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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Perkins:

He didn't go out to Chungking, did he?

Interviewer:

No, he went North. He was in Siberia. Yes, he did, he saw Chiang, so he must have gone to Chungking.

Perkins:

Well, he didn't go any further into China. He went back the same way he came, didn't he, over the Gobi Desert? He went out to Siberia, you see. I remember I warned Wallace against going away at that time, but he said he thought it was important for him to be away, important for him to know what was going on in China and so forth and so on.

What else do I remember about China? When Pat Hurley was sent out--that was a thing that always puzzled me. I never could make out why, and to this day I can't make out why Pat Hurley was sent out to China. Pat Hurley, a great oil operator--

Interviewer:

And a grand-daddy Republican from way back.

Perkins:

Well, a Republican. It would be natural. Roosevelt used Republicans. He was anxious to use them. But Hurley was a rather handsome, pompous stuffed-shirt of a Republican, really. But he was an oil operator. I never knew he had even been in the Army. It seems he was in the Army once. But how he got his title “General,” I don't know. I think it was one of these National Guard titles, is what I really think it was.





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