Pearl Harbor Read Free

establishing a joint committee to investigate the disaster. In 1946, the committee released forty volumes of testimony. By the end of the series of investigations, every major player close to the president testified, often more than once. Taken together, testimony by FDR’s advisers runs thousands of pages. While most of the questioning focused on the events that led up to the attack, the testimony also sheds a great deal of light on Roosevelt’s thinking and actions on December 7. 7
    Â 
    Â 
    B y the evening of December 7, fear and uncertainty had gripped the capital. No one knew what would happen next. Would the Japanese invade Hawaii? During dinner on the evening of December 7, a White House butler overheard FDR speculating about the possibility of a Japanese invasion on the West Coast that could advance as far east as Chicago. That fear would later lead to one of the greatest mistakes of his presidency: the internment of Japanese Americans living in the West.
    FDR can also be blamed for failing to pay close attention to the growing crisis in the Pacific in the months leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack. Roosevelt liked to act as his own secretary of state, but he was unusually passive in dealing with the Japanese threat. Distracted by events in Europe, he delegated responsibility to Secretary of State Cordell Hull and other lower-level officials. The result was a policy of drift and indecision.
    But in the hours and days after the attack, he reassured a shaken government and inspired a nervous nation. Despite the enormity of the defeat at Pearl Harbor, and its potential consequences, Roosevelt remained steady and sure-minded. “Through it all the President was calm and deliberate,” a cabinet member observed. “I don’t know anybody in
the United States who can come close to measuring up to his foresight and acumen in this critical hour.” Eleanor Roosevelt, who peeked in on the president a few hours after the attack, observed her husband’s “deadly calm” composure.
    It is impossible to fully appreciate Roosevelt’s deft handling of the crisis without exploring his character—the often intangible aspects of his personality that allowed him to remain optimistic in the midst of tragedy and calm in the wake of defeat. The last time Eleanor witnessed a similar expression on her husband’s face was in August 1921, as he lay paralyzed from the waist down while a doctor informed him for the first time that he suffered from polio. That private crisis inspired the same iron will, dogged determination, and unquestioned optimism that the nation would witness in the face of its greatest military defeat.

1
    â€œYour boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars”
    F RANKLIN ROOSEVELT likely started his day on December 7, 1941, in typical fashion. At 8:15 a.m. his valet, Arthur Prettyman, would have come into the bedroom, announced the time, and then helped FDR to the bathroom. Roosevelt would then have returned to his bed, where, propped up by pillows, he would take his breakfast on a tray sent up by the White House kitchen. Most mornings, Roosevelt ate a boiled egg along with two pieces of bacon and toast. While FDR ate, Prettyman would set up a table next to the president’s bed with a small coffee percolator. “One of the President’s real joys,” reported Missy LeHand, “is to make his own coffee.” 1
    While eating his breakfast, Roosevelt could look out his bedroom windows, which offered an unobstructed view of the Washington Monument to the south. From this spot, the president would read each morning the latest dispatches from abroad and scan a handful of papers: the New York Times , New York Herald Tribune , Baltimore Sun , Washington Post , and Washington Herald . 2
    Roosevelt’s limited mobility required him to gather within arm’s reach many of the objects that he needed throughout the day. This left his living and work