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Frances Perkins - Interview 100, side 1-23 May, 1955 - 2127 Le Roy Place N.Y., Washington, D.C. This interview taken on a tape-recorder.

Miss Perkins:

So far as I was concerned, you see, this VE Day meant that the half-spoken plan for a meeting in Europe of the I.L.O. could go forward. When I say “half-spoken,” the officers and the governing body had whispered to each other that it might be we could have a meeting on European soil, because it was anticipated in the highest circles, but never allowed to become common property, that the War would be over this spring. I told you that Roosevelt had said to me before he went to Warm Springs, “The War will be over in May.” He was sure of that. Even with the terrible push-back at the Battle of the Bulge, you could see it being over, you know. You were well behind it. Rehabilitation had begun and all that kind of thing in the land behind. So it meant that we could go forward with that plan for the meeting of the I.L.O. on European soil, and we began hastily to make the preparations.

I think that two or three of the staff had already gone to Geneva, from which they had escaped with such difficulty in '39, I guess, or '40.

Interviewer:

The Montgomery-Ward case; does that bring anything to mind?





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