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December 08, 2006
Telling it like it was
On December 9, 1941, FDR delivered a radio address to the American people, speaking to them about the challenge thrust upon the nation by the Japanese sneak attack.
FDR spoke of things that are as relevant today as they were 65 years ago. These paragraphs are bitterly ironic when applied to the proudly trans-national 21st Century media.
It must be remembered by each and every one of us that our free and rapid communication must be greatly restricted in wartime. It is not possible to receive full, speedy, accurate reports from distant areas of combat. This is particularly true where naval operations are concerned. For in these days of the marvels of radio it is often impossible for the commanders of various units to report their activities by radio, for the very simple reason that this information would become available to the
enemy, and would disclose their position and their plan of defense or attack.Of necessity there will be delays in officially confirming or denying reports of operations but we will not hide facts from the country if we know the facts and if the enemy will not be aided by their disclosure.
To all newspapers and radio stations-all those who reach the eyes and ears of the American people-I say this: You have a most grave responsibility to the Nation now and for the duration of this war.
If you feel that your Government is not disclosing enough of the truth, you have very right to say so. But -- in the absence of all the facts, as revealed by official sources -- you have no right to deal out unconfirmed reports in such a way as to make people believe they are gospel truth.
Every citizen, in every walk of life, shares this same responsibility. The lives of our soldiers and sailors -- the whole future of this Nation -- depend upon the manner in which each and every one of us fulfills his obligation to our country.
Of course, 61 years ago we knew for whom the journalists were rooting; you'll forgive me if I find their protestations and proclamations of loyalty to our national interest to be perfunctory at best.
Listen to FDR explain the task at hand, and how America would respond.
[T]he United States can accept no result save victory, final and complete. Not only must the shame of Japanese treachery be wiped out, but the sources of international brutality, wherever they exist, must be absolutely and finally broken.
In my Message to the Congress yesterday I said that we "will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again." In order to achieve that certainty, we must begin the great task that is before us by abandoning once and for all the illusion that we can ever again isolate ourselves from the rest of humanity.
In these past few years -- and, most violently, in the past few days -- we have learned a terrible lesson.
It is our obligation to our dead -- it is our sacred obligation to their children and our children -- that we must never forget what we have learned.
And what we all have learned is this:
There is no such thing as security for any nation -- or any individual -- in a world ruled by the principles of gangsterism.
There is no such thing as impregnable defense against powerful aggressors who sneak up in the dark and strike without warning.
We have learned that our ocean-girt hemisphere is not immune from severe attack -- that we cannot measure our safety in terms of miles on any map.
We may acknowledge that our enemies have performed a brilliant feat of deception, perfectly timed and executed with great skill. It was a thoroughly dishonorable deed, but we must face the fact that modern warfare as conducted in the Nazi manner is a dirty business. We don't like it -- we didn't want to get in it -- but we are in it and we're going to fight it with everything we've got.
I fear that as a nation we've lost the grit and determination that our grandparents had, born of the Depression and the memory of the Great War. Rather than the righteous anger and determination of 1941, the current zeitgeist seems more attuned to the fantastically misguided optimism of 1938, and the bipartisan folderol of the ISG's report reeks of "Peace in Our Time."
And, unlike FDR's audience, I don't hear anyone telling the American people that we're going to fight our enemies "with everything we've got."
Posted by Mike Lief at December 8, 2006 07:57 AM
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Comments
Powerful words. FDR said it plainly and directly. Too bad we aren't seeing these words coming out of the White House. I think they would have been more effective than "with us or against us". (I agree with President Bush's concept; I just think FDR said it much better.)
Posted by: jim at December 8, 2006 10:43 AM
This story just came to my attention today from a radio afficionado my husband works with. It seems that it wasn't only the media and journalists who felt a grave responsibility to the Nation during WWII.
Civilian "listeners" who monitored short wave radio broadcasts from the enemy went to great lengths to share the news they heard about captured Allied servicemen with their anxious families.
Here is one example from a man who was a prisoner of war, held by the Japanese during WW II.
What a great example of how to REALLY support the troops!
Posted by: Blakely at December 9, 2006 03:09 PM