“Early in the day, Churchill learns that Roosevelt intends to announce on the 10th that any attack on the British or Dutch possession in the Far East will be considered an attack on the United States.”
I had not seen that before. Where did you get that tidbit?
This would end the debate whether Japan could have attempted a more limited “Southern Operation” aimed at only at Malaya and the NEI without bringing the United States into war.
I got that little nugget from “Winston’s War” by Max Hastings. I’m in class getting ready to defend my paper so I don’t have the book with me to check the citation on it, but I find Hasting is pretty reliable.
Just following up with you on this. Hastings gets this reference from a memoir written by then U.S. Ambassador to Britain from the U.S., John G. Winant. The title of the memoir is “A Letter from Grosvenor Square.”
Just to put it all in better context I will put the passage from Hastings down. The notes I post can be a little rough since they are just a transcription of notes I take when I read that I put into a program I wrote that makes them searchable. They are a bit raw since they are really designed to direct me to a page in a book for when I’m doing research (I got tired of saying, “Which book did I read that in?”)
From Hastings:
On Sunday, December 7, Churchill learned that Roosevelt proposed to announce in three days’ time that he would regard an attack on British or Dutch possessions in the Far East as an attack on America. That day at lunch, U.S. ambassador “Gil” Winant was among the guests at Chequers. Churchill asserted vigorously that if the Japanese attacked the United States, Britain would declare war on Japan. Winant said he understood that, for the prime minister had declared it publicly. Then Churchill demanded: “If they declare war on us, will you declare war on them?” Winant responded: “I can’t anser that, Prime Minister. Only the Congress has the right to declare war under the United States constitution.” - Winston’s War, p. 180.