JFK HEARS OF PEARL HARBOR ATTACK ON CAR RADIO
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On December 7, 1941, Jack Kennedy was returning to his apartment here in the Nation's Capital after a touch football game. He, along with two friends including Lem Billings, heard the announcement on the car radio that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by the Japanese.
The announcer said...
"The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by air, President Roosevelt has just announced. The attack also was made on all naval and military activities on the principal island of Oahu."
Nigel Hamilton writes...
"(Lem) Billings was terribly excited. Thick, billowing smoke rose above the Japanese embassy on Massachusetts Avenue* as guilty diplomats burned their papers."
The following day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, addressing a joint session of Congress, said...
"Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."
*The Embassy of Japan, located at 2520 Massachusetts Ave NW in Washington, D.C., was built in 1931. The building is Georgian Revival style. The EOJ was seized by the US government after Pearl Harbor & returned to Japanese control in 1952.
SOURCES
"Days of Infamy," American Radio Works, www.americanradioworks.publicradio.org/
"JFK, Reckless Youth," by Nigel Hamilton, Random House, New York, 1992.
