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of the situations that led to what from the beginning we felt would probably be war. Hopkins was more and more consulted about that.
The King and Queen of England came to this country in the summer of 1939 - June 1939. Harry was living in the White House then and Diana was living there then. At that time we knew enough about the hazards of what was going on so that people said to each other and to the British Ambassador, “Is it quite safe for their majesties to be here now?”
The answer from two reliable sources - one British and one American - to me was, “That's all right. The war won't break out until after they're safely home. We know it won't. The war won't come before the first of August and they'll be home then.”
As early as that people in the know knew there was going to be a war. Where it was going to start nobody knew - whether the Germans would invade Poland or something else. But the hazard of the King and Queen being in America and on the high seas was recognized and acknowledged, although they felt perfectly safe about it because both the Americans and the British and the Canadians had studied the Secret Service reports to such an extent that they felt sure that there wouldn't be any war before
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