By Dec. 7, 1941, “a date which shall live in infamy,” the war had been raging in Europe for more than two years.
Adolf Hitler had taken control of almost all of Continental Europe. Britain stood alone. Franklin Roosevelt had been doing all he could to help Britain. But at all times he had been opposed by powerful isolationists (some would say “appeasers”) in Congress.
One of his measures was of debatable constitutionality. It was the “Destroyer Deal.” In it, Roosevelt agreed to transfer, in 1940, without congressional authorization, 50 mothballed American destroyers, which were desperately needed by Britain, in exchange for various British bases in the Western Hemisphere. It was actually a very good deal for the U.S., but because it had been merely an executive order, it was denounced as a dictatorial act by the isolationists.
Two other key measures before Pearl Harbor were constitutional because they were acts of Congress. The first was the draft. America had a strong hostility toward the idea of standing armies going back to before the Revolutionary War because of the use of such armies against them by the British. The idea of a peacetime draft was a definite hard sell.
The measure was being taken up by Congress in the summer of 1940. At that time, Roosevelt was campaigning for his third term against his opponent, Wendell Wilkie. Wilkie, at great political cost to himself within his own party, endorsed the idea of the draft. It passed the House in September by one vote and became law.
The other and more important pre-Pearl Harbor law designed to help Britain was Lend-Lease. It provided that the U.S. could supply a large amount of armaments to Britain (and later to the Soviet Union after German Chancellor Adolf Hitler invaded in June 1941). The idea was that the U.S. would “lend” armaments to Britain, and Britain would return them to the U.S. after the war was over. (Of course, they did not.)
Roosevelt justified Lend-Lease in his great “Arsenal of Democracy” speech (actually a so-called fireside chat) in which he argued that while not at war ourselves, we must arm Britain to protect democracy.
In this, he was opposed, as usual, by the isolationists, most notably the American aviation hero Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh headed up a powerful isolationist organization called America First. Lindbergh, during this time, gave a well-covered speech in which he told a large crowd, flatly, that “England is losing the war.” Thus, he argued, we should keep our military assets for ourselves for use in the inevitable defense of the homeland against the Nazis.
Roosevelt believed — and bear in mind that he had an extraordinary amount of intelligence at his disposal coming from several independent sources — that Lindbergh was a paid Nazi spy.
On Dec. 7, 1941, the American isolationist movement came to an abrupt and final end.
Yet, Pearl Harbor remains relevant today given the rise of a new isolationism. During the recent presidential campaign, Donald Trump said that he would consider withdrawing the U.S. from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and his wing of his party has shown hostility for international cooperation through such organizations as NATO and the U.N. His election was a defeat not only of the Democratic nominee but also of the internationalist (or realist) wing of his party, typified by James Baker and former President George H.W. Bush, who declined to support him.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the isolationists in Congress (mostly Republicans) who did not retire were almost all defeated for re-election and rendered politically dead.
Dan S. Boyd is a trustee at the FDR Presidential Library and a lawyer in Dallas. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News. Readers may email him at danboydstap.com