It has been four years since he came to this world, and John will no longer be naïve to think that those great men who have been praised as "gods" in later generations are really as great as recorded in the history books. He knew very well that in the face of interests, even the character of Roosevelt and Marshall was not so secure, let alone others.

For example, John's immediate boss in the afternoon, Hopkins, Roosevelt's trusted chief personal adviser, was about to face John in the afternoon. The general evaluation of him by the outside world now is very different from that of later generations.

In the history books and films that John saw in his previous life, Hopkins was shown as Roosevelt's right-hand man, an outstanding politician and diplomat, conscientiously assisting Roosevelt, and making outstanding contributions to the world's anti-fascist cause.

But now, Roosevelt's close friend, who had lived in the White House with his young daughter for several years (after the death of Hopkins' wife Barbara in 1937, his youngest daughter Diana was taken into the White House by the Roosevelts). Shortly thereafter, Hopkins himself moved in and became one of the tenants of the White House), not a popular guy.

Many members of the Cabinet, including Stimson and Secretary of State Hull, see him as a dangerous man hiding in a dark corner and engaging in intrigues. Even Wallace, the former vice president who worked with Roosevelt for two terms, was so disgusted with Hopkins that he privately referred to him as "a combination of Machiavelli, Svengali and Rasputin."

John could understand Wallace's hostility to Hopkins. A vice president is not as powerful as a white body. In fact, Hopkins is the No. 2 person in the White House. Although not appointed White House chief of staff, Hopkins was available over the phone to handle various matters for Roosevelt.

It is said that he could casually walk into the president's room without saying hello or even knocking on the door beforehand and see many classified documents that Wallace did not have a chance to see. And his bedroom in the White House has become one of the nerve hubs of the entire U.S. government. On the contrary, Wallace, the vice president, has been a substitute for 8 years and has never had a chance to play. In the past eight years, he has done the most to attend some events that may be a little embarrassing but have to attend on behalf of Roosevelt, and to go to the Senate to be scolded (according to the US Constitution, the vice president has two main powers. One is that when the president hangs up, resigns, or is impeached from office, the vice president will take over until the next general election. The second is to concurrently serve as the chairman of the Senate. However, he himself is not qualified to be a senator, so he can only play a role as a chair if there is a 50-50 situation among 100 senators. Most of the time, he went to take reproaches from opposition lawmakers on Roosevelt's behalf.)

A person who is in a high position but has no authority, can only be a "backstabber". One has no position, but he is powerful, known as the "shadow president". It is all too normal for Wallace to be jealous and jealous of Hopkins.

But why Stimson didn't have a good sense of Hopkins, John couldn't figure it out. Was it because Hopkins really had a problem with his character, or because he interfered too much in foreign affairs and made Stimson his good brother Hull (the two were bipartisan, but they had been close friends for many years). Hull had no diplomatic experience when he first became secretary of state, and Stimson helped him a lot as former secretary of state) Feeling unhappy?

But now, John is no longer a political novice. Over the years, he has learned a truth, politics is a game where the ass decides the head. A person's position is sometimes determined not by personal values and emotions, but by his position and environment.

As an active-duty Army officer, John had to figure out the current military's senses and attitudes toward Hopkins. That's why he still finds time to have lunch with Crawford despite his busy schedule. Now, Crawford is also an old man in the Battle Planning Division, and it is difficult to hide the turmoil of the General Staff from him.

Crawford's pick was a Texan-style steakhouse on the corner of 15th Street. At noon, there are not many customers in the store, and the card holder in the corner is very suitable for chatting about some more intimate things. Moreover, the store is also very close to the White House, and it is only about a 10-minute walk away.

"The chef of this shop is an old friend of mine. Their aged steaks are great and pair well with their home-grown Syrah wines. Also, oysters and crab legs are good. As soon as he was seated, Crawford enthusiastically introduced John to the dishes.

After ordering the meal, John asked Crawford while tasting an aperitif with cheese and caviar: "Robert, I went back to the General Staff yesterday, and I heard that the Department (War Department) has been arguing so much recently because of the Hopkins report that even Secretary Nevins can't hold it back. ”

"There are some controversies, but they can't be suppressed. It's just that Minister Nevins is about to be transferred, and he doesn't bother to care about these things anymore. Crawford said disapprehantly.

"What about you, what do you think?" John asked. Crawford ate on the technical side of the staff and did not have much "political leanings". His views should be more neutral and appreciable.

"How can I say it, Hopkins did bring back a lot of information from Moscow this time that we couldn't access before." At the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, Hopkins was visiting England as President Roosevelt's personal representative. He was then ordered to travel from England to Moscow, where he made direct contact with Stalin. In order to win Roosevelt's trust and obtain more aid, Stalin not only disclosed his "secret ledger" and autumn counteroffensive plans to Hopkins, but also allowed him to go deep into the military-industrial complex for a field trip.

In the Hopkins report, there was a lot of information about the model, quantity, quality, equipment and production of Soviet-made weapons, which was of great interest to the military. Because before, it was almost impossible for them to have access to such a large amount of top-secret intelligence.

"But in the report, Hopkins is a little too optimistic about the future direction of the war." Crawford continued: "But it was inevitable that he had never even been a member of the Boy Scouts (Hopkins had a very bad typhoid fever as a child, and was frail from an early age), and it was not surprising that he was fooled by Stalin. ”

"You don't think his judgment is credible?" John asked.

Stalin said he could reassemble 2 million troops by winter. 2 million! We have only increased the number of people in the army since 1939. It's not the time of Imperial Russia, and a few sabers and black bread can drive a bunch of gray cattle to battle. Crawford said, "And even if you have the equipment, what about the people." What good can a bunch of recruits be without a large number of experienced junior officers? ”

John smiled and didn't speak. Crawford's view should represent the opinion of the vast majority of U.S. officials. After all, the shortage of officers at the grassroots level is a problem that they themselves have not been able to solve so far. Only he knew that Stalin had finished the trick of "shadow troops" early, and by giving each commander an extra deputy, he had secretly built the skeleton of a huge reserve. Coupled with the planned economic system of the Soviet Union, the speed of the uprising, not to mention the Americans, is not even comparable to the Germans, who have been secretly preparing for more than ten years.

"And do you know how many things Stalin asked for? Telephone lines alone cost 10,000 miles a month (historically, the United States has assisted the Soviet Union with a total of 950,000 miles of telephone lines and nearly 200,000 telephones), hear clearly, every month! Is he going to fence off Moscow with telephone lines. Crawford continued to complain. Obviously, he has been tossed up by these things a lot lately.

"What's that attitude up there?" Knowing the conflict of opinion within the War Department, John wanted to know more about the attitude of the staff bosses.

"That's not very clear. I heard, however, that the General Staff was still awaiting further reports from General McEnany (military attache at the embassy in the Soviet Union and later deputy chief of staff of the army). ”

"Understood." Marshall: Their temporary non-statement represents an attitude in itself. John probably knew what to do with Hopkins.