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Rewrite, Record A 1. This discussion this morning will start in with my interview with President Truman when he asked me to be Secretary of State. This happened on the afternoon of November 22, 1948. I got a call from Rose Conway, the President's secretary, asking me to stop in at Blair House on my way home. It was not unusual for he President to ask me to do this because at that time I was Vice Chairman of the Hoover Commission and we were trying to get our report finished by the end of the year. So on my way home I stopped at Blair House and was shown into the President's little private study in the Blair Lee House. The President was alone. He suggested that I sit down as what he was about to say might be something of a shock. Without further preliminaries, he said he wanted me to be Secretary of State. He spoke of our past work together and the confidence which my acceptance would give him. I observed that he was quite right I was about this being a shock and said how deeply moved/by his trust in me. I asked the President whether we might discuss the matter in complete frankness, and, when he agreed, inquired whether he had given careful thought to three or four men -- whom I named - who might well give him greater help and support than I could. He went over these suggestions with me, bringing out the difficul- ties connected with each, sometimes involving the position presently held by the person concerned, sometimes the lack of intimate knowledge of the man which the President believed was essential. I was convinced that the request he made of me repre- sented a most thoroughly considered decision.