Read Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings for Free Online Page B

partnership. From the first appointment of uniformed observers to England in 1937 to the secret staff talks in January through March 1941 and now the convivial exchanges on board
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, the United States had become as committed as a neutral nation could be to a strategic blueprint—however vague—for the defeat of Germany. It would begin with securing the Atlantic supply line, then ramp up into a massive bombing campaign while the Anglo-American partners assembled the men and matériel necessary for an eventual attack on Germany itself. When and where that invasion would take place were issues that were unaddressed.
    Then on December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States.

    WITHIN MINUTES of Frank Knox’s phone call on that historic day, White House operators were summoning cabinet members for an emergency meeting. Stark called the president to confirm the attack, adding that the reports so far indicated that it had been a severe one, with substantial American losses in both ships and men. Roosevelt dictated a news release for the public. At three o’clock he met with the men of what would soon come to be known as his war cabinet: Marshall, Betty Stark, and the two service secretaries, Stimson and Knox, plus in this case Secretary of State Cordell Hull. As a rule, Roosevelt tended to work around Hull, who was never a member of the White House inner circle. His presence now was mostly a product of the fact that only moments before, Hull had met the Japanese negotiators in his office to receive their formal reply to the latest American peace proposal. Before they arrived, Roosevelt had called him with the news of Pearl Harbor. The president told Hull to receive the Japanese reply without comment, then coolly “bow them out.” Hull, however, had been unable to remain mute. After reading the Japanese note with the two Japanese delegates standing in front of his desk, Hull looked up and said, “I have never seen a document that was more crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions—infamous falsehoods and distortions on a scale so huge that I never imagined until today that any Government on this planet was capable of uttering them.” 35
    For Roosevelt and his advisors, it was now no longer a question of contingency war planning. The contingency had arrived. Roosevelt instructed Stark to fight back, and the order to “execute unrestricted submarine and air warfare against Japan” went out to the fleet that first day. Longer-range plans, however, were now muddied. So much of the strategic planning of the past two years had focused on Germany and on cooperation with Britain to achieve Hitler’s defeat. All of the men who now sat in Roosevelt’s Oval Study had been part of that planning, and all of them still believed that Hitler was the more dangerous foe. They also believed it was more than likely that the United States would be at war with Germany soon enough. For now, however, more detailed planning would have to await events. 36
    Later that evening, after a meeting with his cabinet and another with the leaders of Congress, Roosevelt called his personal secretary, Grace Tully, into the Oval Study. “Sit down, Grace,” he said. “I’m going before Congress tomorrow. I’d like to dictate my message. It will be short.” He spoke slowly and deliberately, voicing the punctuation marks: “Yesterday comma December seventh comma …” When he finished, he told Tully to type it up double-spaced so that he could edit it. She was back in only a few minutes, and Roosevelt bent over the text with a pencil in his hand. He read the first sentence: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in world history …” As serious a student as he was of world history, he felt the sentence lacked the impact he sought. He crossed out those words and above them wrote the single word “infamy.” 37

CHAPTER 4
THE MEDITERRANEAN TAR BABY
    E VEN BEFORE ROOSEVELT STEPPED IN to make the final