Description: Roosevelt Franklin



President & Mrs. Roosevelt Send Christmas Greetings Days after Pearl Harbor


A pristine 1941 Christmas card and matching envelope wishing A Merry Christmas from The President and Mrs. Roosevelt." At top, the printed cream stock card depicts a red-shingled house and pine trees on a snowy hillside. The envelope bears a gilt-embossed presidential seal verso, and is embossed ""Brewood, Engravers & Stationers, Washington"under the unused adhesive flap. Comes with two tissue guards. In near fine condition, the diminutive card measuring 3"" x 3.875"".


This Christmas card dates from December 1941: a momentous month in the history of the United States.


On December 7, 1941, Japanese forces had simultaneously attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, as well as other Allied targets in British Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Thailand. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's so-called ""Infamy Speech"" rallied U.S. Congress to unanimously vote for a declaration of war against Japan on December 8, 1941. War was declared against Germany and her allies on December 11, 1941. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill left England almost immediately afterwards to personally ensure that Roosevelt still adhered to their ""Europe First"" strategy; he arrived in Washington, D.C. on December 22, 1941.


During the next 3 weeks, at what was later known as the Arcadia Conference, American and British leaders and their staff worked to formulate an overarching Allied war strategy. FDR and Churchill would drink and smoke well into the early hours of the morning, even on Christmas Day, deliberating on how to dismantle the Axis Powers. Roosevelt agreed with Churchill that Germany must be destroyed before concerting efforts in the Pacific Theater. The Arcadia Conference resulted in the development of short-term military plans for 1942-1943, the formation of a Combined Chiefs of Staff and the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDA), and the creation of the Declaration by the United Nations. The stratagems, infrastructure, and ideological ethos hammered out at the Arcadia Conference would inform the rest of World War II.


Winston Churchill's surprise visit to the United States coincided with the Christmas Season of 1941. On December 23, 1941, Churchill attended an Oval Office Press Conference in which he jubilantly mounted a chair to ensure better visibility among 200 amused reporters and photographers. Bernard Baruch, one of Roosevelt's political advisers, called the puckish British politician ""the best Christmas present"" Americans could have received. Churchill's very presence reassured her new allies. On Christmas Eve, Churchill joined the Roosevelts in the official White House tree-lighting ceremony. 20,000 attendees and millions of radio listeners heard President Roosevelt's exhortation to celebrate the holiday that best represented the Allies' freedom-loving spirit.


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