Read Online Pearl Harbor Christmas by Stanley Weintraub - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Stanley Weintraub
Ads: Link
“Gibraltar of the Pacific” would fall in six weeks, with more than a hundred thousand British and Empire troops taken prisoner—far greater than the Japanese forces in Malaya pushing south through deft strategy and defensive incompetence.)
At four o’clock, with the combined staff meeting temporarily adjourned, the President, wearing a grey pin-striped suit with a black mourning band on the left sleeve (his mother had died at eighty on September 10), was wheeled into the small, cluttered press room just inside the West Wing entrance to the White House. It would be his 794th press conference, this time with a guest at his side, attired now in short black jacket, striped trousers, and polka-dot bow tie. Cameramen stood on chairs to get a better shot of the Prime Minister, who was nearly a head shorter than FDR. The formal reason for the press’s attendance was Roosevelt’s announcement of the formation of the Office of Defense Transportation, but reporters expected Churchill to be there, and he was, sitting at FDR’s right, a silver thermos of what was assumed to be water at his reach. As a record audience was filing in, press secretary Steve Early told the President, “They are checking credentials very carefully, and there are so many it is going to be slow.”
Roosevelt repeated the message to the PM, joking, for the front rows, “We are afraid that there might be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Churchill could barely be seen in the crowd. As newsmen shouted, “Can’t see him,” the President said to the PM, “I wish you would stand for one minute and let them see you. They can’t see you.” To loud cheers and applause from the journalists and broadcasters, Churchill, jaunty and ruddy, climbed on the seat of his chair.
Roosevelt cut his announcements to eight minutes, then noted, at Early’s prompting, “There are many here who are not familiar with the rules of the conference, Steve says, and I would suggest that they remember that there are no ‘quotes’—nothing is to be quoted. Everything is to be in the ‘third person,’ and can be used, with the exception of two matters. The Prime Minister doesn’t know this [practice] himself. A thing that is ‘background’ may not be attributed to the President, or the Prime Minister, but it is for your information in writing stories. A thing that is announced as off-the-record is for your information, but not to be disclosed under any circumstances.”
Then he turned the floor—literally the chair—to Churchill. “Go ahead and shoot,” FDR told the reporters, and one began, “What about Singapore, Mr. Prime Minister? . . . What would you say to be of good cheer?” When the PM vowed that the British would do their utmost to defend Singapore “and its approaches,” another pressman interposed, “Mr. Prime Minister, isn’t Singapore “the key to the whole situation out there?”
“The key to whole situation,” Churchill said, long accustomed to dodging direct questions in the House of Commons, “is the resolute manner in which the British and American Democracies are going to throw themselves into the conflict.” Conceding that the situation in the Far East looked gloomy, he could not contend that the war was turning round “in our favor.” On balance, the PM said, “I can’t describe the feelings of relief with which I find Russia, the United States and Great Britain standing side by side. It is incredible to anyone who has lived through the lonely months of 1940.” Asked how long it would take to “lick these boys”—a demeaning cliché about the Japanese already catastrophically wrong, Churchill quipped, “If we manage it well, it will only take half as long as if we manage it badly.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at their joint press conference in the president’s White House office, December 23, 1941. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
Close-up of Roosevelt and Churchill at joint press
At four o’clock, with the combined staff meeting temporarily adjourned, the President, wearing a grey pin-striped suit with a black mourning band on the left sleeve (his mother had died at eighty on September 10), was wheeled into the small, cluttered press room just inside the West Wing entrance to the White House. It would be his 794th press conference, this time with a guest at his side, attired now in short black jacket, striped trousers, and polka-dot bow tie. Cameramen stood on chairs to get a better shot of the Prime Minister, who was nearly a head shorter than FDR. The formal reason for the press’s attendance was Roosevelt’s announcement of the formation of the Office of Defense Transportation, but reporters expected Churchill to be there, and he was, sitting at FDR’s right, a silver thermos of what was assumed to be water at his reach. As a record audience was filing in, press secretary Steve Early told the President, “They are checking credentials very carefully, and there are so many it is going to be slow.”
Roosevelt repeated the message to the PM, joking, for the front rows, “We are afraid that there might be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Churchill could barely be seen in the crowd. As newsmen shouted, “Can’t see him,” the President said to the PM, “I wish you would stand for one minute and let them see you. They can’t see you.” To loud cheers and applause from the journalists and broadcasters, Churchill, jaunty and ruddy, climbed on the seat of his chair.
Roosevelt cut his announcements to eight minutes, then noted, at Early’s prompting, “There are many here who are not familiar with the rules of the conference, Steve says, and I would suggest that they remember that there are no ‘quotes’—nothing is to be quoted. Everything is to be in the ‘third person,’ and can be used, with the exception of two matters. The Prime Minister doesn’t know this [practice] himself. A thing that is ‘background’ may not be attributed to the President, or the Prime Minister, but it is for your information in writing stories. A thing that is announced as off-the-record is for your information, but not to be disclosed under any circumstances.”
Then he turned the floor—literally the chair—to Churchill. “Go ahead and shoot,” FDR told the reporters, and one began, “What about Singapore, Mr. Prime Minister? . . . What would you say to be of good cheer?” When the PM vowed that the British would do their utmost to defend Singapore “and its approaches,” another pressman interposed, “Mr. Prime Minister, isn’t Singapore “the key to the whole situation out there?”
“The key to whole situation,” Churchill said, long accustomed to dodging direct questions in the House of Commons, “is the resolute manner in which the British and American Democracies are going to throw themselves into the conflict.” Conceding that the situation in the Far East looked gloomy, he could not contend that the war was turning round “in our favor.” On balance, the PM said, “I can’t describe the feelings of relief with which I find Russia, the United States and Great Britain standing side by side. It is incredible to anyone who has lived through the lonely months of 1940.” Asked how long it would take to “lick these boys”—a demeaning cliché about the Japanese already catastrophically wrong, Churchill quipped, “If we manage it well, it will only take half as long as if we manage it badly.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at their joint press conference in the president’s White House office, December 23, 1941. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
Close-up of Roosevelt and Churchill at joint press
Similar Books
