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George Stern

Behind the Lines

Hints of Appeasement Begin to Come from Roosevelt’s Horse’s Mouth

(13 July 1940)


From Socialist Appeal, Vol. IV No. 28, 13 July 1940, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.


The main effects of Hitler’s European victories on U.S. imperialist strategy are already quite plain. The rivalry with Japan for domination of the Pacific area has had to be abandoned, in deed if not in word. The Atlantic, not the Pacific, has become the focus of U.S. war strategy. Finally, against the day when U.S. imperialism will have to fight its rivals both in Asia and in Europe for world domination, this country will have to play somehow for time, for time enough to build the monster two-ocean fleet and air force it needs to meet these formidable rivals of tomorrow.

Consequently we need not share the astonishment and consternation of the liberal know-nothings when hints of appeasement begin to emanate from the sacred portals of Roosevelt’s own private offices. Last Saturday morning Stephen Early, the presidential secretary, threw a group of newspaper correspondents into complete confusion when he relayed what he said were some notions of the president about the Monroe Doctrine. The U.S. did not want, he said, to “interfere” with territorial settlements in Asia and Europe arising out of the war. Let the countries of Europe settle their territorial problems and the countries of Asia, theirs.

As the newspapers generally pointed out the next day, this seemed to be saying that Europe should be left to Germany and Asia to Japan, while this hemisphere would be left to the U.S. and everything would be smooth and happy. This smacked like Chamberlain-Daladier appeasement projected on a far vaster scale.

The presidential statement was at such variance with the formal policy still expressed by Hull, especially with respect to the Far East (Indochina and the Dutch East Indies) that Early next day clouded over his previous remarks a little bit by saying he had failed to stress another presidential point: that all this had to be done (‘cooperatively” and not by methods of conquest. This did not change very much and observers here, as well as in Berlin and Tokyo, were fully entitled to wonder just what Roosevelt was actually thinking about and whether this new line of policy is soon to replace the present one, in form as well as practice.

Actually the incident would seem rather to reflect the very real confusion that must exist both in Washington and in Wall Street about the course that has to be pursued right now in the sphere of foreign policy. They know they have to discount the defeat of Britain. They know they dare not move against Japan. They know that they may have to compete with Hitler for Stalin’s partnership before very long. They also know that they need at the least two years – more probably five – to arm themselves adequately enough for the big jobs they have set for themselves in the future.

At the same time they have to face the fact that they may not have so much time, that they may not be able to dictate the circumstances or the tempo of the rapidly unfolding world struggle, that a decision may be forced upon them one way or another before they are ready for it.

It must have been out of a conversation along these lines that the Roosevelt-Early remarks emerged. They reflect the process of change rather than any definite change that has already taken place. The fact that Roosevelt, upon returning to Washington from Hyde Park, called the Commander-in-chief of the fleet back from Hawaii and consulted with the chief of staff of the armed forces in the Philippines, showed that these problems are still being weighed from all angles.


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