His scheduled duties finished, FDR left the Oval Office for lunch in the Sun Parlor with Anna, his grandson Curtis, and cousins Daisy and Polly. He also called Grace Tully on the White House telephone to inform her that he would like her to meet him in his study at 3:00 to tackle some mail, and to make some last-minute preparations before their departure for Warm Springs at 4:00. In the meantime, while the president was at lunch, Tully received word from Jonathan Daniels that he had to see the president before his departure. Daniels wanted to go over the statement that he and Archibald MacLeish had drafted clarifying the White House position on Stalin’s request for three seats in the General Assembly. Tully suggested that the two men meet her in the president’s study at the hour she had agreed to see him.
Knowing how exhausted the president was, Tully had greeted him with some trepidation that morning after his return from Hyde Park. She could tell that the four days of rest had not erased the fatigue from his face, but nothing prepared her for what she saw at 3:00 that afternoon. As she later recalled, the president’s appearance as he was wheeled into his study so startled her that she almost burst into tears. In two hours he seemed “to have failed dangerously,” with his cheeks “drawn gauntly” across his “ashen face, highlighted by the darkening shadows under his eyes.”31
Both Daniels and MacLeish, who had joined Tully by this point, were similarly struck. To Daniels, the president looked “almost torpid” as he carefully read the draft statement, made a few changes, and handed it back to them.32 After Daniels and MacLeish left, Tully did her best to dissuade FDR from going through his mail. She suggested instead that he simply gather the usual leisure material he liked to bring with him on his travels: his stamp collection and catalogue, and a collection of books he wanted to sort through and sign for deposit in his Library in Hyde Park, at Top Cottage, and at the “Big House.” To transport these books to Warm Springs the president had arranged for a long wooden box that he invariably referred to after his arrival in Georgia as the “coffin.”33
The only other task that Tully thought the president should undertake that afternoon was to sign each of the three bound copies of his D-Day Prayer, which she felt would make good birthday presents for Anna’s children. But in the end, she decided to present him with just a single copy to sign for “little Johnnie,” whose birthday was coming up soon. Happy to comply with this request, FDR opened the volume and, with a shaking hand, wrote a short note and signed his name in the flyleaf.
Chapter 17
Easter in Warm Springs
THE TINY HAMLET OF WARM SPRINGS, GEORGIA—WITH A POPULATION of just over six hundred people—was certainly an unusual destination for the president of the United States. Yet thanks to FDR’s long association with the community, and with Georgia, where Theodore Roosevelt’s mother, Martha Stewart Bulloch, spent her childhood and married the father of the future president, FDR always regarded Warm Springs as his second home. It was late on the afternoon of March 30, 1945, when FDR’s train finally pulled into the small railway station at the center of the village. There, the “usual crowd” of people from the surrounding area had gathered to welcome him. It fell to Secret Service agent Michael Reilly to help transfer FDR to his waiting car. He usually accomplished this task without too much exertion, as the president, after “walking” or being wheeled to his vehicle, would turn his back to the car, grip both sides of the rear door, and, as Reilly remembered, “surge out of your arms and into the jump seat.” Then “he’d reach back, and pull himself into the rear seat… with such speed and grace” that the thousands of people who had seen the president accomplish this maneuver “at ball games, rallies and inaugurations, never suspected his condition.”1
On this occasion, however, it took all of the strength that Reilly could muster to make the transfer. The president “was absolutely dead weight,” as the tall, strong Reilly struggled to move him into position. Reilly was worried; he could recall experiencing this on only one previous occasion, when the president became so ill with a dental infection while fishing off the coast of Florida that he had to be rushed back to Washington for treatment. Reilly immediately reported his findings to Dr. Bruenn and the rest of FDR’s security detail, notifying them that the president “was heavy.”
With FDR safely in the vehicle, the small party made its way out of the village and up the hill toward the “Little White House.” On the way they slowly passed Georgia Hall, the building that FDR had had constructed in 1933 to serve as the headquarters of the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, which, as he noted in the dedication address he made later that year, FDR had founded to help restore “the confidence, self-reliance and cheerfulness” of the many disabled children and adults who had traveled to Warm Springs “seeking to walk again.”2
As was the case at the village train station that Good Friday afternoon, another crowd greeted the president in front of Georgia Hall. But here, most of the people happily waving and smiling at FDR, while he warmly returned their gesture, sat in a row of wheelchairs. It was a scene that had been repeated every time FDR made his way to what he called his beloved “other home.” But it was always deeply moving to this man who, for all his fame, remained a fellow patient and understood, as perhaps no other, their passionate desire “to lead a normal life.”3
Waiting for the president in the doorway of the modest six-room cottage was Daisy Bonner, the African American cook who had worked for the president at Warm Springs for more than twenty years. Like the rest of the staff at his Georgia retreat, Daisy always looked forward to the arrival of “President Roosevelt,” and had already made sure that she had what she needed to prepare some of the president’s favorites: Brunswick Stew, Black Nut Cake, and, of course, Country Captain, the dish of southern fried chicken that the president seemed to relish above all else.4
Happy to have finally arrived, and having greeted Daisy warmly, FDR took to his favorite chair in the small living room–dining room. It wasn’t long before cousins Daisy and Laura began to unpack a set of glasses and tumblers and other items that had been given to FDR for his birthday two months before, doing their best to add “a woman’s touch” to the humble abode, while FDR sat quietly reading a book and the “other Daisy” set about preparing a simple evening meal.
As had so often been the case when FDR took time away from Washington, what all of his aides, relatives, and friends in both the White House and Warm Springs most hoped for was that he would get enough rest to somehow “bounce back.” Warm Springs seemed particularly well suited for this task, in large part because its isolation rendered the arrival of unexpected visitors much less likely.
Warm Springs campus
There was one individual among the president’s party at Warm Springs, however, who could no longer bring himself to entertain the fiction that FDR would somehow be able to recover his health. Standing in front of Georgia Hall that evening, William Hassett did his best to draw out the facts from Dr. Bruenn. After remarking that the president was “slipping away from us and no earthly power can keep him here,” Hassett reminded Bruenn of a conversation the two of them had had last December. Hassett, on that occasion, had pressed the physician to reveal the truth about FDR’s health.
“I know you do not want to make this admission and I have talked with no one else save one,” Hassett observed. “To all the staff, to the family, and to the boss himself, I have maintained the bluff; but I am convinced that there is no help for him.”
Suddenly becoming very serious, Bruenn asked how long Hassett had harbored such doubts.
“About a year,” Hassett replied, after reluctantly confirming that the person he had confided in was Basil O’Connor. What convinced the two of them was “the Boss’s indifference after the Chicago convention—[he] didn’t act like a man who cared a damn about the election.” Now Hassett could not help but notice FDR’s increasing weariness, especially at Springwood, where there was less and less talk about all manner of things, from local stories to politics, books, and pictures
. The “old zest” was fading. Then, too, there was “the feebleness of his signature—the… boldness of stroke and liberal use of ink—gone.”5
In response, Bruenn admitted that the president was in “a precarious condition.” But perhaps unable to face the truth, he insisted that his situation was not hopeless. He could be saved “if measures were adopted to rescue him from certain mental strains and emotional influences.” But as Hassett knew full well, meeting these conditions was impossible, all of which “confirmed his conviction,” he later recorded, “that the Boss is leaving us.”6
It had been just over a year since Lieutenant Commander Bruenn had been assigned the “temporary additional duty” of caring for the president of the United States. Widely regarded as a man of “superior intellect and integrity,” he was not given to dramatic displays of emotion. Yet, less than twenty-four hours after his talk with Hassett, the thirty-nine-year-old cardiologist expressed his concerns and frustrations in a second conversation about the president’s health—this time with Daisy.
“Miss Suckley,” Bruenn declared, “to begin with, you realize that like all people who work with this man—I love him. If he told me to jump out of the window, I would do it without hesitation.” But managing FDR had proved nearly impossible. Drs. Bruenn and McIntire had repeatedly worked out a program designed to keep him from getting overtired, and he would “stick to it for three or four days and then abandoned it completely.”
Not knowing whether she was justified in offering her opinion, Daisy proposed that he, or Dr. McIntire, or someone should put things very plainly to FDR. It was obvious, she said, that his “one really great wish is to get this international organization for peace started,” and that “nothing else counts, next to that.” This ambition might represent the best leverage they had to make him stick to the prescribed regimen. “You want to carry out the United Nations plan?” Well, “without your health you will not be able to do it. Therefore—take care of yourself.”
On one level her conversation with Bruenn came as a relief to Daisy, as his depth of feeling for FDR impressed her. On the other hand, it was now clear, even though Bruenn had not said so directly, that “if he is to live through these trying days”—and she now felt it had come to that—he “must reduce his hours of work & not break the new schedule.”7
Over the course of FDR’s first two days in Georgia, the prospects for some measure of recovery did not look good. On Saturday, March 31, FDR had to cope with an incredible quantity of correspondence that arrived in the overnight pouch from Washington, and although he “seemed all right” in the morning, Hassett found him “worn, weary, [and] exhausted” later that afternoon. Worse still, FDR himself uncharacteristically admitted that he had “no strength, no appetite,” and seemed to tire far too easily, all of which a discouraged Hassett dutifully reported to Dr. Bruenn.8
Daisy, too, noticed that FDR looked “depressed, both physically and mentally,” late that day. She was pleased when he said he wanted to take a drive shortly after lunch, but he let his chauffeur, Monty Snyder, drive the “big car,” as FDR, who had taken such pride in driving himself around, no longer seemed up to it. Nor did he seem much interested in his dinner. And even though Basil O’Connor had joined them, it was obvious to Daisy that FDR had had enough of talking, in part because he was having a hard time concentrating. Attentive as she was to his every wish and whim, she found it difficult to see him struggle this way, and so was relieved when he suddenly announced he would go to bed at 9:15.9
FDR working on his correspondence inside the Little White House, April 1945. (Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library)
THE GEORGIA SPRING THAT FDR SO LOOKED FORWARD TO WAS EXCEPTIONALLY beautiful in April 1945. Perhaps the cause was the unusually mild weather, which not only prompted the azaleas and dogwoods that dotted the woods surrounding the Little White House to erupt in a riot of color but also brought about an early blossoming of the peach trees, already covered in fruit.
Easter Sunday, like Thanksgiving, had special meaning for the residents of Warm Springs, with its connotations of rebirth and renewal, and the promise, however distant, of new life. Easter was also a day many of the residents associated with Franklin Roosevelt, who not only frequently celebrated the holiday in the presence of his fellow polio patients but had been instrumental in establishing the small, nonsectarian chapel that stood near the center of the campus where, on this Easter morning, a large percentage of the residents gathered to worship.
Despite the beautiful weather, there was little indication of whether FDR intended to join them. As on most mornings in the Little White House, FDR took his breakfast at 9:00 and remained in bed while Dr. Bruenn checked his overall condition and Hassett started in on his mail. Given the concern the president’s fatigue had aroused over the past day or two, it is not surprising that by the time FDR had finished these initial tasks, a kind of conspiracy had developed that morning among virtually his entire retinue—including Daisy, Polly Delano, Hassett, Dr. Bruenn, and Charlie Fredericks—all of whom thought it would be best for the president to stay quietly at home, while Polly and Daisy went to the 11:00 a.m. service.
FDR did not disagree but, somewhat to Daisy’s surprise, emerged from his bedroom at five minutes before 11:00 “looking spic & span in a light grey suit,” with two periwinkles pinned to his lapel—and with every intention of going to church.10 Of course, attending church in Warm Springs was far different from doing so in Washington or Hyde Park. The chapel in Warm Springs, like so many of the other buildings located at the facility, was specially designed for disabled worshipers, with a large open area in front of the pulpit that extended into the transept. Here, atop a floor of Georgia pine, there was room for both wheelchairs and gurneys, but space for only a limited number of pews behind. As the New York Times reported at the time of its dedication in 1938, “this is a place of worship for those who cannot kneel—a fact that was immediately apparent as FDR wheeled himself down the center aisle ahead of Daisy, Polly, and Hassett to transfer himself without assistance to the third pew on the left, just behind the packed cluster of patients and nurses. The chapel at Warm Springs was unusual in yet another respect: whenever FDR entered, he insisted he was doing so as a private citizen and made it a point never to speak or officially take part in the service while there, as he wanted to remain “just one of the worshipers.”11
Taking it all in, Hassett found himself consumed by an “overwhelming sense of last things,” and couldn’t help but recall the Easter Day [they] had spent in Warm Springs in April 1939, just after Hitler had marched into Czechoslovakia. FDR had attended the Easter service on that occasion as well, where he heard the Presbyterian minister pray “that all things that obstruct peace be cast out of the world.” This was also the occasion when, upon leaving that evening, FDR famously remarked to the well-wishers who had gathered at the station to see him off that he would be back in the fall—if the world “was not at war.”12
“Alas, for the misery of the years since,” Hassett reflected, and with good reason. April 1, 1945, was also the day on which the first wave of the more than 500,000 US soldiers and marines landed on the Japanese Island of Okinawa, supported by over 1,200 warships—a military operation second only to the Normandy landings in size and scope. Before the battle was over in early June, more than 12,500 Americans would lay dead, and nearly 40,000 would be wounded, many of them sailors, casualties of the roughly 3,000 terrifying kamikaze missions that sank 36 US warships and damaged nearly 400. Thousands of ethnic Okinawans also lost their lives, as well as all but 7,000 of the 77,000 Japanese soldiers who had vowed to defend the island to the death.13
It was just as well, then, that after the service FDR, Daisy, and Polly took a drive through the Georgia woods on this balmy day before returning to the cottage, for lunch, a nap, and a quiet evening, where the man who had led his nation into war and was determined to see it through to the end enthralled his guests with stories of a youth spent in anoth
er century and another time.
IN THE DAYS FOLLOWING EASTER, FDR’S HEALTH AND FRAME OF MIND seemed to improve. Although he was frequently tired in the afternoons, Hassett noticed that he was more cheerful and energetic in the mornings. He appeared to regain his appetite, too. This certainly pleased Anna, who, owing to her son Johnny’s illness, had not been able to accompany her father to Warm Springs, but phoned in every day to see how he was getting on.14
In the first few days of April, FDR made a number of important decisions. On Monday, April 2, he received a memo from Secretary Stettinius outlining the reasons why he and senior members of the State Department had become convinced that the United States should abandon the idea of trying to achieve parity with the Soviet Union in the General Assembly through the addition of two American states. Stettinius was now firmly opposed to this notion and had even concluded that the American government would be in a much stronger position going into the San Francisco conference by dropping the claim altogether, even if the United States supported the Soviet request.15 As Stettinius learned later that day, FDR agreed, and the secretary released a statement to that effect.
FDR also had to respond to the dispatches from Churchill and Stalin he received each day. Indeed, over the course of the fourteen days that he was in Georgia, at least twenty cables arrived from Churchill alone, many of them requiring an immediate response. One issue of great import to Churchill concerned General Eisenhower’s decision to focus his forces not on the capture of Berlin but on the destruction of the German army. As Churchill cabled FDR on April 1, this contradicted the British understanding of the plan articulated in February by General George Marshall at the Combined Chiefs of Staff meeting on Malta. Based on these talks, Churchill and his Chiefs assumed that Marshall’s emphasis on a drive into Germany, as part of “a broad front in the northwest,” included the capture of the German capital.
The Last 100 Days Page 29