Editing Henry L. Stimson (section)

===Japanese American internment===
[[File:Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Col. W. H. Kyle (right) arrive at the Gatow Airport in Berlin, Germany to attend... - NARA - 198795.jpg|thumb|Stimson and Colonel William H. Kyle (right) arriving at the Gatow Airport in [[Berlin, Germany]] to attend the Potsdam Conference (July 16, 1945)]]
Stimson was initially opposed to the [[internment of Japanese Americans]] away from the West Coast, but he eventually gave in to pro-exclusion military advisers and secured Roosevelt's final approval for the incarceration program. The administration was split in the wake of Pearl Harbor, with [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]] officials arguing against "evacuation" and the Army and the War Department leaders demanding the immediate relocation. Still opposed to the idea of wholesale eviction, Stimson spent much of January 1942 in fielding calls from military advisers and West Coast politicians on the potential threat of a Japanese American [[fifth column]]. By February, John McCloy and others from the pro-exclusion camp had won him over.

On February 11, Stimson and McCloy briefed in a phone conference Roosevelt, who gave his Secretary of War the go-ahead to pursue whatever course he saw fit. McCloy contacted [[Karl Bendetsen]] to begin formulating a removal strategy immediately after. Roosevelt granted Stimson the final approval to carry out the eviction of West Coast Japanese Americans on February 17, and two days later, Roosevelt issued [[Executive Order 9066]], which authorized the establishment of military zones that excluded certain persons.<ref name=Niiya>{{cite web|last=Niiya |first=Brian |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Henry%20Stimson/ |title=Henry Stimson |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=15 October 2014}}</ref>

As the [[Western Defense Command]] began circulating civilian exclusion orders, a new debate formed regarding Japanese Americans in the [[Territory of Hawaii]]. Stimson joined other officials to push for the exclusion of all "enemy alien" Japanese from the islands.<ref name=Niiya/> (Japanese immigrants were [[History of laws concerning immigration and naturalization in the United States|prohibited by law from naturalization]] and so were classified as enemy aliens, regardless of their residential status.) However, Japanese Hawaiians were the largest ethnic group in the territory and the foundation of the Island's labor force. Since mass removal was infeasible both economically and politically, Stimson's proposal quickly fell through.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Scheiber |first1=Jane L. |last2=Scheiber |first2=Harry N. |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Martial%20law%20in%20Hawaii/ |title=Martial Law in Hawaii |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=15 October 2014}}</ref>

Although Stimson believed it to be "quite impossible" to determine the loyalty of Japanese Americans and eventually came to support the army's incarceration program, he remained unconvinced on the legality of the policy: "The second generation Japanese can only be evacuated either as part of a total evacuation, giving access to the areas only by permits, or by frankly trying to put them out on the ground that their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or trust even the citizen Japanese. The latter is the fact but I am afraid it will make a tremendous hole in our constitutional system."<ref>Hodgson, Godfrey. ''The Colonel: The Life and Wars of Henry Stimson, 1867–1950'' (New York: Knopf, 1990), p 259.</ref>

Stimson authorized the release of Japanese Americans from camp in May 1944 but postponed permission for them to return to the West Coast until after the November elections to avoid controversy in Roosevelt's upcoming campaign.<ref name=Niiya/>