Cablegram 1 WASHINGTON, 6 January 1941, 10.10 p.m.
IMMEDIATE PERSONAL SECRET
Justice of United States Supreme Court [1], whom I know well and who is great friend of Hopkins and close to the President [2], saw me today. He regards it as urgent and most important that following should be got to Mr. Churchill before he sees Hopkins.
[3]
Hopkins is passionately anti-totalitarian. He has such high regard and affection amounting almost to reverence for the President that he is liable to react against anyone who does not show clear evidence of similar regard. He has feeling that Mr. Churchill is not as forthright in his regard for the President as he might be.
My informant believes that there is nothing currently more important than that Hopkins’ mission should succeed and that Churchill and Roosevelt be brought close together through the medium of Hopkins.
My friend therefore urges with great sincerity and conviction that Mr. Churchill goes out of his way at early stage to express to Hopkins his great and cordial admiration for the President as a man and as the leader of this American nation and ask that he convey these heartfelt sentiments to the President. There is no surer way of reaching Hopkins’ heart and there is no one who can do this more convincingly than Mr. Churchill.
My friend who is a very highly placed person in this country lays great stress on the above. He thinks that in the stress of great affairs Mr. Churchill may take for granted such expressions of regard and that if he does H. may interpret it as indifference.
[4]
_
1 Probably Justice Felix Frankfurter.
2 Franklin D. Roosevelt.
3 Harry L. Hopkins visited London in January 1941 in the course of his European tour as Roosevelt’s personal representative.
4 Bruce replied on 8 January: ‘Have seen Prime Minister tonight and conveyed your point. He was most grateful and will certainly act on it.’ See unnumbered cablegram on file AA:M100, January 1941.
_
[AA:A3300, 96]