Franklin d roosevelt biography speech ww2
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FDR and the Four Freedoms Speech
As America entered the war these "four freedoms" - the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear - symbolized America's war aims and gave hope in the following years to a war-wearied people because they knew they were fighting for freedom.
Roosevelt’s preparation of the Four Freedoms Speech was typical of the process that he went through on major policy addresses. To assist him, he charged his close advisers Harry L. Hopkins, Samuel I. Rosenman, and Robert Sherwood with preparing initial drafts. Adolf A. Berle, Jr., and Benjamin V. Cohen of the State Department also provided input. But as with all his speeches, FDR edited, rearranged, and added extensively until the speech was his creation. In the end, the speech went through seven drafts before final delivery.
The famous Four Freedoms paragraphs did not appear in the speech until the fourth draft. One night as Hopkins, Rosenman, and Sherwood met w
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Franklin D. Roosevelt stands as one of America’s most masterful presidential orators. His inspiring speeches and intimate “fireside chats” helped lead the nation through one of its most turbulent eras.
Over the course of an unprecedented kvartet terms in office, from 1933 to 1945, Roosevelt not only created policies to steer the nation through multiple crises, including the Great Depression, the surprise attack on U.S. soil at Pearl Harbor and World War II. He also served as a master communicator—to calm Americans’ fears and rally them around his policies.
He employed the new medium of radio to deliver his voice directly into living rooms across the country in some 30 “fireside chats.” Roosevelt spoke plainly and convincingly, channeling a rare combination of patrician competence and affable warmth that gave Americans much-needed hope in a bleak time. He often chose words to draw his audience into a sense of collective striving and higher moral purpose.
“He could explain complicated
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'A Date Which Will Live in Infamy'
The First Typed Draft of Franklin D. Roosevelt's War Address
Background
Early in the afternoon of månad 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his chief utländsk policy aide, Harry Hopkins, were interrupted by a telephone call from Secretary of War Henry Stimson and told that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. At about 5:00 p.m., following meetings with his military advisers, the President calmly and decisively dictated to his secretary, Grace Tully, a request to församling for a declaration of war. He had composed the speech in his head after deciding on a brief, uncomplicated appeal to the people of the United States rather than a thorough recitation of Japanese perfidies, as Secretary of State Cordell Hull had urged.
President Roosevelt then revised the typed draft—marking it up, updating military information, and selecting alternative wordings that strengthened the tone of the speech. He made the most significant change