Pearl Harbor Attack 70th Anniversary To Be Commerated By National Archives With Special Program December 7th

Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941

The 70th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack will be commemorated by the United States National Archives, in partnership with the Newseum, on Wednesday, December 7, 2011, with a free public program in the William G. McGowan Theater of the National Archives Building.

The program, “It Is No Joke—It Is a Real War”: How Americans First Learned of Pearl Harbor, features journalist Marvin Kalb using film, audio, and photographic records from the National Archives and the Newseum to discuss how the media informed Americans of the 1941 attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

The National Archives Building in Washington, DC, is located on the National Mall at Constitution Ave. and 7th Street, NW. Metro accessible on Yellow or Green lines, Archives/Navy Memorial station. The public should use the Special Event entrance on Constitution Avenue and 7th Street, NW. To verify the date and times of the program, call the National Archives Public Programs Line at: (202) 357-5000, or view the Calendar of Events online.

Marvin Kalb is a James Clark Welling Presidential Fellow at The George Washington University and Edward R. Murrow Professor Emeritus at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He is also a contributing news analyst for National Public Radio and Fox News Channel. In addition, he is frequently called upon to comment on major issues of the day by many of the nation's other leading news organizations.

Kalb had a distinguished 30-year broadcast career, working for both CBS News and NBC News, where he served as Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, Moscow Bureau Chief, and moderator of Meet the Press. Among his many honors are two Peabody Awards, the DuPont Prize from Columbia University, the 2006 Fourth Estate Award from the National Press Club and more than a half-dozen Overseas Press Club awards. He has lectured at many universities, here and abroad. Kalb was the founding director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

A graduate of the City College of New York, Kalb has an M.A. from Harvard and was zeroing in on his Ph.D. in Russian history when he left Cambridge in 1956 for a Moscow assignment with the State Department. The following year, he joined CBS News, the last correspondent hired by Edward R. Murrow. Kalb has authored or co-authored 12 nonfiction books and two best-selling novels. His latest book, co-authored with his daughter, Deborah, is "Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama."

A Press Release | Photo courtesy of the National Archives