Secretary of War (2nd Term)
After World War II broke out in Europe, President Franklin D. Roosevelt returned Stimson, now aged 73, to his post at the head of the War Department. The Democratic President chose Stimson, a Republican, in part to foster bi-partisan unity supporting the war Roosevelt saw as inevitable. Ten days before the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Stimson entered in his diary the following statement: brought up the event that we are likely to be attacked perhaps next Monday, for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning, and the question was what we should do. The question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.* During the war, Stimson directed the expansion of the military, managing the conscription and training of 13 million soldiers and airmen and the purchase and transportation to battlefields of 30% of the nation's industrial output. He worked closely with his top aides Robert P. Patterson (who succeeded Stimson as Secretary), Robert Lovett (who handled the Air Force), and John J. McCloy.
Read more about this topic: Henry L. Stimson
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