'Certainly' he said, 'thousands of them.'

'May I ask, sir,' I said, 'where you expect to find any Jews after the war?'

He saw the humor in this. 'A very good question,' he said, chuckling. 'Well have to take that up with Hoess,' he said.

'With whom?' I said. I hadn't yet been to Warsaw, hadn't yet met with brother Hoess.

'He's running a little health resort for Jews in Poland,' said Goebbels. 'We must be sure to ask him to save us some.'

Can the writing of this ghastly pageant be added to the list of my war crimes? No, thank God. It never got much beyond having a working tide, which was: 'Last Full Measure.'

I am willing to admit, however, that I probably would have written it if there had been enough time, if my superiors had put enough pressure on me.

Actually, I am willing to admit almost anything.

About this pageant: it had one peculiar result it brought the Gettysburg Address of Abraham Lincoln to the attention of Goebbels, and then to the attention of Hitler himself.

Goebbels asked me where I'd gotten the working title, so I made a translation for him of the entire Gettysburg Address.

He read it, his lips moving all the time. 'You know,' he said to me, 'this is a very fine piece of propaganda. We are never as modern, as far ahead of the past as we like to think we are.'

'It's a very famous speech in my native land,' I said. 'Every schoolchild has to learn it by heart.'

'Do you miss America?' he said.

'I miss the mountains, the rivers, the broad plains, the forests,' I said. 'But I could never be happy with the Jews in charge of everything.'

'They will be taken care of in due time,' he said.

'I live for that day — my wife and I will Scar that day,' I said.

'How is your wife?' he said.

'Blooming, thank you,' I said.