“I am a tough old bird,” she had written David Gray in 1956. On November 7 her strong heart finally ceased to beat.
“I don’t know whether I believe in a future life,” she had said on Edward R. Murrow’s program “This I Believe.”
I believe that all that you go through here must have some value, therefore there must be some reason. And there must be some “going on.” How exactly that happens I’ve never been able to decide. There is a future—that I’m sure of. But how, that I don’t know. And I came to feel that it didn’t really matter very much because whatever the future held you’d have to face it when you came to it, just as whatever life holds you have to face it in exactly the same way. And the important thing was that you never let down doing the best that you were able to do—it might be poor because you might not have much within you to give, or to help other people with, or to live your life with. But as long as you did the very best that you were able to do, then that was what you were put here to do and that was what you were accomplishing by being here.
And so I have tried to follow that out—and not to worry about the future or what was going to happen. I think I am pretty much of a fatalist. You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.47
* Remarks of Benjamin V. Cohen on the occasion of his being presented the Isaiah Award of the American Jewish Committee. Reprinted in the Congressional Record, CVX/187, November 13, 1969.
† As late as August, 1959, she did not consider the use of the atom bomb against Japan a mistake. At that time (August 12, 1959) she wrote ex-president Truman:
As you know, I have always said that you had no choice but to use the atomic bomb to bring the war to an end. For a time I was disturbed at our having used it in Nagasaki but after being in Japan and seeing the defenses and talking with one of our representatives who had been a prisoner of the Japanese and who explained that unless there had been a second demonstration the Japanese would have felt they could defend themselves which would have resulted in the destruction of the whole of Japan and the loss of millions of our own men, I realized that you had this knowledge and that you could make no other decision than the one you made. I have since written this publicly a number of times. I would give a great deal, however, now if we could come to an agreement for stopping the whole use of atomic energy for military purposes.
‡ “Nothing could have been done to save her,” David Gurewitsch wrote after the autopsy. “The pathological findings show without any question that Mrs. Roosevelt had a primary disease of the bone marrow, in which the bone marrow, to a very high extent, lost the capacity to form blood. Therefore the anemia. We know no treatment for this condition.” At the end of his letter, David added that the men who examined her brain said she had the brain of a young person.
As you know,” Dr. James Halsted wrote to James Roosevelt, “the diagnostic problem confronting her physicians during the last two years of her life were extremely difficult. . . .She had aplastic anemia (also known as bone-marrow failure) which was diagnosed in 1960. The cause of aplastic anemia is usually unknown and this was the case with your Mother. Approximately six months before her death she was given steroids because the course of the anemia indicated that she might begin to develop internal bleeding and steroids are an effective remedy for that in aplastic anemia. Unfortunately she had an old tuberculosis lesion dating back to 1919, the scars of which were shown in the x-rays of her chest. Steroid treatment of many illnesses sometimes ‘light up’ inactive and healed tuberculosis if carried out over several weeks or more. That is what happened in your Mother’s case. The tuberculosis which was activated by steroid treatment spread rapidly and widely throughout her body and was resistant to all kinds of anti-tuberculosis treatment. This was the cause of her death.”45
Illustrations
Discussing the draft Covenant on Human Rights. Left to right: Dr. Charles Malik of Lebanon; Prof. René Cassin of France, who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in this field; Marjorie Whiteman, a State Department adviser to Mrs. Roosevelt; Mrs. Roosevelt; and James Simsarian, another State Department adviser.
She called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights “a Magna Carta for mankind.”
Eleanor Roosevelt with Adlai Stevenson and John Foster Dulles at the United Nations, 1946.
Addressing the General Assembly at the United Nations, 1947.
Mrs. Roosevelt addresses a plenary session of the General Assembly, October 20, 1949. Carlos Romulo of the Philippines is in the president’s chair.
Mrs. Roosevelt with Anna, James, John, and their children.
Mrs. Roosevelt with grandchildren Nina and Sally and dog Fala at Val-Kill, November 1951.
Mrs. Roosevelt with Norman Thomas and Alf Landon at a peace rally in New York City, May 1960.
Arriving in Washington on one of her many journeys there.
“I am not a candidate,” Adlai E. Stevenson insisted in 1960, but Mrs. Roosevelt would not take “no” for an answer.
To President Truman she was the “First Lady of the World.”
At a Polo Grounds “Salute to Israel” meeting. To Mrs. Roosevelt’s left are Gen. Moshe Dayan and Abba Eban of Israel and George Meany, president of the AFL. Directly behind Mrs. Roosevelt is Ralph Bellamy, who portrayed FDR in Sunrise at Campobello.
Every summer the children of the Wiltwyck School for Boys picnicked at Val-Kill, and Mrs. Roosevelt would tell them stories—usually favorites from Kipling.
Roosevelt on her television program in 1961.
Appendix A
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT AND THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
SEVERAL EFFORTS WERE MADE TO HAVE THE NOBEL PEACE Prize awarded to Mrs. Roosevelt. In 1961 Adlai E. Stevenson, at that time United States representative at the United Nations, nominated her, not only because of the contribution that she had made to the drafting and approval of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but because “in this tragic generation [she] has become a world symbol of the unity of mankind and the hope of peace.”1
A year later, when he renewed his request for consideration of Mrs. Roosevelt’s nomination, he was seconded by President Kennedy, who wrote the Nobel Committee that she was “a living symbol of world understanding and peace,” and that her “untiring efforts” on its behalf had become “a vital part of the historical fabric of this century.” An award to this remarkable lady, Kennedy added, “in itself would contribute to understanding and peace in this troubled world.”2
This was nine months before Mrs. Roosevelt’s death. Death did not stop the efforts on her behalf. Ralph J. Bunche, himself a recipient of the prize, proposed that it be awarded to her posthumously. “I can think of no one in our times who has so broadly served the objectives of the Nobel Peace Award,” he wrote Gunnar Jahn, chairman of the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament, which made the award.3 The prize went to Linus Pauling in 1962 and to the International Red Cross in 1963.
In the summer of 1964 a new effort got under way to obtain the prize for Mrs. Roosevelt posthumously. Lester B. Pearson, prime minister of Canada and a winner of the prize for his work in establishing the first United Nations peace force, wrote Gunnar Jahn urging a posthumous award. “She certainly was an outstanding woman and I believe that the world does owe her a special debt of gratitude for her magnificent work for peace, and for the freedom and human rights on which peace must be based.” Nobel officials replied that the statutes of the Nobel Foundation prohibited the submission of the names of deceased persons. But Mrs. Roosevelt’s friends thought the committee, if it wished, could interpret the statutes to make the award. Andrew W. Cordier, Dag Hammarskjöld’s closest collaborator in the United Nations Secretariat, wrote Jahn pointing out that Mrs. Roosevelt had been nominated prior to her death, and in his view, therefore, she “technically qualifies under the rules of your Committee.”4
At Adlai Stevenson’s request, the Norwegian ambassador to the United Natio
ns, Sivert A. Nielsen, inquired whether Mrs. Roosevelt could not be awarded the prize since she had been nominated while alive. “My attention has been drawn to the fact,” Ambassador Nielsen added, “that the late Secretary-General [Dag Hammarskjöld] was awarded the prize post-mortem.” The director of the Nobel Committee did not find the parallel persuasive. “It is not possible to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Mrs. Roosevelt post-mortem,” he informed Nielsen. “The last time she was recommended was in 1962.” Nielsen took up the matter with Nils Langhelle, president of the Norwegian Storting and a member of the Nobel Committee. The rules of the Nobel Foundation concerning post-mortem awards, Langhelle replied, were interpreted to mean: “Deceased persons cannot be proposed whereas one who has been proposed and subsequently died can be awarded the prize post mortem for that year.”5
Mrs. Roosevelt’s friends were not to be deterred. Since the 1964 prize had been awarded to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., an organizing committee, consisting of the Dowager Marchioness of Reading, former publisher of the New York Herald-Tribune Mrs. Ogden Reid, and Esther Lape, undertook to secure consideration of Eleanor Roosevelt for the 1965 award. Twenty-eight distinguished citizens from all over the world sent supporting letters.6
Former President Truman, with characteristic bluntness, wrote Gunnar Jahn:
I understand that there are regulations in your committee that rule out an award of the Peace Prize to Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt because she has passed away.
The award without the financial prize that goes with it can be made. You should make it. If she didn’t earn it, then no one else has.
It’s an award for peace in the world. I hope you’ll make it.7
Clement Attlee, former British prime minister, wrote from the House of Lords with equal brevity and bluntness:
Eleanor Roosevelt did a great work in the world, not only for her fellow citizens of the United States, but for all people, and there is no doubt at all that if posthumous awards are given then the name of Eleanor Roosevelt should be among the recipients, and this nomination has my full support.8
“If there is anyone who serves the posthumous award of the Nobel Prize it is she,” wrote Jean Monnet, father of the Common Market:
Fundamentally, I think her great contribution was her persistence in carrying into practice her deep belief in liberty and equality. She would not accept that anyone should suffer—because they were women, or children, or foreign, or poor, or stateless refugees. To her, the world was truly one world, and all its inhabitants members of one family.9
Letters of support came from United States cabinet members and senators as well as from foreign statesmen.* Two former presidents of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Charles Malik of Lebanon and René Cassin of France, endorsed the nomination. One letter came from a Harvard professor of international relations in whose class Eleanor Roosevelt had regularly lectured and who later would become better known. “As someone who knows Mrs. Roosevelt for many years,” wrote Henry A. Kissinger,
and admired her work all his adult life, I can say that she was no ordinary person, not even an ordinary Nobel laureate. Mrs. Roosevelt was one of the great human beings of our time. She stood for peace and international understanding not only as intellectual propositions but as a way of life. She was a symbol of compassion in a world of increasing righteousness. She brought warmth rather than abstract principles. I am convinced that recognition of her quality would move people all over the world. . . .10
“We have no illusions about the flexibility of the Nobel Committee,” Esther Lape wrote David Gurewitsch. “Its statements reflect a rigidity extraordinaire. But that the views of these distinguished persons in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and France will have an impact on the Committee, I cannot doubt.”11
The 1965 prize was awarded to UNICEF.
* The alphabetical list of those who wrote letters is as follows: Clement Attlee, David Ben-Gurion, René Cassin, Horace Bishop Donegan, Paul H. Douglas, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Orville L. Freeman, Arthur J. Goldberg, Nahum Goldmann, Arthur L. Goodhart, W. Averell Harriman, Hubert H. Humphrey, Henry A. Kissinger, Eugene J. McCarthy, Charles W. Malik, Mike Mansfield, Jean Monnet, Reinhold Niebuhr, Philip J. Noel-Baker, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Walter P. Reuther, Nelson A. Rockefeller, A. L. Sachar, the Baron Salter, Margaret Chase Smith, Yasaka Takagi, who wrote jointly with Shigehabu Matsumoto, Harry S. Truman, Stewart L. Udall.
Appendix B
MRS. ROOSEVELT AND THE SULTAN OF MOROCCO
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT’S SUPPORT OF ISRAEL WAS A CONTINUING one. In 1956 Judge Justine Wise Polier came to her, distressed over the plight of more than ten thousand Moroccan Jews who had reached Casablanca in order to go to Israel and who were now being prevented from leaving. They were living in conditions of misery with the danger of an outbreak of epidemic ever-present. The World Jewish Congress, organizer of the exodus which it thought had the support of the sultan of Morocco, was distraught.
Mrs. Roosevelt listened and, “with the smile that lighted her face when she felt she could be of help to others,” told Justine that the latter had come at an opportune moment. She could help, she thought. She had recently received the ambassador from newly independent Morocco, who had come as an emissary from Mohammed V, the sultan, to Hyde Park to lay a wreath on FDR’s grave. The ambassador had arrived with such a large entourage from his embassy and from the State Department that Mrs. Roosevelt had not even had enough food for tea and had to send out for more. When tea was over the ambassador had asked for a few moments alone with her. The sultan had directed him to convey to her his deep appreciation of President Roosevelt’s advice to him in North Africa in 1943. The president had counseled him to protect Morocco’s underground waters when concessions would be given for exploration of oil after the war. The sultan would never forget Roosevelt’s consideration for the Moroccan people, and he wanted her to know that he was agreeing to the continuance of United States air bases in Morocco because of his gratitude.
This was an ideal time for her to write the sultan, Mrs. Roosevelt said, her eyes twinkling. A few days later she dispatched the following letter:
July 31, 1956
Your Majesty:
I wish to acknowledge your kind message transmitted to me through your representative. It is very gratifying to know that you remember my husband’s visit to you. He often told me of that visit and of his hopes that some day you would bring back much of your desert into fertile land through the use of underground water which might be found, and he recalled his advice to you never to give away all of your oil rights since you would need a substantial amount of those rights to bring this water to the surface. To have you remember this and his interest in the welfare of these areas was very gratifying to me.
As you know, my husband had a great interest in bringing to people in general throughout the world better conditions for living. We tried to do this for the people of the United States, but he was also anxious to see it come about in the world as a whole.
I have had an appeal to bring to your attention the fact that there is a group of very poor Jewish people now in camps in Morocco who were to have been allowed to leave for Israel. They are of no value to the future development of Morocco as they have not succeeded in building for themselves a suitable economy. However, Israel can perhaps help them to develop skills and to improve their lot. Your government has given assurances that they would be allowed to leave but when it has come to a point in the last few months the actual necessary deeds to accomplish their departure have not been forthcoming.
I am sure that it is Your Majesty’s desire, as it was my husband’s, not only to see better conditions for your own people but to see people throughout the world improve their condition. I hope Morocco will show the world that she is committed, as I believe she is, to the freedom of people who are living there which must include the freedom of people to emigrate. The Jews who had no country now have Israel where they can take their less fortunate brethren and help
them to a better way of life. It seems to me that the Arab states would be forwarding their own interests if they were to make this transfer possible. It would relieve the Arab states of indigent people and would show the world that they did have an interest in helping unfortunate people to improve themselves. I, therefore, bring this situation to your attention in this note which primarily expresses my gratitude for your memory of my husband, since I believe that you would not have remembered my husband if you did not have somewhat similar aims.
Very sincerely yours,
Eleanor Roosevelt
Within a few days of the receipt of Mrs. Roosevelt’s letter the Jews in Casablanca were released to go to Israel.1
References
1. CHAMPION OF HER HUSBAND’S IDEALS
1. Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to Walter Nash, July 8, 1945.
2. New York Times, April 13, 1945.
3. Eleanor Roosevelt, “My Day,” syndicated column, April 16, 1945.
4. Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to Maude Gray, April 29, 1945.
5. E. Roosevelt, “My Day,” op. cit., April 16, 1945; letter from Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt to Eleanor Roosevelt, June 24, 1946, and Eleanor Roosevelt’s reply, June 25, 1946.
6. Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember (New York, 1949), p. 68.
7. Interview with Anna Roosevelt Halsted.
8. E. Roosevelt, “My Day,” April 24, 1945.
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