Next door to the White House map room, Hopkins has an office of his own. After lunch with the Roosevelts, he did not go to his lunch break as usual, but came to the office early. On his desk lay a thick stack of papers, which Roosevelt had send to his secretary, Miss Lehand. At the top of this stack of documents are John's previous expedition reports to Roosevelt.

It's not the first time Hopkins has seen these reports. In fact, John was able to replace Embick this time as Roosevelt's private military adviser during the Atlantic Conference, with Hopkins being the main enabler behind it. To some extent, this appointment can also be seen as a victory in the tussle between him and Embick, representing a new level of influence on Roosevelt, successfully extending his hand from the diplomatic realm to the military realm.

"Dad, it's time to take your medicine." The youngest daughter, Diana, walked in with boiling water and a pile of pills. Since the death of Mrs. Hopkins four years ago, Diana has taken over the responsibilities of a mother - caring for her frail father and acting as an emotional bond between her father and the first family in the United States (Hopkins's wife Barbara had a very good relationship with Mrs. Roosevelt, and after her death, Mrs. Roosevelt not only took the initiative to take Diana, who was still a minor at the time, to live in the White House, but also recommended herself to be her protector).

"Let's put it there first, I'll eat it later." Hopkins glanced at the pills in Diana's hand and frowned.

"Dad, let's take the medicine first and go to sleep for a while. Dr. MacIntyre (Roosevelt's family doctor) said that your heart and liver problems are getting worse and that you need to get some rest. Although she knew that it was useless, Diana couldn't help but persuade her again.

Don't look at Hopkins just 51 years old this year, his health is not ordinarily bad. Chronic gastritis, facial nerve paralysis (the mouth is very tilted to the left), kidney stones, cervical spondylosis, etc., not to mention, coronary heart disease, liver cirrhosis and diabetes have made him almost incompetent for any official position.

But it was such a sick and crooked guy who could lie down at any time and never get up again, but he became Roosevelt's most trusted assistant. Even though he has long since resigned from all public office, his words and deeds still have a great influence on Washington politics.

Later, Sherwood, a member of Roosevelt's staff and assistant secretary of the Army, wrote a book about Roosevelt and Hopkins. In that book, he speculated that the reason why Roosevelt trusted and favored Hopkins, consciously cultivated him, and entrusted him with decision-making power was probably because Hopkins' poor physical condition made Roosevelt feel "sympathetic" for him.

Whether this is the case or not, I am afraid no one but Roosevelt himself knows. Sherwood's view, however, is representative of what many people think today: without Roosevelt's special attention, Hopkins's talents would not have been worthy of the actual power and status he had. To some extent, he has even become a political burden for Roosevelt. As more and more people targeted Roosevelt, Roosevelt's friends speculated why the president had to keep him by his side.

It's not that Hopkins is unaware of his situation. He knew very well that in 1931, when he first met Roosevelt through Jesse Strauss (Roosevelt was the governor of New York State at the time, and Strauss was the director of the New York State Emergency Relief Agency), he was nothing more than the executive director of a semi-official charity. In just ten years, he was able to become a pivotal "big man" in the political arena, and the only thing he relied on was the trust, appreciation, and cultivation of the first family in the United States.

But now, Hopkins has a hard time riding the tiger. From the moment he accepted Mrs. Roosevelt's recommendation in 1936 to replace the deceased White House secretary Louis Howe to work beside Roosevelt, he had no way back. He tried to resign after last year's election campaign, but Roosevelt replied: "By asking me to resign, you can only sever the official ties between us, not the friendship that has happily existed between us for many years." You can resign from your position – just your position – and nothing else. Our friendship will and must continue as it has always been. ”

Since he could no longer retreat from the torrent, Hopkins could only wholeheartedly follow the path that Roosevelt had arranged for him to repay Roosevelt's "kindness".

For example, in January this year, under Roosevelt's arrangement, he visited Britain as the president's personal representative, and since then he has stepped into the international political arena. Even though he knew that it was extremely dangerous to engage in such special diplomatic activities without the protection of official diplomatic status (at that time, there was no such position as "special assistant to the president" in the United States, and Hopkins's status was similar to that of a presidential ambassador and personal representative, but it was not officially recognized). Not only would it greatly offend Secretary of State Hull and the entire State Department's foreign affairs system, but many of the messages and assurances that Roosevelt had him convey privately to Churchill were inconsistent with current U.S. policy. Once something happens, he is destined to be ruined.

Recently, for example, he began to sideline Embick at Roosevelt's suggestion, and frequently intervened in military strategy and material distribution issues. Fools know that if he, a person who has never been a soldier and does not have any military knowledge, forcibly meddles in such a professional and sensitive issue, he is bound to meet with a strong backlash from the military. But he did it anyway, because Roosevelt didn't give him any other choice. Between offending the military and losing Roosevelt's patronage, he had to choose the former.

Of course, Hopkins is not Zhuge Liang, he likes to "do his best, and then die". In the turbulent Washington political arena, in order to protect himself, he also made some arrangements secretly, including John's appointment this time.

From Hopkins' point of view, John's backing from the Vanderbilt family, with the support of Republican bigwigs such as Stimson and Donovan, coupled with Roosevelt's appreciation, has a bright future in both military and political circles in the future. Such a "new star" is undoubtedly an excellent candidate for him to set up a firewall between himself and the military. All he had to do was to instill his own or Roosevelt's will into the other side, and then use his special identity and background to influence the attitude of the military.

There are three benefits to this. First, it can avoid a direct conflict between itself and the military. Second, John's military status also allows disagreements to be limited to military issues themselves, avoiding unnecessary collusion. Third, if he could successfully establish a cooperative relationship with John, he would be able to gain an ally within the military and get out of his isolation.

That's why Hopkins took his first meeting with John in the afternoon very seriously. He even worked out several communication strategies for this, just waiting for John to come to the door.