The Plots Against the President
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60 “I take the road to fascism”: Coughlin, quoted in Wolfskill and Hudson, 112.
60 “in normal times” … “There is no question”: Roosevelt, quoted in Wolfskill and Hudson, 301.
Chapter Twelve: The Nourmahal Gang
61 For Roosevelt’s affection for China and dislike of Hitler, see Freidel, 123ff.
62 “Wall Street was not merely”: Fraser, Every Man, 414.
62 “The belief that those in control”: Joseph P. Kennedy, 93.
62 “waiting affably”: Schlesinger, 1:464.
63 “scion of a family”: Davis, 2:420.
63 “1. World is sick”: Moley, First New Deal, 100ff.
64 “The Hasty Pudding Club”: Flynn, quoted in Davis, 2:420.
64 “fascinated by the mystery” … “he was doing so much”: James Roosevelt and Sidney Shalett, 277.
64 “At Sea with Franklin D.”: Flynn, quoted in Davis, 2:420.
64 “could be neither stemmed”: Moley, “Bank Crisis.”
65 “the last holiday” … “getting a marvelous rest”: Franklin Roosevelt to Sara Roosevelt, February 6, 1933. Elliott Roosevelt, FDR: His Personal Letters, 1:328.
Chapter Thirteen: Magic City
67 “the blow that broke the boom”: Stuart McIver, “1926 Miami: The Blow That Broke the Boom,” Florida Sun Sentinel, September 19, 1993.
67 “Columns of hooded”: Picchi, 6.
68 “begging expedition”: Gottfried, 317.
68 “those people”: James Roosevelt and Sidney Shallet, 277.
68 “I didn’t even open”: New York Times, February 16, 1933. Quoted in Davis, 2:422.
69 Details of the motorcade are contradictory. Moley contended that he was accompanied in the second car by Vincent Astor, Kermit Roosevelt, and William Rhinelander Stewart. Other accounts, including Blaise Picchi’s study of the assassination, contend that it was Judge Kerochan, Astor, Roosevelt, and Moley in the third car.
69 “It would be easy”: Astor, quoted in Moley, “Bank Crisis.”
70 “one of those improbable”: Ibid.
70 “I remember T.R.”: Roosevelt to Garner, December 21, 1932, quoted in Elliott Roosevelt, F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, 313.
70 “Sono gli incerti del mestiere”: William Manchester, The Death of a President (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 35.
70 “We welcome him to Miami”: Picchi, 13.
Chapter Fourteen: I’m All Right
71 “Where do you think” … “I go right down” … “It no look” … “There are many people”: Donovan, 160.
72 “After the speech, Mr. President”: Gowran, “Shot Aimed at FDR Took Cermak’s Life,” Chicago Tribune, November 23, 1963.
72 “I have had”: Roosevelt remarks, quoted in Freidel, 169.
72 “the talking picture people”: Roosevelt, quoted in Davis, 2:429.
72 “But you’ve got to” … “I’m sorry”: Ibid.
72 “The President”: Gottfried, 324.
73 “get him the hell out of here”: Picchi, 16.
73 “It was providential”: Davis, 2:430–31.
73 “I saw Mayor Cermak”: New York Times, February 17, 1933.
73 “I’m all right”: Roosevelt, quoted in Schlesinger, 1:465.
73 “I don’t think he is going to last”: … “It was surprising” … “Tony, keep quiet” … It won’t hurt you”: New York Times, February 17, 1933.
74 “Open the door”: Picchi, 25.
74 “F.D.R. had talked to me”: Moley, “Bank Crisis,”
75 “These things are to be expected”: New York Times, February 16, 1933. Quoted in Davis, 2:431.
75 “must of have been awfully hard”: Eleanor Roosevelt quoted in Cook, 2:27.
76 “Roosevelt’s nerve”: Moley, “Bank Crisis, Bullet Crisis,” Saturday Evening Post, July 29, 1939.
76 “The President-elect, feeling the bullets”: James A. Hagerty, New York Times, February 16, 1933.
77 “Tony, I hope you’ll be up”: Roosevelt, quoted in Picchi, 35.
77 “I’m glad it was me”: Ibid. While this phrase from Cermak to Roosevelt has been widely repeated throughout history, legend has it that a Chicago reporter falsely attributed those words to Cermak.
Chapter Fifteen: Too Many People Are Starving to Death
78 “I have the gun”: Zangara.
78 “conducted only minor”: FBI “Franklin D. Roosevelt Assassination Attempt” file.
79 “among the bonus diehards”: Dickson and Allen, 330, n.61.
79 “an Italian anarchistic”: Telegram from agent in Houston, Texas, to J. Edgar Hoover, February 16, 1933. FBI “Zangara” file.
79 “was the representative”: Memorandum from V. W. Hughes of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation to J. Edgar Hoover, February 20, 1933, FBI “Franklin D. Roosevelt Assassination Attempt” file.
79 “dances conducted”: Letter from J. Zajic to J. Edgar Hoover, February 17, 1933, FBI “Franklin D. Roosevelt Assassination Attempt” file.
79 For more information regarding Zangara’s ties to the cases, see FBI “Franklin D. Roosevelt Assassination Attempt” file.
79 “When I fired the first shot”: Zangara confession. Quoted in Picchi, 252.
80 “Someone sent me here” … “to be quiet”: Zangara, quoted in Picchi, 85.
80 “Don’t do that please” … “He is going to kill the president!”: Cross, quoted in Picchi, 17.
81 “two Legionnaires” … “like a ton of bricks” … “I want to kill the president!”: Ibid., 19ff.
81 “I sprang”: Armour affidavit, quoted in Picchi, 29–30.
82 “Nobody take my arm”: Zangara, quoted in Picchi, 28–29.
82 “deprive Mrs. Cross”: Ibid., 163.
82 “little lecture on manners”: Donovan, 160.
82 “The fact remains”: Ibid., 163–64.
82 “I’m such a little fellow”: Zangara testimony.
Chapter Sixteen: Typical of His Breed
83 “The little Italian”: Reporter Jack Bell, quoted in Picchi, 47.
83 “a swarthy Italian”: Miami Herald, quoted in Picchi, 45.
84 “I was figuring to go”: Zangara, quoted in Donovan, 156.
84 “I want to keel all presidents”: Zangara, quoted in Key, 14.
84 “I see Mr. Hoover”: Zangara testimony.
84 “You don’t need no school”: Donovan, 150.
84 “hate very violently”: Zangara, quoted in Davis, 2:433.
84 “like a dog”: Zangara, quoted in Picchi, 48.
85 “the stomachache”: Zangara, quoted in Picchi, 66.
85 “I needed it”: Zangara, Ibid., 243.
85 “The guards got in front of me”: Ibid., 241.
86 “an anarchist, socialist” … “lunch-hour orator” … “governments and men in power”: Rosario Candrilli, quoted in Picchi, 72.
86 “fostered and founded”: Hynes quoted in Picchi, 77.
87 “not a maniac”: New York Times, February 16, 1933.
87 “a lonesome morose character”: “Zangara Planned Attack All Alone,” New York Times, February 17, 1933. The motivation behind this dissembling by the Secret Service cannot be determined, as that agency refused to release documents under a Freedom of Information Act request by this author.
87 Di Silvestro accusation against Zangara: “Di Silvestro Links Zangara in Bomb Death: Phila. Attorney Tells Mussolini That Assassin Has Been Identified as Dynamite Terrorist.” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 18, 1933. Also see FBI “Zangara” file.
87 “against the lives” … “With my most sincere regrets”: “Five Jailed as Suspects in Roosevelt Plot Quiz,” Los Angeles Times, February 19, 1933.
88 “I am friend of Zangara”: Newspaper clipping in FBI “Zangara” file, “Boy of 15 Suspected in Roosevelt ‘Bomb,’ ” Associated Press, March 2, 1933.
88 “wide-spread group” … “Zangara must have had”: C. James Todaro to Edward W. Wells, February 21, 1933, in FBI “Zangara” file.
88 �
��under the protection”: Gallagher, 144.
88 “natural political mode of class rule”: Bancroft, 155.
89 “I do not belong to any society”: Key, 14–15.
89 “This is the United States”: Robinson, quoted in Freidel, 171.
89 “socialistic” … “anarchistic” … “fixed idea”: New York Times, February 17, 1933.
89 “felt it was desirable”: Moley to Fred Charles of Buffalo Times, February 24, 1933. Moley Collection. “I interviewed Zangara after the shooting that night and in my opinion no psychiatrist would declare him insane in the legal sense of the word. I made it very clear in my statement to the newspapers after examining him that I found no political ideas. I did this not only because it was true, but because I felt it was desirable to avoid, so far as possible, any hysteria on the subject of radicalism.”
90 “For even if he had remained”: Davis, 2:433.
Chapter Seventeen: The Bony Hand of Death
91 “Divine Providence”: Roosevelt telegram to Mrs. Cross, reprinted in the New York Times, February 20, 1933.
91 “To a man”: Time, February 27, 1933.
92 “killing its elected leaders” … “Guarding any President”: Reilly, 10–11.
92 “one of the most elaborate”: February 18, 1933.
92 “Circumstances made it impossible”: Moley, “Bank Crisis,” 1.
92 “A most critical situation”: Hoover to Roosevelt, February 17, 1933, quoted in Schlesinger, 1:476.
93 “the letter from Hoover” … “That the breaking point had come”: Moley’s notes of the reaction to Hoover’s letter, Raymond Moley Collection, Hoover Institution.
93 “It would have been inconceivable”: Thomas Lamont, quoted in Freidel, 175.
93 “Fundamentally, the millions”: Freidel, 181.
93 “mortally stricken” … “steadily degenerating confidence”: Moley’s notes of the reaction to Hoover’s letter Raymond Moley Collection, Hoover Institution.
93–94 “assumed that Roosevelt would succeed”: Moley, “Bank Crisis,” 13.
94 “90 percent of the so-called new deal”: Hoover to Reed, February 20, 1933, quoted in Freidel, 177.
94 “cheeky” … “madman”: Schlesinger, 1:477.
94 “It is my duty”: Hoover to Roosevelt, February 28, 1933, quoted in Freidel, 188.
94 “I am equally concerned”: Roosevelt to Hoover, March 1, 1933, quoted in Freidel, 189.
95 “revolution and not reform”: Hoover, quoted in Alter, 182.
95 “center of the storm”: Ahamed, 444.
95 “did not want”: Josephson, Money Lords, 147.
95 “nine million dollars”: Manchester, 1:88.
96 “imperturbable and betrayed”: James Roosevelt and Sidney Shalett, 251.
96 “another game of chicken”: Alter, 199.
96 “I decided to cut it short”: Roosevelt, quoted in Freidel, 192–93. Varying accounts of this pre-inaugural exchange between Roosevelt and Hoover can also be found in Tully, 64; James Roosevelt and Sidney Shalett, 250ff.; and Moley, First New Deal, 148.
96 “It would be putting it mildly”: James Roosevelt and Sidney Shalett, 250–51.
96 “treated like a schoolboy”: Tully, 64
96 “was one of the damndest” … “earliest lessons”: James Roosevelt and Sidney Shalett, 250–51.
96 “squabbling like children”: Alter, 200.
Chapter Eighteen: Fear Itself
97 “Oh Lord”: Freidel, 198.
97 “almost impenetrable”: Tugwell, Brains Trust, 62.
98 “Here was a president”: Shlaes, 146.
98 “grim as death”: James Roosevelt and Sidney Shalett, 253.
98 “Protocol or no protocol”: Roosevelt, quoted in Tully, 68.
99 “This” … “is a day of national consecration”: For descriptions of the inauguration, see Manchester, Freidel, Leuchtenburg (Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal), Black, Brands, and Alter. For the address itself, see Rosenman, Public Papers, 2:11ff.
99 “The radio networks”: Manchester, 1:91.
100 “sacred ground”: Martin, 12.
100 “President Roosevelt’s words”: Freidel, 208.
101 “FOR DICTATORSHIP”: Alter, 4.
101 “A lot of us have been asking”: New York Daily News, March 5.
101 “Nothing is so much”: Cook, 1:494.
Chapter Nineteen: Bank Holiday
102 “The President outlined”: Perkins, quoted in Freidel, 215.
103 “leant recklessly”: Alan Brinkley, “The New Deal, Then and Now.”
103 “Behind the plain desk”: Clapper, Washington Daily News, March 6, 1933.
104 “With so many banks” … “eye-popping”: Alter, 4.
104 “As new commander”: Ibid.
104 “dictator talk”: Ibid., 5. Jonathan Alter found this draft at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library, which “had never been referred to or quoted by historians before.”
104 “all men and women”: Roosevelt, quoted in Davis, 3:35.
104 “For the first time”: Josephson, Money Lords, 154.
104 “Hoover had taken everything”: Manchester, 1:92.
105 “almost a springtime mood”: Schlesinger, 2:6.
105 “If he had burned down”: Will Rogers, New York Times, March 6, 1933.
105 “persuading, leading, sacrificing”: Roosevelt, quoted in Bernstein, 5.
105 “If I fail”: Roosevelt, quoted in Manchester, 1:95.
105 “very, very solemn”: Hickok, 103–4.
106 “One had the feeling”: Eleanor Roosevelt, quoted in Alter, 222.
106 “feared the kind of desperation”: Cook, 2:27.
106 “Mayor Cermak, last evening”: Picchi, 133.
Chapter Twenty: I Want to Keel All Presidents
107 For the most comprehensive accounts of the legal proceedings against Zangara, the federal investigation into his political ties, his own memoir, his interrogation by police, Chapman’s recollections, etc., see Picchi, which is the only full-scale exploration of the case, as well as contemporaneous press accounts. Also, see the FBI “Zangara” file.
107 “Why do you want to kill?” Miami Herald, February 16, 1933.
107 “When we arrived”: Zangara, quoted in Picchi, 45.
108 “something of a linguist”: Miami Herald, February 16, 1933.
108 “normal in every respect”: Picchi, 49.
109 “perverse character” … “psychopathic personality”: Donovan, 165.
109 “a sane man”: Shappee, 106.
109 “They certainly mete out justice”: Cermak, quoted in Brands, 281.
109 “round up” … “Zangara class”: Miami Herald, February 20, 1933.
109 “The people could not understand”: Zangara confession, quoted in Picchi, 253.
109 “Your Honor” … “You see I suffer”: Zangara testimony at first arraignment. Quoted in Picchi, 116.
110 “Oh judge”: Ibid. See Picchi, 121.
Chapter Twenty-one: Old Sparky
111 “Not my fault” … “Sure I sorry”: Zangara, quoted in Picchi, 138.
111 “sea of lawn and flowers”: Gottfried, 328.
112 “as a result of the bullet”: Shappee, 106.
112 “These ones take care of me”: Zangara, quoted in Picchi, 142.
112 “Supposed to kill the chief” … “I want to kill all capitalists”: Zangara, quoted in Davis, “Incident in Miami,” 95.
112 “Assassins roaming at will”: Thompson, quoted in Davis, “Incident in Miami,” 95.
113 “I want to kill the president” … “You is crook man too:” Zangara in second trial. Quoted in Picchi, 166.
113 “a being”: Chapman, quoted in Picchi, 221.
113 “I am not making a hero”: Dr. Ralph N. Green, quoted in Picchi, 190.
114 “With a courtly bow”: Chapman, quoted in Picchi, 223.
114 “Viva Italia”: For details of the Zangara execution, see Picchi,
190ff.
114 “The execution of a man”: Chapman, quoted in Picchi, 217.
114 “Had Giuseppe Zangara”: Geoffrey Ward, quoted from endorsement of Picchi.
Chapter Twenty-two: A Good Beginning
117 “confidence in the leadership” … “such broad powers”: Davis, 3:37.
118 “well in the background”: Ahamed, 453.
118 “were just a bunch of men”: Moley, After Seven Years, 191.
118 “It won’t frighten people”: Moley, First New Deal, 172.
119 “rescue the moribund corpse”: David M. Kennedy, 135.
119 “Only Roosevelt” … “Confusion, haste”: Moley, After Seven Years, 191.
119 “I am told”: First press conference, March 8, 1933, Alter, 253ff. Freidel, 224ff.
119 “on background” … “off the record”: Freidel, 224–25.
119 “the most amazing”: Leuchtenberg, FDR Years, 144.
120 “We hope” … “The real mark” … “We cannot write”: Freidel, 224–25.
121 “all kinds of junk”: The diary of George Harrison, quoted in Josephson, Money Lords, 148.
121 “the last remaining strength”: Moley, After Seven Years, 155.
121 “Our first task”: Roosevelt, quoted in Davis, 3:55.
121 “I cannot too strongly”: Roosevelt, quoted in Schlesinger, 2:7.
121 “his goddamned banker friends” … “little county seat banks” … “sonofabitch” … “be more civil!”: Williams, 626–28.
121 “The President drove the money-changers”: David M. Kennedy, 136.
122 “had running through it”: Davis, 3:35.
122 “superbly risen”: Wall Street Journal. March 13, 1933.
Chapter Twenty-three: Time for Beer
124 “If the Congress chooses” … “been on the road” … “immediate action”: Rosenman, Public Papers, 49–51.
124 “Talk of balancing”: Long, quoted in Freidel, 244.
124 “to explain clearly”: Davis, 3:59.
124–125 “I decided I’d try”: Roosevelt, quoted in Stiles, 245. As so often happened, Raymond Moley would take credit for writing the famous and wildly successful first fireside chat—a claim Roosevelt hotly denied.
125 “the President wants to come into your home”: Davis, 3:60.
125 “almost as good”: Miriam Howell, quoted in Doherty, 77.