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suddenly--I said to him, “Either the War is over and there's an offer to surrender--or, the President is dead.”

I said that latter, “or the President is dead”, without any sense of reality. It was just one of those curious unregistered things. I didn't feel anything. I had no sense of its being real.

Otis said, “Oh, I don't think that's so. But that's interesting. It may be that there's an offer of peace.”

You see, that was the mood we were in. We discussed that possible offer of peace for a moment or two, and he pointed out various things that had happened that might indicate that some such thing was in the making. He got out of the car at the gate of the White House, and I went on in, into the Cabinet room, feeling perfectly cheerful. Because this little queer thing that I had said --“or the President's dead”-- didn't seem to have registered with me. I didn't mean that. I didn't think much about it.

I walked in. Apparently I had gone right over as soon as they called. I went right into the Cabinet room. In the hall, curiously, I met Anna Roosevelt. I didn't go through the secretary's office. I went down the side corridor that led to the Cabinet room, which was the usual procedure when going to the Cabinet room, and I passed her there. That same corridor led on and into the