“This is the worst situation we have had yet,” Truman said. “We’ll just have to meet it like all the rest.” He seemed to find solace in the making of concrete plans. He would declare a state of emergency. He would deliver a speech to the nation. He would triple the Pentagon’s budget. “I’ll have to ask you all to go to work and make the necessary preparations,” he said. His appointments, on that day and the days ahead, would need to be canceled. “We have got to meet this thing,” he repeated. “Let’s go ahead now and do our jobs as best we can.”
