efenses:    U.S.    1228/    U AO
No. 531
BRITISH
ASSY
WASHINGTON, D.C.,
June 7th, 1940
Mr Lord,
The Allied reverses in the Low
Countries following hard upon thoae eusteined
in Norway, here, as I haTe already reported by
telegraph, made the deepest impression in this
country.     V/hat hitherto had been at most a
vague uneasiness that the Allies were not so
sure after all of defeating Oermany has turned
almost over-night into a frightening persuasion
that not only was Germany likely to defeat us
but it was quite on the cards that she might be
able to do so in short order.     The feeling that
almost from one day to the next this hemisphere
would no longer enjoy the tine-honoured shelter
of the British fleet and miffjit find itself the
last fcreat citadel of Democracy in a world
dominated by greedy and ruthless totalitarian
powers has shaken complacency end focussed a
sharp light uoon the state of the nMtion*s own
preparedness.¦
2. It was therefore to an already
receptive audience that the President made his
, /1     personal address of the 16th f^ay to the Congress
'        in Joint session.     He stated it as wa clear
fact..... that the American people must recast
their thinking about national protection". Then,
The Ri^ht Honourable
The Viscount Halifax, K.G.,
following/
etc., etc.,
etc.     Ni.iB: HOC: GHSP: FRHM: CB: DH
following a graphic illustration in terms of air
distances of the vulnerability of the Western
Hemisphere including "vital American zones" to
attack and, it must be Baid, a somewhat lame
apology for the existing state of the armed forces,
Mr. Roosevelt asked for an immediate appropriation
of $896,000,000 together with authorisations to
make contracts aggregating $286,000,000 for the
purpose of re-equipping and modernising the army,
navy, and marine corps and bringing them thoroughly
up to date.   He wished, he said to see the nation
geared up to the ability to turn out at least50,000
planes a year provided no action were taken which
would in any way hamper or delay the delivery of
aircraft on order to foreign nations*   The ground
forces of the array also required the immediate
speeding up of last winter's programme to procure
equipment of all kinds, including motor transport,
artillery, anti-aircraft guns, and ammunition, and
requirements which it had been intended to spread
over the next three or four years should be filled
at once.    Included in the above fi^uros were a
special lump sum appropriation of ($100^000,000
at the President's disposal "to provide for
emergencies affecting the national security and
defence"' and a similar authorisation to
make contracts of $100,000,000 at
thq/
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the President's discretion.     The object of
these two lest discretionary amounts is to
give the President a free hand to overcome
delays and tide over the period when Congress
is adjourned for the Presidential election,
3. The response of Congress to the
President's emergency appeal has been whole-
hearted end the navy and array appropriation bills
are certain of passage in their revised and ex-
panded forms.   The details will be reported upon
separately by the Naval, Military, end Air Attaches
to their respective departments and they need not
burden this despatch.     Priority is also to be given
to a number of miscellaneous measures connected with
this country's defences and requiring legislation.
4. In the realm of defence against internal
as distinct from external attack, i.e. fifth column
activities, the President, on the ?Snd Kay, sent his
reorganisation plan No.5 to Congress in accordance
with the Reorganisation Act of 1939 providing for
transfer of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service from the Department of Labor to the Department
of Justice, the object being to gain more effective
control over aliens and bring them more within the
purview of the Federsl Bureau of Investigation which
operates under the authority of the latter department.
This/
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Thls measure will no doubt be accepted. Legislation
is also under consideration for the registration and
finger-printing of aliens, the prompter deportation
of undesirables, and the stricter examination of
foreigners seeking naturalisation.
5. Extra-legislative work on the national
defence needs is meanwhile proceeding apace and
under the 1916 act of the Wilson Administration
which is still on the statute books, President
Roosevelt has revived the Council of Rational De-
fense consisting of the Secretaries of *7ar, Navy,
Interior, Agriculture, Commerce and Labor. In
accordance with the same law the Council, with the
approval of the President, has nominated an Advisory
Commission of seven to coordinate the national effort.
The Advisory Commission consists of Edward R.
Stettinius, Jr., Chairman of the United States .Steel
Corporation; William S. Knudsen, President of General
rotors Corporation; Sidney Hillman, President of the
Amalgamated Clothing "-orkers Union; Chester C. Davis,
member of the federal Reserve Board; Ralph Budd,
Chairman of the Board of the Chicago, Burlington and
Quincy Railroad; Leon Henderson of the Securities and
Exchange Commission; and Harriet Elliott, Dean of Women
of the University of North Carolina. Furthermore,
Colonel Frank Knox on his own initiative   has set up
a non-official committee of 25 Government officials,
army/
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army officers, aad prominent citizens to con-
sider means for speeding the pilot training
programme, while a special non-official oommittee
of four, consisting of General Kalin Craig, former
Chief of Staff, Major Frank R. McCoy, Colonel
William J. Donovan, former Assistant Attorney
General, and Lewis W. Douglas, former Director of
the Budget, has been named to work in cooperation
with the fftf and Navy Departments and the Civil
Aeronautics Authority on plans for training 50,000
civilian pilots during the next fiscal year,
6. Outlining these plans before one of the
largest press conferences in the history of his
Administration, President Roosevelt, on the 38th
Kay, explained that the idea underlying his revival
of the 1916 statute was to prevent any sudden
changes in the Government structure for handling
the national defence problem or in the normal
American way of life.   It was also his purpose to
avoid a request for any nev; authorising legislation
which might provoke protracted debate.    The President
added that there was no reason for the country to
become "discomboomerated" in apprehension of what
might come to pass.   The women of the country would
not have to give up their cosmetics, lipsticks, and
chocolate/
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chooolate sodas in consequence of the preparedness
programme.     It was the intention not to upset the
normal trends of American life any more than necessary.
?• The same "business as usual" note was struck
by the President in hia radio "fireside chat" to the
nation on the evening of Sunday, the 26th May. Open-
ing on en eloquent appeal in behalf of the Red Cross
and the relief of civilian suffering in Europe, the
talk degenerated into what many commentators have
held to be a complacent and far from reassuring ex-
pose over-burdened with statistics of the actual or,
more accurately, the paper strength of the defence
services, followed by what on the faoe of it ap-
peared to be a wholly inconsistent plea for retention
and prosecution of the social gains of the New Deal,
The talk was in fact a disappointment and the
President might easily have done better justice to
the occasion.     In recent weeks there have been re-
peated charges that the New Deal has "poured money
down a rat hole" during the seven years it has
directed the national defence and it is felt, rightly
or wrongly, that Mr. Roosevelt was concerned mainly
to uphold the record of his own Administration and
that he was in fact playing politics with the national
safety*
8./
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8. At the same time it was freely said that
the appropriations for which the President had
asked were quite inadequate, find there was little
surprise, when on the 31st May the President found
it necessary to send a further message to Congress
requesting, in view of the "almost incredible events
of the past two weeks in the European confliot",
another enlargement of the military programme. This
message spoke of the "possibility ... that not one
continent or two continents but all continents may
beoome involved in world-wide war" and oalled for
increased and urgent appropriations end authorisations
of over a billion dollars to meet orders placed with
industry for special material such as guns, ammunition,
and fire-control equipment, for the expansion of
production facilities, r*.nd for the training and re-
training of personnel both for skilled employment in
manufacture of wessons and for actual service in the
army pnd navy.     The message concluded on a specific
recommendation that before adjournment Congress
authorise the President to oall into motive service
such portion of the Nationsl (Tunrd as nay be deemed
necessary to meintain the neutrality of the United
States and to safeguard the notional defence, this
to include authority to call into active service the
neoessary Reserve personnel.
9./
¦
1G
9. ffost of these Administration moves to
compass the country's preparedness have found
Congress both receptive end eager, «nd the tone
of the debates has been not only that the U.S.
should look to its own »rms et full speed but
thet everything possible should be done to hasten
and swell the supply to the Allies of those es-
sential war materials, specially airplanes, with
which they may continue to hold the fort and gain
secure its own defences.   Quite apart from any motive
of sentiment, more then ever it is realised that the
vital interests of the United States are bound up with
the fortunes of the Allies.   But Senator Pei; er of
Florida went too quick when on the 21st May he
introduced a joint resolution authorising the President
to sell and deliver within the United States to the
Governments of Great Britain, France, Austraia, Czecho-
slovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, and Belgium
and such other countries in Europe as may "be subject
to unprovoked invasion, such aircraft, aircraft parts,
or equipment "belonging to the Unit d Staoes as can be
sold and delivered without imperilling the national
defence, on condition that the reduction be made good
from future deliveries of aircraft at present under
construction on Allied account.    In spite of the
the
Senator's plea that/war must be kept "over there"
and that it was not written in the holy writ of
Americanism that America should *be a mere spectator at
Armageddon, when the vote was taken in the Foreign
the precious time required to
enable this country to
J
Relations/
Relations Committee of the Senate no one but himself
voted for his motion.   Members or the Administration
who were sympathetic to it fear, t that this smashing
rejection would have an unhappy and exaggerated
reaction in the Allied countries, where it would not he
realised that the resolution had not "been wisely
handled by its   romoter.   Similarly the criticis*:.,
otably from Senator Vandenberg, of the proposal in the
message to Congress of the 31st Kay to vest authority
in the President to call up the >rational Guard and the
Reserve may probably be regarded as essentially a
symptom of the recurrent fear of the Republicans lest
the President should take advantage of a war crisis to
acquire dictatorial powers and perpetuate himself in
office.
10. I enclose herein texts of the yresident's
address and message to Congress respectivel;' of the
16th and 31st May, and of his "fireside chat" of the
26th May.    I also enclose a "V/ho's who" of the
President's Advisory Commission on Defense mentioned
in paragraph 5 above giving thumb-nail si-etches of its
members,
11. I am sending a ftepy of this despatch to the
High Commissioner for the United Kingdom in Ottawa,
to the Department of Overseas Trade» and to the
Political Intelligence Department.
I have the honour to be,
with the highest respect,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's most obedient,
humble servant.
(For the Ambassador)
v ^ ,(3<H>) N. U. BUTLER