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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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her whether or not she might be willing to urge the Childrens Bureau in the person of Miss Katherine Lenroot to take a stand on planned parenthood. Miss Perkins told me, looking severely at me under her tricorn hat that she did not believe in planned parenthood (that she is a theist, whatever that is), so I got out of her office as fast as I could.

Q:

What about Katherine Lenroot though?

Lasker:

Well, she was never dynamic about it at all.

Q:

While you're on the subject, I'd like you to repeat, if you would, what you told me before about Mrs. Mahoney and her efforts in Rome and elsewhere.

Lasker:

Just let me talk about that a little bit later.

As a result of this visit on October 14th, Mrs. Roosevelt agreed to try to do some more with the Public Health Service and to try to further their then very dim interest in planned parenthood and suggested that I invite some leaders in the field to lunch with several people in the Public Health Service on December 8, 1941, on a Monday. The night before, on the 7th, I heard the terrible news on the radio that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by the Japanese and I was sure that Mrs. Roosevelt didn't want to have any luncheon at the White House on the subject of birth control. I did telephone to the White House and was told to come to the White House and that the luncheon would





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