The Foreign Service Journal, December 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2021 59 not very dignified.” The Germans retreated to their embassy on Massachusetts Avenue to await developments. Soon the Swiss flag was hoisted over it, as it was over the American embassy in Berlin. Swiss diplomats quickly assumed the duty of represent- ing both American and German interests. At 10:30 a.m., Italian Ambassador Prince Ascanio Colonna visited political adviser James Clement Dunn, only to confess he was without instructions from his government and had called to inquire as to his status. Dunn acknowledged that a state of war existed with Italy. FDR’s press secretary acidly noted that a vainglorious Mussolini was in goose-step fashion reduced to following Hitler’s orders. b By midday, the die was cast. Secretary of State Cordell Hull and his aides hurriedly drafted the text of a presidential message to Congress: “The long known and long expected has thus taken place. The forces endeavoring to enslave the world are moving toward this hemisphere. Never before has there been a greater challenge to life, liberty and civilization.” Prompt action, President Roosevelt told American lawmakers, promised “a world victory of the forces of justice and of righ- teousness over the forces of savagery and barbarism.” Before 3 p.m., without Roosevelt’s appearance, Congress unanimously approved war resolutions. At 3:06 p.m., FDR initialed them. The U.S. was at war with Germany and Italy. In a single day, a Pacific war became a global war with cascading consequences for grand strategy and statecraft. In the geopolitical game, Hitler’s and Mussolini’s actions further unleashed the fury of American power. Despite the humili- ation of Pearl Harbor and daunting Pacific challenges, the bull’s-eye fell squarely on Nazi Germany and occupied Europe as the focal point for U.S. war strategy. With no end other than victory and a Grand Alliance—the United States, Great Britain, China and the Soviet Union—taking shape, the fate of the Axis was sealed. On Jan. 1, 1942, 26 nations signed the United Nations Declaration pledging to accept the Atlantic Charter and agreeing not to negotiate a separate peace with any Axis power. Speaking to the men of the Reichstag in Berlin’s Krol Opera House on Dec. 11, 1941, Adolf Hitler delivers a speech on Franklin D. Roosevelt and the war in the Pacific, declaring war on the U.S. GERMANFEDERALARCHIVES