widespread public debate on the Manchuria, crushed Chinese resis-
meaning of New Deal policies to tance, and set up the puppet state
the nation’s political and economic of Manchukuo . Italy, under Benito
life . Americans clearly wanted the Mussolini, enlarged its boundar-
government to take greater respon- ies in Libya and in 1935 conquered
sibility for the welfare of ordinary Ethiopia . Germany, under Nazi
people, however uneasy they might leader Adolf Hitler, militarized its
be about big government in general . economy and reoccupied the Rhine-
The New Deal established the foun- land (demilitarized by the Treaty of
dations of the modern welfare state Versailles) in 1936 . In 1938, Hitler
in the United States . Roosevelt, per- incorporated Austria into the Ger-
haps the most imposing of the 20th- man Reich and demanded cession of
century presidents, had established the German-speaking Sudetenland
a new standard of mass leadership .
from Czechoslovakia . By then, war
No American leader, then or seemed imminent .
since, used the radio so effectively .
The United States, disillusioned
In a radio address in 1938, Roose- by the failure of the crusade for
velt declared: “Democracy has
democracy in World War I, an-
disappeared in several other great nounced that in no circumstances
nations, not because the people of could any country involved in the
those nations disliked democracy, conflict look to it for aid . Neutral-
but because they had grown tired ity legislation, enacted piecemeal
of unemployment and insecurity, of from 1935 to 1937, prohibited trade
seeing their children hungry while in arms with any warring nations,
they sat helpless in the face of gov- required cash for all other com-
ernment confusion and government modities, and forbade American
weakness through lack of leader- flag merchant ships from carrying
ship .” Americans, he concluded, those goods . The objective was to
wanted to defend their liberties at prevent, at almost any cost, the in-
any cost and understood that “the volvement of the United States in a
first line of the defense lies in the foreign war .
protection of economic security .”
With the Nazi conquest of Po-
land in 1939 and the outbreak of
219
CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II
World War II, isolationist sentiment toward intervention . Thus the No-
increased, even though Americans vember election yielded another
clearly favored the victims of Hitler’s majority for the president, making
aggression and supported the Allied Roosevelt the first, and last, U .S .
democracies, Britain and France . chief executive to be elected to a
Roosevelt could only wait until pub- third term .
lic opinion regarding U .S . involve-
In early 1941, Roosevelt got Con-
ment was altered by events .
gress to approve the Lend-Lease
After the fall of France and the Program, which enabled him to
beginning of the German air war transfer arms and equipment to
against Britain in mid-1940, the de- any nation (notably Great Britain,
bate intensified between those in the later the Soviet Union and China)
United States who favored aiding the deemed vital to the defense of the
democracies and the antiwar faction United States . Total Lend-Lease aid
known as the isolationists . Roos- by war’s end would amount to more
evelt did what he could to nudge than $50,000 million .
public opinion toward intervention .
Most remarkably, in August, he
The United States joined Canada met with Prime Minister Churchill
in a Mutual Board of Defense, and off the coast of Newfoundland . The
aligned with the Latin American re- two leaders issued a “joint state-
publics in extending collective pro- ment of war aims,” which they
tection to the nations in the Western called the Atlantic Charter . Bearing
Hemisphere .
a remarkable resemblance to Wood-
Congress, confronted with the row Wilson’s Fourteen Points, it
mounting crisis, voted immense called for these objectives: no ter-
sums for rearmament, and in Sep- ritorial aggrandizement; no territo-
tember 1940 passed the first peace- rial changes without the consent of
time conscription bill ever enacted the people concerned; the right of
in the United States . In that month all people to choose their own form
also, Roosevelt concluded a daring of government; the restoration of
executive agreement with British self-government to those deprived
Prime Minister Winston Churchill . of it; economic collaboration be-
The United States gave the British tween all nations; freedom from
Navy 50 “overage” destroyers in re- war, from fear, and from want for
turn for British air and naval bases all peoples; freedom of the seas;
in Newfoundland and the North and the abandonment of the use
Atlantic .
of force as an instrument of inter-
The 1940 presidential election national policy .
campaign demonstrated that the
America was now neutral in
isolationists, while vocal, were a name only .
minority . Roosevelt’s Republican
opponent, Wendell Wilkie, leaned
220
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
JAPAN, PEARL HARBOR,
States release Japanese assets and
AND WAR
stop U .S . naval expansion in the
W
Pacific . Hull countered with a pro-
hile most Americans anxiously posal for Japanese withdrawal from
watched the course of the European all its conquests . The swift Japanese
war, tension mounted in Asia . Tak- rejection on December 1 left the
ing advantage of an opportunity to talks stalemated .
improve its strategic position, Japan
On the morning of December 7,
boldly announced a “new order” in Japanese carrier-based planes ex-
which it would exercise hegemony ecuted a devastating surprise attack
over all of the Pacific . Battling for against the U .S . Pacific Fleet at Pearl survival against Nazi Germany, Brit- Harbor, Hawaii .
ain was unable to resist, abandon-
Twenty-one ships were destroyed
ing its concession in Shanghai and or temporarily disabled; 323 aircraft
temporarily closing the Chinese sup- were destroyed or damaged; 2,388
ply route from Burma . In the sum- soldiers, sailors, and civilians were
mer of 1940, Japan won permission killed . However, the U .S . aircraft
from the weak Vichy government carriers that would play such a criti-
in France to use airfields in north- cal role in the ensuing naval war in
ern Indochina (North Vietnam) . the Pacific were at sea and not an-
That September the Japanese for- chored at Pearl Harbor .
mally joined the Rome-Berlin Axis .
American opinion, still divid-
The United States countered with an ed about the war in Europe, was
embargo on the export of scrap iron unified overnight by what Presi-
to Japan .
dent Roosevelt called “a day that
In July 1941 the Japanese occu- will live in infamy .” On December
pied southern Indochina (South 8, Congress declared a state of war
Vietnam), signaling a probable with Japan; three days later Ger-
move southward toward the oil, tin, many and Italy declared war on the
and rubber of British Malaya and United States .
the Dutch East Indies . The United
States, in response, froze Japanese
MOBILIZATION FOR
assets and initiated an embargo on
TOTAL WAR
the one commodity Japan needed
above all others — oil .
The nation rapidly geared itself
General Hideki Tojo became for mobilization of its people and its
prime minister of Japan that Oc- entire industrial capacity . Over the
tober . In mid-November, he sent a next three-and-a-half years, war in-
special envoy to the United States dustry achieved staggering produc-
to meet with Secretary of State tion goals — 300,000 aircraft, 5,000
Cordell Hull . Among other things, cargo ships, 60,000 landing craft,
Japan demanded that the United 86,000 tanks . Women workers, ex-
221
CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II
emplified by “Rosie the Riveter,” THE WAR IN NORTH AFRICA
played a bigger part in industrial
AND EUROPE
production than ever before . Total
strength of the U .S . armed forces at Soon after the United States en-the end of the war was more than tered the war, the United States,
12 million . All the nation’s activi- Britain, and the Soviet Union (at
ties — farming, manufacturing, war with Germany since June 22,
mining, trade, labor, investment, 1941) decided that their primary
communications, even education military effort was to be concen-
and cultural undertakings — were trated in Europe .
in some fashion brought under new
Throughout 1942, British and
and enlarged controls .
German forces fought inconclusive
As a result of Pearl Harbor and back-and-forth battles across Libya
the fear of Asian espionage, Ameri- and Egypt for control of the Suez
cans also committed what was later Canal . But on October 23, Brit-
recognized as an act of intolerance: ish forces commanded by General
the internment of Japanese Ameri- Sir Bernard Montgomery struck
cans . In February 1942, nearly at the Germans from El Alamein .
120,000 Japanese Americans resid- Equipped with a thousand tanks,
ing in California were removed from many made in America, they defeat-
their homes and interned behind ed General Erwin Rommel’s army
barbed wire in 10 wretched tem- in a grinding two-week campaign .
porary camps, later to be moved to On November 7, American and Brit-
“relocation centers” outside isolated ish armed forces landed in French
Southwestern towns .
North Africa . Squeezed between
Nearly 63 percent of these Japa- forces advancing from east and west,
nese Americans were American-born the Germans were pushed back and,
U .S . citizens . A few were Japanese after fierce resistance, surrendered
sympathizers, but no evidence of es- in May 1943 .
pionage ever surfaced . Others volun-
The year 1942 was also the turn-
teered for the U .S . Army and fought ing point on the Eastern Front . The
with distinction and valor in two in- Soviet Union, suffering immense
fantry units on the Italian front . Some losses, stopped the Nazi invasion at served as interpreters and translators the gates of Leningrad and Moscow .
in the Pacific .
In the winter of 1942-43, the Red
In 1983 the U .S . government ac- Army defeated the Germans at Stal-
knowledged the injustice of intern- ingrad (Volgograd) and began the
ment with limited payments to those long offensive that would take them
Japanese-Americans of that era who to Berlin in 1945 .
were still living .
In July 1943 British and Ameri-
can forces invaded Sicily and won
control of the island in a month .
222
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
During that time, Benito Mussolini sians advancing irresistibly from the
fell from power in Italy . His suc- East . On May 7, Germany surren-
cessors began negotiations with dered unconditionally .
the Allies and surrendered im-
mediately after the invasion of the
THE WAR IN THE PACIFIC
Italian mainland in September .
However, the German Army had by U .S . troops were forced to surren-
then taken control of the peninsula . der in the Philippines in early 1942,
The fight against Nazi forces in Ita- but the Americans rallied in the
ly was bitter and protracted . Rome following months . General James
was not liberated until June 4, 1944 . “Jimmy” Doolittle led U .S . Army
As the Allies slowly moved north, bombers on a raid over Tokyo in
they built airfields from which they April; it had little actual military
made devastating air raids against significance, but gave Americans an
railroads, factories, and weapon em- immense psychological boost .
placements in southern Germany
In May, at the Battle of the Coral
and central Europe, including the oil Sea — the first naval engagement
installations at Ploesti, Romania .
in history in which all the fighting
Late in 1943 the Allies, after much was done by carrier-based planes —
debate over strategy, decided to open a Japanese naval invasion fleet sent
a front in France to compel the Ger- to strike at southern New Guinea
mans to divert far larger forces from and Australia was turned back by a
the Soviet Union .
U .S . task force in a close battle . A few
U .S . General Dwight D . Eisen- weeks later, the naval Battle of Mid-
hower was appointed Supreme
way in the central Pacific resulted in
Commander of the Allied Forces the first major defeat of the Japanese
in Europe . After immense prepara- Navy, which lost four aircraft car-
tions, on June 6, 1944, a U .S ., British, riers . Ending the Japanese advance and Canadian invasion army, pro- across the central Pacific, Midway
tected by a greatly superior air force, was the turning point .
landed on five beaches in Norman-
Other battles also contributed
dy . With the beachheads established to Allied success . The six-month
after heavy fighting, more troops land and sea battle for the island
poured in, and pushed the Germans of Guadalcanal (August 1942-Feb-
back in one bloody engagement af- ruary 1943) was the first major U .S .
ter another . On August 25 Paris was ground victory in the Pacific . For
liberated .
most of the next two years, Ameri-
The Allied offensive stalled that can and Australian troops fought
fall, then suffered a setback in east- their way northward from the
ern Belgium during the winter, but South Pacific and westward from
in March, the Americans and British the Central Pacific, capturing the
were across the Rhine and the Rus- Solomons, the Gilberts, the Mar-
223
CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II
shalls, and the Marianas in a series cretly agreed to enter the war against
of amphibious assaults .
Japan three months after the surren-
der of Germany . In return, the USSR
THE POLITICS OF WAR
would gain effective control of Man-
A
churia and receive the Japanese Ku-
llied military efforts were ac- rile Islands as well as the southern
companied by a series of important half of Sakhalin Island . The eastern
international meetings on the politi- boundary of Poland was set roughly
cal objectives of the war . In Janu- at the Curzon line of 1919, thus giv-
ary 1943 at Casablanca, Morocco, ing the USSR half its prewar terri-
an Anglo-American conference de- tory . Discussion of reparations to be
cided that no peace would be con- collected from Germany — payment
cluded with the Axis and its Balkan demanded by Stalin and opposed
satellites except on the basis of “un- by Roosevelt and Churchill — was
conditional surrender .” This term, inconclusive . Specific arrangements
insisted upon by Roosevelt, sought were made concerning Allied occu-
to assure the people of all the fight- pation in Germany and the trial and
ing nations that no separate peace punishment of war criminals . Also
negotiations would be carried on at Yalta it was agreed that the great
with representatives of Fascism and powers in the Security Council of
Nazism and there would be no com- the proposed United Nations should
promise of the war’s idealistic objec- have the right of veto in matters af-
tives . Axis propagandists, of course, fecting their security .
used it to assert that the Allies were
Two months after his return
engaged in a war of extermination .
from Yalta, Franklin Roosevelt died
At Cairo, in November 1943, of a cerebral hemorrhage while va-
Roosevelt and Churchill met with cationing in Georgia . Few figures
Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang in U .S . history have been so deeply
Kai-shek to agree on terms for Ja- mourned, and for a time the Ameri-
pan, including the relinquishment can people suffered from a numbing
of gains from past aggression . At sense of irreparable loss . Vice Presi-
Tehran, shortly afterward, Roose- dent Harry Truman, former senator
velt, Churchill, and Soviet leader from Missouri, succeeded him .
Joseph Stalin made basic agree-
ments on the postwar occupation of
WAR, VICTORY, AND
Germany and the establishment of a
THE BOMB
new international organization, the
United Nations .
The final battles in the Pacific were
In February 1945, the three Al- among the war’s bloodiest . In June
lied leaders met again at Yalta (now 1944, the Battle of the Philippine Sea
in Ukraine), with victory seemingly effectively destroyed Japanese naval
secure . There, the Soviet Union se- air power, forcing the resignation of
224
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
Japanese Prime Minister Tojo . Gen- view of what they would face in a
eral Douglas MacArthur — who planned invasion of Japan .
had reluctantly left the Philippines
The heads of the U .S ., British,
two years before to escape Japanese and Soviet governments met at Pots-
capture — returned to the islands in dam, a suburb outside Berlin, from
October . The accompanying Battle July 17 to August 2, 1945, to discuss
of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval en- operations against Japan, the peace
gagement ever fought, was the final settlement in Europe, and a policy
decisive defeat of the Japanese Navy . for the future of Germany . Perhaps
By February 1945, U .S . forces had presaging the coming end of the al-
taken Manila .
liance, they had no trouble on vague
Next, the United States set its matters of principle or the practi-
sight on the strategic island of Iwo cal issues of military occupation, but
Jima in the Bonin Islands, about reached no agreement on many tan-
halfway between the Marianas and gible issues, including reparations .
Japan . The Japanese, trained to die
The day before the Potsdam
fighting for the Emperor, made Conference began, U .S . nuclear sci-
suicidal use of natural caves and entists engaged in the secret Man-
rocky terrain . U .S . forces took the hattan Project exploded an atomic
island by mid-March, but not before bomb near Alamogordo, New Mex-
losing the lives of some 6,000 U .S . ico . The test was the culmination of
Marines . Nearly all the Japanese de- three years of intensive research in
fenders perished . By now the United laboratories across the United States .
States was undertaking extensive air It lay behind the Potsdam Declara-
attacks on Japanese shipping and tion, issued on July 26 by the United
airfields and wave after wave of in- States and Britain, promising that
cendiary bombing attacks against Japan would neither be destroyed
Japanese cities .
nor enslaved if it surrendered . If
At Okinawa (April 1-June 21, Japan continued the war, howev-
1945), the Americans met even fierc- er, it would meet “prompt and ut-
er resistance . With few of the de- ter destruction .” President Truman,
fenders surrendering, the U .S . Army calculating that an atomic bomb
and Marines were forced to wage a might be used to gain Japan’s sur-
war of annihilation . Waves of Ka- render more quickly and with fewer
mikaze suicide planes pounded the casualties than an invasion of the
offshore Allied fleet, inflicting more mainland, ordered that the bomb be
damage than at Leyte Gulf . Japan used if the Japanese did not surren-
lost 90-100,000 troops and probably der by August 3 .
as many Okinawan civilians . U .S .
A committee of U .S . military and
losses were more than 11,000 killed political officials and scientists had
and nearly 34,000 wounded . Most considered the question of targets
Americans saw the fighting as a pre- for the new weapon . Secretary of
225
CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II
War Henry L . Stimson argued suc- tion they drafted outlined a world
cessfully that Kyoto, Japan’s ancient organization in which internation-
capital and a repository of many al differences could be discussed
national and religious treasures, be peacefully and common cause made
taken out of consideration . Hiroshi- against hunger and disease . In con-
ma, a center of war industries and trast to its rejection of U .S . mem-
military operations, became the first bership in the League of Nations
objective .
after World War I, the U .S . Senate
On August 6, a U .S . plane, the promptly ratified the U .N . Charter
Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb by an 89 to 2 vote . This action con-on the city of Hiroshima . On Au- firmed the end of the spirit of isola-
gust 9, a second atomic bomb was tionism as a dominating element in
dropped, this time on Nagasaki . American foreign policy .
The bombs destroyed large sections
In November 1945 at Nurem-
of both cities, with massive loss of berg, Germany, the criminal trials
life . On August 8, the USSR declared of 22 Nazi leaders, provided for at
war on Japan and attacked Japanese Potsdam, took place . Before a group
forces in Manchuria . On August 14, of distinguished jurists from Brit-
Japan agreed to the terms set at Pots- ain, France, the Soviet Union, and
dam . On September 2, 1945, Japan the United States, the Nazis were
formally surrendered . Americans accused not only of plotting and
were relieved that the bomb has- waging aggressive war but also of
tened the end of the war . The re- violating the laws of war and of hu-
alization of the full implications of manity in the systematic genocide,
nuclear weapons’ awesome destruc- known as the Holocaust, of Europe-
tiveness would come later .
an Jews and other peoples . The trials
Within a month, on October 24, lasted more than 10 months . Twenty-
the United Nations came into exis- two defendants were convicted, 12
tence following the meeting of rep- of them sentenced to death . Similar
resentatives of 50 nations in San proceedings would be held against
Francisco, California . The constitu- Japanese war leaders .
9
226
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL UNIONS
While the 1920s were years of relative prosperity in the United States, the workers in industries such as steel, automobiles, rubber, and textiles benefited less than they would later in the years after World War II. Working conditions in many of these industries did improve. Some companies in the 1920s began
to institute “welfare capitalism” by offering workers various pension, profit-
sharing, stock option, and health plans to ensure their loyalty. Still, shop floor environments were often hard and authoritarian.
The 1920s saw the mass production industries redouble their efforts to
prevent the growth of unions, which under the American Federation of Labor
(AFL) had enjoyed some success during World War I. They did so by using
spies and armed strikebreakers and by firing those suspected of union sym-
pathies. Independent unions were often accused of being Communist. At the
same time, many companies formed their own compliant employee organiza-
tions, often called “company unions.”
Traditionally, state legislatures, reflecting the views of the American mid-
dle class, supported the concept of the “open shop,” which prevented a union
from being the exclusive representative of all wo