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like talking back to the President.
The President would bait Ickes and Ickes would give him back much worse than he said, which amused the President. He always knew the score. If anybody scored against him, that was that. I think he probably enjoyed that. However, I don't think he deliberately set out to be brutal.
The President was terribly soft-hearted when it came to really doing anything serious to people who had really been very seriously disloyal to him. His streak of cruelty would show, now that I think of it, when he would freeze a person. When he got mad at Jim Farley, he just froze him - froze him solid in looks, in manner, in lack of speech, not saying anything. When Jim would say anything he'd say, “Really, really, indeed.” That was all, no comment.
Getting back to the purge, I've never had anybody explain to me exactly what happened. I've been on the point of talking to Tom Corcoran about it once in a while, but I've gotten so that Tom makes me so nervous that I can't take it. I feel him so untrustworthy as I talk to him now, today, in 1954, that I never know whether he's spoofing or not. I don't think he would keep your confidence. I would hate to talk to him
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