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ourpresidents:

The Four Freedoms: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear

In his State of the Union address to Congress on January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt presented his reasons for American involvement in the growing war in Europe.  In helping Britain, President Roosevelt stated, the United States was fighting for the universal freedoms that all people possessed.

Roosevelt’s preparation of the speech went through seven drafts before final delivery.  The famous Four Freedoms did not appear until the fourth draft. One night as Roosevelt met with his close advisers in his White House study, the President announced that he had an idea for a peroration (the closing section of a speech).

Samuel I. Rosenman wrote down FDR’s words.  He later recounted:

“We waited as he leaned far back in his swivel chair with his gaze on the ceiling. It was a long pause—so long that it began to become uncomfortable. Then he leaned forward again in his chair and dictated the Four Freedoms.  He dictated the words so slowly that on the yellow pad I had in my lap I was able to take them down myself in longhand as he spoke.”

Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms became the foundational principles for the Atlantic Charter declared by Winston Churchill and FDR in August 1941; the United Nations Declaration of January 1, 1942; President Roosevelt’s vision for an international organization that became the United Nations after his death; and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948 through the work of Eleanor Roosevelt.

Here are the notes that were dictated by FDR, and the evolution of the Four Freedoms speech in subsequent drafts.

from the FDR Library

ourpresidents:

Space Clipper, Pegasus, Starlighter, Space Shuttle

Forty years ago today, President Richard Nixon announced the creation of the Space Shuttle program.  It was January 5, 1972 in San Clemente, California.  Standing with NASA Administrator James E. Fletcher, the President signed an Executive Act and said, “This system will center on a space vehicle that can shuttle repeatedly from Earth to orbit and back.”  

“Space Shuttle.”  It’s hard to imagine a different name, right?  Not so for Peter Flanigan, Assistant to President Nixon.  Just one day before the President publicly announced NASA’s latest and greatest, there was still debate over the official name for the program.  This White House memo to the President makes a pretty good case that:

The term “shuttle” has a connotation of second class travel and lacks excitement…

Of course, Space Shuttle ultimately made the final cut, but it’s fun to think of the Pegasus program that almost was. 

White House Memo; Peter Flanigan to President Nixon, January 4, 1972.  Photo of President Nixon and NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher looking at a Space Shuttle model on the day of the program announcement, January 5, 1972.  San Clemente, CA. ID #WHPO-8173-07.

(Applause to the Archivists at the Nixon Library for finding this “almost happened” memo!)

What’s your favorite alternative name for the Space Shuttle?

thekittencovers:

Leonard Kitthen - Death of a Ladies Cat & Songs of Purr and Hiss

Nice.