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