Q. _Some people argue though, that Hitler actually wants the United States to come into the war, so that we would keep our war supplies, instead of sending them to England and to Russia. Is this true?_ A. How could it ever have been true, since Hitler always, at any moment, could have brought us into the war if and when he wished. He has only to order one or more of his transatlantic submarines to come over and sink a few American ships in our territorial waters and even a pacifist Congress would vote war. A score of other easy devices have always been at his hand if he wanted war with us, but wished us to declare it. But why should he wish to bring against him the greatest single potential power, even if he thought that our entering formal war would cause us to withhold supplies from Britain and Russia? And what is there anyway to make anybody think that if we ever became sensible enough to go to war we would at the same time become so unintelligent as to cripple the war effort against our enemy? What point would there be in withholding supplies from Britain and Russia just because we had gone to war with Germany? Would we in the United States be in any more danger after having gone to war than before? No, we would actually be safer, since the safety afforded us by the British Fleet’s control of the Atlantic would now be augmented by removal of all limitation on the use of the extra power of our own Atlantic vessels. Suppose, however, that we thought it desirable for a time to curtail some shipments to the Allies while we filled in certain gaps in our own armament. Could this temporary diversion of strength outweigh the danger to Hitler of America’s strength in the long run? I venture to say that this argument against our going to war has done as much harm as almost any other, and upon examination it seems it must have been of German origin, despite the fact that many a good American and even some good Englishmen have thoughtlessly repeated it. The person most competent to judge whether Hitler wants us in the war is Hitler. As I recently recollected when looking over some old clippings, Hitler in an interview in 1932 expressed it to me this way: “I was a soldier in the war and it was my conviction that without American participation on the side of the Allies, we would surely have won the war.” This is what he thought of America in the last war. You may be sure he thinks exactly the same of America in this war. Q. _But the Germans have frequently expressed not merely indifference but contempt of us, and have spoken as though they did not care whether we entered or not. Isn’t it then an exaggeration to say that our declaration of war would have such a tremendous effect on their morale?_