In the years after he was diagnosed with polio, as he fought to return to political life, Roosevelt worked hard to develop a method of appearing to walk. FDR told his physical therapist that his goal was to “walk without crutches. I’ll walk into a room without scaring everybody half to death. I’ll stand easily enough in front of people so that they’ll forget I’m a cripple.”27
His solution was to develop a tripod method. He would use steel braces to lock his legs into a rigid position and then lean heavily on the arm of one of his sons with one hand while using a crutch under his other arm. The key was for his son to keep his arm as rigid as a parallel bar and held at a ninety-degree angle. He used his son’s arm as a second crutch, and the steel braces allowed him to place all of his body weight on his lifeless legs and remain erect. In this position, FDR could “walk” by throwing his body weight forward, swinging one leg at a time while keeping his upper body stabilized.28
He used the new method for the first time at the 1924 Democratic Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City. FDR had wanted to make a dramatic return to politics, and Governor Al Smith, a leading candidate, asked him to give the nomination speech on his behalf. It was only three years after his illness, and Roosevelt feared that it was too soon. But he accepted the invitation and decided that he could not use a wheelchair. With a crutch under his right arm, FDR gripped James’s arm and moved slowly toward the stage. He was able to propel his body forward by pivoting and throwing his shoulders from side to side. “As we walked—struggled, really—down the aisle to the rear of the platform, he leaned heavily on my arm, gripping me so hard it hurt,” James recalled. “His hands were wet. His breathing was labored. Leaning on me with one arm, working a crutch with the other, his legs locked stiffly in their braces, he went on his awkward way.” To disguise the stiffness of his movements and not “scare everybody half to death,” as FDR said, he and James engaged in loud banter, pretending to laugh to hide the obvious discomfort.29
Standing at the podium, his head thrown back and his shoulders held high in his trademark posture, FDR launched into the speech that would define his return to politics. “He has a personality that carries to every hearer not only the sincerity but the righteousness of what he says,” Roosevelt declared, his rich tenor voice filling the Garden. “He is the ‘Happy Warrior’ of the political battlefield . . . Alfred E. Smith.” FDR’s speech, which set off an hourlong demonstration, failed to gain the nomination for Smith. But it provided Roosevelt with the psychological boost he needed. “I did it!” he exclaimed to a friend that evening.30
FDR’s return to politics was a dramatic success, but he was determined to improve his method of walking. One day at Warm Springs, he came up with an idea. He would walk holding on to a man’s arm and substitute a less conspicuous cane for the crutch. In 1928, Al Smith planned to be the party’s nominee, and he wanted Roosevelt to present the nomination speech. As FDR made his way to the platform, this time holding on to Elliott’s arm and using only a cane, the 15,000 delegates roared their approval. Everything about his manner—his optimism, broad smile, and relaxed confidence—contradicted the impression that he was an invalid. Invoking again the image of the “Happy Warrior,” he brought the convention to its feet. As expected, Smith won nomination on the first ballot.
FDR also never gave up hope of finding a cure. He consulted with physicians, but he also pursued unconventional therapy. He would spend his afternoons practicing walking with his legs strapped into fourteen pounds of painful steel braces. Somehow, he believed that he could force his lifeless legs to move. “I have faithfully followed out the walking and am really getting so that both legs take it quite naturally, and I can stay on my feet for an hour without feeling tired,” he wrote his physician.31
Roosevelt looked to water for a cure. “The water got me into this fix,” he used to say, “and the water will get me out.” He spent part of three winters between 1924 and 1926 living on a used houseboat, the Laroocoo, in Florida, where he hoped that the sun and fresh air would speed his recovery.32
Like his father, Roosevelt believed in the healing power of baths. He discovered Warm Springs in the fall of 1924 after hearing rumors that the eighty-six-degree natural spring waters that bubbled up from the ground held special healing powers. After swimming in the waters for the first time, he wrote his mother about his discovery. “I feel that a great ‘cure’ for infantile paralysis and kindred diseases could well be established here.” He spent a considerable amount of his own money fixing up the resort property and turning it into a rehabilitation center for other sufferers of polio. He took a personal interest in the plight of other polio victims, developed an interest in physiotherapy, and soon began referring to himself as “Old Doctor Roosevelt.”33
Many biographers have observed that polio expanded FDR’s horizons, making him more empathetic with those who suffered. “There had been a plowing up of his nature,” Labor Secretary Frances Perkins observed. “The man emerged completely warmhearted, with new humility of spirit and a firmer understanding of philosophical concepts.” Once easily dismissed as superficial, ambitious, and shallow, FDR responded to polio in a way that added new depth to his character. It intensified his ability to set priorities and to focus. “Polio,” Franklin Jr. said, “taught Father to concentrate on the things he was physically able to do and not waste time thinking about the things he could not.”34
When asked how polio had changed him, Roosevelt responded, “If you spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your big toe, after that anything else would seem easy!” “Having handled that, he probably thought there wasn’t anything he couldn’t deal with,” said Henry Morgenthau. “Once you’ve conquered that kind of illness, anything’s possible.”35
There is no question that FDR’s long struggle with polio made him a more resilient and ambitious leader. But it may also have contributed to another quality that became central to his character and his handling of the attack on Pearl Harbor: his propensity for deception.
Although his battle with polio was central to understanding FDR’s character, he was determined to prevent the public from ever knowing the extent of his paralysis. The grand deception began almost immediately. Howe needed to move Roosevelt from Campobello to New York without the press knowing the severity of his illness. To avoid having reporters see Roosevelt being carried on a stretcher, Howe brought him by boat to a secluded dock and loaded him on a private train car. He then propped him up so that local residents and reporters would see him in his familiar and reassuring position: smiling and waving from the window. He must have still been in tremendous pain, but appearances were more important. The next day, the New York Times ran a story quoting FDR’s physician, who assured readers that “he definitely will not be crippled.”36
Roosevelt developed effective ways to disguise his disability. At state dinners, he was always wheeled into the room and seated before his guests arrived. When traveling by train, he spoke from the rear car, where he could support himself with a metal rail or reinforced podium. He would ride in the back of an open automobile to greet voters. He had ramps specially constructed to allow the car to maneuver up to the podium. He even painted his steel braces black so they would match the color of his pants and shoes.37
Although he was the most photographed man of his times, of the thirty-five thousand photographs of him at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, only three show him seated in his wheelchair. There are no photographs, or newsreels, that show the time-consuming task of lifting him from his car into a chair, or of his strenuous, and awkward, effort to walk. An amateur filmmaker, Dr. Harold Rosenthal, captured the only moving images of Roosevelt “walking” in August 1933, when FDR attended an event at Vassar College. Reporters who wrote about Roosevelt rarely mentioned that he had no use of his legs.38
Although most Americans knew that Roosevelt was once inflicted by polio, they were not aware of the extent of his paralysis. In cartoons, he is often depicted as walking, ru
nning, jumping, and even boxing. When J. B. West was hired as the chief White House usher in 1941, he was shocked when he saw FDR for the first time. “It was only then that I realized that Franklin D. Roosevelt was really paralyzed,” he recalled. “Everybody knew that the president had been stricken with infantile paralysis, and his recovery was legend, but few people were aware how completely the disease had handicapped him.”39
FDR’s upbringing, and his struggle with polio, had taught him how to hide his feelings and to be deceptive when necessary. He knew how to deflect attention and to disguise uncomfortable realities. Those qualities would be on full display on the evening of December 7 as FDR met with congressional leaders to discuss the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Temperamentally, Eleanor did not share her husband’s cool, calm way of dealing with crises. She pointed out that it was much harder for her. “I can be calm and quiet, but it takes all the discipline I have acquired in life to keep on talking and smiling and to concentrate on the conversation addressed to me. I want to be left alone while I store up fortitude for what I fear may be a blow of fate.”40
It may have been harder for her to stay calm, but Eleanor shared her husband’s activist spirit. On the afternoon of the Pearl Harbor attacks, while FDR prepared to meet with his cabinet, Eleanor was in her study, writing remarks for her regularly scheduled weekly radio address. It revealed a great deal about her stature as first lady that the first Roosevelt the nation would hear from was not Franklin, but Eleanor.
Shortly after 6:30 p.m., she sat down in front of the microphone and addressed the nation. “I am speaking to you tonight at a very serious moment in our history,” she told her listeners. “The Cabinet is convening and the leaders in the Congress are meeting with the President. The State Department and Army and Navy officials have been with the President all afternoon.” She claimed that the Japanese ambassador was talking to the president “at the very time that Japan’s airships were bombing our citizens.” No doubt, Eleanor had seen the Chinese ambassador meeting with her husband and confused him for being Japanese. It was a mistake that many Americans would make over the next few weeks and months.
She stated that Congress would have a full report the next day. Although she never mentioned that the president would be asking for a declaration of war, she hinted at it, saying the nation would “be ready for action.” For months, there had been anticipation that the enemy would strike. “That is all over now and there is no more uncertainty. We know that we are ready to face it now.” The first lady expressed confidence that the nation would pull through the crisis. “Whatever is asked of us, I am sure we can accomplish it: we are the free and unconquerable people of the USA.”41
13
“1861”
LIKE MOST MEMBERS of the cabinet, Labor Secretary Frances Perkins was away from Washington on December 7. She had traveled to New York, where she had isolated herself in a hotel room to finish writing an important report. White House operators tracked her down in the afternoon and told her she was required to attend an emergency meeting at 8:00 p.m. Initially, the harried operators did not say what the meeting was about. “What’s the matter, Hacky,” she asked the operator, “why the cabinet meeting tonight?’ “Just the war, what’s in the paper,” the operator said hastily before hanging up to make her next call.1
Perkins called for a plane reservation and then rushed to the airport. Although she was a member of the president’s inner circle, she still knew little about what had taken place. On the way to the airport, she asked the taxi driver what he knew. “They said on the radio there was shooting somewhere,” he said.
At the airport, Perkins met Vice President Henry Wallace, who was in New York, and Postmaster General Frank Walker. They were also in the dark. No one had expected a Japanese attack. On the short plane ride to Washington, the three officials speculated about what might have happened. Since they were on a commercial flight, and surrounded by other passengers, the three administration members spoke in hushed tones. They recalled that FDR had discussed with them a few days earlier that a large Japanese fleet was at sea, but the speculation at the time was that it was headed for Singapore. Roosevelt had also raised the possibility that the fleet was moving north to cut the Russian supply lines. They, however, were not aware of any imminent direct threat to the United States.2
Upon arrival in Washington, Perkins, Wallace, and Walker went together directly to the White House, where they were ushered to FDR’s private second-floor study. Roosevelt sat silently behind his desk. He nodded when they walked in, but Perkins noticed “there was none of the usual cordial, personal greeting.” He “could not muster a smile.” She described him as “calm, not agitated.” Attorney General Francis Biddle, who had arrived at the last minute from Cleveland, described FDR as “deeply shaken, graver than I had ever seen him.”3
According to a memorandum that Hopkins wrote about the day’s events, the cabinet met “promptly” at 8:30 p.m. “All members were present,” he noted. “They formed a ring completely around the President, who sat at his desk.” Hopkins described FDR’s mood as “very solemn.” According to Perkins, Early sat near the president and showed him the latest dispatches. Knox and Stimson, both looking tired and tense, were scanning the same dispatches. “New information kept coming in every few minutes,” she recalled.4
Roosevelt put down the papers, looked up at the cabinet, and began addressing them in a low voice. He began by declaring this meeting the most important cabinet meeting since 1861—a reference to the critical early days of the Civil War. “You all know what’s happened,” he said quietly. A cabinet member spoke up. “Mr. President, several of us have just arrived by plane. We don’t know anything except a scare headline, ‘Japs Attack Pearl Harbor.’ Could you tell us more?”5
“The attack began at one o’clock,” Roosevelt explained. “We don’t know very much yet.” According to a detailed diary entry by Agriculture Secretary Claude Wickard, FDR placed blame for the attack on Germany. There was, FDR said, “no question but that the Japanese had been told by the Germans a few weeks ago that they were winning the war and that they would soon dominate Africa as well as Europe. They were going to isolate England and were also going to completely dominate the situation in the Far East. The Japs had been told if they wanted to be cut in on the spoils they would have to come in the war now.” Roosevelt told the group that he believed Japan’s motive behind the attack was to aid Germany by bringing “about the transfer of American naval vessels from the Atlantic to the Pacific.” He was determined to prevent this from happening.6
Roosevelt’s forced effort to link the Japanese attack to Hitler’s ambitions in Europe revealed a great deal about his thinking on Sunday evening. Roosevelt viewed the attack on Pearl Harbor as an extension of the war in Europe. He could not accept that the Japanese were capable of executing such a dramatic and devastating strike without the direct training and supervision of German military planners. The initial report that two of the planes used in the attack had swastikas painted on them no doubt reinforced this perception. For the past decade, Japan had made abundantly clear that its territorial ambitions in the Pacific were separate from events in Europe. FDR, however, insisted on seeing the Japanese as German puppets. In part, this misjudgment reflected his indifference to events in the Pacific and his refusal to understand the underlying reasons for Japan’s actions. At the same time, however, it served his larger strategic goal of keeping the nation focused on the war in Europe.
The president provided his team with an up-to-date report on the damage that had been inflicted but warned them to keep the information confidential. He told them that he was not going to be as open with the congressional leaders, who were already gathering outside the room, and would not share the detailed damage reports with them. He also planned to be vague about the message that would be delivered the next day.
He proceeded to tell his cabinet that both Guam and Wake Island were under attack and would soon fall into enemy hands. At
Pearl Harbor, a large number of aircraft had been destroyed, and six of seven battleships had been damaged—some very severely. According to Perkins, “the President could hardly bring himself to describe the devastation.”7
As the president recited the damage reports, Wickard noticed that Knox “had lost his air of bravado” and that Stimson “was very sober.” According to Perkins, FDR twice asked Knox during the cabinet meeting, “Find out, for God’s sake, why those ships were tied up in rows.”8
The cabinet was horrified by the reports of destruction. Wickard said he “was shocked at the news,” and “so were other members of the Cabinet.” Many members could not understand how Japan could have caught the U.S. Army and Navy forces on the island so unprepared. “It seems to me extraordinary,” Biddle observed, “that we should have been so unprepared as apparently is the situation.” Unwilling to accept that the military commanders had been grossly negligent, they assumed that the Japanese bombers had employed some brilliant new tactical maneuver. Biddle noted that it “is supposed that the Japanese airplanes flew at a great height of 25,000 feet perhaps, and dropped suddenly so that they might not be intercepted by pursuit planes.”9
Frances Perkins remarked that while FDR was clearly in anguish over the loss of life in Hawaii, his “surprise was not as great as the surprise of the rest of us.” She sensed a feeling of relief that “all conflicts which have harassed him for so many weeks or months, were ended.” The change in his demeanor was striking. “A great change had come over the President since we had seen him on Friday,” she recalled. “Then he had been tense, worried, trying to be optimistic as usual, but it was evident that he was carrying an awful burden of decision.” It was not clear what the United States would do if the Japanese struck British ports. “But one was conscious that night of December 7, 1941, that in spite of the terrible blow to his pride, to his faith in the navy and its ships, and to his confidence in the American intelligence service, and in spite of the horror that war had actually been brought to us, he had, nevertheless, a much calmer air. His terrible moral problem had been resolved by the event,” Perkins recalled.10
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