Good evening. This morning American forces took control of Keflavik and of the island of Iceland.
— Address to the nation, the Oval Office
what was actually happening
Two days earlier the Joint Staff had delivered two binders. The first said Iceland could be taken in forty-eight hours. The second said the British Isles could not be taken at all, and recommended he make the Greenland-Iceland line the permanent boundary. He read the first. Seven days after saying "that is where it stops", he authorised Operation Albion Anvil.