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The President was very interested. He didn't say much, just, “Mmm. Mmm. That is not Bullitt's story.”
I said, “I know it's not. I haven't come to tell you this over Bullitt's head. I told him what I'm telling you. I may be all wrong, but I just thought I ought not to go to sleep or it without telling you. You'll know how to fit it into whatever else you know, because you know more than I've ever been able to know about it.”
He asked me questions about what Bullitt had said and then he said, “Well, of course, there are whole areas of human life that are never taken into account by the diplomats. They just don't think about it. It's quite true that the valley of the Gironde and such places are where people don't ordinarily go. (That's the great center of small industry in France.) No diplomat would have any reason for being in that area, or even making inquiries. The government there is never very strong, except around Lyons. That's where you've got the great strength of the Radical Socialist Party - Herriot's party.” He commented on that a bit more and then said, “I wish you'd go tell this to Cordell.”
I said, “Do I dare? After all, he has more than one set of reports.”
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