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Anyhow, I assured the President that there were these three groups and that there might be others. I finally got from him an authorization. He said, “Yes, you go and tell them that I've told you you are to find out what's going on, and that I've appointed you to look into this and find out what it is. I must know and you're to find out.”

So armed with that I went at it. I talked to Richberg first. I found that Richberg was distressed and disturbed. Whatever his planning was, he was disturbed over this multiple activity and felt that it was a great mistake, that anything was being planned which didn't have his full knowledge and understanding, or that of any of his Cabinet officers who were presumably reporting directly to him. Also he was disturbed that there were these rivalries getting started by these at least three, and perhaps more, secret groups. I call them “secret,” because they kind of had a pledge that they wouldn't talk about it.

So Richberg told me about this group. He must have told me who was in it. I didn't feel that he had any very deep commitment, except such commitment as he had to a plan that he himself had written out sometime earlier. I didn't know about that, but he had been on some committee in Chicago. Of course, I had paid no attention to that because it was in Chicago - a foreign country so far as New York