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just one year more, I would have given anything. I think we might ride over a very serious problem. If he could have been spared even six months--eight months--but a year...If we could have had a year, many things that are going to trouble us I think would not have troubled us.”

Well, since of course I have thought about that. I knew what he meant at the time--that he believed Roosevelt had his hand, his people, on so many people and so many situations. And undoubtedly on Stalin, although he didn't say so, I mean, and I didn't press him, naturally. But I was thinking of that, because they had just come back from Yalta. I know that he felt that Roosevelt's personal influence and personal relationship with some of these difficult people--we use the word “difficult” now for want of a better one. I mean some of the people not understood and not in line with the rest of us. Roosevelt's influence with them, his assumptions with regard to them, his sort of high handed happy way of carrying them along with him before they had a chance to say “no” or reneg, and getting a commitment while they were sort of enjoying him, or getting a half commitment while they were enjoying him, Leahy spoke that day about how they had enjoyed him, of how ingratiating he was at Yalta, and how he had gone out of his way to make friends with people who were not ordinarily conceived of as too friendly. He had been able to lift them above the level