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possible that Roosevelt knew about it, but didn't fully understand it. There is a story that he took a fishing trip in late '36 and that he took down Cummings' note on the subject to read on this trip. But on these fishing trips he didn't read very much. Lots of us gave him things to read when he went off discovered when he came back, not from any confession of his, but from lack of knowledge, that he couldn't have read them. Even though he had asked you to give him a full analysis and report on this or that, you discovered that he couldn't have read the thing. There was always lots of diversion.

All this has led me to the conclusion that Roosevelt did not know about the plan. I know that Stephens made great effort to persuade Cummings to take Stephens with him to the White House on one occasion, to give the President another side to the matter, although Stephens himself never knew exactly what this was that Homer was going to propose. I learned all this by questioning afterwards. In the meantime I just knew that something was going on.

For at least six months in Cabinet meeting before the famous February 5th one when this broke, the President, in the general go around at Cabinet meeting, said