Design for War; A Study of Secret Power Politics, 1937-1941, by Frederic R. Sanborn

Roosevelt, Marshall, Hull, Stimson, Churchill, and many others—the things they publicly said as contrasted with the things they secretly did, are the basic stuff of which this timely and amazingly documented book is made.

Here are narrated the secret moves that led to World War II. Here it is shown that in 1941 the Japanese were ready to accept American demands if only their “face” could be saved. Here is the story of the Chinese intrigues that influenced Secretary Hull to abandon the last attempt to keep the peace.
Thoughtful Americans are troubled and perplexed as they realize that we are being conditioned for a third world war. They want to know why the Welfare State is being merged into a Warfare State, at a time when the effects of the last war are still upon them; when the causes of that war are still to a large extent secret and unknown.
DESIGN FOR WAR explains those causes. It presents the living political dilemma of the recent past, the present, and the future. It is perhaps the ultimate presentation, for all to see, of the secret power politics that play constantly about us.

6 x 9 in, 588 pages
First published in 1951