Pearl Harbor (2 page)

 

 

H
aving secured an unprecedented third term in 1940, FDR had served as president for 3,200 days (8 years, 9 months, and 3 days,
or 76,800 hours) when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. His entire presidency had been engulfed in crisis. His presidency began amid a worldwide economic depression, with millions of Americans out of work and underemployed, the financial system in crisis, and the political establishment in paralysis. By 1939, the conflagration in Europe, and the growing threat of Hitler's armies, threatened the global balance of power and seemed destined to pull a reluctant nation into another European war.

Despite the length of his presidency, and the great crises that he confronted, FDR remains an elusive figure. “I am a juggler,” Roosevelt once said about his approach to governing. “I never let my right hand know what my left hand does.” His administrative style was often chaotic. He refused to establish clear lines of authority, allowed aides to fight each other for his attention, and frequently turned to outside advisers for advice. After nearly three years of working with Roosevelt, Secretary of War Henry Stimson wrote, “The President is the poorest administrator I have ever worked under.... He is not a good chooser of men and does not know how to use them in coordination.” Vice President Henry A. Wallace, even before he was dumped in 1944, noted that Roosevelt “looks in one direction and rows the other with utmost skill.”
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Critics complained that Roosevelt's style was deceptive and manipulative, while supporters defended his deviousness, claiming it was necessary to navigate the conflicting currents of American public opinion. Either way, his style makes it hard to pin him down. Because he had the habit of telling people what they wanted to hear, it is not always easy to divine what he was really thinking. Henry Morgenthau, a Dutchess County neighbor who served as secretary of the Treasury, described Roosevelt as “weary as well as buoyant, frivolous as well as grave, evasive as well as frank . . . a man of bewildering complexity of moods and motives.”
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Roosevelt, for all his outward charm and warmth, remained distant and elusive even to those who knew him best. He formed few real friendships. He used people, and when they no longer served a purpose,
he discarded them. Marguerite “Missy” LeHand, who loved FDR and served him loyally for many years, once observed that he “was really incapable of a personal friendship with anyone.”
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A relatively thin paper trail complicates the task of understanding FDR's inner motives. Because he died in office in 1945, he left no memoirs. The office of the presidency was far less bureaucratic in Roosevelt's day than it is now. Most business was conducted informally. In fact, FDR was the first chief executive to conduct much of the nation's business by phone. He also discouraged note taking at meetings, fearing that it would prevent people from being open and candid. As a result, the Roosevelt administration produced fewer documents than the “modern” presidencies that followed. For example, the Clinton presidential library houses 80 million pages of documents. John F. Kennedy served less than three years, but his library houses more than 48 million pages. The FDR Library, by comparison, contains only 17 million pages of documents, despite his much longer presidency.

December 7, however, may be the most well-documented day of the Roosevelt presidency. Perhaps understanding the momentous events that were taking place, Roosevelt defied his own policy and allowed a stenographer to take detailed notes of his conference with congressional leaders that evening. As a result, we have a full transcript of the meeting. A few of the president's advisers also left detailed notes of their actions that day. For example, Treasury head Morgenthau continued his practice of having a secretary listen to his phone calls, writing a transcript of all conversations. Secretary of War Stimson kept a detailed diary of all his White House activities.
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Most valuable are the volumes of testimony produced by a series of government investigations into the Pearl Harbor disaster. Less than two weeks after the attack, FDR signed an executive order establishing a commission, headed by Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, to determine why the United States was so unprepared. The commission interviewed 127 witnesses before laying blame at the feet of Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short, the local commanders in Hawaii.

The commission, however, failed to silence critics who claimed that important evidence had been omitted. To settle the matter, numerous federal agencies conducted their own separate investigations—six in all—during the war, each one reaching different conclusions about who was responsible. After the war, Congress tried to settle the questions by establishing a joint committee to investigate the disaster. In 1946, the committee released forty volumes of testimony. By the end of the series of investigations, every major player close to the president testified, often more than once. Taken together, testimony by FDR's advisers runs thousands of pages. While most of the questioning focused on the events that led up to the attack, the testimony also sheds a great deal of light on Roosevelt's thinking and actions on December 7.
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B
y the evening of December 7, fear and uncertainty had gripped the capital. No one knew what would happen next. Would the Japanese invade Hawaii? During dinner on the evening of December 7, a White House butler overheard FDR speculating about the possibility of a Japanese invasion on the West Coast that could advance as far east as Chicago. That fear would later lead to one of the greatest mistakes of his presidency: the internment of Japanese Americans living in the West.

FDR can also be blamed for failing to pay close attention to the growing crisis in the Pacific in the months leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack. Roosevelt liked to act as his own secretary of state, but he was unusually passive in dealing with the Japanese threat. Distracted by events in Europe, he delegated responsibility to Secretary of State Cordell Hull and other lower-level officials. The result was a policy of drift and indecision.

But in the hours and days after the attack, he reassured a shaken government and inspired a nervous nation. Despite the enormity of the defeat at Pearl Harbor, and its potential consequences, Roosevelt remained steady and sure-minded. “Through it all the President was calm and deliberate,” a cabinet member observed. “I don't know anybody in
the United States who can come close to measuring up to his foresight and acumen in this critical hour.” Eleanor Roosevelt, who peeked in on the president a few hours after the attack, observed her husband's “deadly calm” composure.

It is impossible to fully appreciate Roosevelt's deft handling of the crisis without exploring his character—the often intangible aspects of his personality that allowed him to remain optimistic in the midst of tragedy and calm in the wake of defeat. The last time Eleanor witnessed a similar expression on her husband's face was in August 1921, as he lay paralyzed from the waist down while a doctor informed him for the first time that he suffered from polio. That private crisis inspired the same iron will, dogged determination, and unquestioned optimism that the nation would witness in the face of its greatest military defeat.

1

“Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars”

F
RANKLIN ROOSEVELT likely started his day on December 7, 1941, in typical fashion. At 8:15 a.m. his valet, Arthur Prettyman, would have come into the bedroom, announced the time, and then helped FDR to the bathroom. Roosevelt would then have returned to his bed, where, propped up by pillows, he would take his breakfast on a tray sent up by the White House kitchen. Most mornings, Roosevelt ate a boiled egg along with two pieces of bacon and toast. While FDR ate, Prettyman would set up a table next to the president's bed with a small coffee percolator. “One of the President's real joys,” reported Missy LeHand, “is to make his own coffee.”
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While eating his breakfast, Roosevelt could look out his bedroom windows, which offered an unobstructed view of the Washington Monument to the south. From this spot, the president would read each morning the latest dispatches from abroad and scan a handful of papers: the
New York Times
,
New York Herald Tribune
,
Baltimore Sun
,
Washington Post
, and
Washington Herald
.
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Roosevelt's limited mobility required him to gather within arm's reach many of the objects that he needed throughout the day. This left his living and work space in a state of perpetual clutter. Atop the white painted table next to the bed were aspirin, nose drops, a glass of water,
pencils, reminder notes, an old prayer book, a pack of cigarettes, an ashtray, and a couple of telephones. No one was allowed to tidy this table. On a shelf above the table rested a six-by-three-inch alligator-covered case that contained a clock and a barometer. On the floor below sat a small basket where Eleanor would often leave him notes, memorandums, and articles she wanted him to read. “I have a photographic impression of that room,” recalled Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. “A little too large to be cozy, it was not large enough to be impressive.”
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At some point during the morning FDR's valet helped him get dressed. He slipped on a pair of flannel slacks and an old gray pullover sweater that had once belonged to his son James. Prettyman then wheeled him into the adjacent Oval Study. With the exception of a visit to the White House physician's office, the president would conduct all of the nation's business from this small room on December 7.

While the Oval Office represented the seat of power, Roosevelt preferred the comfort of his private study on the second floor. Speechwriter Robert Sherwood described the Oval Study as “the focal point of the nation and, in a sense, of the whole world” during FDR's presidency. Lined with mahogany bookcases, the room was stuffed with ship models, maritime pictures, books, and stacks of paper. White woodwork-framed walls were painted in a color that a White House architect described as “a sort of schoolhouse tan.” On them hung portraits of his mother, Sara, who had died three months earlier, and his wife. An oval dark-green chenille rug covered most of the floor, while an odd assortment of tables, floor lamps, and chromium ashtray stands contributed to the clutter. The leather sofas and chairs had once been used by Theodore Roosevelt on the presidential yacht the
Mayflowe
r. A pipe organ occupied one corner of the room. FDR had received it as a gift, and although he never learned to play it, he also refused to get rid of it.
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The study was FDR's favorite room in the White House. It was where he found solace in the massive stamp collection he had inherited from his mother, which contained a million stamps preserved in 150 matching albums. It was also where he unwound in the evening,
inviting his many houseguests to join him for cocktails. A tradition dating back to when FDR was governor of New York, the cocktail hour was the time at the end of the day when he gathered with a few close aides, and the numerous houseguests, to reflect on the day, share stories, and exchange jokes. No official business was permitted. The president insisted on mixing the drinks himself, experimenting with new concoctions of gin and rum, vermouth and fruit juice. He had a special cocktail for each day and always ordered the appropriate ingredients ahead of time. “He mixed the ingredients,” reflected Sherwood, “with the deliberation of an alchemist but with what appeared to be a certain lack of precision since he carried on a steady conversation while doing it.”
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In addition to the informality of the room, Roosevelt no doubt appreciated its convenience. The Oval Study was ideally set up for a man who could not walk. His bedroom and bathroom were just off to one side. It was an easy room for him to navigate, and he could do so without assistance. Roosevelt needed help in the morning getting out of his bed and into the wheelchair, but he was capable of transferring himself from his wheelchair to his more comfortable working chair.

Roosevelt used a wheelchair only for transportation, and he designed it specifically for that task. A simple device crafted from the frame of a regular kitchen chair, it was mounted on a sturdy base with two large wheels in the front and two smaller ones in the back. The large wheels were nineteen inches in diameter, which made it easier for him to slide from the wheelchair to a stationary chair. They also allowed him to turn in a very small circumference. There was a small platform for him to rest his feet and a retractable wood and glass ashtray attached beneath the seat. Since it did not have arms, the chair was narrow enough to fit through most doorways.
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FDR's dynamic leadership over the next twenty-four hours obscures the fact that every aspect of his life was made more difficult by his polio. He required assistance to perform the simplest of tasks that most people take for granted—getting dressed, climbing in and out of bed,
moving around his home. But he needed little help in making momentous decisions that would impact the lives of millions of Americans.

 

 

O
n the morning of December 7, Roosevelt was tired, sick, and in desperate need of a vacation. He had twice delayed his traditional Thanksgiving trip to Warm Springs, Georgia, where he wanted to enjoy the warmer weather and therapeutic baths. He finally managed to slip out of town by train on November 28, hoping for a ten-day respite. Shortly after he arrived at the “little White House,” however, his secretary of state, Cordell Hull, had called, asking him to return to Washington. A large Japanese armada was on the move in the Pacific, and no one was sure where it would strike. Roosevelt returned to Washington on December 1. Not only had he failed during his short trip to procure much-needed rest, but his chronic sinus infection had flared up, leaving him congested while his head throbbed in pain.