On December 7, 1941, at around 1:30 p.m., President Franklin Roosevelt is conferring with advisor Harry Hopkins in his study when Navy Secretary Frank Knox bursts in and announces that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor. The attack killed more than 2,400 naval and military personnel.
For weeks, a war with Japan had appeared likely since negotiations had deteriorated over the subject of Japan’s military forays into China and elsewhere in the Pacific during World War II. FDR and his advisors knew that an attack on the U.S. fleet at the Philippines was possible, but few suspected the naval base at Pearl Harbor would be a target.
In her account of Roosevelt and first lady Eleanor during the years of the Second World War, No Ordinary Time, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin recounts the scene at the White House on that tragic and pivotal day: Eleanor had just finished hosting a luncheon and walked into FDR’s study just as he received confirmation of the attack via telephone. While aides and secretaries scurried around the room, Eleanor overheard some of her husband’s conversation and knew that, in her words, “the final blow had fallen and we had been attacked.”
Although Eleanor, who knew Roosevelt best, later recalled her husband’s demeanor on that day as “deadly calm,” she knew that he was incensed by the attacks. He was concerned that it might only be a matter of time until Germany, too, would officially declare war on the United States and that, at that moment, U.S. forces would be hard-pressed to fight a war on two fronts. According to Goodwin, he told Eleanor that it would take time for the United States to build up its military and that he feared the nation would “have to take a good many defeats before we can have a victory.” Indeed, FDR and his advisors had discussed the possibility that the Japanese were already planning an invasion of the mainland somewhere on the West Coast.
As the day wore on, Roosevelt displayed a calm and steady efficiency: He consulted with military advisors, enlisted his son James’ help to work with the media and spoke by telephone with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who told him “we are all in the same boat now.” Early that evening, Roosevelt dictated a speech to his secretary, Grace Tully, which he planned to deliver to Congress the next day. (Eleanor actually addressed the nation on the subject of war before her husband. That evening she delivered a scheduled weekly radio broadcast in which she told listeners that although the United States had been thrust reluctantly into the war she was confident that “whatever is asked of [America] we shall accomplish it; we are the free and unconquerable people of the U.S.A.”)
Late that night, Roosevelt updated his cabinet and Congressional members on the situation: “this is probably the most serious crisis any Cabinet has confronted since the Civil War.” One cabinet member later noted that the president, a former Navy man, was visibly distraught while recounting what he had been told of the strafing of sailors and the destruction of most of the Pacific fleet. After the meeting, Roosevelt went to bed.
The next day, Roosevelt addressed Congress and the nation with a somber yet stirring speech in which he swore that America would never forget December 7, 1941, as a “date that would live in infamy.”
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I despise kearns goodwin. She’s a court stenographer not a historian. Her job is to support the lies that are told to protect the warmongers. Her stuff on Lincoln is insufferable. As a young writer she use to be close LBJ. In fact she use to crawl in bed with him. But, she claims, there was no sex. Right. He fucked wives with their husbands in the next room but not her? Blow me.
FDR knew of the pending attack and epstein didn’t kill himself.
Agreed on Kearns. I had to read one of her books in the lockup which made it even worse.
#Epsteindidntkillhimself
“Epstein didn’t kill himself”
Epstein didn’t kill
Epstein didn’t
Epstein (still around)
How and why has this senseless Twitter hashtag, most popular among brainless Democrat #resist Millennials, caught on among the “good guys”?
Is it because the commie shitbird commenters who pollute this fine blog spread it around like a mind virus?
Just why?
Epstein = Zack Lowman
Epstein didn’t kill himself, and FDR was as surprised by the Pearl Harbor attack as Bush and Cheney were about 9-11.
“…The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese armed forces] into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves…” — Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, 1941
You could skip EVERYTHING else before and after this sentence, and know how and why WWII was fought better than some history majors.
FDR was itching for war with Germany and used Japan to get it since the Germans were extremely careful not to do anything to incite American opinion against them. According to Revilo Oliver, after having a hostile posture for months against Japan, FDR sent a memo to the Portuguese embassy saying the US was going to attack Japan. FDR knew this memo would be intercepted, and it was, by the Japanese intelligence. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a defensive preemption by Japan, which FDR knew they would do. It was all a setup to sway American opinion, which up until 1939 was about 95% strongly against getting into another war in Europe. So no, FDR was not shocked or surprised at the bombing of Pearl Harbor – as he and his advisers caused the attack. (As a side note, “The Jewish Hand in the World Wars” by Dalton makes the case that FDR himself was probably jewish in addition to all of his close advisers, and therefore highly motivated to get America into the war.)
Read the Collum Memo by Admiral Collum, which wasn’t revealed to the public until 2000.
Did you mean McCollum? I didn’t see anything on archive.org… do you have a link you can share?
The McCollum memo, also known as the Eight Action Memo.
Can be found on Jimmy Wales’ site, as a primer. (now I have to wash my typing fingers)
See here: https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_warterrorism03a.htm
Consider that a scant 6 months later the navy cryptologists were able to break the Jap code at Midway. Could they have done so a bit earlier? It’s why the carriers were not there. FDR didn’t give a shit about battleships-nor the sailors that manned them.
They did break it much earlier than Dec. 7 – don’t have the links, but many have documented it.
The History Channel propoagates kosher-approved misinformation, disinformation, false information, incomplete information, and outright lies:
Here’s Kevin Strom’s essay on National Vanguard:
Not sure why the History Channel is regularly promoted on this fine blog, but that’s not a bad article.
“A strange twist of fate helped the American codebreakers just a few days before the attack. The Japanese naval code was normally changed every six months.”
Didn’t like this sentence though. It’s been kicked around a lot and “strange twists of fate” usually indicate Military Intelligence Fairy Tales.
I suspect because Admin knows how bullshit gets us going. I would not say that it is “promoted” as much as thrown out there for us to kick around…..and it is quite effective at exactly that. He certainly wouldn’t put HIS name to this government-approved lie-fest. Much easier to cut and paste and get everyone posting in response.
Pearl Harbor: Hawaii Was Surprised; FDR Was Not
https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/history/item/4740-pearl-harbor-hawaii-was-surprised-fdr-was-not
Believe nothing you were taught in school…NOTHING!
Doris Kearns Goodwin, plagiarist extraordinaire.
Excerpt-ist extraordinaire too.
I remember listening to the Don Imus show on the radio and how he wet his pants over what a great author she was.
Losers.
doris k goodwin is one of the most lying historians in the us,though michael beschloss might be worse–
he made the mistake of taking on the gun lobby & she did not,so she’s better known but he’s just as bad–
FDR instigated the attack, and knew well in advance the Japanese fleet was on its way.
FDR needed an excuse to get in the war, and Perl Harbor was sacrificed to give him that reason.
Every year we have to review to stupidest excuse for a “surprise attack” in the history of naval warfare.
Every year we have to bow to the MIC retirees and shake hands with the grandchildren of WWII participation trophy honorary “heroes.”
Waste of time.
Having a beer with a Vietnam vet or… a never-been-thanked-once Veteran of forgotten 1980s conflicts would be more constructive.
NOW on to business.
I’d rather watch Pelosi purposely throw the Impeachment and purposely throw the 2020 election to Trump.
A blind man could see she has secretly agreed to terms of surrender with Trump and the Dems don’t even realize it yet.
Someone is getting immunity and someone(s) else is getting the hatchet.
My money has been on Pelosi ducking the hatchet for at least a few months.
Payback for 1910 has been coming all along.