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anxious to please, and they took “dispose of” to mean dispose of.
You have no reason to believe this is so, do you?
I don't know. All I know is what Morgenthau said. The President took it seriously, and the other people all took it seriously. I asked no questions.
Of course, there had been a great deal of talk about our dealing with China in tung oil, and I remember the President said to me, “My God, we must have enough tung oil bought now, advance payments on crop not yet planted or crop about to be planted, to last us for forty years.”
I guess it was Frank Knox who nodded and said, “That's just about right. Just about right. We're buying future production of tung oil from them at a great rate in order to supply them with what they need.”
I heard a good many comments like that about them. Of course, at the time of the Panay incident, you remember, when the Japanese fired on the gunboard Panay and when it was obvious by this time that the Japanese were really fighting a war in Chine--an undeclared war, you know--there was a good deal of talk at that time. Everybody was very sympathetic to the Chinese at that time. I never heard any question of the split in the Chine movement. I mean, you know, it was all
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