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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Well, our Secret Service men advised against his going to the Russian Embassy, and some of his advisers did. But he and Churchill talked about it, and Roosevelt finally said-- at least this was his story when he came back--“I thought it was a small thing to do to please them. If such a thing as my sleeping under their roof would please them and put them in a good mood to negotiate with us and to make some real pledges about various things--”

You see, at Teheran they were very much upset because there was as yet no second front, so that the Russians had to be wooed. “If we could woo them this way, perhaps it was the cheapest thing we could do, and after all, it was only me that would be inconvenienced. So I said, all right, I would go to the Russian Embassy. It was a matter of exhibiting my trust in them, my complete confidence in them. And it did please them,” he said. “No question about it.”

“I went to the Russian Embassy--of course, all my suite went with me. All the people traveling with me had to go too, and I learned to my consternation, after we were all installed, that Stalin, who had been staying there, had had to be put out in an outbuilding, to make room for us.”

Whether that was true or not, I don't know, but he heard that, you see. At any rate, he commented upon a number of things on his stay at the Russian Embassy. He said,” The servants, of course, were all Russians. They didn't behave like servants anywhere else on earth. I've never been in





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