Warlords
Under scrutiny
Delusion and error
Roosevelt |
** |
Roosevelt's attention to the war in Europe led him to underestimate seriously the threat from Japan. Evidence that the Japanese were preparing for war plus warnings from the US ambassador in Tokyo about an attack on the US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor were ignored, with the result that, when it came, the US Navy was taken completely by surprise. Later, Roosevelt excessively favoured the Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, refusing to recognise that precious Lend-Lease armaments allocated to him for the fight against the Japanese were actually being stock-piled for a future civil war with the Chinese Communists. It is also arguable that Roosevelt – in failing health at Yalta in February 1945 – underestimated the threat to democracy and freedom posed by Stalin, with the result that most of eastern and central Europe was allowed to fall under Communist control after the war.
