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would be nominated. I never could drag out of him anything but a completely negative reply to any sallies in that direction, and although I never asked him outright, “Would you refuse the nomination?”, since I naturally wouldn't ask a blunt question like that because one just doesn't ask that of a friend, I often spoke of things that would give him the opportunity to say something about the third term, trying to catch him saying that he would do something as President after 1940. However, he would just laugh and I could get nothing positive out of him.

I spoke to other people about it, such as Frank Walker, who was very close to him at that time, because the President had parted with Jim Farley. He hadn't parted with Jim officially, but Jim must have laid down the law at some point about how he wouldn't stand for a third term. I suppose that that was a point when Roosevelt began to rely more on Frank Walker. Jim Farley talked to me at least twice, and I think on three different occasions, about this third term business. He came over to lunch with me one day before the European war started in the fall of '39. I think it was the summer before. He called up one day, I think, and said, “I'd like to have a talk with you.” I invited him to lunch. He came over to the department and we had lunch. Of course, there