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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Part:         Session:         Page of 912

I was only the Number 2 fellow.”

Interviewer:

Is Huysmans still alive?

Perkins:

Huysmans is still alive. He's quite an old man. Well, what he said about Stalin was amazing. He said, “You never must trust him. He is a natural deceiver. As far back as that when he was just a boy--well, not just a boy, but he was a very young man--he was full of deceit. He would always try to pull the wool over the eyes of his associates in the Second Internationale. He was doing something that he wasn't telling about.”

The Second Internationale was formed right after the first World War, wasn't it? Yes. I'm pretty sure it was, and I'm pretty sure it was in Stuttgart. Anyhow, that was that, and I remember we listened fascinated as he reeled off what he had observed about Stalin, and what he had observed about the Russians. Now, this was in the fall of 145, October or November 145, and “you couldn't trust them.” He was sure of it.

You could trust the British. Now, curiously, he had come to that conclusion. The British are always trustworthy. They tell you what they will do, and they will do it. If they don't do it, they'll tell you why. If for any reason they can't, they'll give you fair warning. You can really trust them. You can make sense with them.





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