[...]... of France, siege of Britain, and alliance with Japan shredded America's sense of security In 1941, European and East Asian conflicts extended and interconnected, the world divided, and war became virtually global It is with the last climactic stage in 1941 that this book is concerned The World War of 1914-18 was supposed to be the war to end all wars Thirteen million combatants died, one in five, and. .. events of the early and mid-thirties involved repudiation of internationalism The failure of the London Economic Conference of 1933 marked the end of currency stabilization and the very idea of a managed world economy At Geneva the exhaustive search for European disarmament died, and at London in 1936 naval limitation expired League sanctions failed to prevent Italy's conquest of Ethiopia in 1935-36, and. .. expansionism were deep and complex Of immediate importance was the rise of Chinese nationalism in the 1920s and the threat this posed to Japan's interests, especially its imperial holdings in Manchuria and its visions for the future of those rich northern provinces of China Behind that concern lay fear of the Soviet Union, then turning to development of the resources and defenses of Siberia and the Pacific... attitudes dominated American world policy in the mid-thirties: isolationism, preoccupation with internal affairs, and complacency American practice had been to stand aloof from Europe's quarrels The exception had been the World War and Wilson's crusade for permanent peace Historical accounts in the thirties, blaming the victors as well as the vanquished for World War I, the apparent injustices of the peace... settlement, and the rising clouds of another war, confirmed Americans in their traditional belief and passionate determination to stay out of the next conflict In 1934-36 an investigation led by Senator Gerald Nye into war profiteering by munitions-makers and bankers propelled legislation through Congress to prohibit the transactions with belligerents which seemed to have brought the United States into war. .. threat of trade restriction over Japan, and the treaty duly expired Blitzkrieg began in the west on May 10, 1940, and by the end of June the Low Countries were overrun, France was defeated, Italy was at war at the side of Germany, and Britain was a lonely outpost of democracy at the edge of a virtually totalitarian continent By the end of the summer, air battles raged over southern England, and invasion... war as a matter of choice Public opinion, as Roosevelt probably saw it, was touchy It was moving in the right direction, passing the marker buoy of aid to Britain even at the risk of war But a declaration of war was not even in sight Decisive executive action might slow or shift it Isolationism as it weakened became more bitter and vindictive It would revive with attacks on Roosevelt as warmonger and. .. only in the first stages of transformation War orders were reviving it Consumer demand was rising; cars were selling Profitable at last, business resisted conversion As profits and the cost of living rose so did labor's demand for its share The spring of 1941 was a time of labor strife Violence occurred at the Ford River Rouge plant, Bethlehem Steel, and International Harvester, and in Harlan County,... alone, and not just on army and war production business The secretary of war, age seventy-three, had served in the cabinets of Presidents William Howard Taft and Herbert Hoover As secretary of state during the Manchurian crisis he had tried his best to mobilize public opinion and Anglo -American resistance to Japanese expansion Now, assuming the role of senior statesman and high policy adviser to the... theater and in the dark slip his reports into Woods' pocket Woods forwarded these first through the American military attache in Berlin in January 1941 and then by diplomatic pouch to an administrative official in the Department of State who brought them to the attention of Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long Briining, at the time a professor at Harvard, authenticated the source Examination of . w0 h1" alt="" Threshold of War This page intentionally left blank Threshold of War Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Entry into World War II Waldo Heinrichs OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS New . Press, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Heinrichs, Waldo H. Threshold of war: Franklin D. Roosevelt and American entry into World War II/ Waldo Heinrichs. p reassem- viii PREFACE ble the pieces of what we can reasonably assume he knew of world developments, and of what he could do about it and was advised to do, the better we may understand