His Excellency Harold B. Butler -2              
 
                          August 5, 1942                    
 
                                                            
 
 
The confidence of informed opinion. Our recurring forecasts 
      of victory are derided. I put the situation at its worst. You 
      can, of course, find the contrary view. But it is not the controlling 
      view. of the American to understand the Englishman; with all 
         its resulting indifference and non-friendliness.   
 
                                                            
 
 
American entered the First World War in that state of mind. 
      Nearly everything that has happened in the interval of twenty-five 
      years has worked to turn that non-friendliness into unfriendliness, 
    hostility and sometimes to something too close to contem
 
                                                            
 
 
       There was Versailles. Then there was war deb.        
 
                                                            
 
 
All this is the manifestation of a state of fundamental British 
      American disunity. No plan for strategic or economic cooperation 
     can be effective while this state of disunity continues
 
                                                            
 
 
      It is natural that the situation should be bad.       
 
                                                            
 
 
First of all, there is the normal incapacity ts, then Manchuquo, 
      Ethiopia, Spain. After them, there was Munich. After Munich, 
      there have been three as a club with which to batter British 
      American unity. It is a heavy club and the years of retreat and 
                             defeat.                        
 
                                                            
 
 
Add all of these together. Then turn them over to the isolationist 
                        has a strong arm.                   
 
      The bad situation may grow worse. Nothing can change the administration's 
      wise and gallant strategy to fight this war in Europe. But increasing 
      anti-British feeling can impair the effectiveness of that strategy. 
      Because it strengthens the isolationist, who, lacking any