As to the war with Japan, the President had already received my memorandum in general as to the possibility of getting a substantial unconditional surrender from Japan which I had written before leaving Washington and which he had approved.

As Secretary of State (1929–1933) under Republican President Herbert Hoover he articulated the Stimson Doctrine which announced American opposition to Japanese expansion in Asia. Roosevelt. During World War II he took charge of raising and training 13 million soldiers and airmen supervised the spending of a third of the nation's GDP on the Army and the Air Forces helped formulate military strategy and took personal control of building and using the atomic bomb.