MacArthur’s brilliant occupation of the defeated country should have earned him the Nobel Peace prize. Several years later, duty called the old general once again and he went to Korea where he once again mounted a dazzling counter offensive. After America was lied to by the new Red Chinese government and watched them invade Korea, the general tried to take control of the mess. In so doing he ran afoul of President Truman and was fired from his post.
MacArthur came home to a hero’s welcome, revered and beloved by the American people. Truman, who sought another term in 1952, was badly embarrassed in the New Hampshire primary, saw his approval rating fall to the mid-20s, and finally withdrew from the race. His departure opened the door for yet another general, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to serve two underappreciated presidential terms, while the country enjoyed peace and prosperity and saw unprecedented growth and development in civil rights, technology, education, transportation, and medicine. Truman went home to Independence, Missouri, and though he lived to be eighty-eight, he never saw the resurrection of his reputation and presidency. By the mid-1970s, historians had finally come to appreciate the accomplishments and wisdom that characterized the seven years the failed haberdasher was in the White House. Truman would have never been president if Roosevelt had not run again in 1940.
America emerged from the Second World War as the only unchallenged superpower, but that status didn’t last long. Another Evil Empire rose up to replace the Third Reich and enslaved the very same Eastern European countries the Germans had ground under their boots. This new empire proved even more vicious and immoral than the Third Reich, if that were possible.
In one of the great historical ironies, Japan and Germany emerged as American allies against Moscow, rebuilt as prosperous democracies by the United States. An organization to settle international disputes—once rejected by the United States—was created with American leadership. English emerged as the international language of all pilots, as the only planes flying after World War II were American and British.
A Cold War took hold. Moscow and Washington, the unchallenged superpowers, eyed each other carefully, and their competition led to an unprecedented arms race only outpaced by a science race with an American eventually walking on the moon, a direct result of America’s entry into World War II.
In 1961, another man ascended to the presidency. Had he not been a hero in the Pacific and skillfully used that heroism in his congressional and presidential campaigns, John Kennedy would have likely been dismissed as a rich, philandering playboy, and history would have been drastically altered yet again. It was he who committed the United States to landing a man on the Moon before the end of 1970. He was soon assassinated by a loyal follower of Soviet communism. Before his assassination, he committed U.S. troops in a ground war on the Asian continent and years later, and after the loss of more than 57,000 American troops, America lost her first war and with it, for a time, her sense of national purpose, and of national destiny.
The country stumbled through the 1970s, an embarrassing shell of its former greatness until another man was elected and summonned forth the greatness of the country one again, scaring the hell out of the elites but beloved by the uncommon men and women of his country. He called Soviet Communism what it was: An Evil Empire. He rejected the containment and détente policies of the past 35 years and embarked on a campaign to destroy the Soviet Union and win the Cold War.
That new Evil Empire eventually collapsed as America and the West defeated it both economically and militarily, setting millions free who had once been imprisoned by the Soviet State and whose parents and grandparents had been threatened and imprisoned and murdered by Hitler and Stalin.
The city of Washington changed radically because of the war and became, because of the attack, the headquarters for the Free World. A city that once had been little more than a bumpkin byway became an awkward player on the world stage, even as it accumulated along the way all the trappings of power including corruption, greed, and one of the highest rates of venereal disease in the country, perhaps confirming that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
Because of Pearl Harbor, the culture of America changed radically. Women only partially retreated from the factory floor back to the kitchen floor. More and more women, men, and blacks who never thought about college began attending, especially the returning G.I.s under one of the greatest pieces of legislation ever conceived: the G.I. Bill.
America never again retreated from the world stage, as it did in the early 1800s, as it did after the Spanish-American War, and as it did in 1919 after the end of the First World War. After World War II, the philosophy changed from “America First” to “America First In.”
Another president, Ronald Reagan, a former New Dealer, whose movie career unraveled because of Pearl Harbor, unraveled the agreements of Yalta, made by FDR and Churchill in which whole chunks of Eastern Europe and the Baltics were handed over to the evil and monstrous thug Josef Stalin.
A wall went up. A wall came down. What had been free and independent was free and independent again after 1991, as the periods of servitude first under Hitler and then under Stalin were finally ended.
The world changed over many times, but the attack on Pearl Harbor was the lynchpin that set off a global synchronicity, whose effects are still being felt today.
NOTES
PREFACE
1. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, “Japanese Intelligence and Propaganda in the United States During 1941,” December 4, 1941, Hyde Park, NY, 2.
2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, “Japanese Intelligence and Propaganda in the United States During 1941,” December 4, 1941, Hyde Park, NY, 4.
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, “Japanese Intelligence and Propaganda in the United States During 1941,” December 4, 1941, Hyde Park, NY, 12-13.
4. Bill Henry, “By the Way,” Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1941, A1.
5. Jack Shafer, “Who Said It First? Journalism Is the ‘First Rough Draft of History,” Slate Magazine: Posted August 30, 2010, http://www.slate.com/id/2265540/.
6. Boston Globe, “388 to 1,” December 9, 1941, 18.
CHAPTER 1: THE FIRST OF DECEMBER
1. New York Times, “Daily Newspapers Sell 42,385,807 a Day,” February 18, 1942, 17.
2. Dunkirk (NY) Evening Observer, “Petain Ready to Give Rest of His Nation to Nazis,” December 1, 1941, 1.
3. Time, “Army: Battle of the Carolinas,” December 1, 1941, 32.
4. Associated Press, “U.S. Army Will Use Live Ammunition in 1942 Maneuvers,” Washington Evening Star, December 1, 1941, A7.
5. Time, “Navy: World’s Mightiest,” December 1, 1941, 34.
6. Time, “Huck’s New Boat,” December 1, 1941, 76.
7. Life, “Japanese Bow and Grin for the Camera But Get Nowhere in Washington,” December 1, 1941, 36.
8. F. Tillman Durdin, “Singapore Doubts Japanese Threats,” New York Times, December 4, 1941, 5.
9. Associated Press, Baltimore Sun, December 1, 1941, 1.
10. Associated Press, “FR, Hull Confer; No Final Answer Filed from Tokyo,” Bismarck (ND) Tribune, December 1, 1941, 1.
11. Emporia (KS) Daily Gazette, December 1, 1941, 5.
12. Emporia (KS) Daily Gazette, December 1, 1941, 5.
13. Edward E. Bomar, Associated Press, “String of Military Bases,” Ironwood (MI) Daily Globe, December 1, 1941, 1.
14. United Press, “British Navy Reinforced in Pacific,” Coshocton (OH) Tribune, December 1, 1941, 1.
15. International News Service, “Tojo Statement Ends Vacation for Executive,” Charleston (SC) Gazette, December 1, 1941, 1.
16. Dewitt Mackenzie, “Nazi Setbacks Stop the Japs,” Emporia (KS) Daily Gazette, December 1, 1941, 1.
17. Constantine Brown, “This Changing World,” Washington Evening Star, December 1, 1941, A11.
18. Constantine Brown, “This Changing World,” Washington Evening Star, Dece
mber 1, 1941, A11.
19. Time, “National Affairs: Advice to Japan,” December 1, 1941, 14.
20. Associated Press, “R.A.F. Drops 150 Tons of Bombs on Hamburg,” Bakersfield Californian, December 1, 1941, 3.
21. Associated Press, “Flashes,” Bakersfield Californian, December 1, 1941, 1.
22. Coshocton (OH) Tribune, “Home From Russia,” December 1, 1941, 4.
23. United Press, “Goebbels Says U.S. Can’t Save England,” Dunkirk (NY) Evening Observer, December 1, 1941, 1.
24. Associated Press, “Brett’s Plane Fired Upon by Axis Warship,” Greeley (CO) Daily Tribune, December 1, 1941, 2.
25. Associated Press, “F. D. R. Envisioned Nazi Effort at World Dominance in 1939,” Birmingham (AL) News, December 1, 1941, 1.
26. Life, “The Pursuits Fly from Any Level Meadow,” December 1, 1941, 92.
27. Life, “Even the Bombers Operate Out of Dispersion Fields,” December 1, 1941, 96.
28. Bakersfield Californian, “Air School,” December 1, 1941, 6.
29. Hanson W. Baldwin, “Sees Big Losses for Army in War,” New York Times, December 1, 1941, 10.
30. William A. Baker, “1,400 Conscientious Objectors Toil in 20 Camps at Own Expense, Without Pay,” Tucson (AZ) Daily Citizen, December 1, 1941, 12.
31. Associated Press, “1800 ‘Over Age’ Men of 29th Division Soon to Be Released,” Cumberland (MD) Evening Times, December 1, 1941, 1.
32. Paul Mallon, “News Behind the News,” Bakersfield Californian, December 1, 1941, 15.
33. Associated Press, “Call of the Sea Brings ‘Pop’ Back to Navy,” Birmingham (AL) News, December 1, 1941, 3.
34. U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, D.C., 1960), 70.
35. New York Times, “Powerful New Gun Developed By U.S.,” December 4, 1941, 13.
36. Bakersfield Californian, “A Future Problem,” December 1, 1941, 15.
37. Alexander D. Noyes, “Stock Market Averages Go to Lowest Since 1938—Strike Troubles and Japanese Deadlock,” New York Times, December 1, 1941, 27.
38. New York Times, “Stock Market Averages,” December 1, 1941, 28.
39. Associated Press, “Pay Roll Tax Can Finance Pensions, Downey Claims,” Bakersfield Californian, December 1, 1941, 6.
40. Time, “Public Opinion: Fear, But Not of Entanglement,” December 1, 1941, 18.
41. David Brinkley, Washington Goes to War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988), 17.
42. Life, “Army Fires Businessman,” December 1, 1941, 30.
43. Thomas Wolfe, The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe, ed. Francis E. Skipp (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 192.
44. Life, “Parker,” December 1, 1941, 1.
45. Time, “Delivering the Goods for Uncle Sam,” December 1, 1941, 1.
46. Time, “Soap Suds That Turn Into Rubber,” December 1, 1941, 1.
47. Life, “Plymouth: The Low-Priced Car Most Like High-Priced Cars,” December 1, 1941, 1.
48. Life, “Columbia,” December 1, 1941, 16.
49. Life, “Schwinn-Built Bicycles,” December 1, 1941, 88.
50. Coshocton (OH) Tribune, “Defense Expected to Limit New Car Buyers’ Choice,” December 1, 1941, 1.
51. Albuquerque Journal, December 1, 1941, 8.
52. Life, December 1, 1941, 7.
53. Life, December 1, 1941, 8.
54. Life, “Stromberg—Carlson,” December 1, 1941, 86.
55. Time, “Radio: From Washington,” December 1, 1941, 50.
56. Richard Kluger, Ashes to Ashes: America’s Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris (New York: Random House, 1997), 192.
57. Washington Evening Star, “Camel—the Cigarette of Costlier Tobaccos,” December 1, 1941, B10.
58. Boston Daily Globe, “Something New Has Been Added,” December 1, 1941, 11.
59. Life, “Call for Phillip Morris,” December 1, 1941, 113.
60. Life, “Grandpa Goes Modern,” December 1, 1941, 54.
61. United Press, “Oregon State and Duke to Play in Famed Rose Bowl,” Brainerd (MN) Daily Dispatch, December 1, 1941, 8.
62. Brainerd (MN) Daily Dispatch, “Meet Joe DiMaggio III,” December 1, 1941, 8.
63. Fitchburg (MA) Sentinel, “Leaving Fenway?” December 1, 1941, 8.
64. Beatrice (NE) Daily Sun, “Mountaineer and Child Bride,” December 1, 1941, 2.
65. Portsmouth (NH) Herald, “Parents Protest New York Crime Wave,” December 1, 1941, 5.
66. United Press, “Gov. Talmadge Refuses to Pardon Six Floggers,” Fitchburg (MA) Sentinel, December 1, 1941, 3.
67. Life, “The Governor of Georgia Remembers That He Was Once a Flogger Himself,” December 8, 1941, 40.
68. Coshocton (OH) Tribune, “Communist Hires Willkie as Counsel,” December 1, 1941, 1.
69. Life, “Latin-American Black Is New,” December 8, 1941, 99.
70. Kingsport (TN) Times, “Social Calendar,” December 1, 1941, 3.
71. Greeley (CO) Daily Tribune, “Modest Maidens,” December 1, 1941, 6.
72. New York Times, “The Robin Moor, Reportedly Torpedoed, May Be First U.S. Victim of a Nazi Attack,” June 10, 1941, 1.
73. Charles Herd, “Reuben James Hit,” New York Times, November 1, 1941, 1.
74. Associated Press, “Tale of Heroism Aboard the Kearny After Torpedo Hit Told by Ensign,” New York Times, November 4, 1941, 4.
75. United Press, “Kearny Fought U-Boat Pack,” New York Times, December 4, 1941, 3.
76. Associated Press, “Seven Americans Lost,” New York Times, December 4, 1941, 3; Associated Press, “Navy to Man Guns on Ships If Armed,” New York Times, October 12, 1941, 5.
77. Associated Press, “Tells Boston Audience Aid Bolsters RAF,” Hartford Courant, October 31, 1940, 1.
78. Associated Press, “Far Eastern Crisis Grows More Acute,” Hartford Courant, December 1, 1941, 1.
79. Associated Press, “Far Eastern Crisis Grows More Acute,” Hartford Courant, December 1, 1941, 1.
80. Associated Press, “FR, Hull Confer; No Final Answer Filed from Tokyo,” Bismarck (ND) Tribune, December 1, 1941, 1.
81. Associated Press, “F.D.R Speeds Back to Capital,” Bakersfield Californian, December 1, 1941, 1.
82. Time, “National Affairs: Advice to Japan,” December 1, 1941, 13.
83. International News Service, “Tojo Statement Ends Vacation for Executive,” Charleston (SC) Gazette, December 1, 1941, 1; Associated Press, “FR, Hull Confer; No Final Answer Filed from Tokyo,” Bismarck (ND) Tribune, December 1, 1941, 1.
84. Associated Press, “Americans Advised to Leave Shanghai,” Atlanta Constitution, December 1, 1941, 1; International News Service, “Yanks Put on Alert,” Charleston (SC) Gazette, December 1, 1941, 1.
85. International News Service, “British Reinforce East,” Charleston (SC) Gazette, December 1, 1941, 1.
86. International News Service, “British Reinforce East,” Charleston (SC) Gazette, December 1, 1941, 1
87. Richard C. Wilson, United Press, “Far East Waits War Outburst,” Bakersfield Californian, December 1, 1941, 1.
88. Associated Press, “F.D.R Speeds Back to Capital,” Bakersfield Californian, December 1, 1941, 1; Associated Press, “Japan to ‘Redouble Efforts’ with U.S.,” Bakersfield Californian, December 1, 1941, 1.
89. James B. Reston, “4 Powers Ready, Washington Says,” New York Times, December 1, 1941, 1; United Press, “President and War Chiefs Confer on Oriental Crisis,” Los Angeles Times, November 26, 1941, 1; Associated Press, “Americans Again Urged to Quit Japan,” Washington Post, November 26, 1941, 1; John O’Donnell, “F.D. Arrives Today; To See War Cabinet,” Washington Times Herald, December 1, 1941, 1.
90. Paul W. Ward, “Japan Crisis Ends Vacation of Roosevelt,” Baltimore Sun, December 1, 1941, 1.
91. Middlesboro (KY) Daily News, “President Roosevelt Carves Again,” December 1, 1941, 1.
&nb
sp; 92. Time, “The Presidency: Battle Stations,” December 1, 1941, 15.
93. Frank L. Kluckhohn, “President Is Grim,” New York Times, December 1, 1941, 1; Associated Press, “F.D.R. Cancels Georgia Vacation,” Atlanta Constitution, December 1, 1941, 1.
94. Life, “Japanese Bow and Grin for the Camera But Get Nowhere in Washington,” December 1, 1941, 36.
95. Associated Press, “FR, Hull Confer; No Final Answer Filed from Tokyo,” Bismarck (ND) Tribune, December 1, 1941, 1; James B. Reston, “4 Powers Ready, Washington Says,” New York Times, December 1, 1941, 1.
96. Time, “The Presidency: Battle Stations,” December 1, 1941, 15; Associated Press, “F.D.R. Cancels Georgia Vacation,” Atlanta Constitution, December 1, 1941, 1.
97. Frank L. Kluckhohn, “President Is Grim,” New York Times, December 1, 1941, 1.
98. Frank L. Kluckhohn, “President Is Grim,” New York Times, December 1, 1941, 1.
99. Washington Evening Star, “Fala ‘Announces’ President’s Return to White House,” December 1, 1941, A2.
100. Julius C. Edelstein, “Parley Requested By Jap Emissaries; May Reject Terms,” Washington Times Herald, December 1, 1941, 1.
101. Otto D. Tolischus, “U.S. Principles Rejected By Japanese as ‘Fantastic,’” New York Times, December 1, 1941, 1.
102. John Franklin Carter, “Memorandum on Mexican Border Situation (Eastern Portion),” December 1, 1941, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, NY.
103. New York Times, “Japan’s Imports Cut 75% by War,” December 2, 1941, 6.
104. Chicago Tribune Press Service, “War’s Pinch to Be Widely Felt; Japan to Suffer More Than U. S.,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 9, 1941, 31.
105. Associated Press, “FR, Hull Confer; No Final Answer Filed from Tokyo,” Bismarck (ND) Tribune, December 1, 1941, 1.
106. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, “FDR: Day by Day—The Pare Lorentz Chronology,” December 1, 1941.
107. Associated Press, “Both Sides Admit Situation Is Grave,” Portsmouth (NH) Herald, December 1, 1941, 1.
108. Salt Lake Tribune, “Summary of Day’s News From Europe, Far East,” December 1, 1941, 2.
December 1941 Page 64