"His Final Battle", Joseph Lelyveld's eloquent new book about Franklin Roosevelt's last few years is brisk, readable, thorough. Though "final battle" seems to refer primarily to his health, Roosevelt faced a constant series of battles and struggles and challenges throughout the period 1943-45, and Lelyveld shows as well as can be shown how one interacted with the others.
"His Final Battle", Joseph Lelyveld's eloquent new book about Franklin Roosevelt's last few years is brisk, readable, thorough. Though "final battle" seems to refer primarily to his health, Roosevelt faced a constant series of battles and struggles and challenges throughout the period 1943-45, and Lelyveld shows as well as can be shown how one interacted with the others.
By the time Roosevelt died in April, 1945, the medical reasons were clear enough. But few then cared about how it had come about. What I, a child at the time, heard ordinary people say was "the war killed him". That was enough.
Lelyveld explores the medical record, such as it is. Years-later recollections of Roosevelt's cardiologist, diaries of friends and family, in as thorough a study as we are likely to ever have of the President's medical history prior to his death. There are no real surprises in the detail. His decline was sometimes evident, sometimes not. Often he almost seems to have forgotten it, amidst his driving energy about his goals - a postwar organization to keep peace; agreement with Stalin (something he thought himself uniquely capable of achieving) on major postwar issues; keeping Britain and France from regaining their prewar colonies; providing education and housing for returning GI's; and so forth.
Heroic days, heroic spirits, heroic principles. Strange things to be reading about in this election year of 2016, when we are told one of our goals as Americans should be to strike "deals" over such things as the dollars-and-cents value of our treaty commitment to our allies.
Especially valuable is Lelyveld's analysis of the 1944 election and the events leading up to it. Franklin Roosevelt had told voters in 1940 that he'd looked over all the other potential presidential candidates, and decided none of them were up to the job. So he'd have to run for a third term. Now the US Constitution makes no provision for a presidential incumbent to judge his possible successors, so on its face the claim was nonsense. But enough people voted for him that his point seemed validated and legitimate. As one cynic has said, in the long term it may be that FDR's major contribution to history and to US life will have been the constitutional amendment limiting presidents to two terms.
"Though often dismissed as an anti-Roosevelt gesture by a newly-Republican Congress, the 25th amendment itself is the subject of one of Lelyveld's finest passages. He summarizes the debates which preceded its adoption, especially those in Congress, with a historian's perspective and reserve. That makes it easy to see why the subject holds far more than historical interest. Not long ago many Americans, contemplating the obligatory retirements of Reagan and Clinton, openly regretted the two-term rule. And some prominent in the current campaign are loudly in favor of further changes to the Constitution, possibly by means of a constitutional "convention".
Because the third term issue was pragmatically settled in 1940, it had less impact in 1944. "Old" and "tired" became the Republican mantra, perhaps euphemisms for the President's health. If so, as Lelyveld shows, they carried little weight in the face of reality: Marshall, KIng, Stimson - all Roosevelt choices - were extraordinarily effective leaders and everyone knew it. Though Dewey rattled the President occasionally, perhaps inciting him to campaign more actively than he'd hoped, the election was never in doubt.
"Though often dismissed as an anti-Roosevelt gesture by a newly-Republican Congress, the 22nd amendment itself is the subject of one of Lelyveld's finest passages. He summarizes the debates which preceded its adoption, especially those in Congress, with a historian's perspective and reserve. That makes it easy to see why the subject holds far more than historical interest. Not long ago many Americans, contemplating the obligatory retirements of Reagan and Clinton, openly regretted the two-term rule. And some prominent in the current campaign are loudly in favor of further changes to the Constitution, possibly by means of a constitutional "convention".
Lelyveld assesses carefully, judges but little. Once or twice he gets it wrong - Halsey's "interception" of a Japanese task force was the result of a Japanese deception operation. Exploiting Halsey's reckless ambition, it succeeded in luring him away from his assigned mission: to protect American forces landed at Leyte Gulf. Nimitz was furious; only a Japanese admiral's timidity guaranteed the US forces' safety.
Generally he is impeccable in describing events outside the main stream which illustrate the times. Such as Roosevelt's post-Yalta meeting with King ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. (It may, by the way, come as a surprise to some readers to learn that the vilest anti-semitic remarks before and after the Roosevelt-ibn Saud meetings emanated from the President's advisers, not the Arabs.)
A fine book, but its major theme raises a tough question. 71 years after Roosevelt's death, the value of yet more - admittedly superior - writing about what he revealed or didn't reveal is not self-evident. Why continue to dissect inadequate or "disappeared" records, why yet more exegesis of admittedly-biased diaries? Other modern presidents - Eisenhower for example - suffered serious medical problems while in office, and the public was informed, Still others - Kennedy and Wilson come to mind - had major health problems, but hid their seriousness and extent. Why not at last leave Roosevelt and questions about his health in peace, as we have done with the others?