FDR GETS NEWS OF PEARL HARBOR ATTACK BY TELEPHONE
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) It was 1:47 on a Sunday afternoon at the White House on December 7, 1941. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sat at his desk when the telephone rang. FDR picked up the receiver and heard the voice of Navy Secretary Frank Knox* who had just received a radio message. Honolulu was under attack and it was not a drill.
Herman Eberhardt, curator of the FDR Library at Hyde Park, New York, says that the President shouted "NO!" Eberhardt describes it as "the worst day of his presidency," but it marked the shift from the United States being an isolationist nation "to being a global power."
FDR held a meeting with his war council just after 3 p.m. Although the President was "clearly upset" he did not "lose his cool." After the meeting, he dictated a speech to his secretary, Grace Tully**. It was to be delivered to Congress the following day.
The President dictated the words...
"Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in world history..."
but later as FDR edited the speech, he crossed out world history. Now it read...
"Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy..."
*William Franklin Knox (1874-1944) was born in Boston & earned his B.A. at Alma College. WFK served in the Spanish-American War & WWI. He became a newspaper editor & publisher & was a Republican vice-presidential candidate in 1936. WFK served as FDR's Secretary of the Navy for most of WWII.
**Grace Tully (1900-1984) was born in Bayonne, NJ & served as FDR's private secretary from June 1941 to April 1945.
SOURCES
"FDR reacts to news of Pearl Harbor bombing," 1941, December 7, www.history.com/
"Pearl Harbor: How FDR responded to the 'day of infamy'," CBS NEWS, December 4, 2016, www.cbsnews.com/
"Pearl Harbor day: How FDR reacted on December 7, 1941," by Peter Grier, The Christian Science Monitor, www.csmonitor.com/
