Roosevelt, the Ogdensburg Agreement, and the British Fleet: All Done with Mirrors

Abstract

Germany's quick military victories in Western Europe in the spring of 1940 caused President Franklin D. Roosevelt deep concern. Fearful that Germany's victory on the Continent would be followed by a successful invasion of the British Isles, the capture of the British fleet, and an eventual challenge to American security, the president undertook a careful series of diplomatic initiatives designed to counter that threat. Key among those moves were U.S. attempts to strengthen unity and military defense in the Western Hemisphere. But the official neutrality adopted by the United States limited Roosevelt's freedom of action, particularly in dealing with Canada which, as of 1940, was the only nation in the hemisphere to declare war on Germany. Integration of Canada into a continental and hemispheric defense structure was the long-term problem; the short-term problem was to prepare for the all-too-possible seizure by Germany of the British fleet. Even in 1940 the Atlantic Ocean posed a formidable barrier to any European invasion of the Western Hemisphere, but German acquisition of the vast British fleet could turn the Atlantic into a convenient highway instead of a roadblock. That would be especially true if Vichy France eschewed its neutrality and if Germany also gained the use of Spanish and Portuguese islands in the eastern Atlantic. Thus Roosevelt faced a series of sensitive and awkward situations. He had to plan for the collapse or surrender of Great Britain while encouraging the British to continue fighting. He had to coordinate U.S. defense with Canada—an ally of Great Britain—without creating an issue for the anti-interventionists at home. And he had to buy time for the United States to prepare its defenses while preventing the Axis powers from achieving an overwhelming position of strategic strength. Roosevelt's skill at indirection, even misdirection, was never more evident than when he was arriving at Anglo-Canadian-American agreement on the disposition of the British fleet in the event of a German occupation of Great Britain.