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The President said, “Now, I want to try an experiment. They are at sea. What shall we do? If they proceed toward Singapore, what's the problem of the United States? What should the United States do? I'd like every person here one by one to answer and say what he thinks we ought to do. I want to warn you that I'm asking this for information and a kind of check on opinion, not advice in the usual sense, because we're not going to take any vote and I'm not going to be bound by any advice that you give. I'm just checking to see how your minds are operating. It's a terrible problem. I hope we won't have to act on it, or settle it, but we may have to. We may have to decide to do something. What do you think?”

So he went around the table. I can't for the life of me remember what each person said. Certainly almost everybody said that they thought we should go to the relief of the British if attacked at Singapore. That's what I said, I remember. Not everybody said that. Not everybody said it as strongly or as clearly as that. By that time it was clear in my mind that if the British were attacked by the Japanese in the Pacific, we should go their relief. That meant war. I knew it. It looked to me as though we were drifting to war anyhow, and we had to do that. I had come to that conclusion long before. I know that was the majority view in the Cabinet, although there were hesitations, reservations, frequent statements of, “I hope it won't come to that, but....”