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mutual trust between them. I don't know the extent to which Eden, for instance, who is an awfully good thinker and a very restrained and self-disciplined man, contributed. Churchill is capable of letting himself go, being very gauche, very blunt, can make people dislike him. Anthony Eden never would be. Eden is a most restrained person. He's very bright, very intelligent, sees all around things, will never do the thing that will make difficulty. He will find ways to overcome difficulty. He will find ways of putting himself second. He's done it all his official life. He will bring out the desirable rapprochement between people.
To a certain extent Harry Hopkins probably did the same thing by a kind of conditioning of Roosevelt's attitude toward Churchill and toward the British, toward the whole episode. He did it so Roosevelt wouldn't take umbrage at some of the more awkward things that Churchill might do or say. I think probably Harry had caught onto the fact that Churchill was a very unconventional person, that he does very unconventional things. I think that Harry undoubtedly contributed a great deal of grace to this situation, both to Churchill and to Roosevelt. Harry very quickly got onto jokey terms with Churchill, which was a good way to handle him, and would say pretty sharp things to him, but in a way that struck Churchill as funny and would make him laugh. He would cap the joke with something else and get the best of Harry, but would catch from Harry that the President liked
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