The situation at sea was equally depressing. Nazi submarine wolf packs
were taking a heavy toll of British and Allied shipping, thus threatening to
defeat the very purpose of the Lend-Lease program. Mr. Churchill no
longer seriously attempted to conceal his conviction that nothing short of
actual American naval and air participation could keep Britain's life lines
open. President Roosevelt and his advisers, though like their compatriots
reluctant to face the stark realities, were gradually being driven to the same
conclusion. For months on end they repeatedly approached the crucial issue
only to shy away from it. The well-known aversion of the American people
to war seemed an insuperable barrier to intervention, despite a growing
realization that the national interest left no real alternative. Not until the
autumn of 1941 did the unrelenting pressure of ugly facts lead the American
people to at least tacit acceptance of undeclared and limited war against
Germany in the Atlantic.

During these agitated and fateful months the Administration was de-
terred from intervention also by the difficulties and delays encountered in
the program of war production and national rearmament, and perhaps even
more by the continued aggravation of the crisis in the Far East. The clash of
American and Japanese interests and objectives was of long standing and
had, by 1941, led to so complete a deadlock that in retrospect it is difficult
to believe that the conflict could have been resolved otherwise than by war.
Ever since Japan's adherence to the Berlin-Rome Axis through the Tri-
partite Pact of September, 1940, the United States was forced to recognize
the high probability that the outbreak of hostilities with Germany would
entail a Japanese attack on British, Dutch or American possessions in the
Pacific. Furthermore, the President and his associates had to reckon with
the ever-present possibility that Hitler would succeed in persuading the
Japanese to attack Malaya or the Dutch Indies while by-passing the Philip-
pines. In that event the American Government would have been faced with
a serious and difficult dilemma. Since American statesmen and military au-
thorities were agreed that Nazi Germany constituted the primary threat to
the national security, it was a matter of great moment to stave off hostilities
with Japan as long as possible and to avoid at all costs a military commit-
ment in the Pacific of such magnitude as to hamper eventual operations in
the Atlantic or Europe.

The agonizing problems presented by American public opinion, by the
inadequacy of American military power, by the rapid deterioration of the
democratic position in Europe, by the prospect of a Nazi conquest of Soviet
Russia, and by the standing menace of Japanese aggression in the Pacific, all
contributed to the anxiety, perplexity and vacillation of American foreign
policy in the years 1940 and 1941.

It is this period and this extraordinarily complicated situation which we
review and analyze in the present volume. Our study, the second part of our

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