- Sep 26, 2000
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Now that the wackos have gone away for another year with their FDR knew about Pearl Harbor its time for the grown ups to play.
There is a little known action that occurred prior to the war with Japan. Everyone knows about how FDR limited US exports of oil to Japan that was a primary cause for Japans attacking Pearl Harbor.
However the real story is fascinating. In actuality the US had given export licenses to Japan for enough exports of gasoline for nine months and crude oil for another 32 months. In the convoluted process to buy the oil products the US created an interdepartmental committee of three men who would have to release funds to actually purchase the oil.
This is where it gets interesting. Dean Acheson who was then a young acting secretary at the US treasury was on the committee. Acheson was a virulent anti fascist. Acheson completely dominated the committee. The committee seemed to act completely independently of higher authority.
What the committee did was to just sit on the the approval to release the funds to buy the oil. The Japanese could not ask to have the funds released because the would lose "face". In effect Dean Acheson, by himself, decided to completely cut off oil exports to Japan.
Whenever you read a history of the pre war years they tend to say that the US "cut" their exports of oil to a level that would not be enough to keep up Japans war in China but would have been enough for peaceful purposes. This is clearly not true.
The question is did FDR put Acheson on the committee hoping he would do this? Did FDR secretly ask Acheson to do this?
Here's a review from a book about this:
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=22899
"the Foreign Funds Control Committee (FFCC), had to release funds for licensed exports. According to Miller, the FFCC was dominated by assistant secretary of state Dean Acheson, who was determined to release no funds to Japan. Miller elaborates on the fact that the FFCC, which was composed of the three "second-tier cabinet officials," "proved to be almost immune to direction from higher authorities" (p. 178) and carried out a total oil embargo without the approval of the president or secretary of state."
"On the crucial question of why Roosevelt accepted the unplanned embargo, Miller hints at an alternative scenario: "Roosevelt wanted all along to prod Japan more forcefully than his diplomatic and naval advisers wished, and Acheson was carrying out the unwritten and possibly unspoken wishes of the commander in chief" (p. 203). This could have been another revisionist conspiracy theory if Miller tried to prove it, but he quickly admits that "an absence of evidence prevents an undisputed conclusion as to whether Roosevelt accepted the unconditional freeze of Japan's dollars because it was thrust upon him or because it was the policy he desired"
There is a little known action that occurred prior to the war with Japan. Everyone knows about how FDR limited US exports of oil to Japan that was a primary cause for Japans attacking Pearl Harbor.
However the real story is fascinating. In actuality the US had given export licenses to Japan for enough exports of gasoline for nine months and crude oil for another 32 months. In the convoluted process to buy the oil products the US created an interdepartmental committee of three men who would have to release funds to actually purchase the oil.
This is where it gets interesting. Dean Acheson who was then a young acting secretary at the US treasury was on the committee. Acheson was a virulent anti fascist. Acheson completely dominated the committee. The committee seemed to act completely independently of higher authority.
What the committee did was to just sit on the the approval to release the funds to buy the oil. The Japanese could not ask to have the funds released because the would lose "face". In effect Dean Acheson, by himself, decided to completely cut off oil exports to Japan.
Whenever you read a history of the pre war years they tend to say that the US "cut" their exports of oil to a level that would not be enough to keep up Japans war in China but would have been enough for peaceful purposes. This is clearly not true.
The question is did FDR put Acheson on the committee hoping he would do this? Did FDR secretly ask Acheson to do this?
Here's a review from a book about this:
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=22899
"the Foreign Funds Control Committee (FFCC), had to release funds for licensed exports. According to Miller, the FFCC was dominated by assistant secretary of state Dean Acheson, who was determined to release no funds to Japan. Miller elaborates on the fact that the FFCC, which was composed of the three "second-tier cabinet officials," "proved to be almost immune to direction from higher authorities" (p. 178) and carried out a total oil embargo without the approval of the president or secretary of state."
"On the crucial question of why Roosevelt accepted the unplanned embargo, Miller hints at an alternative scenario: "Roosevelt wanted all along to prod Japan more forcefully than his diplomatic and naval advisers wished, and Acheson was carrying out the unwritten and possibly unspoken wishes of the commander in chief" (p. 203). This could have been another revisionist conspiracy theory if Miller tried to prove it, but he quickly admits that "an absence of evidence prevents an undisputed conclusion as to whether Roosevelt accepted the unconditional freeze of Japan's dollars because it was thrust upon him or because it was the policy he desired"
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