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Remembering Pearl Harbor and FDR's letter to the future
by Bill Morelock, Minnesota Public Radio
December 7, 2004

Franklin D. Roosevelt (File photo)

Today is the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 63 years ago, December 7th, 1941. The following day, December 8th, the United States declared war on Japan. And a little over a week after that, on December 17th, President Franklin Roosevelt took the time to look past the immediate crisis, and wrote a letter to the future, with every faith there would be a recognizable future. Captain Colin P. Kelly Jr. was officially reported as the first American fatality after the war began. On Dec. 17th 1941, Roosevelt wrote this letter:

— To the President of the United States in 1956.

I am writing this letter as an act of faith in the destiny of our country. I desire to make a request, which I make in full confidence that we shall achieve a glorious victory in the war we are now waging to preserve our democratic way of life. My request is that you consider the merits of a young American of goodly heritage--Colin P. Kelly III, for appointment as a candidate in the United States Military Academy at West Point. I make this appeal in behalf of this youth as a token of the nation’s appreciation of the heroic services of his father, who met his death in the line of duty at the very outset of the struggle which was thrust upon us by the perfidy of a professed friend.

In the conviction that the service and example of Colin P. Kelly, Jr. will be long remembered, I ask for this consideration in behalf of Colin P. Kelly III.

--Franklin D. Roosevelt

When FDR wrote that letter, Colin P. Kelly III was three years old. He would be 18 in 1956, when then President Dwight Eisenhower read Roosevelt's letter and made the appointment of Colin P. Kelly III to West Point.

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