Pearl Harbor (10 page)

The press secretary could tell from the tone of Roosevelt's voice that he was serious. He called out to his wife, Helen, to help him record the message. “The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor from the air and all naval and military activities on the island of Oahu, the principal American base in the Hawaiian Islands.” Oddly enough, after dictating the statement, Roosevelt asked Early, “Have you any news?” Early was shocked by the question. FDR had just dictated a message that amounted to a declaration of war, and he was asking Early if he had any information to report. He replied, “None to compare to what you have just given me, sir.”
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As soon as he hung up with Roosevelt, Early called the White House operator and asked her to connect him to the three wire services: the Associated Press (AP), United Press, and International News Service. At 2:22 p.m., Early addressed the three major wire services on a three-way hookup from his home. “This is Steve Early. I am calling from home. I have a statement here which the President has asked me to read.” After reading the president's statement, he told them that he was on his way to the White House and would call them with more information as soon as he had it.

Before leaving his house, Early called the news agencies back to report, falsely it turned out, that the Japanese were also bombing Manila. “A second air attack is reported. This one has been made on army and navy bases in Manila.” It is unclear why he called back with the second report and where he received the information. The most likely source would have been FDR, but there was no evidence of an assault on Manila at the time or that the president had received such a report. It is likely that Washington officials had trouble reaching Manila in the minutes after learning about Pearl and assumed that the Philippines was also under attack. What was actually taking place in the Philippines would be a source of concern and confusion all day at the White House.
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Early then changed his clothes and drove to the White House for what would turn out to be one of the most stressful twenty-four hours of his life.

 

 

F
DR made one more phone call in the minutes after learning of the assault on Hawaii. It went to the Chinese ambassador, Hu Shih, who had just left the White House a few hours earlier. “Hi Shih,” FDR said, “I just wanted to tell you that the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor and Manila.” Shih recalled FDR sounding “very much excited and very angry and worked up.” He repeated, “It is terrible; simply terrible.” Roosevelt concluded the brief conversation by saying, “Since you were the last person I talked to before this happened, I thought I ought to call you up and tell you about it.”
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6

“I don't know how secure this telephone is”

B
Y 3:00 P.M., as his team gathered in his cluttered Oval Study on the second floor of the White House, FDR had begun to receive the first official damage reports from Pearl. They made clear that the Japanese had delivered a devastating blow to the Pacific Fleet. More troubling was the evidence that American forces had offered little resistance and appeared to have been taken completely by surprise. FDR quizzed his secretaries of war and navy about how the Japanese could have pulled off such a brazen assault and have succeeded in destroying a military base that most Americans considered impregnable. No one had a good answer to that question. The next question on everyone's mind was: Where would Japan strike next, and what could America do to stop it?

 

 

J
ames Roosevelt hurried to the White House, arriving shortly before 2:30 p.m., where he noticed that his father was wearing one of his old sweaters. As he looked closer, he observed his father's “extreme calmness—almost a sad, fatalistic, but courageous acceptance of something he had tried to avert but which he feared might be inevitable.” FDR was too busy to engage in conversation. “Hello, Jimmy,”
FDR said. “It's happened.” He instructed Jimmy to stand by in case he needed him.
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FDR's main task was to collect as much information as possible. At 2:25 p.m., all he knew was that the Japanese had attacked. But what was the extent of the damage? Perhaps he hoped that some American aircraft had managed to get into the air and repel the invaders. Were some of the ships parked at Pearl Harbor able to respond with antiaircraft fire? Was the air attack the prelude to a land invasion? Roosevelt had many questions, but few answers.

The first official to arrive at the White House was Roosevelt's naval aide Admiral John Beardall. He found Roosevelt and Hopkins together, both working the phones. “Take over the phone to the Navy Department,” FDR instructed him. Beardall used the phone in the lobby and started calling his contacts in the navy to find more information. Later, Roosevelt's private secretary, Grace Tully, relieved him.
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The lack of a direct line between the White House and Pearl Harbor made communication difficult. Admiral Claude Bloch at Pearl Harbor had to contact Admiral Stark at the Navy Department, who then forwarded reports to the White House. The first full report came at 2:28 p.m., more than twenty minutes after the initial bulletin. At first, Bloch was vague about the extent of the damage, fearing that the Japanese were listening in on the call and would know what a crippling blow they had delivered. Finally, Stark pressed, “Claude, how about it?” “It's pretty bad,” Bloch replied, but he was afraid to provide more details. “I don't know how secure this telephone is,” he said. Stark told him to give the numbers anyway. “Go ahead and tell me,” Stark said. Bloch proceeded to report that the Japanese had inflicted extensive damage to the fleet and the United States had suffered a significant loss of life. “If any unauthorized person has heard the remarks I have just made to the Chief of Naval Operations,” Bloch concluded, “I beg of you not to repeat them in any way. I call on your patriotic duty as an American citizen.”
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Stark relayed the information to the White House, providing FDR with the first glimpse of the disaster at Pearl. According to Hopkins,
the president then instructed Stark to execute the orders that the army and navy had agreed to in the event of an outbreak of hostilities in the Pacific.
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A few minutes later, General Marshall called the White House and confirmed the report that Roosevelt had received from the navy. “Mr. President,” he said, “I have just talked to a staff Officer in Hawaii. An attack by air, apparently from a carrier, started at eight o'clock their time. It is still in progress. As far as they can tell at the moment at least 50 Japanese bombers involved.” Marshall reported that the “hanger [
sic
] at Nicholas and Wheeler Field are in flames.” He also mentioned that the Japanese “were machine gunning Hickam field,” although he could not confirm the report. “Communication seriously disrupted. Our planes are in the air and as far as they know Navy planes are in the air.”
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As Roosevelt continued to receive updates, his senior military officials began arriving for their 3:00 p.m. meeting. Stimson and Knox arrived around 3:05 p.m., followed shortly by General Marshall and Hull. Staff members were also filtering into the room: Grace Tully, Steve Early, and appointments secretary Marvin McIntyre. White House physician Ross McIntire rushed over to keep a careful eye on his patient. Naturally, Harry Hopkins remained as Roosevelt's constant shadow.

The president's team sat in soft leather sofas and brocade chairs, while Roosevelt sat at his desk, often answering the phone on the first ring. The day had gone gray; the sunshine that had warmed his bedroom that morning had disappeared, replaced by clouds and dropping temperatures.

Despite the dreadful reports pouring in from Hawaii, there was a sense of relief in the room, mixed with shock and anger. For the past few months, FDR had been struggling with the threat of war in Europe and Asia. Always the skilled politician, he understood the deep public reluctance to get into either war. Perhaps he also recalled his 1940 campaign promise to keep the nation out of “foreign wars.” Just
a few hours earlier, his advisers had been busy fretting over whether FDR would commit the nation to support the British if Japan attacked its outposts in the Pacific. With one decisive action, the Japanese had made his decision for him. According to Hopkins, “The conference met in not too tense an atmosphere because I think that all of us believed that in the last analysis the enemy was Hitler and that he could never be defeated without force of arms; that sooner or later we were bound to be in the war and that Japan had given us an opportunity. Everybody, however, agreed on the seriousness of the war and that it would be a long, hard struggle.”
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Roosevelt began the meeting by cross-examining both Knox and Stimson about the attack. According to Grace Tully, FDR questioned them “closely on what had happened, on why they believed it could have happened, on what might happen next and on what they could do to repair to some degree the disaster.” No one, most of all someone as knowledgeable of the navy as FDR, could understand why the fleet was taken by surprise.
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I
t was obvious to everyone in the room that the navy had been dealt a crippling blow. Perhaps even more troubling was the fact that the army and army air corps had been rendered helpless as well. According to Hopkins, Roosevelt quizzed Marshall about “the disposition of the troops and particularly the air force.” The damage at Pearl had been so complete that the forces that remained were in no position to prevent further Japanese aggression. Japan had free rein in the Pacific and beyond. “It was easy to speculate,” Tully recalled, “that a Jap invasion force might be following their air strike at Hawaii—or that the West Coast itself might be marked for similar assault.”
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The beleaguered general was now focused on the fate of American forces in the Philippines under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. Marshall recognized that the American air bases at Clark Field in Manila would be the next likely target. As the possibility of war
with Japan increased, military planners in Washington had shifted resources to the Philippines to serve as a bulwark against Japanese expansion. General MacArthur, whom Roosevelt appointed as commander of U.S. Army Forces in the Far East the previous July, was the chief architect of the strategy. In a series of memorandums, the general assured Washington that he could create an effective fighting force in the Philippines that would be capable of defending the islands against a Japanese assault. “I don't
think
that the Philippines can defend themselves. I
know
they can,” he had declared.
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MacArthur represented America's best hope for stopping Japan's rampage through the Pacific. The general had continued to provide optimistic reports about progress in building up the island's defensive capabilities. “The Secretary of War and I were highly pleased to receive your report that your command is ready for any eventuality,” Marshall had radioed MacArthur a week before Pearl Harbor. Although resources were scarce, Marshall provided the Philippines with thirty-four B-17 bombers, giving MacArthur the largest concentration of American bombers in the world.

On Sunday afternoon, before leaving for his 3:00 p.m. meeting at the White House, Marshall wrote a note to MacArthur. The radiogram was sent at 3:22 p.m. and arrived at MacArthur's headquarters at 5:35 a.m. on December 8 (to the west of the international date line, the Philippines are a day ahead of the United States). The message stated: “Hostilities between Japan and the United States . . . have commenced.... Carry out tasks assigned in Rainbow Five.” The military strategy called for carrying out “air raids against Japanese forces and installations within tactical operating radius of available bases.” At the 3:00 p.m. meeting with Roosevelt, Marshall assured the president that he had ordered MacArthur to execute “all the necessary movement required in event of an outbreak of hostilities with Japan.”
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According to Hopkins, Marshall “was clearly impatient to get away” from the meeting in the White House. He was worried about the fate
of the Philippines. He had not been able to reach the general, and MacArthur had so far failed to acknowledge receiving the orders. It was not clear in Washington whether MacArthur was busy fighting off a Japanese attack or if there was a communications problem. Either way, Marshall wanted to get back to the War Department to monitor the situation.
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S
urprisingly, FDR spent a great deal of time at the meeting with his advisers discussing the situation in Latin America. FDR conferred with Hull about “the urgent necessity of keeping all of the South American Republics not only informed but to keep them in line with us.” The nations in South America had not yet been pulled into the war, but FDR worried that the Germans and Japanese had been active in the region in an effort to stir up anti-American feeling. He was especially concerned about the strategic importance of the Panama Canal and the nations that bordered it.

Since the days of the Monroe Doctrine, the United States has forged a protective shield around Central America and Latin America. Franklin Roosevelt came to office determined to work hard to develop closer ties with nations in the region. His inaugural address had one line devoted to foreign policy: “In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor.” Although the appeal was general, he directed it specifically to Latin America. Over the next few years, the administration had pushed through trade agreements that lowered tariffs by up to 50 percent, allowing for a freer exchange of goods between North and South. Roosevelt also disavowed the use of military intervention in the region, and he followed up his rhetoric with concrete actions.
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