TLS as president signed “FDR,” one page, 6.25 x 9.25, White House letterhead, June 27, 1940. FDR writes a “memorandum for ‘Doc’ O’Connor” [i.e., his old law partner, Basil O’Connor] at the NYC law firm O’Connor & Farber. In part: “I am very glad you sent me that article by Jim Mooney. I wish very much he would run down to talk to me about it because there are a good many statements in it which are contrary to fact and I am sure he does not want to go on record in regard to certain matters about which he has little, if any, personal knowledge. Incidentally, this article, in its present form, would receive enormous quotation in the Hitler-controlled German press.... You should not feel that ‘Mooney was crossed up a little bit by some of the boys in the service (diplomatic service).’ He just would not realize that his very voluminous coded [“cod” handwritten] telegrams took the entire navy staff about four days to decode and the contents of these cables would have gotten to me just as quickly as if they had been sent by Clipper.” Roosevelt continues with a postscript: “You might tell Jim, in addition, that the principal premise of the article is, in the judgment of the president of the United States, dangerously false. The premise is that we are about to enter the war. He sounds like a speech-maker at the Philadelphia Convention. At this time to take that view is to speak an untruth and to set a false fear in American hearts. That is not Jim’s purpose, of course, but I hate to see him unconsciously aid and abet partisan untruth on the one side and Nazi propaganda on the other.” Two light stains slightly touching two words of text, otherwise fine condition. Auction LOA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
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