Lost in the Shadow of Fame

by William E. Lemanski

  The official inquiry claims that in the early morning hours of June 4, 1943, Kermit arrived back at his billet in a drunken state and killed himself. However, much confusion, inconsistency and omission exist in the official record about the manner and time of his death. The technical details of his supposed suicide also raises questions along with the conduct and thoroughness of the general investigation.

  Notes:

  1. From copy in Kermit Roosevelt military file, National Archives.

  2. Joseph P. Lash interview, 1/18/67. Ibid.

  3. The Roosevelts, an American Saga, by Peter Collier with David

  Horowitz pg. 382

  4. Letter dated March 14, 1941; Belle to FDR; FDR Library.

  5. Memo dated July 29, 1941; General Sherman Miles to General Edwin M. Watson. Ibid.

  6. Letter dated July 21, 1941; General Edwin M. Watson to F. Trubee Davison. Ibid.

  7. Memo dated August 27, 1941; General Edwin M. Watson to FDR. Ibid.

  8. Testimony of Lt. Col. Walter F. Choinski, taken at Fort Richardson

  Alaska, June 9, 1943; letter residing in Kermit’s military file at the National Archives.

  9. Kermit Roosevelt military file at the National Archives.

  10. Incoming message; War Department Classified Message Center; Ibid.

  11. Ibid.

  Chapter X - A Speculation

  on Human Tragedy

  O God, my God, where’er Thou art,

  Keep my beloved in Thy Heart

  Fold in thy Heart that head so bright

  Heal him with Thy most gentle light

  And since Thou mad’st forgetfulness

  Forget what’er Thou find’st amiss

  And since Thou mad’st remembering

  Remember every lovely thing,

  And then my God look down and see,

  And pityingly remember me.

  Kermit’s epitaph; June 4, 1943

  Fort Richardson, Alaska

  By his mother, Edith Roosevelt

  The loss of her second son, Kermit, was a severe blow to the frail Edith in her eighty-second year. Although the family sheltered her in every way possible, she was always aware of his frailties and potential for self destruction since he was a youngster. Edith went to her grave five years after Kermit, never knowing the true story of his death, having been led to believe a failed heart as the cause. In fact, the government and the family concealed the official nature of his death from the public for decades.

  The pattern of his slow, self-destructive decline was not new to the Roosevelt family, nor would Kermit be the last. Earlier members of the Roosevelt clan also lived a life of calamitous conduct. The potential for him growing into manhood and developing a disturbing, troubled life was recognized early on by both Theodore and Edith and weighted heavily on them. As a youngster Kermit was a brooding and frequently melancholy boy. His was an introspective, solitary soul who was the opposite of the large gaggle of noisy children in the Roosevelt household. While playing in the roughhouse environment of the family, his siblings would pursue every challenge and attack every game with gleeful energy with Kermit also participating but in an ambivalent and laidback manner. As his mother’s favorite, he would be considered somewhat of a “mama’s boy” today, making him more of an outcast among the other children.

  When his father was in the White House and Kermit was a young student at Groton, he developed an interest in an obscure, down and out poet named Edwin Arlington Robinson. The poem by Robinson that initially captured Kermit’s interest was a maudlin piece named “The Children of the Night” with opening lines that begin:

  For those that never know the light,

  The darkness is a sullen thing;

  And they, the Children of the Night,

  Seem lost in Fortune's winnowing.

  But some are strong and some are weak, --

  And there's the story. House and home

  Are shut from countless hearts that seek

  World-refuge that will never come.

  Aside from the poem appealing to Kermit’s dark, brooding nature, perhaps he sensed a kindred spirit in Robinson. For a portion of his life, Robinson was a failure who sank into poverty and alcoholism and at one time was reported to be suicidal. When Kermit showed the poem to the President and pestered him to assist Robinson, his father was so impressed with Robinson’s work that he arranged a sinecure for the unemployed poet at the U.S. Customs House in New York City. With Roosevelt’s support, his career was energized, and he eventually received three Pulitzer Awards and published twenty-eight books of poetry during the remainder of his life.

  As Kermit was growing up, deep disturbing emotional problems loomed within the Roosevelt family. In 1896, cousin James West Roosevelt, a physician, was suffering from alcohol and drug addiction and died at the young age of 38. However, the death of Theodore’s younger brother and Eleanor Roosevelt’s father, Elliot, in 1894 brought the horrors of substance abuse much closer to home. Eerily similar to his nephew Kermit, Elliot was a precocious, bright youngster; the leader of the pack of his young siblings who loved books and had an interest in nature. Early on he was considered to become the most successful of the Roosevelt children. He excelled in athletics and when older enjoyed playing polo, riding to the hounds and the adventure of traveling to far off lands for big game hunting. He was gregarious and socially popular, although lurking below the surface were feelings of anxiety, self doubt and melancholy that as a youngster would manifest in a series of peculiar physical illnesses. He would eventually become obsessed by the perceived competition with his brother, Theodore - as his brother’s star was on the assent, Elliot’s was in decline. As his brother attended Harvard College, began to excel in politics and even became a published author, Elliot was incapable of even entering college. His life seemed to have set a similar pattern for the way Kermit’s would evolve and then decline.

  Like Kermit, he developed a taste for alcohol at a young age. In August, 1880 while still young men, Elliot and Theodore traveled to the west on a hunting trip as Elliot began displaying his growing taste for alcohol. In a letter to his sister, Corrine, Theodore humorously commented:

  “As soon as we got here he took some ale to get the dust out of his throat; then a milk punch because he was thirsty; a mint julep because it was hot; a brandy smash to ‘keep the cold out of his stomach’; and then sherry and bitters to give him an appetite. He took a very simple dinner – soup, fish, salmi de grouse, sweetbread, mutton, venison, corn, macaroni, various vegetables and some puddings and pies, together with beer, later claret and in the evening handygaff.”1

  Although familiar and concerned with Elliot’s physical and emotional problems, the family did not yet realize his insidiously growing dependence on drink. However, within a few short years this would change. Just prior to his early death at age 34, Theodore commented that Elliot “…had been drinking whole bottles of anisette and green mint, besides whole bottles of raw brandy and champagne, sometimes half a dozen a morning.”2

  Elliot’s decline would be astonishingly fast. As he matured he became a bon vivant and world traveler, always gracious to anyone who would share a drink and carouse with him. Hunting tigers in India or hobnobbing with British Army officers and royalty in England seemed to represent his prime interests and consumed much of his life. Assuming responsibility with the challenge of settling down with his wife and growing family, securing a job and conforming to a degree of respectability were beyond his reach. His deep seated feelings of doubt and general uselessness were satiated by drink which only compounded his emotional decline. Threatening suicide, he spent time in and out of sanatoriums. Adding to this he began cavorting with various women and would disappear for periods of time, abandoning his wife and children. Bouts of drunken stupor interspersed with periods of delusion occupied the shadowy life he shared with his last mistress, a woman named Katy Mann. Elliot’s philandering escapades with Mann became a major crisis for the family when she claimed to have borne
his illegitimate child and demanded a ransom to keep the disgrace concealed.

  Compounding his misery and feelings of guilt, at the end of 1892, his wife Anna died of diphtheria and son, Elliot Jr. died of scarlet fever a few months later. Little ten-year old Eleanor who idolized her father was perhaps the most heartbreaking victim of Elliot’s decline. She was shuttled between family members, sustaining a lifelong emotional wound resulting from her father’s continued absences and his destructive behavior. Unwilling to rehabilitate himself and spiraling down into a drunken madness, he died in a derelict state on August 14, 1894, following a seizure.

  Even Kermit’s father displayed signs of a depressive disorder, albeit without any resort to alcohol or drug usage. Contrary to his brother Elliot, Theodore attacked his demons by incessant action. Certainly, the loss of his mother and wife, both on the same day, must have evoked an enormous reaction which no doubt affected him for the remainder of his life. Following the death of his beloved Alice Lee, he shunned his newborn daughter Alice and relegated her care to his sister Bamie. Following the tragic loss, he recorded that the light has gone from his life and he withdrew to the western Badlands to sooth his shattered emotions; never again mentioning Alice Lee’s name. However, aside from his boisterous demeanor, Theodore Roosevelt did show signs also of having a predisposition for melancholia for much of his life.

  Some theorize that Theodore’s manic personality was a subconscious response to keeping his natural anxiety at bay. Hence, his famous comment: “Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough.” Perhaps conquering the struggles of his own overwhelming emotions by shear willpower and activity while witnessing how idleness combined with substance abuse affected his brother reinforced Theodore’s lifelong penchant for being a teetotaler. This strong disdain for any usage of alcohol even incited him to sue in court and win the case with a newspaper editor who slandered him in print as being an alcoholic.

  Kermit’s lifelong problems within the next generation of Roosevelts seemed to have followed his Uncle Elliot’s in close order. Kermit was a world traveler who enjoyed many of the same activities as Elliot: hunting, the unusual and unique features each discovered in people and places around the world and both had an eye for the ladies. Elliot was an outward and gregarious personality, addicted to social carousing so was Kermit, but both harbored an inner emptiness that continually depressed their personalities. Each for a period of time seemed to find solace in alcohol and drugs and both sacrificed their families to their uncontrollable lifestyle. In the end, both ended their own lives at a relatively young age; Elliot by alcohol poisoning and Kermit by gunshot.

  However, Kermit’s succumbing to the demons that led to his death did not end the emotional problems within the Roosevelt lineage. Kermit’s youngest child, Dirck, born in 1925 began to show signs of emotional distress at an early age, similar to Kermit’s Uncle Elliot. Dirck displayed signs of trouble when unable to cope with his entry to Groton, writing home after just arriving, “Groton disappoints me greatly.”3 Unable to get on with the other students and address his studies, he withdrew from the normal socializing at the school and began to display a bizarre conduct. In one well publicized event in 1938 which the New York Times characterized as “Dirck Roosevelt Goes Adventuring,” he and another student ran away from school, initiating an eight-state, law-enforcement hunt that ended a few days later in Baltimore. While on the lam, the police located a note left by 13-year old Dirck stating “If a man feels it necessary to take his own life, should he be condemned?”4 During this period, his father’s life was totally distracted with his own problems of drinking sprees and on again, off again departures with his mistress.

  In 1943 Dirck was inducted into the service where he spent much time in military hospitals with severe emotional problems. Following the war, he attended Oxford University and then knocked around Europe, continuing to exhibit eccentric mannerisms. When in Spain he was arrested for a homosexual pass at a man that earned him expulsion from that country. After returning to the United States and leading a confused and pointless life, Dirck eventually committed suicide at his mother’s house in 1953.

  Admittedly, it is somewhat presumptuous for an author to attempt the dissection of someone’s character and inner motivations. Our life’s conduct is influenced by many factors: heredity, environment, education, upbringing, etc. and besides, attitudes and standards of morality change over time making the speculation of a complex person, living in a different era exceedingly imperfect. For example, even into the 1950s, topics such as divorce and illegitimacy were considered taboo and not openly discussed in polite society. If an acquaintance or member of the extended family was divorced from their spouse or bore an illegitimate child, they were at once the source of hushed rumor and innuendo, hence, Elliot’s imposition of disgrace on the Roosevelt family. In the twenty-first century, divorce is so commonplace, along with common law relationships that casual living arrangements in the United States between non-wed couples threaten to exceed those who are lawfully married and more and more births are occurring out of wedlock – all taken in stride by modern society. In today’s culture, excessive drinking is looked upon by many as a disease, not necessarily a character flaw. Use of tobacco today is shunned whereas in previous generations, smoking and drinking were socially acceptable and even considered to be fashionable. Conversely, non-smoking teetotalers like Theodore Roosevelt were rare during Kermit’s upbringing. So, social mores are an ever changing set of concepts that are culturally dependent upon time and place with personal motivations frequently being an imponderable. However, the challenge of looking back upon a person’s history and speculating on motivation must be pursued in order to consider the possibilities of why and how events unfolded and naturally to satisfy the devoted investigator’s curiosity.

  So what, if anything, can be concluded from Kermit’s story of lifelong depression and alcohol abuse ending in a wayward life style and ultimate suicide? Was it based on an inherited character trait within his family line, an aberrant segment of DNA or just the palliative effect of alcohol and drugs soothing a fragile and sensitive personality? Or was it the inverse where a depressive nature becomes dependent on the alcohol and drugs? When a depressive nature is coupled with substance abuse, determining the degree to which one may initiate the other is a difficult, hazardous and perhaps impossible task to define with any expectation of accuracy.

  Although much is yet to be learned, many researchers seem to generally agree on the causes of substance abuse. Some, such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, claim the risk for developing alcoholism does run in families and that genetics within a family line partially explain the malady with lifestyle also being a factor. Others theorize that stress can play a role in excessive drinking, others speak of social influences. In Russia where alcoholism has always been extraordinarily high, the problem is attributed to both historical and cultural causes. Statistically, alcoholics have the highest rate of suicide.

  Perhaps Kermit’s combination of dreaminess and intellectual isolation as a youngster with his disregard for physical safety were contributing factors. His life-long depressive tendencies may have been satiated with alcohol ultimately leading to dependency. Over time, this may have begun a self-destructive physical and psychological cycle that on the one hand, where alcohol consumption quelled his misery and on the other undermined his stamina and physical capabilities leading to helplessness. Clearly he had a famous reputation to uphold as expressed by his lifelong competition with his brothers in their war time exploits and the near mythic stature of his father to emulate, hence his acts of derring-do.

  In later life, the more he attempted to redeem himself in battle, the greater the realization of his physical inability that would lead to increased alcohol consumption and then again feed the cycle of physical degradation. Unlike his family and friends, the supportive relationship with Peters was one of unquestioning, non-judgmental acceptance and may have provided a modic
um of relief as feelings of uselessness took hold as the family’s living standard diminished. As previously stated, his spiral of decline closely patterned that of his uncle Elliot. The severe psychological trap of loneliness, shame, guilt, hopelessness and helplessness may have convinced him that death was the only way out.

  Another perspective*[26]-

  A detailed analysis of all of the government documents pertaining to Kermit’s last duty assignment in Alaska and the circumstances of his death defined therein raise many unsettling questions. There are inconsistencies in the testimony and omissions in the investigation. The final official circumstances and manner of his death sound somewhat improbable and raises questions of suspicion; did he commit suicide or was he the victim of some sinister plot? The following are troubling points to consider.