What if John Nance Garner had been elected President in 1940?

[ShadowRocket]

An alternate scenario where FDR openly decides not to run for a third term allowing Garner to easily win the the nomination at the national convention. Would a President Garner had taken friendlier approach to Germany and Japan in order to prevent war? Or do events play out much the same as they did in real life and the US still enters WWII in December 1941? Or do they play out differently and American involvement doesn't come later or maybe not at all? How would a President Garner changed American strategy during the war?

[rob in cal]

I believe Garner's wife was of German extraction and he himself was considered an isolationist.  Assuming it was clear by the summer of 1940 that he was the nominee and FDR was for sure out of the picture, I believe it likely that Britain would have had least taken up the German peace feelers that were out there that summer.  OTOH they might have waited until the election in hopes that a more interventionist Republican such as Wilkie became president.  So, assuming Garner does in fact become President perhaps we'd see an end to the war in Western Europe, with Germany dominating a restive continent of Vichy French type regimes,  but a German Soviet war taking place anyway, with the US neutral.

[Bo]

Is the U.S. still attacked by Japan? If so, the U.S. enters WWII whenever Japan attacks it. Since Japan was allied to Germany, the U.S. would go to war against Germany as well. You got to keep in mind that every single isolationist in Congress except for Jeanette Rankin voted in favor of American entry into WWII after the U.S. was attacked by Japan. No Congressman or President would want to appear weak on Fascism after American terrirtory was attacked.

[rob in cal]

One of the key reasons triggering the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbour was the oil embargo we had placed on Japan in the summer of 1941.  Japan was going after Dutch East Indies oil, and figured they needed to get us out of the way as well (due to the Phillipines being right on the way to Indonesia).  If Garner is president an oil embargo is much less likely. Also, with Western Europe at peace and a pro-German government in the Netherlands, they would be more likely to be shipping oil to Japan anyway.  This is not to say that a US Japan conflict wouldn't have happened at some point, but I don't think in 1941 with Garner as president.

[Psychic Octopus]

I feel that Garner's election as President would only prolong the crisis until a more recent date. Pearl Harbor probably wouldn't happen, but a Japanese-US war would happen at some point.