The Victory Program was a military plan for the United States involvement in World War II submitted prior to the country's official entry into the war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The plan was initially secret, but was famously exposed by the Chicago Tribune on December 4, 1941, 3 days before Pearl Harbor.
The leak of plan was major political and news event in the United States at the time.
History
On July 9, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, influenced by advocacy from Jean Monnet who was then in employment by the United Kingdom in Washington DC, ordered his secretary of war, Henry Stimson, and his secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, to prepare a plan for the “overall production requirements required to defeat our potential enemies.” This plan was leaked to U.S. Senator and prominent isolationist Burton Wheeler of Montana who in turn gave it to the equally isolationist editor of the Chicago Tribune, Robert R. McCormick.
In 1941, a team of officers led by General Albert Wedemeyer on behalf of General George C. Marshall drew up the Victory Program, whose premise was that the Soviet Union would be defeated that year, and that to defeat Nazi Germany would require the United States to raise by the summer of 1943 a force of 215 divisions comprising 8.7 million men.
The release of the plan caused an uproar among the isolationist bloc in the United States, but the controversy died off quickly only three days later, after news of the attack on Pearl Harbor was received and a formal declaration of war was made.
Alternate explanation of the leak
Another explanation attributes the leak to British spymaster William Stephenson. In William Stevenson's 1976 book A Man Called Intrepid, Stevenson (no relation to William Stephenson) asserts that the 350-page Victory Program report was created by British intelligence and leaked to Wheeler by an unnamed Army Air Corp Captain. The theory claims that German intelligence received the report on December 3, one day before it was published in the Tribune. The theory further contends that British intelligence concocted the fake plan and leaked it purposefully to incite Hitler to declare war on the United States. Hitler subsequently declared war on December 11, 1941. It asserts Britain was confident the Japanese would attack soon thereby causing the United States to divert all attention to the Pacific and thereby reduced or eliminate support for Britain against Germany.
See also
References
- Chicago Tribune, December 4, 1941
- "The Big Leak". AMERICAN HERITAGE. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
- "Who Leaked America’s Secret War Plans Into Hitler’s Hands?", Marc Wortman The Daily Beast, March 24, 2017
- Kennedy, David Freedom From Fear pp. 486-487.
- "Who Leaked America’s Secret War Plans Into Hitler’s Hands?", Thomas Flemming, December, 1987
- Stevenson, Willian (1976). A Man Called Intrepid. Lyons Press; Illustrated edition (September 24, 2009). pp. 314–315. ISBN 978-1599211701.
- Liebeck, Martin W. (1990). Unknown future and a doubtful present : writing the victory plan of 1941. U S Govt. Printing Office. ISBN 0-16-019798-8. OCLC 948429558.