FDR's Pearl Harbor Speech Almost Didn't Say "Infamy"

Claim

A date which will live in infamy

Catch

The catch

Verdict

He said infamy, but his first draft said world history

On 8 December 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt stood before a joint session of Congress and began: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." Within hours Congress had declared war on Japan. Eighty-five years later, that sentence is still the way most Americans remember Pearl Harbor.

The sentence was written in a few hours on the evening of the attack, and the first version of it said something else.

Sunday, 7 December

Early that afternoon Roosevelt was finishing lunch in his study on the second floor of the White House when the news came by telephone: Japanese planes had attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor, just before 8 a.m. Hawaii time, about 1 p.m. in Washington. The National Archives' accounts differ on who made the call (one names the Navy Secretary, Frank Knox; another the War Secretary, Henry Stimson). His aide Harry Hopkins could not believe it. According to the biographer Nathan Miller, Roosevelt said it was just the kind of unexpected thing the Japanese would do.

All afternoon, fragments of reports came in. Roosevelt decided to go before Congress the next day. His speechwriters Samuel Rosenman and Robert Sherwood were in New York. A major speech usually took three to ten days to prepare; this one had an evening.

Draft No. 1

At about 5 p.m., the National Archives says, he called in his secretary, Grace Tully. In her memoir she recalls him saying he was going before Congress tomorrow and wanted to dictate his message: "It will be short." Miller describes him smoking and dictating slowly, naming each punctuation mark. The message ran to little more than five hundred words.

Tully typed it up. The page survives, headed "DRAFT No. 1" and dated December 7, 1941, at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York (National Archives Identifier 593345). Its first line reads: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in world history, the United States of America was simultaneously and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

Then Roosevelt edited it by hand. On that first page he:

• struck out "world history" and wrote "infamy" above it;
• changed "simultaneously" to "suddenly";
• wrote "without warning" at the end of the sentence, then crossed it out again;
• changed "many days ago" to "many days or even weeks ago";
• replaced "Hawaii and the Philippines" with "Oahu" in one line.

On the second page he squeezed in the news as it arrived: "Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam", then the Philippine Islands. At the bottom he circled a letter A and wrote a whole new sentence: "No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion the American people will in their righteous might win through to absolute victory."

One night of edits

The Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, advised a full account of Japan's conduct; Roosevelt chose a short, direct appeal. He rejected a longer draft from Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles. A second draft carries none of his handwriting and changes only the first sentence; he went back to Draft No. 1, marked it up again, and that became the third. Hopkins added the paragraph he labelled "Deity", which ended "so help us God". Grace Tully typed the reading copy, and even on that, the National Archives says, Roosevelt made three more changes (its Prologue article counts four).

Noon, 8 December

At 12:30 p.m. Roosevelt spoke for about six minutes to Congress and a national radio audience. He changed a few words as he went: Oahu became "the American island of Oahu", and "Very many American lives have been lost" became "I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost". In the attack, 2,403 Americans had died.

The Senate voted 82 to 0 and the House 388 to 1. The only vote against was Jeannette Rankin of Montana, the first woman elected to Congress, who had also voted against entering the First World War in 1917. Roosevelt signed the declaration that afternoon: at 4:00 p.m. by one National Archives page, 4:10 by another.

The catch

Roosevelt really did say "a date which will live in infamy". What the famous version leaves out is that it was a second thought: his own typed draft said "world history", and he changed it himself, on the evening of the attack. The National Archives credits that one edit with giving the day its name. What he said in Congress was "date", not "day"; we could not find who first turned it into "a day of infamy", the version that is usually quoted now, even on a National Archives page.

The copy he read from has its own mystery. It went missing after the speech. In 1984 an archivist believed it had turned up in Senate records, but a 2014 investigation by the Roosevelt Library and the Center for Legislative Archives concluded that the Senate copy is not the reading copy, which is still missing.

Verdict

He said "infamy", but the most famous word in the speech was written by hand above a crossed-out "world history".

Sources

• Franklin D. Roosevelt, Draft No. 1 of the message to Congress, 7 December 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (National Archives Identifier 593345), read in the National Archives scan
• National Archives, Prologue magazine, "Crafting a Call to Arms" (Winter 2001, with the 2016 update on the reading copy)
• National Archives, Milestone Documents: Joint Address to Congress Leading to a Declaration of War Against Japan (background and transcript as delivered)
• National Archives, Prologue blog, 5 December 2011 and 7 December 2014
• National Archives, tally sheet of the House of Representatives for the declaration of war against Japan, 8 December 1941 (National Archives Identifier 2600932)
• U.S. House of Representatives, History, Art & Archives: the declaration of war against Japan
• U.S. Capitol Visitor Center: the Senate and House votes
• PBS American Experience, "Rhetoric Revisited: FDR's Infamy Speech" (cross-check)

The illustrations in the video are AI-generated, not archival photographs. The draft pages, the House tally sheet and the photographs of Roosevelt addressing Congress and signing the declaration are archival and in the public domain.

SOURCES

1. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Draft No. 1 of the message to Congress, 7 Dec 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (National Archives Identifier 593345): https://catalog.archives.gov/id/593345
2. National Archives, Prologue magazine, "Crafting a Call to Arms" (Winter 2001, with the 2016 update on the missing reading copy): https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2001/winter/crafting-day-of-infamy-speech.html
3. National Archives, Milestone Documents, Joint Address to Congress Leading to a Declaration of War Against Japan (background and transcript as delivered): https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/joint-address-to-congress-declaration-of-war-against-japan
4. National Archives, Prologue blog, "Crafting a Call to Arms" (5 Dec 2011) and "Crafting the Day of Infamy Speech" (7 Dec 2014)
5. National Archives, House tally sheet for the declaration of war against Japan, 8 Dec 1941 (NAID 2600932), on DocsTeach
6. U.S. House of Representatives, History, Art & Archives: The declaration of war against Japan (Rankin and Dirksen)
7. U.S. Capitol Visitor Center: the 82-0 Senate and 388-1 House votes
8. PBS American Experience, "Rhetoric Revisited: FDR's Infamy Speech" (cross-check; radio audience estimate)

Where the sources disagree we say so: the National Archives gives the signing time as both 4:00 and 4:10 p.m., and the number of changes on the reading copy as three (Milestone page) and four (Prologue).

Illustrations: AI-generated, not archival photos. Archival images, all public domain: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Draft No. 1 of the message to Congress, pages 1 and 2 (7 Dec 1941), FDR Library, National Archives 593345. Office of War Information, President Roosevelt addressing Congress (8 Dec 1941), National Archives 208-PU-168A-1 (print at the National Museum of the U.S. Navy). U.S. House of Representatives, Tally sheet for the declaration of war against Japan (8 Dec 1941), National Archives 2600932. Office of War Information, President Roosevelt signing the declaration of war against Japan (8 Dec 1941), National Archives 208-PU-172H-9.

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