Of no ordinary time. If you could ask either track listen roosevelt or Eleanor Roosevelt a couple of questions after all the work you did on this book, what would they be . With eleanor i would like to ask her at a certain moment in the middle of the war when he asked her to be his wife again to say yes to him. I know he loved her, i wanted to say why didnt you do it . He is going to die soon. I wish she had done it. And also i would like to understand why he couldnt share himself more with everyone. He was the most ebullient permit on surface. Everyone knew how warm he was but upped knead there was reserve. I want to try to understand why he was so and why he couldnt give himself more fully to the people around him. What makes this book different than the rest . I wanted to understand franklin and eleanors relationship, and to understand the extended family that surrounded them until the white house. I came to the understanding that these two characters needed the other people to meet the untended needs left over as a result of their troubled marriage. What i came to sense is that the second quarters of the white house is the extended family. That was new and fun for me . If you had to ask them about personal relationships they had with other people, who would you be most interested in . I think not simply lucy mercer who everybody assumed is the central romantic figure in his life because she had an affair with him in 1918 and it almost broke up eleanors marriage. But there was his secretary, miss hand. She started working for him when she was 20 years old. She loved him the rest of her life, never married. Everyone in washington knew she was his other wife. When eleanor traveled she was the one who took care of roosevelt. If he had a cold she would bring him the cough medicine. If he were grumpy she would arrange a poker game. He had a Cocktail Party he have night and she would be his hostess. She was closest to him. Thats the relationship i would like to know more about. You have in the back this secondfloor scenario. We will get a closer shot here on some of these names. Why did you put this in the book . It seemed to me that what the reader was going to get from reading the book was, i hoped, a sense of what it was like 50 years ago to be in the white house and because each of these rooms was occupied by somebody who was very important to either franklin or eleanor, closest friends, romantic friends, i wanted everybody to so how close they were to see they could Wander Around in the middle of the corridors at night and actually talk the each other. What we are was this . 1940 to 1945. These rooms depict that period of time. On one end you have Eleanor Roosevelts bedroom. Right across the haul is lorena hicock. Right. Who is lorraiena hicock. Who was their relationship . This was the second floor of the white house . She had been a former reporter for the Associated Press n. 1933 she was considered the leading female reporter in the country. She weighed about 200 pounds. Smoked cigars, played poker with the guys. She was really start. She came the interview the couple in 1932 and eleanor and her became really close friends. She fell in love with eleanor and helped her become the activist first lady. It was she who came up with the idea of eleanors press conference every week. Only female reporters were allowed to come. So many he to mail reporters got their start because of that. She helped eleanor transform the role of the first lady from a ceremonial to an activist one. She nell in love with eleanor. Eleanor didnt reciprocate it but they were close enough friends that she wanted here nearby. They lived in the white house the entire time during the war. Also on the second floor in this schematic you have a room if which Harry Hopkins lived in. How long did he live there . Who was he . Harry hopkins had been roosevelts chief new deal man in the 193 s. He had been a social worker originally. When the war broke in and out europe in may of 1940. Hopkins was staying overnight that night. Roosevelt decided to keep him there. He wanted to talk to him first thing in the morning and late at night. He made hopkins hin charge of Foreign Policy. He makes kissinger look like a back seat guy in terms of the power he wielded in the white house stho how long was he there . From 1940 to ends of 42 when he got married. He eventually stayed there six months with his new wife. And she wanted a house of their own. Another bedroom is called the rose room. You show mr. Chump hill, sarah who is . Roosevelts mother. And martha. Thats an interesting room, that room. First, whenever the mother came she wanted the best bedroom sui suite. She would come to visit once a month with her maids and her servants and always being a duchess in the white house. Princess martha was an interesting character. She had come to washington in the war years in he can i will from norway. Her son is currently the king of norway now. She was beautiful. She was long legged. Roosevelt always liked his women tall. So it seems. I think she had a gay spirited kind of conversation he just enjoyed. Eleanor understood that he needed that kind of companionship. So she would visit on weekends and keep him company in the movies, in dinners at night, often again while eleanor was away. But when churchill came no one else stayed in the suite. He was an incredible character during this period of time. He would stay three or four weeks at time. His habits were so exhausting that nobody else could sleep during the period of time he was there. He would awaken in the morning, have wine for breakfast. He would have scotch and soda for lunch. Brandy at night smoking his cigars until 2 00 a. M. And when he would finally leave, the entire white house staff to have to sleep for 72 hours in order the recuperate from churchills visits. You mentioned, you had in quote marks in the book that the relationship between princess nora of nor way and fdr was romantic . Some of the people who lived in the white house during that time suggested she was his girlfriend that was a flirtation between the two. I suspect thats what the element of the relationship was. It wasnt like he was working or a political partner or a friend or companion. It was a flirtatious relationship. Where it went beyond kiss asking romance or a sense of pleasure i dont know. But it certainly was that. You show that anna stay in one of those bedrooms. Shes honey in this picture in the middle next to her father. What happened in that relationship. Anna had originally been her mothers daughter. When anna was a young girl and adolescent eleanor told her the story of lucy mers and the fact that her father had this affair with lucy long ago. Anna had taken her mothers side. Over the years they wrote each other two or three times a week and after the war after eleanor rejected franklins quest to stay home and be his wife again he got so loan low that he asked their daughter anna to take missys place. She had had a stroke and couldnt speak again. Because he was lonely without missy and his mother also died after missys stroke. He asked anna to come and stay in the white house. What happened is in some ways she became her fathers daughter. She had long legs. She was tall. She loved cocktails. She could gossip at night with him. All the things eleanor never found it easy to do. Anna did. After a while eleanor felt displaced by her own daughter. It was a complicated relationship. Where do you live . Concord. Why . I love the city. I grew up outside of new york and my husband loves the real country. He would prefer living in maine. Concord seemed to be near enough to boston that i could have my city life and near enough to country that he could feel that he was living outside of the subu suburb. What does your husband do . Richard goodwin. Hes a writer also. He has been involved in the quiz show scandal movie. He investigated the rigged television quiz showed. He is having a great time. He is being portrayed as a 27yearold actor on the big screen. Tells like decades dropped off of his life, mostly he is a writer. Where did you meet him . At harvard. He came to finish a book. I was teaching. He and i had an office next the each other. Thats how it happened. You dedicate the book to three people . Three sons. The most important people in my life. One is a freshman in his mid 20s. And youngest one is still at home in high school. I wish they were 4, 6, and 8 again. How many books have you written . Three. What were approximate other two . The first was Lyndon Johnson and the american dream. That came out of the experience that i will forever treasure of having been 23 and 24 years old and working for president johnson in the white house. And then helping him with his memoirs. I still keep thinking johnson is still around. I keep thinking he is thinking this book on roosevelt is 700 pages the one on me was only 350 i believe pas. How can you do that. I found him so snad his retirement at the ranch that it was almost like he had nothing left in his life once politics was taken from him. That experience seared into my mind forever and made up the first book. The second one is the fitzgeralds and the kennedys. Three generations of the kennedy family. Partly made possible pie the fact i was given access to rose and joe kennedys private papers because my husband was originally on the white house staff with kennedy. We knew the family. This is the first time i have had to slog it through with an ordinary historian without the advantage of knowing Lyndon Johnson or the keptdy family. It has been fun. Have new information in the book . Oh, yes. By choosing this period of time and focusing on the American Home front rather than the battlefront for all the thousands of books written about world war ii there have been very few that focus on what happened here at home. Most have been essay books. A erpt cha on the the civil rights, a erpt cha on the incarceration camps or women in the factories. But there has been little written about roosevelts leadership how he mobilized the democracy. Somehow that was his greatest contribution in a sense to the war. Even more than the strategy of the war itself, he got our country to produce the weapons for the war, that is what won the war. Turning around an isolationist economy an economy in the midst of a depression is making it so productive. It is a great story. Why did you find the white house ushers diaries. This is one of my most incredible thools that was there for anybody to see. They are in the Roosevelt Library on microfiche. What happened at the end of the day, there would be a white house usher who would record everything that happened during the day. Roosevelt awakens at 7 00, mass a massage at 7 15. Goes to breakfast. They would record who he had ate lunch with or dinner with. I could go to dinner guests diaries to find out what they talked about at lunch. They would record that eleanor was with joe lash and he had a diary. It was for anybodys to see, they are public but hadnt been used before. Who issicies. Haroldicys, the secretary of the interior. Sis son is in bill clintons white house staff. Morguen that will. Roosevelt had an annual poker game every year and it would always be held on the day that the congress was going to adjourn. The rule was that whoever was ahead at the moment the speaking of the house called to adjourn would win. On one particular night morgan all this they played at midnight roosevelt starts winning, and he whispers to an aide bring the phone the me. Oh, mr. Speaker, you are adjourning now. Roosevelt wins the game. Total manipulation. Everything is great until the next morning that morganthal reads in the newspapers they adjourned at 9 30. And he resigned until roosevelt apologized to him. Someone else resigned. Fdr wrote him a letter. Ickes. He says i got fluttery all over. Did he talk that way. Ickes resigned several times, he would get upset about policy issues. Roosevelt wrote him a letter saying you cant resign, i need you, you are important the me. You are right, he said when i read your letter i to the fluttery all over. I couldnt believe it. They did talk that way. It shows the you a they felt for this man who was still their president. I found it. Ickes gratefully replied makes me feel all fluttery. To have you write about me like you did is like an accolade the my spirit. And goes on. I know. How did you go about this . Where did you work . In terms of research largely at the Roosevelt Library in hyde park, new york. It made you feel like you were going back in time. Because the place, the house where roosevelt was born, the place that was eleanors cottage looks exactly as it looks when they were there. Sometimes when you are in the middle of working in a library room and you take a walk around the envie rons you can feel like you are back 50 years in time. It was so wonderful. There were motels in the area that you stay in across from the Roosevelt Library and you feel like this is what a collar is supposed to be doing. Living right at the place where the subjects lived themselves. Where is the library . In hyde park. A three hour drive. Beautiful drive. The hudson river fell below. The house where roosevelt was born is only feet from the the library is a great house and has a lawn that goes down to the hudson river below. You are surrounded by beauty while you are doing this oldfashioned research. You mentioned val kill. Whats that . Thats the cottage roosevelt built for eleanor. A cottage actually was 22 rooms in arhys toe of the contractic terms. It wasnt a cottage. After his affair with lucy mercer and they decided to Stay Together it gave eleanor the freedom to go outside the marriage to find fulfill men. And she found women who are activists. And sarah del for roosevelt, franklins mother looked askance at them. They werent the fancy people she was used to. Eleanor didnt feel bringing her Women Political friends to the big house where franklin and sarah lived. Want to show the picture here of mrs. Roosevelt, the mother, in the middle. Thats the perfect symbolic picture in the middle. When frank limp went to harvard she got a town house to be near him. When he married eleanor, she got two town houses, one for him and one for him and doors to each of them. He suggested he would build her her own cottage. It was a 22 room house about a mile and a half from the big house and allowed eleanor to have a home of her own. She loved the place. She lived there after he died until she herself died. If somebody has never been to that part of the country, how far from new york city . Probably a couple hours. By train it is. Along the hudson river. Along the hudson river, in duchess county. In those years, the war years that you are writing about here domestically where did franklin vel and Eleanor Roosevelt spend their time besides the white house and hyde park. Hyde park was the most important place for them. He went 200 times to hyde park during his presidency. Thats the most important place. How would he get there. By train. Get on the train at washington at 10 00 or 11 00 at night and he would reach height park by the morning. He would sleep on the train. He loved traveling by train. He could feel grounded on the train. Eleanor liked to get places fast. She only liked to travel by plane. But she would go with him by train as well. Quick points. What year did he die . 1945. Do you remember the exact date . April 12th. What year did he contract polio and have to have the leg irons . 1921, when he was only 37iers old he contracted polio. I think one of the things i understood more doing this book than i had before is how much that paralysis was a part of his everyday life. I assumed he conquered it somehow and it was simply left a bit laim but he was a full paraplegic. It couldnt get out of the bed without turning his body to the side and being helped into the wheelchair by the valet to get to the bathroom. He couldnt walk. I think the most extraordinary moment when i was doing research i interviewed Betsy Whitney who was married to jimmy roosevelt, the vels oldest son. She said how do you ask him in the middle of the war how do you fall asleep at night with all that you have to face. As soon as he answered he described his own method of counting sheep. He would imagine he was a young boy again at hyde park and it was a favorite sledding hill behind his house which i have seen from going there. In the presidency as he is falling asleep he would imagine he was a young boy getting on the sled. When he would get the sled at the bottom of the hill he would pick it you be, run to the top and do it over and over again until he fell asleep. I thought my god this man is the most powerful man in the world yet he is imagining falling asleep at night getting solace that he can run walk again. The things that were robbed from him at the height of his powers at 37. We need to get the Lucy Mercer Rutherford story down. At one point you talked about when he would go from washington to hyde park he figured out a way to stop and see her in new jersey . Thats right. She had an estate in new jersey. Somehow he loved to figure out maps anyway. He loved old geography things. He figured out the Railroad Lines and knew if he went along a different pattern and he had to equips the secret service that it was safe for him to do this. Then he could spend a day with lucy. This was not until the last year of his life. People assume he knew her all his life. The affair was in 1918 and he was with her when he died. I thought they knew each other that entire time. He kept his pledge not to see her again until after eleanor refused to be his wife again and after anna was in the white house and after he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. I believe in that last year you knew he was dying. He went to the plantation in march or april of 44 to recover. It was there he sauce louis immerser essentially for the First Time Since 118, and she had just lot lost her husband, Winthrop Rutherford who was wealthy. So she was widowed. And i believe when he saw her then what it did more than anything was to awaken in him a memory of what it was like when he was young, before the polio. He had nope her three years before his polio attack. And now his heart was giving way and he decided he wanted to see her regularly. How did he start the original affair with her . She had been a social seth working for eleanor. When he was assistant secretary of the navy they moved the washington. Eleanor felt worried about the Social Circle of invitations you would have to go to. She hired a young woman, lousy mercer who came from a blue blood family but needed money because her father was an alcoholic. And lucy came and worked for the roosevelts. Somewhere in that period of time between 1914 and 1918 a relationship developed between lucy and franklin. How long was the affair. Somewhere two or three years but it came to an abrupt end when eleanor came upon a packet of love letters lucy had written to franklin. She said when she found the letters the bottom fell out of her world. And she offered franklin a divorce. In some ways i think the attraction was she was confident, gay, easy, eleanor was still haunted by the insecurities of her chooldhood where her mother told her she was ugly as a little girl and her father was an alcoholic and the memory was being intrusive about the kids and it was hard for her to develop a full sense of herself. When confronted with the thought of louising eleanor it was the last thing he wanted. Back in those days what did the public know . Did they know about polio, the braces on his legs . Did they know about lucy, did they know about missy, Princess Martha of norway. Certain members of the press knew about lucy mercer. They knew missy la hand lived in the white house, that there was an conunvengsal number of People Living in the white house. And there was a sense that his private life is his private life and unless whatever he is doing has an kbag on his public activities. I read about one reporter who said who are we to judge . As far as the paralysis goes, what astonished me was that the majority of the people thought as i did he was simply lame. The reason they were allowed to feel that way was that not a newsreel offer showed him in a wheelchair, in hissis bras crippled. It was a code of honor that the president wasnt to be seen that way. If a young photographer came along and tried to snap a picture sometimes reporters would see the president being carried from a car into a building like child but never take a picture of it. If a younger photographer tried to do it an older guy would knock the camera to the ground. I think there is a decency this the medimmediatmedia reverence president is missing right now. There was a reserve that i suspect served us better at that time. You also talk about and it has been talked about before, volumes of mrs. Roosevelts daily column. Did she write it herself. Did she ever. Absolutely. If you read them you can see the only way it was possible for her to write the column was really a recording of what she did during the day. It works because it wasnt high thoughts or great moments of issues but it was so warm just as she was and it was so full of activity because her schedule was even more extraordinary than his. When you look at the ushers diaries her daily life was twice as long as his was. She went into the my grant workers camps, she went to the mines. There is a famous cartoon. She visited blacks in the south south. Went to ccc camps. That traveling gave her experience she could recount in her daily column and teal people what she was thinking and feeling as she met so Many Americans during the course of her travels. What would happen if you took the roosevelt presidency and moved to it modern day america. Column every day, radio show, handicapped, affairs. All that it is scary to think about. If eleanor and franklin hadnt been allowed that network of friendships in the white house that allowed them to sustain themselves while they were going through the difficult days of the depression and the war they wouldnt have been as strong a leaders as they are. I am confident that roosevelt needed the relaxation messy could provide when his wife wasnt. Missy had been involved in Harry Hopkins. Can you imagine the press, harry is living there, too. Is theirry involved with missy . I think in some ways if we hadnt had at that time that kind of space for their private lives they wouldnt have been replenished as political leaders. The paralysis is interesting. You wish he would have had the courage to go to the possible and say to the public i am crippled and it is okay. Because they loved him because of his courage and his strength. Only at the end of his life did he ever give a speech when he was sitting down. He finally excused himself and sat down. Somehow that speech made an enormous emotional impact on the country because they then saw he was conquering this disability. How much did he spend in warm springs, georgia . During the last president ial years in the war he was only down there three or four times. But prior to the war he went down every thanksgiving. Why . He had an annual dinner for the patients at warm springs. Originally created the Warm Springs Rehabilitation Center in the 1920s. Went down there because the hot springs that come out of the ground naturally in that area were thought to help with polio. He created a rehab center. Lots of patients would be down there. I think his contagious confidence helped them get through their own polio. He liked to spend every thanksgiving with them. That was a pledge he made. Did you go to all of these places. I went to warm spring. What is amazing, it is a primitive setting. You look at the little white house. There is one defined room thats the dinning room and living room. His bedroom is the side of a small boys bedroom. There was one other bedroom where missy la hand would stay and one other guest room where eleanor would stay and thats it. You would imagine lush surroundings for a president of the United States. He loved the simplicity. It tells you a lot about him when you see that. What about campo bella. It is his mothers place when he was a young boy. It was up off the border of maine and canada. It was a beautiful home, also the place where he got polio. So they didnt really travel there much longer after those early years. They went there a lot in the teens the early 1920s. After he got polio, frank lips wife went up there more often than he did. What impact did him being an only child have. His father was an alcoholic. And his mother was told she couldnt have any other children. Awful her large which was large was focused on him. She gave him unconditional love. And because he was so important to her she never allowed him the freedom to feel like he could stand apart. You have the feeling she hovered over him all of his life. Even though that may be the source of his confidence one of my favorite quotes from churchill said when you met roosevelt he had such confidence, such sparkle it was like opening your first bottle of champagne to be around him. I think thats a great gift that a mother gives a child but if she would separate i think he would have had an easier time with intimacy with other people. If you go to the hyde park residence, two big chairs by the fair place, one is marked sarah, the other is franklin. No chair for eleanor . Exactly. You go through as a tourist and the hostess says it to you as if it is natural. Heres where sarah sadd, where eleanor sat. Where did eleanor sit . Wherever she could find a chair. Then in the dining room sarah and franklin are at the ends, and eleanor finds a spot. She tramd mistress of the house. Even after he died eleanor wants to change it around and make it her house. Franklin cant bear the thought of making changes in his boyhood home. We will get a shot of this, hyde park. It shows the bedrooms. His and eleanors and where his mother stayed. Sarah would be there when franklin and eleanor were there. Look at the relative size of the bedrooms. Frankl franklins is very large and spacious. Sarah is large and spacious. And eleanor has a single bed in what must have been the dressing room for one of the brooms. She didnt have to take that small of a room but there was part of her that was a martyr in a certain accepts and liked to have tough conditions to live up to as a challenge because she had been used to those as a child. I found that part very sad. Harry hopkins died at age 55. Lucy mercer at 7 00. Ever thouson. Eleanors secretary. Died at 61. Princess martha died at 53. Yeah. Hicock died at 75. Anna, the daughter, died at 64 or yeah. She was pretty young, too. How come . I. Harry hopkins, to start with him. When was at the end of the new deal period he was diagnosed with cancer of the stomach and he had almost his entire stomach removed. Public life gave him an extra less on life. When he was made the Foreign Policy adviser he got through what most people would have died from. He was so sick during the war. He looked like he was dying. He was so thing. His body was being eatan away. After roosevelt died and there was no longer room for him in public life then he allowed himself to die. Churchill said he was like a columnibling light house. Fun and full of energy it kept him alive but his body was giving way won him. Princess martha she too had illnesses in her 40s. And died young in her 50s. So did lucy. Tuberculosis spread and something bad happened. How old was fdr when he died . He was 63. How old was eleanor. Eleanor lasted from 1882 to 1961. So she is sent something. She lasted another 17 years after fdrs death. The kids. How many kids were there . Thats not a happy story in many ways. There were five children. The daughter, anna was the oldest and then there were four sons. Jimmy, elliot, john, and somebody whose name frank li jr. It was hard for the five of them to grow up in the shadow of the giant oak of their parents. For the the five children had a combination of 18 marriages between them. I think they had a hard time apprenticing themselves to becoming people in their own right. They wanted to skip steps and suddenly become important, run for senate or governor. They never got their own confidence on their own. It is not an easy part of this story. Anna married twice. Her second husband jumps out of a hotel room in new york city. How come. He was a manic depressive and was under sedation for his psychological illness. They had already separated. He was always troubled. You can see it during their marriage. They write romantic letters. You feel them clinging to each other in an unnatural way. Shortly after the way, her husband felt he no longer had the platform of the roosevelt presidency to stand on now that roosevelt was dead and couldnt make his way in the publishing world anymore and got so sad that he jumped out the window and killed himself. Did you talk to franklin jr. I talked with three of annas children. John died at age 65, the done of fdr. He had two marriages but died a republican. Yes. He became a republican egge early in his life. Much to the dismay of the family. Fdr jr. Married four times. What was he like, died at age 74. What was he like. When he smiled you could see fdr and that sparkling personal all over again. He did have some success in politics and was successful in John Kennedys campaign in west virginia. They sent fdr jr. Down there to campaign for kennedy. It was considered one of the things that turned the time. Elliot married five times. Five times. Died at age 80 in 1990. What was he like . I talked to him before he died. Again there was a twinknell the blue eyes that gave you a memory of Franklin Roosevelt but he had a tough time finding himself. I think the alcoholism that was in he will unders family visited itself upon elliot. He had success in politics. He was a mayor in palm beach. Mainly he wrote mystery stoers after a while, eleanor was the detective. There is always a dead body and his mother becomes a detective. He wrote a series of sort of tell all books about the family that all the other family found disquieting. James died in 1981, four marriages. Ran for nixon. He had some success as a congressman for a while from california. He never was able to hold on to his career or his family easily. It has not been an easy time as i say for any of those children. Would you mind jumping to the end and telling as much as you can remember about the last couple of days of fdr . What had happened was after he came back from the conference and after he gave this major speech to the congress in march of 1945, everybody could see that his health was failing. And somehow, when he went to warm springs, georgia, there had always been this sense that he would recuperate by going down there, something about the air, the bouty, the simplicity of the place. So they decided he would make an extended trip to warm springs. At the ends of march he went down to warm springs. He brought with them laura delano, his spinster cousins. Characters, these cousins and margaret suckly. They kept him company. He didnt have much work to do. The first week or so it seemed like he was getting bounce back, gaining some weight back. He was losing weight tremendously in the last year. Then he invited lusy mercer to stay with him. She brought with her a painter friend, who wanted to do a portrait of roosevelt. Then what happens is that he seems to be getting better. He takes these little driving trips with lucy. There was a favorite place where you could see the whole valley in georgia from that place. Lucy wrote she would never forget that day when he talked about all the plans for when his presidency was over and the idealism he had of what the world would be like after the war was over. On april 12th he woke up and people surprisingly thought he looked better than he had for weeks. His color was radiant probably it was as doctors said the embolism that killed him was developing. All that morning he was talking to lucy and her friend who was painting a portrait of him. The two spinster cousins are there. Suddenly in the middle of talking to them at noon on april 12th he suddenly said i have a terrific headache and he slumped forward. One of the cousins weapon over to him thinking he had dropped his cigarette or something and realized he had become unconscious. Metalik they called for doctors, called for help and they carried him into his bedroom. Lucy knew enough to leave. She knew she shouldnt be there. She and the painter did leave. Then what happened is he died about an hour and a half later, never regained consciousness. They called eleanor and told her. She was in the middle of giving a speech in washington when she found out. She said the minute the phone rang she knew what happened. She could feel it. They didnt tell her he had died. They said to come back to the white house immediately. They called her away from the dais. She excused and said i must leave now but i will be back to see you at some point. She went to the white house and they told her he had died. She called for the Vice President to come so she could give the news to harry truman. Thats one of the celebrated moments in history when he says is there anything i can do for you and she responds no, but is there anything i can do for you for you are the one in trouble now. Then she asked to use the president ial plane to go down to warm springs georgia to see her husbands body. She asked the cousin who were there tell me everything that happened in the last 24. Laura i believe always loved fdr and was probable bow jealous of eleanor because she malicious decided to tell eleanor lucy had been there. She just said she would have found out anyway and when pushed further she decided the tell her that lucy had been at the white house the last year and anna her daughter had been the one to make those arrangements. I cant imagine what it must have been like for eleanor to present the strong face to the world getting on the train with her husband on that famous train road to washington knowing the deep hurt she felt. When she got to the white house ana was there. All anna said i didnt know what to do. I loved you both and i felt caught in the crossfire. And anna said she was sure their relationship had been destroyed fore. I didnt want to end the book at that point because death is a natural place to end it. I decided to follow the story lieu the summer and the fall of 45 after his death. Thank god what i was able to find is that as eleanor traveled the country again that summer everywhere she went people told her how much they loved her husband. People she thought were her people felt their lives were better off at the end of the war than at the start. She kept wanting more than he could provide during the war. Now she saw later in the summer of 45 that the country was indeed a better place. Blacks worked where they hadnt been allowed before. Women had a mastery more than they had before the war. She said as she heard all of these tales she began to feel a sense of how much the country owed to Franklin Roosevelt and when she felt that she was able to forgive him for what had happened. Finally in august of 45 after the bomb was dropped she was able to go to and the war came to an end she was able to go to anna her daughter and forgive her as well affording a recommend silliation that lasts the rest of their lives. When i learned that my heart full in knowing this woman had done something i am not sure i could have done. Could i have the spirit to forgive a deep hurt. But it meant that the rest of her life, the next 17 years instead of harboring bitterness toward her husband she loved him even more then that in life and was able to incorporate his strength into her life. She was the one who thought about what should be done and he thought about what could be done. Now after he died she became more like him. She was better politician after his death than before. Now she had to be both of them. Not just herself. It was an amazing end to the story. It makes you realize if you looked at the story from the outside in as the media would do today they would accuse him of infideli infidelity. Accuse him of harassment because of his relationship with his secretary. And accuse him of betrayal because of his relationship with his mother. They were trying to get through their lives with the best mixture of love and transport and through work and affection. The challenge is not to expose and to label and stereotype in biography. What i wanted to do was to extent empathy to understand why they needed all of these relationships and not to judge them harshly because of their own human needs. You have some references to the fact that she went in to stand by his body at warm springs, wanted some moments by herself. And then when she got to the white house she did the same thing and the,ers kept everybody out. How did you find that out . One of the ushers at the white house who was there when she asked him to close the door was inside the room and he wrote in a memoir that he saw as she stood by the body she opened the casket one last time so she could say goodbye to him privately. He was standing right there and wrote it in a memoirs. People at warm springs wrote memoirs of those last minutes. Everyone kept a diary at that moment in time knowing it would be important for history. You found a letter between lusy mercer and anna. It was in the papers at the library. It had never been published. The son of anna wrote a book about his mother and father and his fathers death. What is wonderful about the letter is after fdr died anna felt so bereft during that period of time because she letter in her bedside table for the rest of her life. It confirmed how much her father loved her but maybe confirmed her not feeling too guilty about putting lucy together with her father because it shows what a woulderful woman lucy was. Did you ever find yourself getting emotional about all of this . Absolutely. Not only emotional. You live with the characters for six years. It took me longer to work on this book im afraid than the war to be fought. That is what is embarrassing. I would find myself talking to franklin and eleanor and Harry Hopkins and to anna as if they were still alive. I mean, you really feel their presence. And when bad things happened to them, when one of them hurts one another, you feel it. I mean thats the only way can you do it when you get so absorbed in all of this. Where did you write it . Mostly at home. I have a study on the second floor of my house. We live right on the main street in concord. So it is one you can walk right into the town. I filled the study with pictures of franklin and eleanor and pictures of the war and the women going to war. Women going to work in the factories. I got all the books i could find on thisser rachlt i wanted them with me this time. I love libraries. Usually you use libraries a lot. But in this case i wanted to be able to have the books as much presence. I went to every used bookstore. The book is filled with roosevelt and world war ii books. How do you write . I fear i write in long hand. Im so primitive still. I cannot think on the typewriter. Ive never been able to. So i write it all out in long hand and then the worst stage is i then copy it all over so that a typist can read the writing. And thats when i edit when i copied it all over and gave it to a typist who would type it up on a computer and give it back to me. Then i didnt really look at it all until the whole first draft was done. Then at the very end, i put it on my computer. He taught know edit. He taught me how to edit. Im not sure i can write on it. At least i learned how to edit on the computer. I felt very proud. What time of day do you write . Usually i start early in the morning. My husband and i both get up really early. For some reason he awakens at 5 30 or 6 00 in the morning and sometimes we work out. Sometimes we work out if were in one of those moods and then we both start working pretty early. Before the kids go to school at 7 00 and work into the middle of the afternoon and then go play tennis or do errands. That is a fun thing with a husband in the same line of business, you could take your breaks together. And you said six years, the whole Research Project and how long did it take to you write it. I would guess, of the six years, four of them were research and two were writing. In the last two years i still needed to go more research. You would come upon something and didnt know the answer and go back to hyde park and so i was there at the library within weeks of finishing the book. Your favorite thing in the book. I think my favorite thing in the book is the discovery that eleanor and franklin still loved each other during this period of time. The conventional wisdom among historians was that after the affair with lucy mercer in 1918 their marriage was a pure Political Partnership and i was happy to discover that they could still hurt each other, during this period, that there was still a live emotions and they kept missing aex other. I wanted to push them together because i could feel the love between them but i was glad to find that out. You knew Lyndon Johnson. Did you know john f. Kennedy. No. I met him once. But i knew the family. Did you know Jacqueline Kennedy . Yes. What is the closest you got to the roosevelt. I never saw franklin or eleanor personally. The closest i got were two sons who i interviewed before they died. And then all of the children of those children who were really very helpful to me. Of the three books and all of the thinking about these politicians, who is your favorite . Well, i think ill probably always be most grateful to Lyndon Johnson but not for the reasons you might think. I think watching him in the last years of his life on the ranch helping him on his memoirs was a searing experience to see a man who had no other resources in his life but politics. He didnt know how to get through the day without politics. He would have mock meetings to figure out which to do and which cows were given the itch med sit medicine. Medicine and he had to have mostings like in the white house but no longer as it bills on the hill, it is the ranch. Like a crazy setting for him and at night he couldnt go to sleep unless he knew how many people were coming there the library. He wanted manufacture people going through that library than the kennedy library. So after a while he would say get them in, free donuts or coffee or anything. But i saw a man who sad that he couldnt even be alone when i would be down there he would ask me to stay outside of his room when he took a nap and he would wake me up at 5 30 in the morning to take. And when youre 23 you think the most exciting thing would be becoming president of the United States but he didnt balance that with love or family or friendship or sports or anything else that it left him berrest and not long after that experience of watching him die i got married and had children and one of the reasons it takes so long to write the books i wanted to be with the kids while they were little. I didnt want to be left like Lyndon Johnson. When president carter was president he asked me to be the head of the peace corp and i would have loved to do and the kids were little and i remembered Lyndon Johnson and i knew the kids would be grown all too quickly and i didnt want to end up that way. So nothing could compete with that. Where were you born. In rockville center, new york. In rockefeller center. Rockville center, i was a huge baseball fan. My love of history started with baseball because my father taught me to keep score and i would recreate the games for him. The brooklyn dodger games and i thought without me he would not know and he never told me the scores were in the newspaper and that is where i started to love history. Where do you go to college. To Colby College in maine and then harvard. What was your thesis. In constitutional law. It was on two attempts to overturn Supreme Court decisions. Dirkson on the prayer in the schools and the one man one vote decision and in both cases the amendments failed. Going to write another book. Oh, sure, my husband and i are going to work on a book together. I remember interviewing president carter saying the biggest mistake he made was writing a book with his wife. But were going to do a book about 15 decisions and johnson and each one will illustrate a different power of the presidency and each one will be told as a story and a dramatic moment in that president s life so a young person reading it in college would get a history of the presidency but through these great decisions. So hoping theyll love history as much as we do. What do your kid think of all of this. Because weve been home so much of the time when we work, they havent really seen the end results until now as teenagers. They see this book out and they see their father in the quiz show moving and being played as the 27yearold and one of them came out of the movie saying, dad, youre a stallion again. It is a pride. Where it is not a career when theyre confronting who their parents are. Theyre much more quiet. I do television at home and people are much more aware, because i do a local commentary for our abc affiliate in boston and a Weekly Television show for 12 years. When we go on the streets people will know me from that and the kids are queasy about getting stopped all of the time. The writing is the fabulous thing to combine with family life because were home most of the time. We havent got much time. But when you go to fdrs home and see the library and then val kill which is a couple of miles away where eleanor spent her time. What was your thoughts about what kind of family feeling would that be. She over there and him at the other place. And the thing so striking in the two separate places. Is how different they are. The big house of sarah and franklin is perfectly put together and the china matches and the furniture is gorgeous. Eleanor has mix matched china and every chair in the living room was a different size so a fat and tall and thin person and short person would be comfortable in the chairs. You know how opposite their temperament was. She liked to make people feel at ease and he loved the elegance of the first place. So in some ways they were never meant for each other but thank god the opposite attracted when they were young and had enough to keep them going through this long marriage. I know this is not fair with a minute to go, but how about the relationship between her women friends at val kill, a lot has been written about that. What do you think the relationship was. I think it is a relationship where eleanor was loved by somebody particularly Lorena Hickock for the first time she felt the center of somebody elses life. I know some claim she was a lesbian but i dont think that is so i think the most important thing to understand is that this woman loved her and she loved her and helped her to become a better first lady. The truth is historians dont know whether they went beyond hugs and kisses and people try to appropriate eleanor one way or another and i think if she came back today and were considered a lesbian and it gave a role model to younger people she would be the first to say thats fine but i dont think she would have ever defined herself that way. No ordinary time with fdr with doris kearns goodwin. Thank you very much. Oh, youre so welcome. 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I was called on the phone, they said why don