Senate vote, Pearl Harbor, FDR, Kimmel, Short & Marshall

U,
CNO Fleet Admiral King, apparently, had the same question:
“I [King] have never been able to understand how or why FDR could fire Admiral Stark without doing the same to General Marshall. In my opinion one could not possibly be more suspect than the other.”
Master of Seapower, Thomas Buell and Ernest King, Naval Institute Press, 1980, P.350.
Regards,
tk

 

Why would Marshall be relieved of command if King was not?

 

Didn't Stark have a big fight with Roosevelt over giving the destroyers to the British? If so, I'm sure that probably didn't win him any capital.

 

FDR didn't have an Ernie King in the Army.

Actually, I think OP is right, I don't think anyone thought Stark was going to be a wartime commander-too indecisive-more of a policy guy. Marshall, OTOH, had an excellent grasp of the geo-political situation in Europe (he could get along w/ the Brits) which in large part was going to be an Army operation. Marshall was also an excellent organizer. All in all, I think he would have been harder to replace, where Stark was probably going to be replaced anyway.

 

It should be remembered here that FDR couldn't sell the Lend/Lease bill to Congress until late in 1940! And then only with a little "proviso" which kept Congress from stalling and tabling the proposition, and it was a straight up payment in gold bullion for the destroyers, not just in exchange for bases.

That little "gold bullion" proviso had to be agreed upon by Great Britain in Sept. of 1940, since the US Congress wouldn't approve the proposed bill until the gold was assured for delivery. In response the Heavy Cruiser Louisville (CA-28) was dispatched to Simonstown South Africa and eventually loaded up with the last of the British gold reserves still held there.

The Louisville departed Simonstown for New York with $148,342,212. 55 worth of British gold in mid-January 1941. And that value was set at America's standard per ounce level, not global trading value. (Wasn't that $35 per ounce?)

That would work out to be 4,238,348.93 ounces or about 134 tons of gold. A couple of months later the bill (H.R 1776) sailed through Congress and was signed by FDR. It wasn’t passed completely along party lines either, in the House it passed by a 260-to-165.

The vote by parties went thusly—For; 236 Democrats, 24 Republicans; Against; 135 Republicans, 25 Democrats, 3 Progressives, 1 Farmer-Laborite, 1 American Laborite.