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could follow every word, although Dr. Schmidt, of course, interpreted--and at times inaccurately.
 
          After we were seated, and Hitler placed me next tohim, he looked at me to indicate I was 
 
to commence the conversation.
 
          I set forth the detailed purposes of my mission as I had already explained them to 
 
Ribbentrop. I made particular reference to the confidential nature of my interviews, and to the fact 
 
that I had no proposals to offer.  In as eloquent terms as I could command, I then emphasized the 
 
President's hope that there might still be a way open for a stable, just and lasting peace, not a
 
truce or a precarious breathing spell. I pointed out that if a war of annihilation now broke out, 
 
whether it was short or whether it was long, it would definitely preclude for the present the 
 
negotiation of a reasonable and just peace because of the human suffering it would create and of 
 
the human passions it would arouse, as well as because of the exhaustion of the economic and
 
financial resources which still existed in Europe.  From such a war as that, I said, who would be 
 
the victors?  It seemed clear that all would be the losers. And in that sense not only would the 
 
belligerents be the losers, but also the neutrals, of which the United States was the greatest and 
 
the most powerful. We as a people now realized fully that such a war must inevitably have the 
 
gravest repercussions upon almost every aspect of our national structure.
 
          The President of the United States had, in communications addressed to Chancellor 
 
Hitler himself, made it clear that if a just political peace could be found--and in the negotiation of 
 
such a peace we could not