Bankrupting the Enemy

Book excerpt: "Award-winning author Edward S. Miller contends that the United States forced Japan into international bankruptcy to deter its aggression. While researching newly declassified records, the retired chief financial executive of a Fortune 500 resources corporation uncovered just how much money mattered. The Japanese government had a huge cache of dollars fraudulently hidden in New York that, once discovered, it scrambled to extract. But in July 1941, President Roosevelt froze the money in an effort to "bring Japan to its senses, not its knees." His intentions were thwarted, however, by opportunistic bureaucrats who maneuvered to deny Japan the dollars needed to buy oil and other resources for its economic survival. Miller's analysis of prewar documents, including a massive OSS-State Department study, clearly demonstrates that the deprivations facing the Japanese people as a result of the freeze buttressed Japan's choice of war at Pearl Harbor."--Jacket