PEARL HARBOR: Fireside Scene

It was a mild December night for Washington—cool and damp. In the big, oval study on the second floor of the White House, a cheery blaze crackled in the grey marble fireplace. Franklin Roosevelt leaned back in his big leather easy chair. Up & down the cluttered, cream-walled room, Harry Hopkins paced nervously. History was expected.

At 9:30, a trim, black-haired Navy lieutenant named Lester R. Schulz strode into the room carrying a locked pouch. The President reached eagerly for the just decoded papers—the first 13 parts of the final Japanese reply to State Secretary Hull. Franklin Roosevelt read them through in ten minutes, waited for Hopkins to read and hand them back. Then the President said: “This means war.”

Today’s sole survivor of this scene on Dec. 6, 1941 had been no more than part of the background. But he had listened carefully. Last week, as Commander Schulz, soon to become executive officer of the battleship Indiana, he told the story to the Pearl Harbor Committee.

Hopkins had said: “It’s too bad we can’t strike first and prevent a surprise.” The President nodded—but said: “No, we can’t do that. We are a democracy of peaceful people. We have a good record. We must stand on it.”

They began discussing the probable point of attack. Hopkins guessed Indo-China. Neither mentioned Pearl Harbor; neither discussed the time the war might begin.

Mr. Roosevelt then tried to contact his Naval Chief, Admiral Harold R. Stark. “Betty” Stark was at the theater. The President decided not to disturb him lest it cause “public alarm.”

The fire fell away to embers. The President handed the papers back to Lieut. Schulz. The lieutenant departed. Four years later, given this incomplete glimpse of an historic scene, the nation could only wish that he might have stayed a little longer.