We think it will be shortly afterwards, but it seems a terrible thing to gamble with such big stakes in diplomacy without having your master card in your hand.

Gentlemen don't read each other's mail.

As to the war with Japan, the President had already received my memorandum in general as to the possibility of getting a substantial unconditional surrender from Japan which I had written before leaving Washington and which he had approved.

We face the delicate question of the diplomatic fencing to be done so as to be sure Japan is put into the wrong and makes the first bad move. ... The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot.

The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way you can make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him.

Their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or trust even the citizen Japanese.

History knows no greater display of courage than that shown by the people of the Soviet Union.