President Roosevelt sent to Congress a 136-word message that took less than two minutes to read...."The long-known and the long-expected has thus taken place...." This was his only I-told-you-so to all the isolationists who had so long insisted that nothing of the sort would ever take place.
That morning (Dec. 11, 1941) Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini had done some routine ranting, had roared some routine lies, had returned to their routine aggression—after declaring war on the U.S.
With a single speech, without one wasted word, the Senate voted war with Germany, 88-to-0, war with Italy, 90-to-0. The House voted...
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