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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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did it, why I wrote them down. At the moment they seemed important to me, and as though I ought to put is down while it was clear in my mind, in case I should ever need to call upon it to help me to explain something upon which I might have to act, or upon which others might have to act.

Now, I do see that it would have been impossible for a man in the position of Roosevelt at that moment to have acted in a natural, easy, relaxed fashion. None of us were easy or relaxed. Therefore he was playing a role of the leader of the nation which had been attacked in a surprise attack by what had always been thought of as an inferior enemy. It was an awful role to play. What do you show to the world? I don't know.

I don't know what disturbs me about the whole thing, but something was wrong. Obviously he had to play a role of some sort. I don't think that I never in my own mind cleared it to the point of saying that he played a false role that day. His surprise was not as great as the surprise of the rest of us. But then that's natural too. He knew more about the possibilities than any one of us, including Frank Knox, who was a great, big, rough administrator - jolly, good-natured and capable, but not subtle. Even though he and the President might know the identical things about the movements of the Japanese fleet and the readiness of the American fleet and the location and distribution of elements of the English fleet, Knox did not have the subtlety of mind





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