Conversion
Pearl Harbor
On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes released bombs over Pearl Harbor, prompting America's declaration of war.
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[Pearl Harbor] ended isolationism for any realist. |
He made the only speech in the Senate before the vote on war was taken.
I felt it was absolutely necessary to establish the reason why our non-interventionists were ready to ‘go along’ --- making it plain that we were not deserting our beliefs, but that we were postponing all further argument over policy until the battle forced upon us by Japan is won. I felt it was necessary, too, in order to better swing the vast anti-war party in the country into unity with this unavoidable decision. |
Mackinac Island
As early as 1943, the world was beginning to wonder what the character of the peace would be when World War II concluded. The Republican Party arranged a meeting at Mackinac Island to plan their postwar policy platform. Vandenberg chaired the committee on foreign policy and hoped to create a definitive statement on postwar objectives.
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I am hunting for the middle ground between these extremists at one end of the line who would cheerfully give America away and those extremists at the other end of the line who would attempt a total isolation which has come to be an impossibility. |
It is my view… that the Mackinac Charter has done one basic, superlatively important thing -- which is sadly needed if we are to have any sort of common national vision in foreign policy. For the first time, it has plainly been put down in black and white the indispensable doctrine that Americans can be faithful to the primary institutions and interests of our own United States and still be equally loyal to the essential post-war international cooperations. |
I believe when I succeeded in putting forty-nine [different viewpoints] together at Mackinac I discovered the necessary formula. Furthermore, I think it is an utterly sound formula. |
This formula of compromise became the basis for Vandenberg's international leadership.
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