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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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about? I wonder if he knows, or if he's just being optimistic?” That was what flashed through my mind: “Is he just being optimistic?”

That was the time he leaned back in his chair--he wanted to get conversational--and he talked to me about it. “Well, you know, when the War's all over and everything is all settled and the United Nations is operating,” he said, “you know, I would like to go out to Saudi Arabia and the Near East. I think if Eleanor and I went out there, we could do a magnificent job.”

That's what he said. “Why don't the engineers come? There's water beneath the desert. You just have to bore for it, and bore far enough, and you'll get water, and you can irrigate. There's a wonderful opportunity for that country. They don't know how to live, the people live dreadfully. They live without the necessities of life. And all they need is water. And I talked to old Ibn Saud about it, and he wasn't interested at all. But I would like to go out to the Near East, and I would like to get the water up and irrigate it and start a new way of life there. We could do wonders.”

I mean, he was dreaming about what he could do next. That was the last I ever saw, you see. He was looking to the next chapter of his life. He was thinking of the War as over. His part was over. He'd fought the good fight. He'd





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