Roosevelt addressed his last-minute appeal to the Emperor. It reflected his earlier
inquiry about the presence and number of Japanese troops in French Indo-China.
The President ritually invoked the right of all nations to live in peace, and cited
especially peace between Japan and China. He recounted the agreement between
Japan and Vichy for the stationing of a limited number of Japanese troops in Indo-
China. Japan had far exceeded these limits, creating a “legitimate fear” of invasion
in the Philippines, in the Netherlands East Indies and in Thailand. None of these
countries, the President said, could sit for long on a keg of powder. The President
offered to obtain assurance from them not to attack Indo-China, and, yes, assur-
ance from China as well, thus obviating the need for Japanese troops to defend the
Vichy colony. He called for the elimination of military threats and in the present
“definite emergency” to find ways to dispel the dark clouds, a sacred duty in the
name of humanity to prevent further death and destruction in the world. 20
Not surprisingly, the long-sought Japanese reply to Secretary Hull, delivered
by the Japanese envoys while the bombs were falling on Oahu and on the U.S.
156 First Week at War: December 8–13, 1941
Pacific Fleet, took a mirror-opposite position to Hull’s statement, both as to the
facts and the principles. It was, it said, the immutable policy of the Japanese gov-
ernment to ensure the stability of East Asia and to promote world peace, enabling
all nations to find their proper place in the world. The note then cited the fun-
damental grievance—measures by the United States and Britain to aid China,
“an important subject” obstructing Japan’s efforts to establish peace there. The
note declared that U.S. insistence that Japan not support any regime other than
Chungking disregarded utterly the existence of Japan’s Nanking government,
thereby “shattering the very basis of the present negotiation” and disregarding,
too, “Japan’s sacrifice in the four years of the China affair.” It castigated the Hull
principles as utopian in the light of the realities of the world’s actual condition.
No, the United States was accused of catering to Chungking and keeping Japan
at war with China. The belated conclusion: it would be impossible to reach
agreement. 21
The Japanese note lauded Japan’s fairness and moderation and willingness to apply
principles of nondiscrimination to commerce with all nations, China included. But
it was clear that China was the rock against which all other considerations shattered.
The fourth document in this futile exchange was the Emperor’s Declaration
of War. He spoke of his nation’s desire for ages eternal to cultivate friendship
and prosperity with all nations. The war was “truly unavoidable” since China,
which had failed to comprehend Japan’s true intentions, had caused trouble, and
disturbed the peace of East Asia, forcing Japan to take up arms. The Emperor
charged the United States and Britain with supporting Chungking against Japan’s
efforts to establish neighborly intercourse and cooperation with the rival Nanking
regime. In short, Britain and France wished to dominate the Orient. They were
increasing their military preparations and obstructing peaceful commerce. This
included direct severance of vital economic ties, gravely threatening to Japan.
The Emperor praised Japan’s patience and conciliatory spirit in the face of
action that would nullify its efforts to establish peace and prosperity in East Asia.
For its continued existence and self-defense there was no recourse but the appeal
to arms, which would eradicate the sources of evil, establish enduring peace in
East Asia and preserve the glory of the Empire. 22
Thus starkly were the issues drawn that led to Japan’s attack and subsequent
declaration of war against the United States and Britain.
In his final meetings with the Japanese envoys, Secretary Hull had stood by
the principles that had animated his note of November 26. In a statement dated
December 7, the Secretary of State expressed his outrage at the Japanese reply:
I must say that in all my conversations with you [the Japanese envoys],
during the last nine months, I have never uttered one word of untruth.
This is borne out absolutely by the record.
In all my fifty years of public service I have never seen a document that
was more crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions on a scale so
huge than I never imagined until today that any government on this planet
was capable of uttering them. 23
Monday, December 8, 1941 157
A Nation at War: The President Addresses the Nation
Meetings at the White House had filled the evening of that fateful Sunday,
December 7. Amid shattering events in the Pacific the President had met with
the cabinet in the Oval Room at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. He had
already conferred with advisor Harry Hopkins, Army Chief of Staff George C.
Marshall, and Chief of Naval Operations Harold Stark. Congressional leaders
arrived at 9:00 p.m. Texas Senator W. Lee O’Daniel—whose election had been
celebrated with a rendering by the Lightcrust Doughboys of his campaign song
“Pass the Biscuits, Pappy”—had not been invited to the meeting. But he came
anyway, he said, “to make sure that Texas is represented at the conference.” 24
The conference closed after 11:00 p.m. and an official announcement was
issued. It stated that the President and his advisors had reviewed the available facts
and that the President’s message to Congress had not yet been written.
Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn was asked if the President would ask Con-
gress for a declaration of war. “He didn’t say,” was the answer. Would Congress
support a declaration of war? “I think that is one thing on which there would be
unity,” Rayburn replied.
FIGURE 15.2
Crew of the USS Wichita listening to President Roosevelt’s “day of
infamy” address to Congress, December 8, 1941.
Courtesy of Naval History and Naval Command, photo 80-G-464088.
158 First Week at War: December 8–13, 1941
House Minority Leader Joseph Martin echoed the thoughts of many when he
said: “There is only one party when it comes to the integrity and honor of the
country.” 25
Senator Connelly of Texas announced that the President would address a joint
session of Congress at 12:30 p.m. on Monday, December 8.
The events of December 8, 1941, were chronicled with passion and precision
by a great reporter, James Reston, writing in The New York Times :
The United States went to war as a great nation should—with simplicity,
dignity and unprecedented unity.
There were absent the deep divisions of 1776, 1812, 1861, 1898 and 1917.
If the atmosphere of the Capital was grave, it was free from doubt. 26
At noon the President emerged from the White House on the arm of his son
James. The President wore the formal attire of another era—a frock coat and
striped trousers. His son was in his Marine Corps uniform. In the car headed for
the Capitol were the President’s wife Eleanor, his mother, Mrs. James Roosevelt,
his acting secretary, and his military and naval aides. 27
A crowd of more than 2,000 had gathered on the Capitol Plaza. It was a con-
fident, patriotic crowd, seething with righteous indignation. They came from all
walks of life, singly and in groups, women and children, students and business-
men, in a public spirit, leaving their homes, their classrooms and their businesses
behind. Three hundred Metropolitan Police were deployed around the Capitol,
and Marines with fixed bayonets stood at its entrances. Modest hand-clapping
gave way to a roar as the President’s car arrived and turned into a side entrance. 28
Members of the cabinet arrived in the House of Representatives at 12:28 p.m.
At 12:30, Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn rapped his gavel and announced:
“The President of the United States.” After an instant of silence there was a grow-
ing crescendo of applause which ended abruptly when the speaker again rapped
his gavel. It was at that moment that the President appeared.
The ovation that greeted him, applause and cheering, was greater, observers
said, than any he had received in the past eight years. After a brief prayer, the
President spoke to the assemblage and to the array of movie cameras amid and
under their glowing lights. 29
The President’s address was brief, only six and one-half minutes. If the Presi-
dent was brief, he was eloquent. He described the Japanese attack, which he said
had been deliberately planned during fraudulent negotiations. He did not hesitate
to tell hard truths: the attack had done “severe damage” to American naval and
military forces, and “many, many American lives had been lost.” He recited the
litany of Japanese assaults across the Pacific. He assured the American people that
however long it took, they would in their righteous might win through to abso-
lute victory.
Thunderous cheers greeted many a moment of the address, none more than
when Roosevelt railed against the treachery that would ensure the date of this
transformative event would live in infamy. 30
Monday, December 8, 1941 159
“Seldom, if ever in an address to Congress,” Reston reported, “has the President
judged the temper of the representatives of the people better than he did in this
speech.”
The vote in the Senate, which followed at 1:00 p.m., was unanimous. The
House acted swiftly at 1:31 p.m.; the enrolled resolution was signed by Speaker
Rayburn at 3:14 p.m. and by Vice President Wallace at 3:25 p.m. It was signed by
the President only forty-five minutes later. In the House only one vote had been
lacking for unanimity. As she had twenty-four years before in 1917, pacifist Jean-
nette Rankin, Representative for Montana, uttered only the word “No” when the
roll was called. Her vote was greeted with hisses, and she later sought refuge from
a swarm of reporters and cameramen in a telephone booth. 31
The President’s radio address to the nation displayed some of his important
qualities as a war leader. He did not shrink from the facts:
So far the news is all bad. We have suffered a serious setback in Hawaii.
Our forces in the Philippines, which include the brave people of that com-
monwealth, are taking punishment but they are defending themselves vig-
orously. The reports from Guam and Wake and Midway Islands are still
confused but we must be prepared for the announcement that these three
outposts have been seized. The casualty lists of these first few days will
undoubtedly be large. 32
He confessed to what he did not know: the exact damage, clearly serious, to the
Navy at Pearl Harbor. Nor could he say how soon that damage could be repaired.
But he assured the American people that they would know the facts when they
had been officially confirmed and when they would not give valuable aid to the
enemy.
The President reviewed the history of aggressions, not only by Japan starting in
1931 but also by Germany and Italy. Remember, he said, whether or not there are
formal declarations (and there had not been), Italy and Germany consider them-
selves as much engaged in war with the United States as with the Soviet Union.
The United States had been right, he said, in the shipment of war materials to
nations resisting Axis aggression. The defense of any country resisting aggression
was in the long run the defense of the United States. He announced important
economic policies: war industry to operate on a seven-day week and new capacity
for these industries.
He had faith, he said, in the stamina of the American people. The nation was
at war, indeed the most tremendous undertaking in American history. To serve
in the armed forces of the country was not a sacrifice but indeed a privilege. He
closed with the assurance that the country would accept no result save victory,
final and complete. 33
The country paused in its daily round of activities to listen and to reflect upon
the President’s speech. Fifth Avenue, an avenue of flags on many an historic occa-
sion, was alive with red, white, and blue banners. The city suspended its regular
routines so that all might listen. Five thousand gathered in City Hall Park to hear
160 First Week at War: December 8–13, 1941
the speech through loudspeakers. The crowd joined in the applause and in the
cheers that emanated from the Capitol, none more so than that in response to the
President’s charge of Japanese treachery. With bared heads the crowds stood to
attention to the strains of the National Anthem. 34
Throughout the city crowds gathered wherever there was a radio, in a store, a
restaurant, a bar, a taxi. Courts were adjourned. In Kings County Court Judge
Samuel Leibowitz had installed a radio. When the speech ended, a court attaché
placed an American flag front and center in the courtroom and the judge led the
solemn assemblage in the Pledge of Allegiance. This was the pattern in crowded
courtrooms, in Justice Jacob Pankin’s Washington Heights Magistrates Court, in
Magistrate Peter Abeles’s court where he was joined by Magistrate William Klapp
from the Traffic Court. 35
At City College classes were suspended while 12,000 students listened to the
President’s address. They sent a telegram to the President backing him and offer-
ing to serve “as students.” The president of the student council, Elliot Bredhoff,
urged all-out support for the defense program; afterward the students bought $300
worth of defense stamps. At Brooklyn College 5,000 undergraduates listened to
the historic address. An announcement, before President Roosevelt spoke, of the
sinking of two Japanese ships was met with jubilant cheers. College president
Harry Gideonse told the students that it was a matter of living up to their ideals.
They should, he said, show their patriotism by faithfully devoting themselves to
the tasks demanded of them in their college lives. 36
A Nation at War: Editorial Turnaround
It was only the previous day, Sunday, before any knowledge of the bombs fall-
ing on Pearl Harbor, that the Chicago Tribune , referring to its report of a vastly increased American army and a five-million-man expeditionary force, had
printed thi
s accusation: “We have known for a long time that the war party was
betraying the American people. Now we have proved it.” 37
The Tribune ’s turnaround was swift and complete. Its Monday edition showed
a single man bearing the label “every American,” saluting a large wind-whipped
American flag beneath the caption “At Your Service.”
War had been forced on America, the Tribune editorialized, by “an insane clique of Japanese militarists” and there had come to pass what so many had worked so
hard to prevent:
Recriminations are useless and we doubt that they will be indulged in.
Certainly not by us. All that matters today is that we are in the war and the
nation must face up to that simple fact. All of us, from this day forth, have
only one task. That is to strike with all our might to protect and preserve
the American freedom that we all hold dear. 38
The New York Times spoke with the same voice as so many editorial writers
of the day. There was only one possible answer to Japan’s attack, and that was an
Monday, December 8, 1941 161
immediate declaration of war. “The United States has been attacked. The United
States is in danger. Let every patriot take his stand on the bastions of democracy.”
The Times made two other points. It characterized as a myth that the President
had been “trying to drag us into war.” The Times did not impugn those who had
believed the myth; it had questioned only their judgment. The second interest-
ing point was the insistence by The Times that the country’s greatest danger was that posed by Hitler’s Nazi regime. The real battle, it said, would not be fought
in the Far East but on the English Channel. And it warned that the United States
would be openly and formally at war with Germany well before the war across the
English Channel had been finished. 39
The New York Daily News said that neither the American nor the Japanese peo-
ple wanted this war. “But now that we are in it, there is nothing for us to do but
to see it through with everything we’ve got.” 40
The New York Daily Mirror called for silencing any voices of disunity and
endorsed Steven Decatur’s pronouncement of a century ago: “Our country, right
or wrong.”
The Boston Herald made a perceptive comment. The attack on Hawaii, it said,
Crucible of a Generation Page 25