[Unclear] said they’re going to leave right after the [unclear], and I wanted to show it to you. [Pause.] [Unclear.]

[Unclear.]

[Someone, possibly the President, whispers “Whew.”] Yeah, that’s nice.

All right. [Unclear.]

Good.

By the way, you know, William [Randolph] Hearst [Sr.] came out yesterday.[note 2] William Randolph Hearst Sr. was a newspaper publishing magnate and founder of Hearst Communications. “What is all the fuss and nonsense about Mr. Elliott Roosevelt?" Hearst wrote in his column, “In the News,” published on the front page of the San Francisco Examiner and other Hearst newspapers. Hearst dismissed attacks on Elliott Roosevelt, who volunteered to serve in the Air Corps and was assigned to a job in procurement. Hearst vouched for the younger Roosevelt’s executive ability. “Your columnist can speak positively of his qualifications, because we employed him as manager of a radio system, and he performed unusually successful work,” Hearst wrote. See William Randoph Hearst, “In the News,” San Francisco Examiner, 7 October 1940. General Hugh S. Johnson, who administered the draft during World War I, had assailed Elliott Roosevelt’s appointment in his own column. See United Press, “Elliott Roosevelt Calls Hugh Johnson Disgusting Old Man,” Springfield (MO) Leader and Press, 25 September 1940.

The what?

Hearst himself came out yesterday with a fine piece.

About what?

About Elliott [Roosevelt]‘s appointment.[note 3] Elliott Roosevelt was a U.S. Army Air Force reconnaissance pilot during World War II, attaining the rank of brigadier general in 1945; a onetime Texas rancher and radio broadcaster; the Democratic mayor of Miami Beach, Florida, from June 1965 to June 1967; and the third son of Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Good?

Yes, sir. I just gave them the [unclear] story [unclear] what he shut off, how he got his amortization arrangement, made it possible. [Pause.] [Unclear] hasn’t shown up, and no one at his office has seen or heard from him since Saturday. So not being able to reach him personally today, I called over Mike [unclear], and I went through the whole story from the record—the written record—with Mike.[note 4] “Mike” is unidentified but may have referred to Michael “Mike” Strauss, a staffer in the Department of the Interior and later commissioner of reclamation. And I told Mike to take his automobile and drive [unclear] and to tell him the last . . . that this is now, oh, about [unclear], and so forth.[note 5] In the unclear passage, Early may have said “about the hookup, and so forth.” And I first talked to Charlie [unclear] down in Arizona somewhere, boss.[note 6] “Charlie” is unidentified.

Yeah.

Charlie said they’d go for the—for the half an hour, or give him two 15-minutes, if he wanted it.

Good, good. Sure.

[speaking slowly] Mr. President, if you’re asked today, as I suspect you probably will be, about [Robert H.] Bob Jackson’s opinion on war contracts, I think you can tell them that Mr. Jackson made a very able argument and presented the story in its entirety to the House committee today.[note 7] Robert H. “Bob” Jackson was assistant general counsel for the Bureau of Internal Revenue from February 1934 to February 1936; U.S. assistant attorney general for the Tax Division from February 1936 to January 1937; U.S. assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division from January 1937 to March 1938; U.S. solicitor general from March 1938 to January 1940; U.S. attorney general from January 1940 to August 1941; and an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from July 1941 until his death on 9 October 1954. Jackson had recently issued an informal opinion supporting a new National Defense Advisory Council policy that banned the awarding of defense contracts to companies found to be in violation of the National Labor Relations Act. That policy had been announced by Sidney Hillman, the labor representative on the council and vice president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The ruling had provoked an intense backlash among business leaders and in Congress, and on 8 October, Jackson had testified before a House committee that his opinion actually meant that such a ban could stand unless overturned by an appeals court. “Firms at Odds with NLRB Not to Be Denied U.S. Orders,” Wall Street Journal, 9 October 1940; “Bar Defense Work by Law Violators,” New York Times, 2 October 1940. And he did.

Yeah.

[Robert P. “Bob”] Patterson [Sr.] did, too.[note 8] Robert P. “Bob” Patterson Sr. was a lawyer; a judge of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York from May 1930 to March 1939; a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from March 1939 to July 1940; U.S. under secretary of war from December 1940 to September 1945; U.S. secretary of war from September 1945 to July 1947; and a New York city attorney from 1947 until his death on 22 January 1952.

Yeah.

And the [U.S.] Navy folks were there. And Bob made a hell of a good argument.

Good.

And they’re all in line on it. And [Sidney] Hillman was there.[note 9] Sidney Hillman was head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America; a cofounder of the Committee for Industrial Organizing (CIO) (later the Congress of Industrial Organizations) in 1935; cofounder of the American Labor Party in 1936; a member of the National Defense Advisory Committee in 1940; associate director of the Office of Production Management in 1941; head of the labor division of the War Production Board in 1942; and head of the CIO Political Action Committee in 1943. And he testified.

Good. Good.

So . . . just stand on that.

Cincinnati [Reds] won the [World] Series today, sir, 2–1.

Good. Good. Good. That’s right. I just had a little hunch.

I did, too. I don’t know whether I am, though. But I know I can’t lose.

That’s all right.

You ready for them?

Yes, sir.

How are you? I’m glad to see you. How have you been? [Unclear.]

[Coughs.] Well, we had a nice sightseeing trip yesterday. We missed you.

Oh. I read about it in the good—very good writing from these young men. They’re doing better every time I take a trip.

Yes, sir. It’s educational, too. We learned all about the Battle of Saratoga, [the] surrender of [John] Burgoyne, yesterday.[note 10] Gen. John Burgoyne was a British army officer during the American Revolutionary War, and a member of the House of Commons from 1761 to 1792. Yes. [speaking aside] Didn’t you?

We’d heard about that before.

Had you heard about it before?

They’ve had experiences with Saratoga outside of that! [Laughs.]

It might be said to be an expensive place in [unclear]. [Laughter.] [Unclear] we’re sending the veterans there, you see, [an unidentified speaker acknowledges] in the offseason, {because they are poor men}.

All in.

[speaking to the group] I don’t believe I’ve got anything today. We had a very good time yesterday. We all learned a lot. Who Burgoyne was, why he surrendered, all about Benedict Arnold’s leg that was loyal.[note 11] Benedict Arnold was an American major general during the American Revolutionary War who was branded a traitor when he defected to the British forces. By the way, did you see the monument there? We didn’t go near it.

We saw it from a distance.

You did. [The speaker acknowledges.] I don’t think I’ve got anything at all.

Can you tell us, Mr. President, anything about your conference this afternoon with Admiral [James O. “Joe”] Richardson and Admiral [William D. “Bill”] Leahy?[note 12] Adm. James O. “Joe” Richardson was commander in chief of the United States Fleet (CinCUS) from January 1940 to February 1941. Richardson had warned against positioning the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor ahead of the Japanese attack on 7 December 1941. Fleet Adm. William D. “Bill” Leahy was chief of naval operations from January 1937 to August 1939; governor of Puerto Rico from September 1939 to November 1940; U.S. ambassador to France from January 1941 to May 1942; and chief of staff to the commander in chief from July 1942 to March 1949.

Oh, we just . . . studied maps.

Did the conference, sir, touch upon problems in the Far East?

No, we just studied maps.

{Pacific} maps?

Studied maps. Learning geography.

Were they mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere?

What? [Laughter.]

Were they mostly maps of the Eastern Hemisphere?

[Pause.] All three hemispheres. [Laughter.]

[laughing] OK. [Laughter.]

Mr. President, does the presence of Mr. Leahy in the conference indicate that he might be called back into active service, sir?

No. We . . . finding out about Puerto Rico.

Mr. President, are you contemplating withdrawal of the Marines from China?

Not that I know of.

Mr. President, did anything develop from your [National] Labor [Relations] Board discussion this morning with Mr. [William M.] Leiserson?[note 13] William M. Leiserson was an economist and labor mediator; a professor of economics at Antioch College; a member of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Brain Trust; secretary of the National Labor Board of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) in 1933; a member of the National Mediation Board from 1934 to 1939; and a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from 1939 to 1943.

Nothing.

Is anything likely to?

No. [Slight laughter from the group.]

Mr. President, were local—

I would say seems to be in status quo.

Mr. President, were local naval housing problems discussed with Mr. [John M.] Carmody?[note 14] John M. Carmody was chief engineer of the Civil Works Administration in 1933; a member of the National Mediation Board from 1934 to 1935; a member of the National Labor Relations Board from August 1935 to August 1936; deputy administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration from 1936 to 1937, and administrator from 1937 to 1939; head of the Federal Works Agency (FWA) from 1939 to 1941; a member of the Maritime Commission from 1941 to 1946; a member of the General Review Board, War Assets Administration from 1947 to 1948; a referee for the Railroad Adjustment Board from 1949 to 1950; a consultant for the President’s Water Resources Policy Commission from 1950 to 1951; director of production assistance of the Economic Cooperation Administration in France from 1950 to 1955; and a labor arbitrator since 1955.

You mean Washington?

Washington and Alexandria [Virginia].

You heard they were included in the wrong list? [Someone coughs.] I’ll tell you frankly what I’ve been trying to do: The Congress put an outside figure, as I remember it, of 3,500 dollars per house on the average for all of these places. Some are in the South, some are in the North, some are in the West, some are in Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, even the District of Columbia. And I figured out 3,500 dollars for a house is too high for what probably will be, in large part, temporary. So we’ve been having a little argument for about a month on how we can reduce that figure. [A reporter attempts to interject.] Now, we seem to have got it pretty [recording skips] well reduced except in some places where the cost of land and the cost of living and the cost of labor is very—and materials—is very, very high. But the—I think you can say fairly that the average of this Navy housing will be probably nearer 2,800 dollars than 3,500, which means a savings to the government about 700 dollars per house, which is not bad considering that they are essentially temporary houses.

What do they call a “house”?

What?

What is a “house”? [Unclear.]

Well, it’s a—I’d put it this way: it’s a—the design is . . . Do you know what a Cape Cod cottage looks like? It’s a [chuckling] one-story building. [Godwin acknowledges throughout.] That’s the easiest way. And the average of these will be about 26 feet square, not 26 square feet, but 26 feet square. In other words, some of them may be 24 by 28. But about an average of 26 feet each way, and they contain, again on the average, two bedrooms, little bedrooms, and one sitting room, and one bathroom, and one combination—what is it? What do you girls call it now? A dinette, and—in the kitchen?

A dinette.

That’s it. [Laughter.]

Will they be individual houses or row houses?

Most of them will be individual. In some cases, they’ll be duplex. In some cases, three—three apartments of essentially the same size.

[Unclear] extremely local, did the question of changing the USHA [United States Housing Authority] workforce housing project in Alexandria into a housing project for the torpedo plant workers come up?

I couldn’t tell you about that part of it. There was a project for Alexandria in this long list. Now, whether it was changing the [Craig attempts to interject] USHA project into a Navy project, I don’t know.

Mr. President, after his conference with you this morning, Lord Lothian [the Marquess of Lothian, Philip Henry Kerr] said that his information seemed to indicate a general crisis in the Far East to be imminent.[note 15] The Marquess of Lothian, Philip Henry Kerr, was British ambassador to the United States from June 1939 until his death in December 1940. An early appeaser of Nazi Germany, Lord Lothian did an about-face after Hitler’s occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, subsequently advocating for a vigorous Anglo-American alliance. Do you have any information to that same general direction?

Well, I think you have to ask the State Department about that.

Mr. President, the Navy last week announced the establishment of an Atlantic fighting force of more than 125 ships. Does that portend the organization of what they call a two-ocean fleet?

No. Haven’t got enough ships for it.

[Laughs.]

Mr. President, are you planning to defer the appointment of—

[Unclear] Navy![note 16] In the unclear passage, the unidentified woman may have said, “Go Navy!"

—the Transportation Board until after Mr. Owen D. Young’s committee reports?[note 17] Owen D. Young was a lawyer and industrialist; creator of the Young Plan for German reparations after World War I; founder and head of Radio Corporation of America from 1919 to 1929; a member of the board of trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1928 to 1939; a Democratic presidential candidate in 1932; and a dairy farmer in his retirement.

I don’t know. The thing hasn’t come up. I know there was to be a three-man board appointed, but I don’t know.

Mr. President—

I haven’t had any recommendations of names yet.

There’s been a rumor that Mr. Young may be one of those members. Is there any basis to that?

No, I haven’t heard about names any. When is the Young board going to report?

He said in the near future. [President Roosevelt acknowledges.] No definite time.

Mr. President, reports reaching here from Philadelphia [Pennsylvania] indicated that you might be going back to Philadelphia and Camden [New Jersey] to complete that half of the trip, which you were unable to do before—the New York Shipbuilding and the Frankford Arsenal.

Well, that was one of the many hopes. There’s nothing on it.

Mr. President, can you say {whether} you think that firms that are found by the Labor Board to be violating the Wagner Act should receive defense contracts?[note 18] The Wagner Act of 1935, introduced by Senator Robert F. Wagner [D–New York], established the National Labor Relations Board and allowed employees to organize into unions and bargain collectively.

Oh, I think you will have to check on what was said before the committee this afternoon.[note 19] “Representatives of the War and Navy departments told a House committee today that they would not feel impelled to deny a company a defense contract solely because the National Labor Relations Board had declared the company a violator of the Wagner Act,” the Associated Press reported. See AP, “Probers Sift Contracts in Labor Dispute; Army, Navy Deny Any Such Factors in Awards,” Daily Press (Newport News, VA), 9 October 1940.

Mr. President, have you signed the tax bill?

Not yet.

{Do you anticipate signing it today, sir?}

{I do not know. What is the last day?}

{I could not tell you.}

{Frankly, I have not finished studying it.} I am working through to about ten or eleven o’clock tonight, and I haven’t finished my study—I don’t know. I think it’s a fair guess that it will be signed.

Mr. President, there are reports from Mexico City [Mexico] that this government is {reinteresting itself in a trans-Mexico highway over Tehuantepec} area. [Unclear.]

{The only highway I know is the carrying down of the} North and South Highway, which means, of course, it’s been completed to Mexico City, carrying it around, down—it’s partly {finished}, with a few little stretches in there—down to the, what, Guatemala line.

This is supposed to be the Atlantic to Pacific, parallel to the canal. [Unclear.]

[Clears throat.] [Unclear] referring to the railroad?

What? The what?

[Unclear] is referring to the old Tehuantepec ship canal route.

Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah.

[Unclear.]

Yeah. Well, of course, [the recording skips] you know, down there on the Isthmus [of Tehuantepec], the difficulty about a canal is that it will have to be a lock canal {because it goes over a} high elevation. There’s always been since the first survey was made, and they found, even then, there wasn’t enough water on top of the canal—on top of the ridge, to feed a canal, like Gatun Lake [Panama], and the river down there, the Chagres River [Panama]. So they took up—I don’t know, I think I’m little late, I think it was back in the ‘50s—they surveyed the possibility of a railway, across the isthmus—a ship railway [unclear]. It’s been taken up about every five or ten years since then. I haven’t heard anything about it lately.

Anything to be said about the Alaskan highway, Mr. President?

{No, except that they are} studying snowfall.

Mr. President, do you expect to attend the National Grange Convention next month in New York?

Where is it? In New York?

Syracuse.

[Pause.] I’d like to go to it. I’ve been to one years ago. I took the Seventh Degree in the Grange. Some people will understand what that means. And I’d like to go very much. I’ve got it down on a calendar somewhere. I don’t know. I never can tell.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. President.

[Unclear.]

[Unclear.] What?

Who did?

You did. [Unclear.] [Craig acknowledges.] [Laughs.]

Oh, I did.

Did you really? [Unclear.]

[Unclear.]

[Unclear] terribly funny. I didn’t think [unclear].

Well, I meant it to be.

[Unclear] was just awfully amusing [unclear].

[Unclear.]

Well, I still hope—I said I talked to the missus yesterday. I haven’t got the faintest idea what—where I’m going to be. You can’t tell. [Unclear] just a continuation of the inspection [unclear].

[Unclear.]

I don’t know.

[Unclear.]

I don’t know. Good. No, I got a thing definitely in mind. I’d say . . . oh, I’d say I’d know around the 25th of this month [unclear].

Twenty-fifth.

Yeah.

Fine. Thank you.

Fine. I haven’t forgotten it.

Mr. President, you’ve got two Captain Callaghans here.[note 20] Captain Daniel J. Callaghan was FDR’s naval aide. His brother, William M. Callaghan, was also a Navy captain.

Ha!

Hi, Mr. President. You remember [unclear].

Hi. How’s it going?

Fine.

Fine. Perfectly grand. Good to see you.

Thank you.

What are you on now?

What am I on now?

Yeah.

Well, I’m on a vacation right at the present time, Mr. President.

What are you going to?

Well, I’m working out in San Francisco [California].

Grand. Well, and in any event, [unclear]—

I took a little time off so I can see my dad.

That’s a grand idea. Perfectly grand. Well, he’s behaving extremely well. Except that I’ve fooled him—

Very happy to hear it.

I’ve fooled him on not the one, but at least three different occasions when we were booked for the coast, and each time something has blown up! [Laughter.] So we’re getting quite fatalistic about it.

Well, we hope that you’ll be able to go out there soon, Mr. President.

I hope so, too, but, frankly, I don’t think there’s a chance as long as this darn thing goes on. You know what happened, they asked me the question of the day about what the British ambassador said about the Far East—it’s true! And I referred them to the State Department, but it really is true! It’s no fun. We don’t know what they’ll do next.

I see.

I may have to come out to the coast to look things over there. I had a very good time with Joe Richardson and—

Oh, have you seen him, sir?

[He] lunched with me. [Unidentified speaker acknowledges.] He and Bill Leahy stayed with me from 1:15 to 3:30.

Mmm. [President Roosevelt laughs.]

Well, I imagine they can tell you quite a bit. [Laughs.]

That’s right. That’s right. Yes.

Bye, Mr. President.

Good-bye, Mr. President.

Bye. [Slight chuckle.]

Well, sir, I told—

Walter [“Wally” Winchell]![note 21] Walter “Wally” Winchell (né Winschel) was a syndicated gossip columnist and radio personality.

I told Walter—do you have a couple of minutes?

How you been? Sit down, sit down.

Fine. [Unclear]?

No, Walter works for the government, too, so it’s all right. [Someone chuckles.]

[Unclear] story [unclear]. Somebody called me up and said, “Walter, you and three other newspapermen are being paid by the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] [unclear]. [Unclear.] Anyway, I hope that you would read it [unclear].

That’s [unclear] discovery. [Winchell acknowledges.] I knew it. I knew the fact, and it never occurred to me. I never thought.

Spent one morning [unclear] checking every comma. Did you see it?

No, I didn’t.

It’s in the [New York] Mirror this morning [unclear].

What?

You gave it to Grace [G. Tully] to put in your files.[note 22] Grace G. Tully was an assistant to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary Missy LeHand from 1928 to 1941; personal secretary to the president from June 1941 until Roosevelt’s death on 12 April 1945; executive secretary of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Foundation; and a staffer for the Senate Domestic Policy Committee from 1955 to 1965.

Yes.

Sure.

I’ll get it, sir.

Have you seen the top [unclear] FDR and—

Look, here’s one thing I wanted to ask my old friend the Scripps-Howard papers about. [Laughs.]

One of your old friends [unclear].

We’re all your friends.

[Coughs.] Now, look, before you read that, I want to ask you this. Roy [W. Howard] the other day received—Roy Howard—a telegram, apparently, which was published by, I think—I think UP [United Press] carried it, all the UP papers—a telegram, as I remember it, from the chief of the Japanese press association, whatever that is.[note 23] Roy W. Howard was president of United Press from 1912 to 1921; chair of Scripps-Howard Newspapers from 1921 to 1936; and president of the Scripps-Howard Company from 1936 to 1952. Nippon Press Association president Hoshio Mitsunaga sent Howard a message saying that “an armed clash is inevitable in the near future” if the United States did not abandon Pearl Harbor, Guam, and the Midway Islands. See United Press, “Nippon Press Urges Howard to Aid Peace,” Capital Journal (Salem, OR), 2 October 1940.

[Hoshio] Mitsunaga.[note 24] Hoshio Mitsunaga was a Japanese war correspondent; founder of Telegraphic Service Company and Japan Advertising Ltd. in 1901; and president of the Nippon Press Association.

What?

Mitsunaga.

Uh-huh. Well, evidently an old friend of Roy’s. [Winchell acknowledges.] In which, Mitsunaga, or whatever his name was, said the damnedest thing that ever happened. I wouldn’t refer to it, because it will only stir up bad feeling in this country, and this country is ready to pull the trigger if the Japs do anything. I mean, they won’t stand their nonsense. Public opinion won’t, in this country, from the Japs, if they do some fool thing. Well, this Mitsunaga fellow wires to Roy and says, “There will be no war with the United States”—I’m quoting from memory—“on one condition, [raps desk repeatedly] and one condition only. And that is that the United States will recognize the new era in, not the Far East, but the East, meaning the whole of the East. Furthermore, that this recognition, there must be evidence of it, and the only evidence of this recognition the United States can give is to demilitarize all of its Naval and Air and Army bases in Wake [Island], Midway [Atoll], and Pearl Harbor [Hawaii]!" God, that’s the first time that any damn Jap has told us to get out of Hawaii! And that had me more worried than any other thing in the world, that a responsible—

[Unclear]?

—a responsible—what?

[Unclear]?

Haven’t seen it [unclear].

The question is how responsible Mitsunaga is. [President Roosevelt attempts to interject.] He’s no longer head of the press association. [He is] an old-timer. He was in his day what we call a swashbuckler over there. They have their equivalent of swashbucklers. He’d know American English as a swashbuckler.

I see.

[Unclear.] And I think he has no [unclear] of any kind. He was frozen out when they amalgamated—the government amalgamated—[unclear] amalgamated all press associations. Froze his out.

I see.

[Unclear.]

I see.

And Mitsunaga really doesn’t—I don’t think he carries much weight. Now, if [Yōsuke] Matsuoka starts talking that way [President Roosevelt acknowledges] , that’s something else.[note 25] Yōsuke Matsuoka was the Japanese minister of foreign affairs from July 1940 to July 1941, and a supporter of the Tripartite Pact between Japan, Italy, and Nazi Germany.

That’s right. Yeah. Well, of course, we are worried, awfully worried, about things today. Like this opening of the Burma Road on the 17th. That’s a pretty definite challenge on the part of the British. And the only thing that worries me is that the Germans and the Japs have gone along, and the Italians, for, oh what, five, six years, without their foot slipping, without them misjudging foreign opinion. They’ve played a damn smart game. [Unclear] chances, can’t keep on doing that all the time, and maybe do something foolish. [Unclear.] And the time may be coming when the Germans and the Japs will do some fool thing that would put us in. That’s the only real danger of our getting in, is that their foot will slip.