A Neutralization Plan for the Pacific: Roosevelt and Anglo-American Cooperation, 1934-1937

Abstract

On November 16, 1936, Franklin D. Roosevelt suggested to his Cabinet that most of the western Pacific might be neutralized to maintain peace with Japan. The idea elicited a long, negative memorandum from the State Department that Roosevelt found infuriatingly defeatist.' Yet neutralization continued to pique the President's interest until 1937, when the Sino-Japanese conflict escalated into a major war. At most, historians have seen in this brief episode evidence either of the administration's eagerness to avert trouble with Japan, of the President's disappointment with the State Department, or of FDR's personal frustration because he could come up with no solution to the crisis in the Far East.2 Following Harold Ickes's report that Roosevelt wanted to promote hemispheric neutrality at the upcoming PanAmerican Conference, they have regarded his proposal for the Pacific more as a hint of what the United States intended