After The Oil Embargo

Today is the 69th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and I was thinking of the flashback scene at the end of Part II, set on the day of the attack (December 7th also, of course, happened to be Vito's birthday). Although Sonny thinks Michael is stupid for enlisting in the Marines, he still shares the feeling of outrage over the attack which was the dominant feeling in the U.S. at that time. But Tom reacts differently. Instead of being consumed with indignation, he says that "We should have expected it after the oil embargo."

To me, this scene illuminates Tom's personality and character perhaps better than any other scene in the trilogy. Tom never let emotions rule his thinking. He was always able to keep a sense of detachment and coldly analyze things to a degree rarely seen in human beings, gangster or otherwise. At a time when almost all Americans simply reacted with extreme shock and anger, Tom realized that the attack, while a "surprise" in the sense of being unforeseen, did not simply come out of thin air--it was linked to the oil embargo the U.S. imposed on Japan in retaliation for Japanese aggression in East Asia. Sonny, being far more emotional, accused Tom of being a "Jap lover" for making the comment (much as people who today suggest that American foreign policy was partly responsible for 9/11 are often accused of being anti-American). Sonny was unable to see that Tom was simply stepping back and looking at the situation unusually dispassionately.

By showing Tom reacting this way to Pearl Harbor, an event not related to the business of the Corleones, we see that Tom's detachment wasn't simply due to a belief that business (at least his family's business) was the most important thing in life. Instead, it was a characteristic of his personality that manifested itself even in something that he and his family had no personal stake in, where he was just an observer of what was going on.

Thoughts?

Tom was a thinking man.

The Pezzo. of the world, who control puppet strings knew that such an attack would not only elicit an emotional response....but that most people would 100% be behind the war effort.


Tom kept abreast of world events...knew about oil and other embargoes and could have predicted some kind of aggressive act from Japan. Tom probably saw the angle that FDR was playing.

Scene does show his Mr. Spock-like emotional detachment, but it also shows his knowledge of world events..and the power of manipulation.

Very interesting point you make here. This shows that Tom was truly a born consigliere. A guy like this would be a crucial element in the rise of such a criminal organization.

It also shows FFC's personal view on events.

He's not Spock like.
Remember his emotional outbreak in the meetin after the hospital incident, his reaction to Sonny's death, his confession to Michael that he wants to be loved.

Good point, Danito. I wasn't saying that Tom was emotionless, he certainly wasn't. I was saying that he had an unusual capacity to not let emotions cloud his thinking.

Tom was the only college grad in the family, and his training as a lawyer prepared him to be dispassionate about business and large affairs. It was why he advocated the drug deal. But it's also why he failed to figure that, after Sonny beat him up in public, Carlo would be a potential traitor. As the novel says, after he learned of Sonny's murder, "He knew now he was no fit wartime consigliere. Old Genco would have smelled a rat."