Chapter 18
Off the Record
AS HAD BEEN THE CASE DURING THEIR VISIT TO THE LITTLE WHITE House in December 1944, Daisy slept in Eleanor’s bedroom, which was adjacent to FDR’s. Because the walls of the cottage were thin, Daisy had a pretty good idea about how FDR was getting on at night. She noticed a few days after their arrival in Georgia that he had a strong coughing spell at about 5:00 a.m., which concerned her. But Dr. Bruenn assured Daisy this was nothing to worry about, just the clearing of accumulated mucus that often occurs in the early hours.1
To help FDR gain weight, Daisy and Polly had taken it upon themselves to bring him “a cup of gruel” most evenings, after Arthur Prettyman had undressed the president and gotten him safely into bed. On more than one occasion, in fact, Daisy would spoon-feed FDR, while she sat devotedly on one side of his bed, and Polly sat on the other. FDR seemed to love this arrangement, as it allowed him “to be able to turn away from his world problems and behave like a complete nut for a few moments, with an appreciative audience laughing with him & at him, both!”2
That Daisy loved him there can be no doubt, but Daisy’s love was not much different from that of a devoted spouse or nurse who had taken it upon themselves to care for an invalid husband or relative. The propriety the two of them observed was almost surely never broken.
Yet because Daisy was unmarried, there was always the chance that their relationship would be misunderstood. As she admitted, she had on occasion “argued” with herself and “with members of the family as to whether whatever gossip about us there may be, is justified.” But she had long ago made up her mind that “only those who wish to find evil in our friendship will do so.”3
What made Daisy unique was her ability, as John Boettiger once observed, to allow FDR to relax and “think of completely different things.” Nor was Boettiger the only member of FDR’s inner circle who noticed as much. Eleanor, too, was aware of her talents, and in fact was pleased when she learned that Daisy and Polly would accompany her husband to Warm Springs. She knew “they would not bother him as I should by discussing questions of state; he would get a real rest and yet would have companionship—and that is what I felt he most needed.”4
As Anna and others, including Eleanor, had also observed, FDR’s patience seemed to have worn thin in the last months of his life. He was less and less interested in discussing issues or policy when he and Eleanor were together, the kinds of conversations that in the past served as the greatest bond between them. Now and then, FDR hinted at a latent desire to draw closer to Eleanor—as he expressed to Elliott over the Christmas holidays, or as he implied when he spoke fondly of making the trip to England with her—but it was more often the case that what he wanted and needed most from her at this point was perhaps the one thing that she herself admitted she was incapable of providing: simple companionship.
FDR’s first cousin, Laura “Polly” Delano, another member of the entourage that accompanied him to Warm Springs, was the daughter of Warren and Jennie Walters Delano—FDR’s aunt and uncle who, like Daisy, lived up the Hudson River in Rhinebeck. Six years FDR’s junior, Polly was not unlike Daisy in that she was unmarried and represented “good company.” In virtually all other respects, however, Polly was the polar opposite of Daisy. She was flamboyant, high-spirited, and unpredictable. She also delighted in gossip, though sometimes to the point of recklessness. As one member of the Delano family once put it, Polly “was a law unto herself.” For all of these reasons, Eleanor was less comfortable with Polly than she was with the demure and discreet Daisy, and although FDR certainly found Polly entertaining, he was much less apt to confide in her than he was with Daisy.5
The one other person in FDR’s inner circle, of course, was Lucy Rutherfurd. Like Daisy, Lucy was a person with whom the president could relax, but there was a second dimension to their relationship, a hint of past passion that, although largely left unspoken, was there all the same. Ironically, Daisy was the one person Lucy seems to have confided all of this to. As Lucy noted in a cryptic letter she sent to Daisy shortly after FDR had left for the Crimea, she found it hard to write, as “there seems to be so much to be decided—What is right and what is wrong for so many people & I feel myself incapable of judging anything. Yes—it is difficult when we must speak in riddles but we have spoken to one another very frankly—and it must rest there—One cannot discuss something that is sacred—and even simple relationships of friendship and affection are sacred & personal.”6
The fact that FDR went to great lengths to see Lucy in the final six weeks of his life suggests that he felt a strong need to be near her, though he characteristically never revealed his inner thoughts to anyone—save perhaps Lucy—about the nature of their relationship. The closest he came to admitting that there was a special bond between himself and Lucy was, again somewhat ironically, in a conversation he had with Daisy during that final trip to Warm Springs. Sitting alone together in a quiet moment, FDR admitted that Lucy “had no other person like him—a friend of such long standing to whom to go for the kind of sympathetic understanding which he always gives.” Having lost her husband just over a year earlier, Lucy faced an uncertain future—and also was “rather alone” now that her one daughter soon planned to marry. Whatever his reasons, on Wednesday, April 4, FDR decided that he would invite Lucy to join him in Warm Springs for the coming week.
FIRST, THOUGH, ANOTHER VISITOR ARRIVED. PRESIDENT SERGIO Osmena of the Philippines had been trying to arrange a meeting with FDR for quite some time to discuss a host of issues facing the islands now that their complete liberation was close at hand. Osmena was in Florida for medical reasons in late March, and so FDR decided to take advantage of his relatively close proximity to invite him to Warm Springs.7
Osmena arrived at the Little White House on April 4 at 11:00 a.m., precisely on time. Over the next three hours the two men reviewed the concerns that Osmena had listed in a memo that he had forwarded to FDR in advance. Osmena could also not help but note the contrast between the beauty and tranquility of the Georgia landscape and the wholesale destruction in Manila that he had witnessed in his homeland roughly a month earlier. Indeed, by the time the Philippine president met with FDR that morning, the Manila he loved, “once proud and beautiful,” had ceased to exist.8 As lunchtime approached, FDR suddenly called in a somewhat embarrassed Daisy, who always did her best to vanish whenever an official visitor arrived, to telephone “Hacky,” FDR’s telephone operator. FDR wanted Hassett and the three press pool reporters who had accompanied the presidential party to Warm Springs to be at the cottage at 2:00 for what would be FDR’s 998th press conference.
Just why the president should decide without any advance warning to his staff that he wanted to hold a press conference was a complete mystery, even to Hassett. But FDR’s motives soon became apparent, and indicated he had not lost his political acumen. What FDR recognized was that Osmena’s presence provided him with a perfect opportunity to highlight a number of major issues: that the war in the Pacific was far from over, that the United States needed to do all it could to help the people of the Philippines recover from the horrors of the conflict, and that he remained determined to see the Philippines achieve independence once the Japanese had been driven out of the islands.
During the press conference, FDR also delved into the tricky question of just how the United States might maintain a strong military presence in the Pacific without violating his preference for the establishment of trusteeships—as opposed to colonies—after the war. In answer to a question about whether the United States would take over the “Japanese mandates,” FDR alluded to the solution he had expressed some weeks earlier to his cabinet, when he told his colleagues that these territories would belong to the United Nations but would be defended by the United States on behalf of “world security.”
In addition, FDR did his best to dismiss the controversy over Stalin’s request for three votes in the General Assembly by offering a brief review of how the idea arose at Yalta; by insisting that Ukraine and Byelorussia had earned the right to a vote in the General Assembly given that millions of their citizens had been killed during the war; and by reminding the three reporters present that the General Assembly is an investigatory body only and it was “the little fellow” that needed the votes there, not the United States. In view of these considerations, he had decided to drop the idea that the United States would request the same number of seats as the USSR. “I told Stettinius to forget it,” he said, “as this business about votes in the General Assembly does not make a great deal of difference.”
As FDR closed the conference, he reminded the three reporters that he did not want this material released until he had returned to Washington, in perhaps seven to ten days’ time. Then, in classic FDR fashion, he uttered the last words he would ever issue to the press: “By the way, this is all off the record.”9
THE NEXT THREE DAYS TURNED OUT TO BE THE QUIETEST PERIOD FDR enjoyed during his stay in Warm Springs. The weather had turned “cold and raw,” keeping FDR indoors next to the fire, where he worked on his stamps and the “coffin” of books he had brought down.
Having settled into this quiet routine, and with encouraging news about the war in Europe arriving every day, FDR began to reflect once again about his future. In a private conversation he had with Daisy and Polly on the evening of April 5, he said he thought he should be able to retire by next year, “after he gets the peace organization started.” As Daisy recalled, this was not the first time he had mentioned the idea of retirement, which initially elicited the same emphatic response from both Daisy and Polly: “that he couldn’t do such a thing—[that] it had never been done [before].” But then Daisy said, “No one had ever before had a fourth term, either!”
Indeed, the more Daisy thought about it, the more she realized “that if he cannot physically carry on, he will have to resign. There is no sense in his killing himself by slow degrees… while not filling his job.” It would be far better “to hand it over, and avoid the period of his possible illness, when he wouldn’t be able to function.”
As she concluded, “From a personal point of view—he can then take care of himself and have perhaps years of useful, happy life, when his influence for good can continue—perhaps on the Peace Organization.”10
FDR brought up the subject again the next night, as he lay in bed smoking a cigarette, before finishing the gruel that Daisy and Polly had brought him. He spoke “seriously about the San Francisco Conference, and his part in World Peace,” and reiterated the idea that “he can probably resign sometime next year, when the peace organization—the United Nations—is well started.”11
By this point, FDR had been at Warm Springs for a full week, and thanks to his dedicated staff’s efforts, his well-being seemed to have improved day by day. The two Daisys and Dr. Bruenn noticed that FDR’s appetite was better. He seemed to enjoy his meals and occasionally even asked for second helpings. His face also seemed fuller and had a better color, and although he had not been weighed, Dr. Bruenn thought he may have put on a few pounds.12 His blood pressure, however, still varied widely, from a range of 170/88 to 240/130—readings that led to continued efforts to reduce the stress on the president as much as possible.
It couldn’t have hurt that Churchill, realizing he was not going to convince FDR to endorse his call for the Western Allies to take Berlin, finally conceded defeat in a brief note on April 6. Churchill admitted that he still “thought it was a pity” that Eisenhower had sent his plans to Stalin without anything being said to the British Chiefs, but the prime minister also acknowledged that “the changes in the main plan have turned out to be very much less than we first supposed.” Given all of this, Churchill said that he now regarded “the matter as closed,” and “to prove my sincerity,” he went on, “I will use one of my very few Latin quotations, ‘Anmantium irae amoris integration est,’” which the State Department translated in a handwritten note at the bottom of the cable as “Lovers’ quarrels always go with true love.”13
On the home front, however, the situation was not as promising. Earlier in the week, the US Senate had handed FDR one of the most stinging defeats of his career when it rejected his manpower legislation by a vote of 46 to 29. Since FDR had made numerous appeals on behalf of the act, the Washington Post argued that the defeat “portended something more than the death of a bill and a major war policy.” After all, the demise of the current legislation followed a “flat refusal to consider anything approaching national service, weeks of bickering over the confirmation of Henry Wallace, [and] a deliberate thumbs down on another Roosevelt nominee—Aubrey Williams.” Overall, this “legislative trend,” unless dramatically reversed, could mean that “Franklin Roosevelt is losing control of his Congress, much as Woodrow Wilson lost it with the approach of victory.”14 Eleanor was also having difficulties with the press, as a result of a statement she purportedly made indicating that “she saw no reason why the United States should be expected to feed Europe” when there were other nations “that can and should help”—a remark she vehemently denied ever having uttered. Exasperated after a week of public functions, she had escaped to Hyde Park for the weekend of April 7–8. After retiring early on Saturday night, she was perhaps somewhat surprised when she was aroused by a call from FDR.
Apologizing for being “half asleep,” Eleanor made no mention of her spat with the press. Instead, the two of them spoke of more routine matters, including the unpacking of new china and other items at “the big house,” an illness Johnny had come down with, and FDR’s time in Warm Springs. It was a relatively short call, but Eleanor found herself encouraged by her husband’s demeanor. He seemed much better than during the first conversation they’d had at the start of his visit, when FDR sounded so weary she found herself praying that “he may be able to carry on till we have peace.”15
As she wrote in a letter to FDR the next day, the last she ever sent him, she was pleased at his excitement over the coming trip to the United Nations conference. “Give my love to Laura and Margaret,” she wrote. “I’m glad they’ll be along on the trip to San Francisco. Much love to you, dear. I’m so glad you are going. You sounded cheerful for the first time last night & I hope you will weigh 170 lbs. when you return.”16
Unbeknownst to Eleanor, FDR had placed another call that Saturday evening, this one to Lucy Rutherfurd, most likely to confirm the plans for her expected arrival on Monday. Lucy had already worked out the details of her visit with Grace Tully, to whom she had written on April 5.17 Lucy planned to bring the Ukrainian-born artist Madame Elizabeth Shoumatoff with her so that her friend, unsatisfied with an earlier work she had completed of FDR, could use the occasion to paint a second portrait of the president. As always, Lucy very much appreciated Grace’s help in making the arrangements for her visit. But the manner in which she closed her letter clearly indicates that she, too, was well aware of the precariousness of FDR’s health. “With many thanks again,” she wrote to Grace, “for being so very understanding and thoughtful. If you should change your mind & think it would be better for me not to come—call me up. I really am terribly worried—as I imagine you all are.”18
Lucy was not alone in thinking her visit might add to the strain that FDR was under. Though always happy to see Lucy, Daisy recognized that it was “another interruption in the routine we are trying to keep.” Still, Daisy found herself quite excited by the prospect of Lucy’s arrival, and she and Polly spent much of Sunday gathering flowers and fixing up the guesthouse where Lucy would stay, so that things would look attractive when she arrived.19
MONDAY MORNINGS WERE ALWAYS SOMEWHAT SPECIAL TO WILLIAM Hassett. Owing to the fact that there was no overnight pouch on this one day of the week, Mondays, as Daisy put it, were “as near to a ‘do not work Sunday’ as F ever gets to.”20 Blissfully devoid of any pressing matters, Hassett took advantage of this relatively quiet moment to talk to “the boss” about his collection of books, which, like stamp collecting, was one of FDR’s lifelong passions. As it turns out, Hassett was also a bibliophile, and in addition to his duties as Secretary to the President, Hassett became something of a purveyor for the president’s book collection, keeping an eye out for rare or interesting volumes that might come on the market. A somewhat discerning collector, FDR was not always interested in the works Hassett discovered, as was the case when Hassett asked FDR that morning if he might want to purchase a copy of Amasa Delano’s Voyages and Travels, which the president declined.21
“Amasa was one of the ‘Maine Delano’s,’ a distant cousin of my grandfather,” FDR explained, “but grandpa had never met him,” so FDR decided against the purchase. Nor was he interested in purchasing a copy of Edward Hyde’s The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, another rare book that came up during their stay in Warm Springs, even though Hyde Park was named after the author. “Feeling the pinch of poverty,” FDR insisted he could not afford the $17.50 purchase price. Still, by the time he died, FDR’s book collection numbered over 22,000 volumes—a collection of which he was enormously proud and one of the reasons he insisted on building the nation’s first “Presidential Library.”22
FDR spent the remainder of the afternoon resting in the warm sun, which had come back out from behind the clouds, before he and Daisy headed off for a drive in the direction of Macon, Georgia, in the hope that they might run into Lucy and Madame Shoumatoff as the two women made their way in the opposite direction. After many fruitless miles of driving, the two parties eventually managed to meet up not far from Warm Springs. Given her artist’s eye, Madame Shoumatoff could not help but notice the expression of joy on FDR’s face upon seeing Lucy. But she also could not fail to notice the striking change in his appearance since the last time she painted him in 1943. Regarding him carefully, she reflected on a question that had now become commonplace: “How can I paint such a sick man? His face was gray and he looked to me much like President Wilson in his last years.”23
Tuesday, April 10, proved another relatively restful day. FDR accepted an invitation to attend a barbeque on Thursday organized by Frank Allcorn, the mayor of Warm Springs, and Ruth Stevens, the manager of the Warm Springs Hotel. As in Hyde Park, FDR enjoyed getting to know his “neighbors,” and was particularly fond of Mrs. Stevens. It was “Ruthie,” reputed to be something of a “character,” who had decided it would be a good idea to host a barbeque for the president—in part because, as she had announced a few nights earlier at her hotel, “she had just bought a goddamned pig that weighed three hundred pounds!”24
At noon, FDR took a few moments to sit for Madame Shoumatoff and Mr. Robbins, the photographer she had brought along as an assistant. The rest of the afternoon proceeded at a languorous pace. Daisy and Polly took a walk with the dogs, and after Madame Shoumatoff and Mr. Robbins had worked sketching and photographing FDR for an hour or so, they all took a break for lunch, joined by Leighton McCarthy, the former Canadian ambassador to Washington who was also one of FDR’s oldest friends. Surrounded as he was by such convivial company, FDR seemed quite happy and relaxed. He spoke of his trip to the Crimea, said the war in Europe “might end at any time,” and, smiling at Ambassador McCarthy (perhaps knowingly, as Canada was deeply involved in the Manhattan Project), surprised his guests when he predicted that once Germany was defeated, “Japan will collapse almost immediately.”25
FDR brought the day to a close by taking a drive alone with Lucy through the Georgia woods to Dowdell’s Knob, a rocky outcrop at the crest of Pine Mountain that stood roughly 1,400 feet above the low-lying country that lay between the Chattouchee and Flint Rivers far below. Of all the locations in Georgia, this place unquestionably held the greatest meaning for FDR. It was to this spot, during the difficult early years of his “recovery” from the disease that had robbed him of his ability to walk, that he would often venture, to sit alone, lost in thought, as he watched the sun set slowly in the west.26
THE RESPITE FROM THE WAR THAT FDR SEEMED TO ENJOY OVER THE past few days could not last, of course, and it was not long before a number of key issues crowded in around him at Warm Springs. Of these, the most serious was the seemingly never-ending problem of Poland. It had now been more than eight weeks since he and Churchill had departed the Crimea in such high spirits. Since then, however, there had been virtually no progress on the establishment of the expanded regime called for by the Yalta accords. The principal obstacle remained the Soviet insistence that the existing members of the Lublin/Warsaw government had the right to veto any of the proposed candidates put forward by London or Washington—the result of which was to bring the whole process of attempting to set up a new interim government to a crashing halt. Churchill and FDR had tried to rectify this situation first by issuing a joint démarche that challenged the Soviet interpretation of the Yalta understandings on March 19, followed roughly ten days later by a second message sent by FDR that in essence called Stalin’s bluff by insisting that “any solution that would result in the continuance of the present Warsaw regime would be unacceptable, and would cause the people of the United States to regard the Yalta agreement as having failed.”27
Stalin’s negative reply, which FDR did not receive until April 10, did nothing to alleviate the situation. On the contrary, as Stalin admitted frankly, “matters on the Polish question had… reached a dead end.” The most Stalin could offer was to use what “influence” he had with the Polish Provisional Government to convince it to withdraw its objection to Stanislaw Mikolajczyk’s taking part in the deliberations in Moscow, so long as Mikolajczyk issued a public statement accepting the Yalta decisions and declaring his desire for friendly relations with the Soviet Union. Given that Lublin Poles were in fact controlled by Moscow, Stalin’s offer of help was viewed with a good deal of skepticism in London and Washington. Nevertheless, Churchill saw a possible opening in Stalin’s démarche, which, “if seriously intended,” he wrote to FDR on Wednesday, April 11, “could be important.”28
Churchill also informed FDR in the same message that he was scheduled to make a statement on the “Polish question” in the House of Commons the following Thursday. In keeping with the two leaders’ efforts to stay on the same page when it came to Poland, he requested the president’s views “as to how we should answer Stalin as soon as possible.” “I have the feeling,” he continued, “that they [the Russians] do not want to quarrel with us, and your telegram about CROSSWORD [the British code word for the Bern talks] may have seriously and deservedly perturbed them.”29
The prime minister might have been correct in his speculation that FDR’s recent, strongly worded telegram to Stalin regarding the Bern incident may have perturbed the Russians, but the tensions this incident caused also alarmed FDR, who was now determined to put the matter behind him. A break with the Soviet Union at this delicate time, exactly two weeks to the day before the start of the San Francisco conference, was simply out of the question. His response to Churchill’s request for his views on how the prime minister should answer Stalin in the Commons is entirely consistent with this view.
“I would minimize the Soviet problem as much as possible,” FDR said, “because these problems, in one form or another, seem to arise every day and most of them straighten out as in the case of the Bern meeting.”30
“We must be firm, however, and our course thus far is correct.”31
This communication, which represents the last word FDR sent to Churchill on Poland, is significant not only because he drafted it entirely himself but also because it is frequently perceived as a broad, overarching statement of how the Anglo-Americans should manage their relationship with Stalin. To a certain extent this observation is correct, but we must remember that the telegram was sent in answer to the specific question Churchill raised about what he should say in the House of Commons regarding Stalin’s intransigence on Poland. Accordingly, FDR’s reference to “[minimizing] the Soviet problem as much as possible” should be regarded less as an overall statement of policy than as advice about how the prime minister should frame the statement he was about to make on a specific issue.
In fact, there can be little doubt that the message was intended to manage Churchill as much as it was to placate Stalin. The last thing FDR wanted at this stage was another public explosion of Anglo-American differences with the Kremlin—better to downplay current issues in the hope that a more opportune moment to address them would present itself in the future.
That FDR was determined to avoid any major rupture with Stalin in the closing weeks of the war is also evident in the final exchange of the more than 3,100 messages Churchill and Roosevelt sent to each other during the war. At issue, interestingly enough, was Churchill’s concern over the dreadful conditions in the heavily populated areas of the Netherlands still under German occupation. Anxious about that country’s plight, and despite his own nation’s distress, Churchill suggested that he and the president issue an ultimatum to the German commander in Holland demanding that the International Red Cross be allowed to bring relief supplies into the country as soon as possible. Churchill also suggested that if this entreaty failed, the German command in the Netherlands should be branded murderers and held “responsible with their lives.”32
Roosevelt, whose profound interest in the plight of the Dutch exceeded that of the prime minister’s, agreed to this idea in principle. But in view of Stalin’s recent allegations regarding the Bern affair, the president replied that he and the prime minister should not send the ultimatum without first obtaining Stalin’s consent as to the exact wording of the document. He did not want to engage in any activity with the German government that the Kremlin might construe as “negotiations.”33
To cap his efforts to close the door on the Bern incident, FDR also took the time that Wednesday to send a succinct reply to the last message he had received from Stalin on the matter:
Thank you for your frank explanation of the Soviet point of view of the Bern incident, which now appears to have faded into the past without having accomplished any useful purpose.
There must not, in any event, be mutual mistrust and minor misunderstandings of this character should not arise in the future. I feel sure that when our armies make contact in Germany and join in a fully coordinated offensive, the Nazi Armies will disintegrate.34
As usual, FDR’s work on these communications was coordinated with Hassett in the president’s bedroom during their regular morning session on Wednesday, April 11, 1945. After finishing this work, FDR emerged from his room about noon, dressed once again in his light-gray suit and crimson tie in preparation for a formal photograph that Madame Shoumatoff had asked Mr. Robbins to take of FDR in advance of her final work on his portrait. At the request of the president, Mr. Robbins also took a formal photo of Lucy. He then retired to the sun deck to clear up some additional mail and dictate to Dorothy Brady the first draft of the Jefferson Day speech he had agreed to deliver over the radio on April 13. This was followed by lunch, more work with Brady, a rest, and then a two-hour drive with Lucy, Daisy, and Polly, before the arrival of FDR’s old friend and Hudson Valley neighbor, Henry Morgenthau.35
MORGENTHAU’S VISIT TO WARM SPRINGS CAME ABOUT AS A CONSEQUENCE of a short trip the treasury secretary had made to Florida, which provided Morgenthau with a convenient opportunity to stop by and see FDR on his return journey to Washington. As planned, Morgenthau arrived at the Little White House just in time for cocktails. He found the president sitting with his feet resting on a large footstool, mixing drinks over a card table that was drawn up over his legs. Like so many of FDR’s visitors during these last weeks, Morgenthau was shocked at his appearance. The president seemed very haggard, and when he offered his old friend a drink, “his hands shook so that he started to knock the glasses over”; Morgenthau had to hold each glass as FDR poured. Nor had Morgenthau ever before seen the president experience such difficulty transferring himself from his wheelchair to a regular chair when it was time for dinner. In his diary, Morgenthau described this moment as an agony to watch.36
Lucy, Daisy, Polly, and Madame Shoumatoff made up the rest of the dinner party. For about an hour, they engaged in pleasant conversation. FDR gave Morgenthau a rough outline of his schedule over the coming two weeks, including his trip to San Francisco, which in turn included his plan “to appear in his wheelchair,” make his speech, and then leave.37
After dinner, the four women left FDR and Morgenthau alone so that they could discuss Morgenthau’s intention to write a book on postwar German policy. The treasury secretary made it plain that he did not want to continue pursuing the book project “if it wasn’t agreeable” to the president. Still, he wanted his friend and boss to know that he was going to continue to fight to weaken Germany, because that meant the country would “not be able to start another war.”
At this point, and most likely by design, Polly entered the room to ask if the “two gentlemen were through talking.” And if not, would “another five minutes be enough?”
Having received an affirmative reply, the women returned; a short while later, Morgenthau left, but not before saying good-bye to FDR, who was now sitting in front of the fireplace, looking relaxed and happy as he laughed and chatted with his company.
Something about the atmosphere that evening inspired Madame Shoumatoff to regale the party with a Russian ghost story. Just as she had finished, Dr. Bruenn arrived to check on the president and urge him to go to bed. At first, FDR demurred, asking the physician if he could stay up a bit longer; but sensing the latter’s disapproval, he consented to retire for the evening.38 Saying goodnight to Lucy and Madame Shoumatoff, FDR assured them that he would be ready to sit for the painting tomorrow. Then, in what had become a routine procedure, Arthur Prettyman came to wheel the president into his room and get him into bed while Dr. Bruenn took his vital signs.
Soon the cottage was quiet, at which point Daisy slipped into FDR’s room once again to feed him his gruel, and to hear him lament that even though it had been a most enjoyable day, he was very tired.39