Pearl Harbor Read Free Page B

The large wheels were nineteen inches in diameter, which made it easier for him to slide from the wheelchair to a stationary chair. They also allowed him to turn in a very small circumference. There was a small platform for him to rest his feet and a retractable wood and glass ashtray attached beneath the seat. Since it did not have arms, the chair was narrow enough to fit through most doorways. 6
    FDR’s dynamic leadership over the next twenty-four hours obscures the fact that every aspect of his life was made more difficult by his polio. He required assistance to perform the simplest of tasks that most people take for granted—getting dressed, climbing in and out of bed,
moving around his home. But he needed little help in making momentous decisions that would impact the lives of millions of Americans.
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    O n the morning of December 7, Roosevelt was tired, sick, and in desperate need of a vacation. He had twice delayed his traditional Thanksgiving trip to Warm Springs, Georgia, where he wanted to enjoy the warmer weather and therapeutic baths. He finally managed to slip out of town by train on November 28, hoping for a ten-day respite. Shortly after he arrived at the “little White House,” however, his secretary of state, Cordell Hull, had called, asking him to return to Washington. A large Japanese armada was on the move in the Pacific, and no one was sure where it would strike. Roosevelt returned to Washington on December 1. Not only had he failed during his short trip to procure much-needed rest, but his chronic sinus infection had flared up, leaving him congested while his head throbbed in pain.
    Reading the headlines on the morning of December 7 may have only aggravated his discomfort. Clearly, Japan was going to strike somewhere in the Pacific. The Washington Post reported that Tokyo’s patience was coming to an end, while the New York Times predicted that an attack on Thailand was “imminent.” There seemed little reason for Americans to worry. The Times reassured readers that the United States Navy, in the midst of a three-year expansion, was first-rate. It quoted Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox who, in his annual report released on December 6, announced the U.S. Navy “has at this time no superior in the world.” 7
    It was ironic that Roosevelt’s attention was focused on the Pacific this morning because for the previous two years he had used all of his juggling skills to nudge the nation closer to war in Europe. Since coming to office in 1933, Adolf Hitler had been consolidating power at home by asserting it abroad. Tapping into a deep well of resentment that Germans felt toward the West for imposing a punitive peace following World War I, he had repudiated the Versailles Treaty of 1919,
withdrawn from the League of Nations in 1933, and unilaterally announced in 1935 that Germany would rearm. His Nazi Party had suspended constitutional rights and initiated systematic persecution of Jews living in Germany. One of Hitler’s lieutenants, Alfred Rosenberg, announced that he wanted to see the head of a Jew impaled upon every telephone pole along a railroad line between Berlin and the North Sea. 8
    The events in Europe were clearly troubling to Roosevelt. An internationalist at heart, he recognized that the modern technology of warfare meant that America could no longer count on the vast geographic separation provided by two oceans to isolate the nation from events elsewhere in the world. His internationalist roots traced back to his earliest years. As a child, Roosevelt had traveled extensively throughout Europe, making his first trip at the age of three. He had also read the influential works of Alfred T. Mahan, who extolled the importance of sea power. During the Spanish-American War in 1898, FDR conspired with a few friends to run away to Boston and enlist in the navy. A bad case of scarlet fever foiled his plans, however. While a student at the prestigious