Did Roosevelt promise Churchill to enter the war?

Sometime about 1982, the NY Times published certain Churchill documents, as I recall, and in one, a letter, I believe, Roosevelt was quoted as committing to enter the war on Britain's side. This revelation caused something of a stir at the time, but Gerhard Weinberg doesn't mention it nor do recent books on Roosevedlt-Churchill. At a university lecture recently, the lecturer maintained in response to a question that there was never any such commitment. Can anybody inform? Thanks. Rob

I think the evidence clearly shows that FDR made no such promises before the attack on Pearl Harbor. There was encouragement from the President to the British, in correspondence with Churchill, but no promises to join. 'Promises' of support, via Lend-Lease etc., is not the same thing. The President and Churchill met at Placentia Bay in August 1941, where they agreed on the Atlantic Charter and on extensive cooperation, but at that very meeting FDR got a clear signal from Congress, with the vote on the extension of the Selective Service Act passed by a margin of only one vote, that any declaration of war without direct provocation or attack on the US was not feasible. There was no way he could get such a declaration passed by Congress, and he knew that.

Thor Eysteinsson

inform?

Roosevelt knew full well that as a leader of a democracy which contained a lot of isolationist sympathy, he was in no position to make any such promise. He dreaded war but felt that world fascism was so evil that the U.S. would be forced to fight it sooner or later, In he meantime, all he could do was start strengthening the military and wait for events to change the public mood. It is possible that the letter in question contained some speculation about such events.

You distorted the meaning of my post. FDR had nothing against Germany as such, nor Japan for that matter. It was FASCISM in all its forms he dreaded and loathed.

[snip]

FDR had to have an act of war 'incident' against something American before the Congress or the Public would support a war with anybody. The attempts to cause a U-boat to commit such an act against US DDs in the Atlantic are well known. The U-boat COs were under direct orders to never respond. Similar attempts to draw the IJN into such action in the Pacific have been less well publicized. On 2 Dec 41, FDR had ordered that several vessels, to be used both as bait for such an overt act and for intelligence gathering of IJN ship movements, be prepared at Manila.

The first was a steel hulled, coal burning, steam yacht that was converted to a Man O' War by having a small, obsolete naval-gun installed and a USN lieutenant posted as it's Captain with a Philippino crew. Another, more famous, was a wooden, two-master, similarly equipped with a Naval gun and the addition of two MGs, that would require less logistics support. The crew was a mixture of USN ratings and Philippine Insular Forces. The Captain was Lt. Kemp Tolley, USN. The USS Lanikai was a diesel-motorized, schooner-rigged boat of only 150 tons. Length was 87' 3'' with 9' beam. Speed was 7 knots. Armament was one 3' 1898 Spanish, iron-sighted rifle, one .50 MG and one .30 MG. The crew was one officer and 18 enlisted. Whether to call her a ship or a boat depends upon the context, custom and service lingo. Many of the Grand Bank schooners were called 'fishing boats' and were bigger

I am glad for all the info about the Lanikai. I have read about the boats sent as 'tripwires' out of the Phillipines, and people being angry at the sorry state of their equipment, specifically radios that could not send a report. This situation, while possibly unacceptable, is far from what went on in the atlantic, where American fighting ships were actively engaged in warfare against the Germans, probably illegally. As I said before, I hope the crews volunteered for it.

I have read studies about anti-German racism in early 20th century USA. It seems likely to me, from small disconnected details, that FDR was more racist than anti-nazi. It would be nice to have some actual information, but I'm not holding my breath. I finally found a possible source of Churchill's anti-German racism, but I doubt it would be within the charter of the newsgroup.