Joseph Lelyveld - His Final Battle (Book Review)

This is an excellent reading experience about the last days of Franklin D. Roosevelt.  FDR is the most consequential American of the 20th Century.  It's hard to imagine that the country and the world would have made it thru the great depression and the Nazis without "that man."

I type these words on a Saturday night after Auburn beats Vanderbilt 23 to 16 as I watch Georgia and Kentucky.  The Wildcats are in contention in the weak SEC East.  The Tigers head to Athens next Saturday,

The last days covered in this book are roughly the last year and half of his life during which he was deciding whether to run for a fourth term, the war was coming to an end with D-Day on the origin, and he was wrestling with how to deal with Stalin.  During this team his health status was carefully hidden from public view.

The account of his last months is a scary thing because it is obvious that FDR could have died long before he did in April of 1945.  The world needed him until the end of his days.

The bottom line is that Roosevelt suffered from congestive heart failure due to long-term hypertension.  This was diagnosed in March of 1944.

This account brings out Roosevelt's deviousness in full color.  How you would judge this depends on your political persuasions.  He liked to preserve his options in any given situation as long as possible.

FDR was always enigmatic.  P. 15

He had Daisy Suckley for his "mind rest."  p. 77

He never warmed up to Charles DeGaulle.  P. 147

He was in "acute pain."  P. 197

In addressing Congress after returning from Yalta, the President tells Congress that the deal on Poland was the best that he could do.  Is this right?  It is not for me to say.  P. 300

Was FDR outwitted by Stalin at Yalta?  I do not know.

FDR said days before he died that Stalin had broken all of the promises he had made at Yalta.  P. 304

His statecraft was often to avoid confrontation, avoid problems as long as possible, in the belief that some problems would eventually solve themselves.  Stalin tested his modus operandi.  P. 310

Could FDR have done better at Yalta?  Was he too sick at that meeting to do what should have been done?  Did he sell-out Eastern Europe to Stalin?

On his last sojourn to Warm Springs he did not want Eleanor along for she kept him on edge with her endless demands.  Did she know about hit perilous physical state?  P. 314

I find it hard to believe that as Doris Kearns Goodwin contends Eleanor ever forgave her husband for Lucy's presence at Warm Springs on April 12, 1945.

Keeping Truman in the dark on the bomb and Yalta may have been in keeping with FDR's way of doing business, but it cannot be forgiven.

Even Senator Taft, Mr. Republican, paid tribute to Roosevelt after his death.

The end of the war will always be clouded in different opinions.  Did HST need to drop the bombs on Japan?  Would Japan have given up soon anyway?  What part did Stalin's entry into the Pacific war play in Japan's surrender?