For the Nikkei, the most astonishing thing about December 7 was the lagging backlash. Remarkably enough, it remained largely in abeyance for another ten weeks, till January 25, 1942. Morton Grodzins pioneering 1949 study of newspaper opinion established this point definitively. And this lag endured despite many disquieting developments. The roundup of dangerous aliens of all three nationalities, the stupendous Imperial Japanese victories in the Far East, the welcome of these invaders by the Overseas Japanese in Southeast Asia and the Philippines, the sinkings of American merchant vessels off the coast of California, the loss of the famous British capital ships to Japanese air power, and the use of airborne troops to vertically envelope the defenders of the Dutch East Indies islands were not only Japanese victories. They were unprecedented victories, using weapons and tactics that the Western Allies either did not have or could not employ. These events conspired to worsen the position of Japanese Americans. It has often been said that the lack of presidential leadership contributed to relocation, but that is not entirely fair to a president fighting to keep both a skeptical public behind the war effort and businessmen and politicians on his side.