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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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At any rate, the thought in everybody's mind was, “How could it have happened?” The Pacific Ocean is large and the Hawaiian Islands stand in the midst of a large area, which is surely capable of observation. At least, that was my thought, and that was what I supposed the others who asked questions thought. That was not answered that evening, and couldn't be. The only answer was, “We don't know.”

What they did was describe to The Cabinet, either by the President, or by Frank Knox and the President, by one or two other people like McIntyre and some of the naval aides who stood behind the President's desk and were running out all the time to the next room where there was apparently some kind of a ticker tape, or special telephone installation where they got constant messages from the navy, which was getting it straight from the Hawaiian Islands, what little they knew of what had happened. I think that Knox had already talked on the telephone with Admiral Kimmel in charge in Hawaii. I may be a little mistaken about whether he had, or whether he was trying to get the connection. At any rate, there had been apparently a very great effort to get the connection. It had been hard to get through. I think he had gotten it by the time he spoke in the Cabinet meeting. He had had a very unsatisfactory talk - that is, unsatisfactory from the point of view of information. He couldn't get much information from Admiral Kimmel. The connection was poor and everything was in a state of excitement. Knox was nearly as





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