Chapter 137: The Prince's Teacher?
For several days, John was unusually busy. With-Dream- . As a new diplomat, he has a lot to learn. The State Department's training in diplomatic knowledge and etiquette was enough for him. Hopkins also arranged for him to follow up on preparations for negotiations between the Army Staff and the Military Industrial Production Commission, mainly to attend meetings and bring the opinions of the generals and administration officials back to the White House.
Most of the time, John was just a loyal listener, listening to the big names discuss the exciting grand plans of hundreds of ships, tens of thousands of planes, tanks, cars, artillery, millions of troops, and so on. However, when it came to his forte, logistics, Chief of Staff Marshall and Mr. Nelson (chairman of the Munitions Production Committee) occasionally took the initiative to ask him by name.
In the past two years of joining the army, John has mixed a lot of things with a hammer and a stick, but the two biggest and most widely recognized auras on him are his expert status in the field of airborne operations and logistics and transportation. The former is currently limited to the Army, while the latter has already broken out of the United States and even in Europe and even in the Far East (remember the overseas Chinese transportation company opened by John) with the addition of the logistics and transportation revolution set off by FedEx.
In the eyes of those bigwigs, it was already a very complicated matter to send thousands of kinds of war materials, such as steel, aluminum, rubber, gasoline, valves, engines, machine tools, copper wires, munitions, medicines, and food, to the people who needed them on the other side of the ocean. In addition, the entire transportation process is constantly disrupted by the contradictory demands of the British side, the procurement contract full of loopholes, the irregular communication channels and the chaotic various privileges. If anyone could solve these problems, John was undoubtedly the most promising.
John certainly didn't let them down. For him, those difficulties are nothing new. When he was still in the operational planning department, he struggled with these chaotic "accidental interferences" every day. How to get out of the complex huge transportation plan, form a relatively clear logical sequence, and connect every requirement, every plan, and every plan in series is his forte.
What really gave John a bit of a headache was a "little tail" behind his ass these days - little James who was ordered by Roosevelt to come and "learn" from him. In the eyes of outsiders, Roosevelt really trusted John, and even his own son could be entrusted to him with confidence. Only John himself knows that it is not easy to accompany the "prince to study" in ancient and modern times, not to mention that little James is not a fuel-efficient lamp.
But on John's first day in office, Roosevelt put on the face of a worldly elder, not only caring for him, but also leaving him to have lunch with Mrs. Eleanor and little James. Even if John was reluctant, he had to pinch his nose and accept the other party's "request" to let him "mention" little James, a middle school student.
Seriously, at first John was a little confused about the extra errand that Roosevelt had assigned him. If Roosevelt had asked him to take care of Eliot or Franklin Jr., John would have had no psychological pressure at all. Because these two bastards are about the same status within the family as John was at the beginning, at least no one will think that they have the hope of becoming the third president of the Roosevelt family. And when they were in the flying club, John didn't guide them less as a big brother, and the communication was much more natural and smooth.
But little James is different, who doesn't know that he was trained by the Roosevelt family as the next generation of standard-bearers. In his early 20s, he was in charge of Roosevelt's presidential campaign (the head of the Massachusetts campaign), and for so many years in Washington's top political circles, neither the knowledge nor experience could be matched by John. Let him, a rookie who has basically never had political experience, guide little James? It's pretty much the other way around.
Moreover, even if he had this level, the errand was not so easy to do. The reason is simple, his relationship with the Roosevelt family was far from close enough to take on "such a heavy responsibility".
In terms of justice, John's whole family is a Republican backbone, and they are not all the way to Roosevelt, the Democratic president. Personally, he hadn't met Roosevelt a few times before. Little James, the "prince", has known each other since he was a child, but there is basically no intersection between the two. In fact, before the crossing, he and others were completely two worlds (little James befriended the elites of major families, how could he have the kung fu to deal with a small character like him), and the relationship was only a little stronger than that of strangers.
Suddenly, he inexplicably became a trusted confidant of Roosevelt in the eyes of outsiders, another political star in the White House team, and John was also a bit of a Yali mountain. With the midterm elections just around the corner, it wouldn't be mistaken that he had thrown himself into the arms of Roosevelt or was interested in being courted by the Democrats.
Perhaps for ordinary Americans, changing political parties is an easy, easy thing to do. At election time, just tick the political party option on the voter registration form. In fact, the only difference between them choosing to be a Democrat or a Republican is simply to go to the primary vote for that party.
But at John's level, it's different, and in a way they're one with the party. He chose to support the Republican Party because the Republican Party is on their side and defends the interests of the big capitalists. On the other hand, why should the Republican Party defend the interests of the big capitalists, because it is John and the other big capitalists who support and manipulate it behind it.
In other words, if John switched to the Democratic Party and ran to Roosevelt, who was constantly troubled by the big chaebols, then he was betraying not the Republican Party, but his class. That's why in 1910, when Roosevelt began to get involved in politics as a Democrat, his uncle, President Roosevelt Sr., would call him a "despicable little bunny, a traitor."
What's more, Cousin William is now in charge of the Republican House National Committee and is one of the party's main decision-makers in charge of the midterm elections. If John is revealed to be switching to the Democratic Party at this time, even if it is just a rumor, it may have a negative impact on the election.
After a few days of "swaggering" in Washington with little James, John finally seized the opportunity to meet Donovan, who came to the White House for a meeting. He felt the need to disclose his worries to the other party, at least to remind William first.