Then at 12 o'clock we (viz., General Marshall and I) went to the
White House, where we were until nearly half past one. At the meeting
were Hull, Knox, Marshall, Stark, and myself. There the President
... brought up entirely the relations with the Japanese. He brought
up the event that we were likely to be attacked perhaps (as soon as)
next Monday, for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without
warning, and the question was what we would do. The question was
how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first
shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves. It was a difficult
proposition.
-- Henry L. Stinson, Secretary of War under Roosevelt,
-- Diary Entry for November 25, 1941
So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark].
With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to
maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of
corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to
flop up onto the land and evolve....
