Roosevelt Eleanor - Franklin and Lucy: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and the other remarkable women in his life

CONTENTS

TO ALL THE WOMEN
WHO INFLUENCED MY LIFE

INTRODUCTION

THIS IS MY SECOND BOOK on Franklin D. Roosevelt, the first having been Roosevelts Secret War, a history of FDR and World War II espionage published in 2004. Both that book and the present work reflect a lifelong fascination, as a New Yorker growing up during the Roosevelt years, with this endlessly provocative figure.

The present theme, the women who figured prominently in Roosevelts life, was prompted by my conviction that their influence was decisive. They formed and reveal him. However resistant this largely inscrutable man is to decipherment, he cannot begin to be understood without examining the shaping hand of his mother, wife, one true love, and other women who satisfied FDRs deep-seated need for adulation, admiration, approval, and respite from the crushing burdens of his office. They provided the oxygen to his soul. To study the man largely through his male associates, however keyLouis Howe, Harry Hopkins, Sam Rosenman, Henry Morgenthau, and his involvement with the leaders of the twentieth centuryyields an incomplete picture. It is no coincidence that present with FDR at Warm Springs, Georgia, on the day he died were three close women companions.

When we see Roosevelt indulging or resisting his mothers domination, when we sense his bridling at his wife, Eleanors, joyless hectoring, when we witness his politically perilous love of Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, his dependence on Missy LeHand during the darkest years battling polio, the confidence he placed in an obscure, distant cousin, Daisy Suckley, a more intimate, more human FDR emerges than the larger-than-life figure who strides the pages of history. Obviously, the romantic episode that most awakens interest in FDRs life involved Mrs. Rutherfurd. Does this romance have significance beyond merely whetting public curiosity? The late Arthur Schlesinger Jr. concluded, Historians have taken note of Thomas Jefferson and Maria Cosway, of the friends of men as different as Alexander Hamilton and Woodrow Wilson. [Lucy] was a part of Franklin Roosevelts life and therefore the history of the times he dominated.

The common perception is, yes, FDR did have an affair with a beautiful young woman employed by his wife while he served as assistant secretary of the navy during World War I. And yes, that woman came back into his life toward the end, including her presence at Warm Springs on his last day. But a major discovery emerging from the research conducted for this book is the heretofore unrecognized scope, depth, and duration of this liaison. Letters and documents recently discovered by the heirs of Lucy Rutherfurd, never before published, and made available to me make the significance of that relationship unmistakable.

The story of FDRs women delves into Eleanor Roosevelts often perplexing involvements with both men and women and how Franklins conduct as a husband contributed to her behavior. The most extraordinary truth of their marriage is that the greatest man of his time, and arguably the greatest woman of her age, were wedded to each other. History offers nothing comparable. What still evokes puzzlement is what drew Franklin, the Adonis, and Eleanor, the Plain Jane, together in the first place. Through interviews and analysis of their early correspondence I have sought the plausible explanation of what attracted them when the future world leader was only a callow suitor and the eventually redoubtable Mrs. Roosevelt was still something of a lost lamb. Thus the book is as much Eleanors as Franklins story, refracted through the prism of relationships formative in both their lives.

The definitive Franklin D. Roosevelt will continue to fascinate and elude historian and layman alike. This first full-length portrait of the women who mattered in his life is intended to cast fresh beams of understanding into the character of this often exasperatingly opaque giant in American history.

JOSEPH E. PERSICO

July 19, 2007

Albany, New York

Chapter 1

SCARLET LETTERS

H E BELONGED IN UNIFORM. His country was at war. He was thirty-six years old and bursting with vitality. Before going to work in the morning at the Navy Department he often played a round of golf. On weekends, he rarely got in less than thirty-six holes. During the week he worked out with Walter Camp, the football coach and fitness enthusiast. Lathrop Brown, his Harvard roommate, was serving in the new tank corps. Harry Hooker, his former law partner, was now Major Hooker, on the staff of the 53rd Division American Expeditionary Forces. Another law partner and Harvard pal, Langdon Marvin, was driving an ambulance in France with the Red Cross. His four distant cousins, Archibald, Kermit, Theodore Jr., and Quentin, sons of Franklins idol, former President Theodore Roosevelt, had all enlisted. The exploits of TRs boys filled the newspapers, arousing in Franklin competing emotions of pride and envy. Even his nearsighted brother-in-law, Hall Roosevelt, had volunteered.

On the very day that war had been declared, April 6, 1917, the Roosevelt clan gathered at the home of TRs married daughter, Alice Roosevelt Longworth. There the former commander-in-chief seized Franklin by the shoulders, fixed him with his myopic gaze, and pleaded with him to resign as assistant secretary of the navy. You must get into uniform at once, TR urged. You must get in.

Franklin was all too willing. Patriotism was the main reason, but politics intruded as well. In 1898, when America had gone to war against Spain over Cuba, TR had resigned from the very Navy post Franklin now held. He had formed his own regiment, the Rough Riders. He had worn the uniform, known war, and subsequently reached the political pinnacle. TRs trajectory was not lost on his ambitious young relative. Franklins chief, Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels, easily detected the parallels. Theodore left the position of assistant secretary to become a Rough Rider, later Governor of New York and then President, and both had served in the legislature of New York, Daniels noted. Franklin actually thought fighting in the War was the necessary step toward reaching the White House. Franklins mother, Sara, had recently written her son, The papers say buttons and pictures of you are being prepared to run for Governor. But Franklin preferred to take TRs route, military service first.

Theodore Roosevelt, now fifty-nine, blind in one eye, partially deaf, his body racked by punishing expeditions into the disease-infested Brazilian jungle, was itching to answer his countrys call again. He hoped to raise a volunteer division just as he had raised a regiment in the earlier war. He pleaded with Franklin to get him an appointment with President Woodrow Wilson. This request could prove ticklish. Ever since TR, as a third-party candidate, had been beaten by Wilson five years before in the 1912 presidential election, he had been lambasting the winner for everything from woolly-headedness to cowardice for not getting America into the European war sooner. Nevertheless, the day after the Roosevelt gathering at cousin Alices house, Franklin did go to the secretary of war, Newton Baker, and persuade him to intervene with Wilson on TRs behalf. The president would later say of meeting with his old foe, I was charmed by his personalityyou cant resist the man. Evidently he was able to resist, since he told Baker afterward, I really think the best way to treat Mr. Roosevelt is to take no notice of him. TR was baffled by Wilsons failure to seize upon his heartfelt offer. As he left the White House with Wilsons confidant, Colonel Edward M. House, he complained, I dont understand. After all, Im only asking to be allowed to die, to which House reportedly responded, Oh, did you make that point quite clear to the President?