Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Infamy Speech

During World War II, Japan attacked many places in the Pacific Ocean. Japan attacked: Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, The Philippine Islands, Wake Island, Hawaii, and Midway Island in less than three days. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, an American Naval Base in Hawaii, it was a bigger massacre than expected and many Americans perished. Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his speech known as “The Infamy Speech” one day after Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese forces during World War II. Until this attack, the United States was neutral in World War II. The purpose of The Infamy Speech was to rally the nation into entering the war. Japan tricked the American people by informing through telegram that Japan wanted peace while their naval troops and …show more content…
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was against Japan because they were attacking many places, including the United States of America and one of its territories. Before the attack, The United States was neutral in the war and many of the citizens were very against entering the war because of a myriad of reasons. The war was far away, some people were anti Japanese, some people were anti-Semitic, and many people wanted to fix problems in America before going to Europe. Even with all of these reasons to oppose American involvement in the war, Roosevelt’s speech convinced many Americans of the need to retaliate against Japan and join the war on the side of the allies. Japan attacked a lot of places in the pacific, including a place that the United States technically owned, the Philippine Islands. In his speech, Roosevelt was specifically against the massacre in Hawaii and against Japan because they attacked many places including: Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, The Philippine Islands, Wake Island and Midway Island in less than three days. President Roosevelt was especially against Japan because Japan tricked America into peace through telegram so America wasn’t expecting the attack to be as brutal as it was. Since America was so neutral for so long, many Americans were against joining the war …show more content…
To cover up America’s mistakes, he mentioned that when Americans at Pearl Harbor saw Japanese ships on the radar, Japan was trying to convince America that they wanted peace. There is no reason that so many Japanese ships would be traveling to America for peace, the people at Pearl Harbor knew there was going to be an attack. The people at Pearl Harbor knew about the attack because they had radars and saw the Japanese ships on the radars. He also left out that America broke the Japanese diplomatic code and that is why America was attacked . Another important omission of speech was European attacks. Even though Italy and Germany were also in the Axis Powers, only Japan was mentioned in the speech. This was partially because Japan had recently attacked America and FDR was explaining what happened. Another reason that only Japan was mentioned in the speech was because so much more of the country was German and Italian than Japanese and it is easier to know if a person is of Japanese descent than German or Italian descent. Roosevelt wrote his own speech for his own benefit over giving the American people enough information to make their own