9/24/2023 0 Comments Day of infamy vietnam![]() These statements, they said, contradict the first-hand accounts of James Roosevelt and others at the White House on the afternoon of December 8, 1941, and the days that followed, as well as the findings of a Secret Service investigation prompted by the President’s personal secretary. According to the joint statement, the assertions that FDR either left the “reading copy” on the podium or handed it to a clerk appear to be purely speculative. They affirmed and acknowledged that the “reading copy” of the Day of Infamy speech remains missing. They confirmed that neither copy at the Center was the missing “reading copy.” In 2014, experts at the Center and the Roosevelt Library, both units of the National Archives, reinvestigated the claim that the Senate copy was the misplaced reading copy. However, neither the House copy nor the Senate copy was the “reading copy” that the President used on December 8. Both copies are now housed at the Center for Legislative Archives in the National Archives Building in Washington. A near-identical copy was found in the House files. They believed that Roosevelt must have left his speech behind on the podium, and a Senate clerk filed it away. Senate and mistakenly concluded that this was the President’s reading copy. In the 1980s, archivists at the National Archives discovered a three-page, doubled-spaced typewritten copy of the speech within the files of the U.S. Page one of the copy held by the Franklin D. ![]() That was the last that was seen of it.Ī massive search for the document was undertaken at the White House, and the President and his staff, keenly aware of its historic significance, were all genuinely distressed about its loss. ![]() James Roosevelt said he placed the “reading copy” atop a coat rack where he hung his own coat. The “reading copy” of the speech has its own complicated history.Īfter speaking, Roosevelt left the Capitol, accompanied by his oldest son, James Roosevelt, who asserted that he brought the reading copy back to the White House. Roosevelt ended his six-minute address by asking Congress for a declaration of war against Japan. ![]() (It’s likely, some historians have noted, that he did not need to refer to it much because he had drafted the address himself, since his two principal speechwriters were out of town that day.) Roosevelt had only the printed text, a “reading copy,” to rely on, so it needed to be typed up to make it easy for him to read. In 1941, Presidents did not read from teleprompters as they do today. “Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy,” he began, “the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” To the right, in uniform in front of Rayburn, is Roosevelt’s son James, who escorted his father to the Capitol. Behind him are Vice President Henry Wallace (left) and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. President Roosevelt delivers the “Day of Infamy” speech to a joint session of Congress on December 8, 1941. It was direct, powerful, short, and to-the-point.Īnd it would be well-remembered-even though FDR’s final “reading copy” hasn’t been seen since shortly after he delivered it. The speech became one of the greatest of the 20th century. The news was bad, and a shocked nation now looked to FDR. Roosevelt began writing the speech he would give to Congress the next day. installations in the Pacific 75 years ago, President Franklin D. Today’s post comes from Jim Worsham, editor of Prologue, the quarterly magazine of the National Archives.Īs news emerged of the Japanese sneak attacks on Pearl Harbor and other U.S.
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