent years American historians have argued long and loud, but inconclusively, as to whether or not FDR knew of the Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor [see Spencer Warren, above]. But there has been little thought as to why Hitler took his initiative. Though much remains speculation, new research (including information coming out of post-glasnost Russia) suggests an answer. Red Sun Rising

WHAT WAS the background? From 1918 onward, the U.S. Navy had come to view the rising might of Japan as its main potential enemy, fearing that the Anglo-Japanese Alliance could bring Britain's navy in on Japan's side in case of conflict. When Neville Chamberlain declared war on Hitler in 1939, the U.S. began by maintaining the strictest neutrality. Polls showed that U.S. opinion was overwhelmingly against intervention.

Following the fall of France in June 1940 and Britain's increasingly desperate predicament, however, Roosevelt (under pressure from Churchill) embarked on a series of steps likely to bring about a collision with Nazi Germany: the deal of fifty ancient destroyers for Caribbean bases, Lend-Lease, aggressive U.S. Navy patrolling into the mid Atlantic. After the historic meeting of August 1941 off Newfoundland, Churchill told his cabinet: "The President said that he would wage war, but not declare it ... Everything was to be done to force an 'incident' that could lead to war." But given American public opinion, this looked awfully like wishful thinking.

Meanwhile, from June 1940 on it had clearly made sense for the Germans to keep the U.S. out of the war. Despite the huge support-"all short of war"-that the U.S. was providing British convoys, the U-Boat campaign was going extremely well for Hitler. By 1941, sinkings had reached a new peak; had that rate continued Britain would have lost one-quarter of her whole merchant fleet within a year. Two days before the launching of Operation Barbarossa-the attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 Hitler flew into a terrible rage when the U-203 came within an inch of torpedoing the battleship USS Texas. He ordered that "all incidents with the United States must be avoided in the coming weeks."

The Tripartite Pact, which created the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis, was signed in September 1940. But the Axis was an astonishingly loose alliance, with no specific, contractual obligations. Tokyo was not informed of the wheeling and dealing over the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact-the sudden volte face which precipitated World War II-nor forewarned of the German invasion of Russia.

In 1940, Hitler urged Japan to attack Britain at Singapore; the Japanese, biding their time, declined. The following year, after Barbarossa, he pressed her to attack the Soviet Far East and seize Vladivostok. Again he received a polite refusal; the policy of the Japanese warlords was not to move until there were clear signs of Soviet disintegration in the West. (In 1945, the boot would be squarely on the other foot, with Stalin moving in to attack a prostrate Japan.) But, until November 1941, Germany had been trying to head an increasingly aggressive Japan away from war with the United States.

Hitler's speech on November 9 was a model of restraint. So on the 26th, Ambassador Oshima was amazed to be summoned to Wilhelmstrasse to be told by Hitler's foreign minister, von Ribbentrop: "If Japan reaches a decision to fight Britain and the United States, I am confident that that will not only be to the interests of Germany and Japan jointly, but would bring about favorable results for Japan herself." This was a sudden and complete reversal of policy, and showed Hitler and his stooge, Ribbentrop, moving out of step with the more cautious diplomatists of the Auswarti-gesamt, who-with vivid memories of the disaster of 1917-were dedicated to keeping America neutral.

Meanwhile, in Washington, special envoy Kurusu was still engaged in the talks covering up the preparations against Pearl Harbor, although the final die had not been cast. In Berlin, Ribbentrop seemed to backtrack, refusing to make any definite commitments-with the Japanese now the suitors. It was not until late on December 4 that Hitler acceded, though still not knowing details of the Japanese plan; on the 11th, four days after Pearl Harbor, he pressed the button.