Back at the Little White House, FDR remained sitting in his chair and reading while Madame Shoumatoff went on sketching. Arthur Prettyman brought in the president’s midday gruel, placing it, and a small pitcher of cream that Daisy Bonner reserved for FDR, carefully on a table to the president’s right. A few minutes later, while FDR kept reading between spoonfuls of gruel, Joe Esperancilla came in to set the table for lunch, which prompted FDR to announce to the small party around him that they had fifteen minutes more to work.13
As Daisy looked up from her crocheting, she noticed that FDR seemed to be looking for something, at which point she got up and walked over to his chair.
“Have you dropped your cigarette?” Daisy asked, leaning forward and looking into his face as she did so.
FDR did not reply immediately, but stared at Daisy for a moment with his brow furrowed in pain; then he put his left hand to the back of his neck and said in a low but distinct voice, “I have a terrific pain in the back of my head.” Startled, Daisy tried to tell him to rest his head on the back of his chair, but at that moment, the president suddenly slumped forward, unconscious, while Madame Shoumatoff cried out, “Lucy, Lucy! Something has happened!”
As Polly rushed in from her bedroom and Lucy sprang to her feet, a frantic Daisy tried to tilt the president’s chair back to an angle that might return him to an upright position so he could breathe properly. It took all three of the women to accomplish the task. Then Daisy grabbed the phone and said to the operator, “Please get in touch with Dr. Bruenn and tell him to come to the President’s cottage!”
At roughly the same time, Madame Shoumatoff rushed outside and cried out to Jim Beary, the lone Secret Service agent on duty, “The President is sick, call the doctor.” For a moment Beary just stared at her incredulously, so she repeated her plea “to please call the doctor!”14 By this point Arthur Prettyman and Joe Esperancilla had hurried into the room and, seeing that the president was unconscious, did their best to pick him up and carry him into his bedroom. But with the president limp in their arms, they had to ask Polly to grab his feet in order to lift him properly.
With Daisy’s help, the two men and Polly managed to get the president onto his bed. They could not quite maneuver him into the middle; so Daisy, after she had opened his collar and tie, supported him by lifting up the left side of his pillow while holding the president’s right hand. Polly stood on the other side of the bed, with one hand on his heart and the other fanning him. As Daisy and Polly stared at FDR in desperation, he rolled his head from one side to the other, opening his eyes as he did so. Polly thought that her cousin had tried to look at each of them in turn, but Daisy “could see no sign of recognition in those eyes.”15 Twice, FDR drew up the left side of his face in pain, but then he seemed to fall into a deeper stupor, breathing heavily. Lucy dashed into the room at this moment with some camphor that she passed back and forth beneath his nostrils. But the president was unresponsive.
Back at the pool, Grace, Hacky, and Toi were heading to the Georgia Hall cafeteria for lunch, but as they neared their cottage Hacky said she wanted to check her switchboard and speak with the Foundation’s operator. As soon as she got on the line, the operator asked her if she knew “the whereabouts of Dr. Bruenn.”
“Who wants him?” Hacky asked. “We just left him at the Pool.”
“The Little White House.”
Hacky put down the phone and plugged in to the president’s cottage.
Daisy Bonner answered. “Yes,” she said, “they were looking for the doctor.”
“Does the President want him for lunch?” Hacky asked.
“No, no,” Daisy said, “he’s sick, the President is sick.”
“I’ll get him right away,” Hacky replied.
“Dr. Bruenn,” Hacky said, her normally calm voice somewhat elevated. “The President is sick. They want you right way at the Cottage.”
At Dr. Bruenn’s instructions, she switched over to George Fox’s line.
“George, the President is sick,” Hacky said. “Dr. Bruenn wants you to grab his bag and meet him as soon as possible at the Little White House.”16
By this point, Jim Beary’s call to the Secret Service station at Carver Cottage had alerted Guy Spaman, the agent in charge, that Bruenn was needed at the president’s cottage. Wasting no time, Spaman tore off in the direction of the pool, a distance of roughly two miles, to find the doctor. Bruenn—who was in the dressing room at the time, taking the call from Hacky—was soon dashing back to the Little White House.
Michael Reilly, who was off duty and actually in the pool, had a quick word with Spaman as he went to retrieve Bruenn; but not knowing who was ill, Reilly decided not to rush off, lest he disturb or alarm the many patients who were there. He asked Spaman to come back to retrieve him right after he had delivered Dr. Bruenn to the cottage.17 While Spaman drove the cardiologist to the Little White House, William Hassett, who was now back at Carver Cottage after his lunch at the Foundation cafeteria, overheard the request for George Fox to proceed immediately to the president’s cottage. This message was followed a few minutes later by a call from Reilly telling Hassett to head to the Little White House immediately.18
DR. BRUENN ENTERED FDR’S BEDROOM AT APPROXIMATELY 1:30 P.M., roughly fifteen minutes after the president had collapsed. Finding the president “pale, cold and sweating profusely,” Bruenn immediately asked everyone to leave the room so that he and Commander Fox could check the president’s vital signs and get him into dry pajamas—he had voided involuntarily—and under clean bedding as soon as possible. The president was completely unconscious. His lungs were clear, and his heart sounds were excellent, but his blood pressure had spiked to 300/190 and his heart was beating at a rate of 96 times per minute.19
Blankets and hot-water bottles were brought in to warm the president, and Dr. Bruenn, suspecting a cerebral hemorrhage, injected him with two vasodilators. Shortly thereafter, he left the room to call Dr. McIntire on the president’s private line to inform him “of the catastrophe.”20
“He appeared quite well, this morning,” Bruenn said in answer to McIntire’s question, “except that he complained of neck pain”—an ominous sign, of course.21
Dr. McIntire said he would call Dr. James Paullin, the noted Atlanta internist who was part of the team that had examined the president the year before, asking that he leave immediately for Warm Springs.22 Polly got on the line to phone Eleanor, who was in a meeting with Charles Taussig about trusteeships. Eleanor had just offered to call the president when Polly’s call came through. “We are worried about Franklin,” she said. “He has had a fainting spell. Dr. Bruenn will call you back.”23
Not wanting to reveal the news to her guest, Eleanor did not ask Polly any questions. But she ended the interview with Taussig and, instead of waiting for a call from Bruenn, summoned Dr. McIntire. The doctor told her he was unsure what the problem was—hardly a forthright answer given that Bruenn had already indicated that he suspected a stroke. McIntire and Eleanor made plans to fly down to Warm Springs that evening. So as not to tip off the press, McIntire urged Mrs. Roosevelt to keep her speaking engagement at the Sulgrave Club in Washington that afternoon, which she did.24
Anna was also at the White House when the initial call came in from Dr. Bruenn. She was just about to leave for Bethesda Naval Hospital to visit Johnny, recently hospitalized with a staph infection, when Dr. McIntire caught up with her. With Anna he was more direct, telling her that her father had had a seizure. But he insisted that she should not be overly concerned and should still go visit her son. McIntire then decided to track down Stephen Early, whose crisis experience—including the sudden death of President Warren Harding—could prove invaluable in the coming hours.25
By this point, William Hassett had arrived at the Little White House. As soon as he entered he heard heavy breathing through the thin walls, and worried that the president “was mortally stricken.” For a time Hassett sat in the living room in silence with Daisy, Polly, and Charlie Fredericks
.26
As the four of them kept vigil, Lucy decided that she and her friend must leave. Madame Shoumatoff had already removed her easel and painting materials from the cottage, and soon she and Lucy were hastily packing their suitcases in the guesthouse. As the Secret Service men carried their bags out to Madame Shoumatoff’s car, Daisy and Grace Tully came out to say a tearful good-bye. The two women, joined by Mr. Robbins, left Warm Springs, heading east toward Macon along the same route they had traveled a mere three days before, uncertain of the president’s fate and with his unfinished portrait safely stowed in the trunk of the car.27
Unable to bear the thought of FDR dying, Hassett summoned up the courage to go into the president’s bedroom. The “Boss’s” eyes were closed and his mouth open as he continued the “awful” breathing. In addition to Bruenn and George Fox, Arthur Prettyman and Joe E. Esperancilla were also in the room, but no one spoke as Hassett looked down at FDR’s noble forehead. Believing this was the last time he would ever see Franklin Roosevelt, Hassett glanced at his watch; it was 2:12 p.m. Then he left to rejoin Daisy and the others in the living room, where they continued to sit in silence, joined now by Grace Tully, whose lips were moving in prayer.28
At 2:45, Dr. Bruenn recorded an improvement in FDR’s blood pressure resulting from the medications he had administered. The president’s heart rate was still strong and steady, and his color good, but his breathing had become irregular.29 Bruenn telephoned Dr. McIntire with another update, telling him that it might be necessary for them “to be prepared for a long siege.” Then he slipped out to the porch to “speak in whispers” to Hassett, explaining that the president had felt no pain after the first shock. It was evident, Bruenn admitted quietly, and out of earshot of the others, that the president had suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage in the fluid area of the brain. Suddenly, they heard a change in the president’s breathing, and Bruenn ran back into the bedroom.30
It was now 3:15. The president’s blood pressure was down to 210/190 and his heart rate was still 96 beats per minute, but there was a marked slowing in his respiration and his right pupil remained widely dilated.31 A few minutes later, a frantic Dr. Paullin arrived at the guard hut at the entrance to the Warm Springs campus. Impressed by the speed at which Paullin had driven the eighty-five miles from Atlanta, John Gorham, the Secret Service agent who had been alerted to the doctor’s impending arrival, quickly escorted him to the president’s cottage.
Dr. Bruenn was on the phone for the third time with McIntire when Paullin appeared in the cottage and rushed into the president’s bedroom. It was 3:30 p.m. and the president was, as recorded later, in extremis, “near death”—ash gray, in a cold sweat, and breathing with difficulty.32
While Daisy looked on, a voice called out for Dr. Bruenn, who handed the still-open line to Polly as he went back into the bedroom to find the president gasping for breath, his pulse barely perceptible. Then it disappeared completely. Dr. Bruenn hurriedly started artificial respiration, while Dr. Paullin gave the president an intracardiac dose of adrenalin. But it was no use; FDR’s heart beat two or three more times, and then stopped.33
ANXIOUSLY REMAINING ON THE OTHER END OF THE STILL-OPEN TELEPHONE line, Dr. McIntire, the physician whose ultimate responsibility it was to care for the president of the United States, stood in disbelief as he waited for Dr. Bruenn. Stephen Early, who was with him by this point, soon heard the tear-choked voice of a woman—Polly Delano—crackle through the receiver, telling Dr. McIntire that the president was dead.34 Then Bruenn came on, to confirm the news.
It was fortunate for Admiral McIntire and the other, much less experienced members of the dwindling White House staff that Early had decided not to leave immediately, but to stay on for a few more months once he had informed FDR of his decision to resign. Early had known the president for decades, of course, and considered him one of his closest friends, but he could not yet ponder his personal loss; the world had to be informed that its most powerful man had just died, amid an ongoing global war.35
Early immediately took charge, ordering both McIntire and Hassett (in Warm Springs) to tell no one about the president’s death until he’d had the chance to inform Mrs. Roosevelt. He and Hassett would then coordinate their efforts to disseminate the news to the press. Early also informed Hassett that he, Eleanor, and Dr. McIntire would fly to Warm Springs that evening once they had completed the most urgent tasks at the White House.
BACK IN THE SMALL COTTAGE, NOW FILLING WITH LIGHT AS THE SUN began to move toward the horizon, Daisy found it impossible to put her grief into words. What FDR’s death might mean for her, she thought, and for all those who knew the president personally, was simply incomprehensible. There seemed to be nothing to do—and everything to do. Dazed, she and Polly packed their things and moved into the guest house, where they finally gave way to their grief and wept in the arms of Daisy Bonner and Lizzie McDuffie.36
Like Daisy, Grace Tully found herself momentarily incapable of emotion—as if “her whole mind and sense of feeling had been swept away.” The death of the president was simply “outside belief.” Without a word or a glance at the others present, Grace walked into the bedroom and kissed FDR on the forehead. Then she went out to the porch, where suddenly a rush of memories drawn from “seventeen years of acquaintance, close association and reverent admiration” came flooding in. She remembered that the Boss always shunned displays of emotion, and so she did her best to remain composed.37
IN THE MEANTIME, UP ON PINE MOUNTAIN, “RUTHIE” AND MAYOR Allcorn had finished preparations for their barbeque for the president. At 4:00 p.m. the first few guests started arriving and the country fiddlers began to play. Ten minutes later, Major De Witt Greer, the head of the White House Signals Corps, arrived to make a quick check on the short-wave radio units his men had installed for the Secret Service. Among the guests awaiting the president’s arrival was A. Merriman Smith, one of the three press pool reporters who had been invited to accompany FDR to Georgia. At about twenty minutes past four, Smith noticed that none of the president’s advance team had arrived, and there had been no communication whatsoever from the Little White House.
Smith walked over to the Signal Corps sergeant sitting next to his short-wave radio and asked the sergeant to check in with the Secret Service Desk at Carver Cottage. Impatient, Smith himself took the microphone once the corpsman had gotten through and found himself speaking to Howard Anderson, the agent on duty.
“Andy, this is Smitty. What the hell is going on down there?”
“I honestly don’t know. No cars have arrived. There’s just nothing doing,” came the reply.
“But the President is supposed to be here in a few minutes,” a puzzled Smith replied.
When Anderson offered to make further inquiries, Smith told him not to bother; he would try to find out by phoning the main switchboard.
“Hacky, this is Smitty,” Smith said as soon as he had gotten through on the mayor’s phone.
“Why aren’t you people on the way?” he went on. “What’s holding things up?”
“I don’t know,” she replied in a panicked voice, “but Mr. Hassett wants to see you. Get the other two boys and go to his cottage as fast as you can.”
“Hacky, for Christ’s sake, what’s going on?”
“Smitty, I can’t say anymore. Just get down here as fast as you can.”38
Smith put down the phone and ran out to collect the other two reporters, Robert Nixon and Harry Oliver. Within minutes, the three of them were racing down the narrow, twisting mountain road in Major Greer’s car, convinced that “the big break” they were about to receive was news of the capitulation of Germany. But when the three reporters entered the cottage, they found Hassett standing in front of the fireplace with a mournful expression on his face, flanked by a quietly tearful Grace Tully and Dorothy Brady. They could not possibly be crying about the end of the war, Smith thought.
“Gentlemen,” Hassett said carefully, “it is my sad duty to inform you th
at President Roosevelt died at 3:35 this afternoon.”
Hassett went on to fill in some of the further details, but then broke off, as Dr. Bruenn came in to provide a more complete picture.
“It was just like a bolt of lightning or getting hit by a train,” the exhausted cardiologist said, wiping his damp face with a handkerchief.
“One minute he was alive, and laughing.… [T]he next minute, wham!”
“Did you see this coming?” one of the reporters asked.
“This wasn’t the sort of thing you could forecast,” Dr. Bruenn said. “It doesn’t happen that way.… He was awfully tired when we first came down here,” Bruenn admitted, but then asked, “Wasn’t he in fine spirits” when “the three of you saw him” during his last press conference?
Smith agreed there was some truth to this observation. Smith had been out riding two days earlier when the president’s car nearly ran him down. Smith was on a rather nasty little horse, and as he reined in the animal to let the president’s slowing car pass, FDR bowed to him majestically and called out in his wonderfully deep and resonant voice, “Heigh-O Silver!”39
Now Smith and the other reporters were scrambling to get on phones to their national headquarters to bellow the flash news at 4:47 p.m. Central War Time (CWT) that Franklin D. Roosevelt was dead.
A. MERRIMAN SMITH AND THE GUESTS AT THE BARBEQUE WERE NOT the only people wondering what had happened to the president that afternoon. Glancing out into the main floor of the playhouse as she put the final touches of makeup on one of the members of the cast, Hazel Stephens, the Foundation’s recreational director, could see that the venue was full. The only empty seat for the minstrel show, in fact, was the stout leather chair that Agent Reilly had placed in the middle of the aisle earlier in the day, now surrounded by an excited audience made up of children patients, the children of Foundation members, and those adult patients and a few special guests who had never seen the president.
The Last 100 Days Page 33