December 7

In January, 1938, I talked with one of the President’s most intimate advisers. I asked him if the President knew we were in a depression. He said that of course he did. I asked what the President proposed to do. He answered:

"Resume spending." I then suggested he would find difficulty in getting objects on which the federal government could spend. He said he knew that. What, then, I asked, will the President spend on? He laughed and replied in a single word:

"Battleships." I asked why. He said: "You know we are going to have a war." And when I asked whom we were going to fight he said "Japan."


-John T. Flynn