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The historiography [1] of this article is interesting. The author talks about how the drafts of FDR's speech changed throughout the day after the bombings. Presumably this means that the author had access to the various drafts of the speech. Pretty clever way to try to glimpse into what he was thinking.

[1] The study of the methods used when writing history.

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Not just the author has access; the drafts of the Infamy speech are public: https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2001/winter/c...

You can view the handwritten edits by Roosevelt in the archival drafts.

Kind of curious that the author didn’t mention a primary motive of Roosevelt’s: making the case for entering the war. FDR had been trying to (rightly) sell it to a reluctant, isolationist public as a necessary evil. Thus emphasizing the loss of “American” life was critical, despite the fact that it may have been subject to a less inclusive view that the author would have preferred.

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