President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he does not think a recent Japanese aerial attack against the Pearl Harbor naval base was "an act of war."
"No, I don't think it was an act of war," FDR said to CBS's Edward R. Murrow. "I think it was an act of aero-vandalism that was very costly, very expensive. We take it very seriously. We will respond proportionately."
He added, "We're going to be in an environment in this new world where so much is airborne that both naval and air force assets are going to have the capacity to disrupt our bases in all sorts of ways. We have to do a much better job of guarding against that."
Congressional Republicans questioned the president's tepid response and choice of Hawaii for his vacation in light of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor:
Some Republicans appearing on Sunday radio shows were critical of FDR's overall response to the Pearl Harbor attack.
"This was a nation-state attack on the United States and saying aloha and getting on an airplane, going to Hawaii is not the answer that really the world needs, let alone America," Joseph William Martin, Jr., the House Minority leader, said in an interview on "NBC News of the World." He was referring to Roosevelt leaving Sunday for a vacation.
In other breaking news , aero-vandalism continues to rage in the Philippines and much of Indochina ...
