Documentary examines FDR's reaction to Pearl Harbor

But what "Pearl Harbor: 24 Hours After" really establishes is that 70 years later we know so much of this story already. That FDR couldn't get all the details of the attack. That Secretary of State and fussbudget Cordell Hull pestered him to make his world-shaking speech unreadable (or it would have been, had FDR taken Hull's lousy advice). That Gen. Douglas MacArthur behaved like a martinet that day.

Yes, there's a briefly sensationalistic moment when the documentary reports that FDR underwent a cocaine treatment to relieve his sinuses, but the show wiggles out of any sort of insinuation that the president was in a drug-induced state on Dec. 7. (Historians weren't sure of the dosage level.) His sinuses did at least clear up in time to make the speech that would launch the country to war. Meanwhile, Al Capone's car -- an IRS prize impounded for back taxes -- got him to the speech on time.