And I can tell you my grandmother wasn't a big supporter. At various times, she called him a Communist, a crook, and a "crippled son-of-a-bitch." She would contend that FDR himself was not in the coffin he was buried in. Instead, it was crammed full of all the papers that proved he sold us out to Japan. Little proof was offered, but none was needed as far as Grandma was concerned. Cutting her a little slack on this one, she did have all four of her sons in this war. While my own father didn't get further than installing new typewriter ribbon in Japan, one of his brothers didn't make it back from France.
Grandma blamed Roosevelt for that, too.
Maybe I became a FDR-o-phile from those years of hearing his name bandied about and cursed all throughout my childhood. The homefront during those war years has always fascinated me. This might have been the very last time our country was united for one single cause. He was the Commander-in-Chief for all of that. And when you add in some extramarital affairs, the Fireside chats, the polio, and his dog Fala, you wind up with a President that is quite compelling to me.
"FDR's Deadly Secret" by Steven Lomazon and Eric Fettman is one more book I have read on the subject. And perhaps one of the most captivating. Because it raises some serious issues long ignored.
For years, I had heard the same tale about how Roosevelt had died. He was at the house in Warm Springs, Georgia. His girlfriend Lucy Mercer was allegedly there for some frivolity. He was sitting for a portrait. Suddenly, he clutches his head, complains of a headache, and keels over dead. Presumably from a cerebral hemorrhage.
Uh-huh. Not anymore.
In this well documented book, the authors painstakingly show you that FDR was a dying man for perhaps at least two years prior to his demise. Keep in mind that he was undoubtedly at death's door when he ran for and won his unprecedently fourth term in 1944. One of the great misjustices that any President has ever inflicted upon the American people.
The whole story spins off the cover of the book shown above. Take a good look at it. A portrait of Roosevelt circa 1939 or 1940. Look at the spot over his left eye. It's not a birthmark. It had been growing in size for about five years. Most doctors see it in pictures and conclude that it is a melanoma signaling some level of skin cancer.
About a year after this photo, it disappears. But, the damage is done. As the authors scour over medical records, interviews, and newspaper accounts, they stitch together the likely scenario of FDR's health for the last five years of his life.
Likely, the skin cancer spread to his colon, his prostate, and/or his bladder. Evidence is shown that, behind the scenes, his medical staff did their best to address all of it. Yet, the only reports you ever saw in the newspapers or on the radio?
"The President just had a physical and he passed it with flying colors."
When you add to this medical mass of a man his polio and his chain smoking, you know that our President was a walking time bomb. Yet, all the public ever learned from his two doctors, McIntyre and Bruenn, was the sketchiest and barest of information.
Imagine this in our media-happy environment today. Obama blows his nose and it's breaking news on TMZ.
Meanwhile, half of the US population didn't even know their beloved President needed a wheelchair. A different time, a different place, and certainly a much different vibe. But, still, how does it happen that a man at death's door can run for President during a major world conflict and still win??
How messed up was Franklin Delano Roosevelt? The authors take you minute-by-minute through his last days and you learn just how perilous it became for America. Despite his impending death sentence, Roosevelt insisted on meeting with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin at Yalta in February of 1945. Those on-hand saw a President who was clearly failing. Indeed, many of the concessions that a sick Chief Executive negotiated that day with Stalin would torment the United States for years to come. Many of FDR's actions on that day can only be described as inexplicable.
At the beginning of March, Roosevelt reports on Yalta in a speech to Congress. For the very first time, he acknowledges why he is sitting down and mentions the pounds of steel wrapped around his legs. The address that follows is an incoherent mess. He completely mangles the words on the left side of the page. Doctors now reason that the cancer has now spread to the right side of his brain. The audio is available on-line. When you listen to it, your breath is taken away. He was the leader of the free world at the time. And hardly equipped to do anything. At this point, he is sleeping ten hours a day.
Still, to most Americans, Roosevelt was in top shape.
I remember when some of our recent Presidents had routine surgeries. There were copious steps taken to ensure that the leadership of this country was uninterrupted for that hour or two in which the President might be unavailable. Yet, just sixty-five years ago, it was a very different story.
"FDR's Deadly Secret" is an amazing tale for anyone that's intrigued by Presidential history. It brought to me the impossible. New information about a President that I have studied for years.
Now if only somebody will do the book on what was buried in Roosevelt's casket. My next reading assignment will be "FDR's Funeral Train." Hmmmm, Grandma, your day of vindication might be at hand.
Dinner last night: London broil and potato salad in the NY domicile.
3 comments:
JFK was also seriously ill but kept it secret. He couldn't even lift up his own children. Look at some photos. He was not a well man.
I have seen numerous allusions to FDR's ill health over the last 18-24 months of his presidency, both in fiction and non-fiction works. However, you accurately note that it was a far different time, and given the war that was going on, I suspect it would have been regarded as unpatriotic to disclose any details of his illness.
FDR was the greatest war president in US history -- he generally picked good people and (eventually) got them the tools to do the job. His domestic policies continue to plague us to this day. He was the stereotypical "elite" who thinks he should have a free hand to run things his way. Sounds like a certain current president, doesn't it? -- the one difference is that FDR was able to relate to the average American and Obama can't stand them.
Puck----
You summed it all up perfectly. Any FDR comparisons to the current fool are misguided.
I am now reading a book about FDR's funeral train. It's equally compelling.
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