Franklin Delano Roosevelt's White House Map Room was established in 1942 as a center for military information and communication. FDR came up with the idea for his secret map room after a visit from Winston Churchill in December 1941. To command the war, Churchill maintained an underground headquarters in London full of maps and when he traveled outside of London, he would travel with a series of portable maps to remain abreast of the situation. Just a few days after seeing Churchill's portable map room, Roosevelt created one of his own; he also hoped it would become the sole repository of his personal correspondence with world leaders such as Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Chiang Kia-Shek.

FDR's secret headquarters was located on the ground floor of the White House in a low ceiling room that was originally a ladies' coatroom. It was located between the diplomatic reception room and FDR's physician's office, making it easily accessible to FDR after his daily massage and examination. Lt. Robert Montgomery, who had worked inside of Churchill's map room, was responsible for the design. The walls were covered with fiberboard and large-scale charts of the Atlantic and Pacific that were updated two to three times per day to show the constant changes in the location of the enemy and allied forces. Various-shaped pins marked the location of military vessels - round heads for destroyers, square heads for heavy cruisers. Three different pins indicated the location of the Big Three; a cigar for Winston Churchill, a cigarette holder for FDR, and a pipe for Josef Stalin.

Only President Roosevelt, Harry L. Hopkins, General George C. Marshall, Admiral William Leahy, Winston Churchill, Chief Joints of Staff, one naval ensign, and one lieutenant from Army Intelligence had access to the room. Eleanor Roosevelt was not permitted in the room, but oftentimes she would try to find out about her son James, who was serving in the armed forces.

The map room was occupied at all times by three shifts of officers. The twelve member staff consisted of six members of the army and six members of the navy. To ensure the security of the correspondence and the information held in the map room, outgoing messages were sent by naval channels, while army channels received incoming messages. Neither branch, therefore, had a complete file. This highly secret room conveyed and received messages of the president's immediate family and those of his closest advisors. It also served as a contact point for the president when he was away at wartime conferences.

As his health declined towards the end of the war, President Roosevelt was unable to routinely visit the map room, and so the maps were brought to his bedroom. When Roosevelt died, there were seven filing cabinets filled to capacity with documents from the map room, and these files are currently housed at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, in Hyde Park, New York.