America’s Surgeon General compared Corona and Covid-19 with the attack on Pearl Harbor in terms of the magnitude of surprise sprung upon the nation. That reference caught my subconscious. In the watches of the night, a bizarre thought struck me.
Suppose on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, television and social media existed in some form. How might that have affected the nation and the course of history?
At 1 PM that Sunday, the kickoff between Washington Redskins and the Philadelphia Eagles started the last game of the football season at Griffith Stadium in the nation’s capital. A cloudy day, the temperature was hovering around 40 degrees F. The Skins would win 20-14 on three passes thrown by the Great Sammy Baugh.
Red Barber, the famous commentator, was in the broadcast booth. Just after 2 PM, the telecast was interrupted. A commanding voice announced, “We are taking you to Pearl Harbor for breaking news and our young correspondent Barbara Walters.”
Scenes of destroyed and smoking aircraft on Hickham Field were ubiquitous along with poignant interviews with survivors. The state of shock and losses were horrendous
Breathless, Walters was describing the scene as the camera panned to Pearl Harbor. “I am outside the living quarters of Admiral Husband Kimmel, Pacific Fleet Commander. Everywhere is chaos. Bombs dropping. Oh my God–Battleship Row – California and West Virginia are hit. Arizona is sinking. And there is the admiral driving up. He is in golfing clothes…”
“Admiral..”
“No comment”
“We are switching to Tokyo where Japanese Prime Minister Tojo is making a live statement.”
“Tojo is saying that America left Japan no option. By cutting off oil and other vital products, Japan was being economically strangled. Now that the Pacific Fleet has been destroyed, we hope America will come to the table and negotiate so there is no further war….”
“This is Ed Murrow from Berlin. Adolf Hitler has just tweeted ‘Tojo has mojo.’ I am not sure what that means. Hitler is now asking Britain to surrender and join him against the real enemy-Russia. I see that in London, Prime Minister Churchill is coming out of Number 10. He looks a bit wobbly. Of course he does like his tipple in the evening.”
Eric Sevareid from New York cuts in. “Ed, thanks. We are going live to Manila where Charles Collingwood is with General Douglas MacArthur, Field Marshal of the Philippines. Charles…”
“Eric, I have the general here. General what do you have to say about this audacious attack on our forces in Pearl Harbor?”
The camera zooms in tightly on MacArthur. “If Franklin had listened to me when I was Army Chief of Staff, we wouldn’t be in this position. This is a one-off attack. Tokyo does not want war. We can negotiate our way out.”
The next day, Japan attacked the Philippines taking MacArthur completely unawares destroying most of his aircraft neatly parked side by side and totally unprotected.
Meanwhile President Franklin Roosevelt was preparing a Declaration of War for Congress. Sevareid trained down to Washington to cover the session.
“The tweets are vicious,” Sevareid intoned reading one. “Stand up on both feet Mr. President,” referring to Roosevelt’s crippled legs. “This one is from Vice President Garner. He says this is a bunch of..” Sevareid hesitates and goes on…. “spit.” “Here is Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn accompanied by a tall young man. We are told he is Congressman Lyndon Johnson from Texas. Mr Speaker…”
“Yes?”
“How will Congress vote on the war?” Sevareid asks.
“Don’t know. Too many America Firsters. They blame the president for leaving Japan no option. Some like Herr Hitler and how he has modernized Germany. And some do not want to go to war to preserve England’s empire. It will be a close run thing.”
For much of the week, Congress was consumed with debate over the war enflamed by polarized left and right wing television commentators. Coverage of President Roosevelt’s arrival on Capitol Hill was disastrous showing him being helped from the car on crutches and then painfully limping into the Rotunda. The images went viral.
“Can Roosevelt make it?” was one of the kinder tweets. Tojo and Hitler likewise were keen to use Roosevelt’s handicap as representative of a weak America.
Despite attempts to censor television, coverage from Pearl Harbor was nearly continuous as rescue operations sought to free hundreds of sailors trapped in USS Arizona. Scenes of destroyed and smoking aircraft on Hickham Field were ubiquitous along with poignant interviews with survivors. The state of shock and losses were horrendous.
I awoke before knowing how Congress had voted on the war. And the last memory of the dream was the sensation that when I went back to school, the lessons were in German and Japanese. But I could not be certain.
Dr. Harlan Ullman is a Senior Advisor at the Atlantic Council. His latest book is Anatomy of Failure: Why America Has Lost Every War It Starts. The writer can be reached on Twitter @harlankullman