Did FDR Really Have Polio? | Mental Floss UK Did FDR Really Have Polio? Jill Harness google+ Despite trying his best to hide his handicap during his lifetime, it's now common knowledge that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in a wheelchair because he was paralyzed by the polio virus. But a new study suggests that the president may have actually been paralyzed by Guillain-Barre Syndrome . If true, it would make his polio diagnosis one of the most famous misdiagnoses in history. The problems started in 1921, when the 39-year-old former Vice Presidential nominee went on a family retreat in Canada. Over the next two weeks, he started to become paralyzed and soon lost control of his bowels after the paralysis spread into his torso. After his party lost to the Republicans, Roosevelt retreated into private life to deal with his condition. By the time he was elected president in 1933, he was rarely seen in his wheelchair, though he did sometimes use a cane. Roosevelt's doctor had extensive experience working with polio patients and believed that FDR had been exposed to the virus during a visit to a Boy Scout camp a few weeks earlier.

But there are a number of issues with the polio diagnosis. For one, polio primarily affects children. The disease generally only affects one side of the body, not both—and it usually doesn't affect the intestinal tract. Finally, throughout his life, the future president continued to feel pain in his legs, but polio patients lose all sense in the affected areas. Guillain-Barre Syndrome was a rather obscure condition at the time, so even if that is what FDR suffered from, it's entirely possible that his doctors had never even heard of the disease. While it was too late to obtain a spinal fluid sample for official testing, a 2012 study published in the Journal of Medical Biography concluded that the president almost certainly suffered from Guillain-Barre Syndrome, not polio, based on his symptoms. Even if his doctors did properly identify what FDR was suffering from, there still wasn't much they could have done to treat it—so at least the probable misdiagnosis didn't dramatically change Roosevelt's quality of life.

Additionally, knowledge of the president's condition helped bring polio into the public consciousness, and his founding of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis in 1937 eventually led to Jonas Salk receiving the grants he needed to develop a vaccine to prevent the disease. In this way, this possible misdiagnosis ended up saving thousands of lives. Read more about: CNN.com - Maybe FDR didn't have polio, scientists say - Oct. 31, 2003 CNN.com Maybe FDR didn't have polio, scientists say Some scientists now say President Roosevelt was in a wheelchair because of Guillain-Barre syndrome, not polio. Story Tools Manage alerts | What is this? WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the four-term president who directed his sweeping social policies from his wheelchair, may not have been struck by polio but instead by Guillain-Barre syndrome, researchers said Friday. The symptoms of Roosevelt's illness, which first became apparent in 1921, more closely resembled those of Guillain-Barre, also known as acute ascending polyneuritis, a team at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston said.

It is believed to be an autoimmune disease -- one in which the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue. It occurs after a mild infection, surgery or, rarely, after an immunization. Either way, the diagnosis made no difference for Roosevelt -- there were no good treatments for either disease in 1921. He was president from 1933 until he died in 1945 of a cerebral hemorrhage. Writing in the Journal of Medical Biography, pediatrician Dr. Armond Goldman and colleagues said some of Roosevelt's symptoms did resemble those of polio, which is caused by a virus that can leave crippling side-effects. They include his fever when he first became ill and the permanent paralysis of some lower muscles. But others "were inconsistent with paralytic poliomyelitis that affects motor neurons but were typical of Guillain-Barre syndrome, an autoimmune disease that damages sensory and motor nerves," Goldman said in a statement. For instance, FDR was 39 when the disease struck (polio usually affects younger people), his paralysis affected both sides of the body evenly, he had partial facial paralysis early on, numbness, extreme prolonged pain and bladder and bowel dysfunction.

Patients with mild to moderate Guillain-Barre syndrome usually recover entirely, but severe disease can cause permanent paralysis and even death, especially if not treated, Goldman's team said. "No one can be absolutely sure of the cause of Roosevelt's paralysis because relevant laboratory diagnostic studies were not performed or were not available at the time of his illness," Goldman said. There are no diagnostic tests for Guillain-Barre but it is assessed on the basis of its symptoms. With polio, a test of the fluid found in the spinal cord can confirm the diagnosis. Copyright 2003 Reuters . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Story Tools The Life and Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt outside of his home in Hyde Park, NY in the mid 1930s. FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images Updated October 18, 2015. Who Was Franklin D. Roosevelt? President Franklin D. Roosevelt led the United States during both the Great Depression and World War II . Paralyzed from the waist down after suffering a bout of polio, Roosevelt overcame his disability and was elected President of the United States an unprecedented four times.

Dates: January 30, 1882 -- April 12, 1945 Also Known As: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR The Early Years of Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin D. Roosevelt was born on his family's estate, Springwood, in Hyde Park, New York as the only child of his wealthy parents, James Roosevelt and Sara Ann Delano. James Roosevelt, who had been married once before and had a son (James Roosevelt Jr.) from his first marriage, was an elderly father (he was 53 when Franklin was born). continue reading below our video Profile of Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin's mother, Sara, was only 27 when he was born and doted on her only child. Until she died in 1941 (just four years before Franklin's death), Sara played a very influential role in her son's life, a role which some describe as controlling and possessive. Franklin D. Roosevelt spent his early years at his family home in Hyde Park. Since he was tutored at home and traveled extensively with his family, Roosevelt did not spend much time with others his age.

In 1896, at age 14, Roosevelt was sent for his first formal schooling at the prestigious preparatory boarding school, Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts. While at Groton, Roosevelt was an average student. College and Marriage In 1900, Roosevelt entered Harvard University. Only a few months into his first year at Harvard, Roosevelt's father died. During his college years, Roosevelt became very active with the school newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, and became its managing editor in 1903. The same year Franklin D. Roosevelt became managing editor, he became engaged to his fifth cousin once removed, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (Roosevelt was her maiden name as well as her married one). Franklin and Eleanor were married two years later, on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1905. Within the next eleven years, they had six children, five of whom lived past infancy. Early Political Career In 1905, Franklin D. Roosevelt entered Columbia Law School, but left school once he passed the New York State Bar exam in 1907.

He worked for a few years in the New York law firm of Carter, Ledyard, and Milburn and then in 1910, Franklin D. Roosevelt was asked to run as a Democrat for the state senate seat from Duchess County, New York. Although Roosevelt had grown up in Duchess County, the seat had long been held by Republicans. Despite the odds against him, Franklin D. Roosevelt won the senate seat in 1910 and then again in 1912. Roosevelt's career as a state senator was cut short in 1913 when he was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. This position became even more important when the United States began making preparations to join in World War I . Franklin D. Roosevelt Runs for Vice President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to rise in politics like his fifth cousin (and Eleanor's uncle), President Theodore Roosevelt. Even though Franklin D. Roosevelt's political career looked very promising, he did not win every election. In 1920, Roosevelt was chosen as the vice-presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket, with James M. Cox running for president.

FDR and Cox lost the election. Having lost, Roosevelt decided to take a short break from politics and re-enter the business world. Just a few months later, Roosevelt became sick. Polio Strikes In the summer of 1921, Franklin D. Roosevelt and his family took a vacation to their summer home on Campobello Island, off the coast of Maine and New Brunswick. On August 10, 1921, after a day spent outdoors, Roosevelt began to feel weak. He went to bed early but woke up the next day much worse, with a high fever and with weakness in his legs. By August 12, 1921, he could no longer stand. Eleanor called a number of doctors to come and see FDR, but it wasn't until August 25 that Dr. Robert Lovett diagnosed him with poliomyelitis (i.e. polio). Before the vaccine was created in 1955, polio was an unfortunately common virus that, in its severest form, could cause paralysis. At age 39, Roosevelt had lost the use of both of his legs.

(In 2003, researchers decided it was likely that Roosevelt had Guillain-Barre syndrome rather than polio.) Roosevelt refused to be limited by his disability. To overcome his lack of mobility, Roosevelt had steel leg braces created that could be locked into an upright position to keep his legs straight. With the leg braces on under his clothes, Roosevelt could stand and slowly walk with the aid of crutches and a friend's arm. Without the use of his legs, Roosevelt needed extra strength in his upper torso and arms. By swimming nearly every day, Roosevelt could move himself in and out of his wheelchair as well as up stairs. Roosevelt even had his car adapted to his disability by installing hand controls rather than foot pedals so that he could sit behind the wheel and drive. Despite the paralysis, Roosevelt kept his humor and charisma. Unfortunately, he also still had pain. Always looking for ways to soothe his discomfort, Roosevelt found a health spa in 1924 that seemed to be one of the very few things that could ease his pain. Roosevelt found such comfort there that in 1926 he bought it.

At this spa in Warm Springs, Georgia, Roosevelt subsequently built a house (known as "the Little White House") and established a polio treatment center to help other polio sufferers. Governor of New York In 1928, Franklin D. Roosevelt was asked to run for governor of New York. While he wanted back into politics, FDR had to determine whether or not his body was strong enough to withstand a gubernatorial campaign. In the end, he decided he could do it. Roosevelt won the election in 1928 for governor of New York and then won again in 1930. Franklin D. Roosevelt was now following a similar political path as his distant cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt , from assistant secretary of the navy to governor of New York to the president of the United States. Prev President Franklin D. Roosevelt Is it conceivable that Franklin D. Roosevelt's doctors knew he had widespread cancer in 1944 and still let him run for his fourth term as president? New research makes this astounding argument—and claims that the physician who supposedly told the truth about Roosevelt's death in 1970 was in fact continuing the deception he had helped create.

FDR may have died more than 60 years ago, but these questions still matter. Not only does presidential health—and the public's right to know about it—remain a controversial issue, but in Roosevelt's case, the lies in question, if true, changed history. As neurologist Steven Lomazow and journalist Eric Fettman point out in a book coming out this January, FDR's Deadly Secret , widespread knowledge of Roosevelt's cancer would have prevented him from running in 1944 and thus likely altered the shaping of postwar Europe. Advertisement Roosevelt was in the business of concealing his medical afflictions. After a bout with polio in 1921, he never regained the use of his legs and used braces and a wheelchair, but he asked not to be photographed in ways that would reveal his disabilities. Beginning in early 1944, the fact that Roosevelt had severely elevated blood pressure and congestive heart failure was also kept secret. These diagnoses were made by Howard G. Bruenn, a Columbia University cardiologist and Navy physician who became Roosevelt's primary doctor.

When Roosevelt died of a brain hemorrhage on April 12, 1945, early in his fourth term, Bruenn misleadingly analogized the bleed to a "bolt of lightning." Of course, he knew better: Very high blood pressure can cause bleeding in the brain. Get Slate in your inbox. It was not until 1970 that Bruenn came clean—or at least seemed to. In an article in the Annals of Internal Medicine, he described his heretofore secret efforts to treat Roosevelt's blood pressure and heart problems. The article became the definitive account of FDR's passing. However, according to Lomazow and Fettman, it was just another attempt to obscure the truth. Over the years, other rumors about Roosevelt's health circulated, including the claim that he had suffered strokes. Most interesting was a 1979 paper in Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics by a surgeon and amateur historian, Harry Goldsmith, who noted that an enlarging skin lesion above Roosevelt's left eye disappeared in photographs after 1940.

He theorized that the lesion was a melanoma, the deadliest of skin cancers, and that the disease had spread to Roosevelt's abdomen, causing him episodes of severe pain during the last months of his life. Advertisement Goldsmith's article received national attention, and he eventually self-published a book on Roosevelt's medical condition. But Lomazow and Fettman have greatly expanded Goldsmith's research. What they believe is that the melanoma spread not only to Roosevelt's abdomen but to his brain. The bleed that killed the president, they hypothesize, was due to the cancer, not the hypertension. The most provocative evidence the authors present is that Roosevelt had a left-sided hemianopsia —a loss in vision—toward the end of his life. This indicated a mass in the right side of his brain. Lomazow and Fettman arrive at this conclusion based on an ingenious bit of research. On March 1, 1945, Roosevelt had given a speech to Congress, reporting on his recent trip to Yalta to meet with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. During the speech, Roosevelt appeared confused: He skipped words in his prepared remarks, ad-libbed, and repeated several points.

Critics later seized on this speech as evidence that the president was deteriorating mentally. Lomazow and Fettman obtained both a video of Roosevelt giving the speech and the text he used. Comparing the two, they concluded that the president could not see the left side of the page. His seeming mistakes and confusion reflected his attempts to compensate. The authors also found evidence of similar behavior by FDR when he had read another speech for newsreel cameras. There are also several other reasons to suspect that Roosevelt had cancer: He appears to have made secret visits to at least two cancer specialists for evaluation of melanoma, possible prostate cancer, or both. He also lost more than 30 pounds during his last year of life. Although Bruenn suggested that the weight loss stemmed from dieting, Lomazow and Fettman believe that cancer—leading to abdominal pain and loss of appetite—makes more sense. How plausible is this research? If Roosevelt indeed had a hemianopsia, it suggests a brain mass, and melanoma would be as likely a cause as any. Brain metastases from melanoma are known to bleed. Melanoma could also explain the abdominal pains and weight loss.

But all of these symptoms have other possible explanations, and there was never an actual tissue diagnosis of melanoma (though Lomazow and Fettman would argue that such a finding would necessarily have been concealed). It is also possible that Bruenn, a cardiologist, really did not entertain the notion that the eye lesion—if a melanoma—was wreaking havoc elsewhere in the president's body. Bruenn would not have been the first specialist to focus exclusively on the parts of the body that he knew best. Perhaps most important, there is no smoking gun: In all of the documents Lomazow and Fettman unearthed, neither Bruenn nor FDR's other doctors ever used the word cancer. Still, Lomazow and Fettman's research is of great importance. It is the latest to demonstrate the conflicts of interest that presidential physicians encounter as they serve both their patients and the public: Woodrow Wilson's physician concealed his patient's debilitating stroke, and John F. Kennedy's doctor did not disclose a diagnosis of adrenal failure. Although it is now much more difficult to cover up presidential illnesses, some critics claim that Ronald Reagan's physicians concealed mental deterioration at the end of his second term.

Others say candidate John McCain was not forthcoming enough during the 2008 campaign about his own battle with melanoma . If Lomazow and Fettman are right, Republican Thomas E. Dewey or a different Democrat should have been elected president in 1944. In that case, Harry S. Truman, FDR's vice president, would almost certainly not have been commander-in-chief from 1945 to 1952. The Cold War and subsequent American history might have taken a very different path. Franklin D. Roosevelt | whitehouse.gov Air Force One Franklin D. Roosevelt Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression as our 32nd President (1933-1945), Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves. Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves.

He brought hope as he promised prompt, vigorous action, and asserted in his Inaugural Address, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Born in 1882 at Hyde Park, New York--now a national historic site--he attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School. On St. Patrick's Day, 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt. Following the example of his fifth cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, whom he greatly admired, Franklin D. Roosevelt entered public service through politics, but as a Democrat. He won election to the New York Senate in 1910. President Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and he was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920. In the summer of 1921, when he was 39, disaster hit-he was stricken with poliomyelitis. Demonstrating indomitable courage, he fought to regain the use of his legs, particularly through swimming. At the 1924 Democratic Convention he dramatically appeared on crutches to nominate Alfred E. Smith as "the Happy Warrior." In 1928 Roosevelt became Governor of New York.

He was elected President in November 1932, to the first of four terms. By March there were 13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. In his first "hundred days," he proposed, and Congress enacted, a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, and reform, especially through the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority. By 1935 the Nation had achieved some measure of recovery, but businessmen and bankers were turning more and more against Roosevelt's New Deal program. They feared his experiments, were appalled because he had taken the Nation off the gold standard and allowed deficits in the budget, and disliked the concessions to labor. Roosevelt responded with a new program of reform: Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed. In 1936 he was re-elected by a top-heavy margin. Feeling he was armed with a popular mandate, he sought legislation to enlarge the Supreme Court, which had been invalidating key New Deal measures.

Roosevelt lost the Supreme Court battle, but a revolution in constitutional law took place. Thereafter the Government could legally regulate the economy. Roosevelt had pledged the United States to the "good neighbor" policy, transforming the Monroe Doctrine from a unilateral American manifesto into arrangements for mutual action against aggressors. He also sought through neutrality legislation to keep the United States out of the war in Europe, yet at the same time to strengthen nations threatened or attacked. When France fell and England came under siege in 1940, he began to send Great Britain all possible aid short of actual military involvement. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt directed organization of the Nation's manpower and resources for global war. Feeling that the future peace of the world would depend upon relations between the United States and Russia, he devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations, in which, he hoped, international difficulties could be settled. As the war drew to a close, Roosevelt's health deteriorated, and on April 12, 1945, while at Warm Springs, Georgia, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

The Presidential biographies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The Presidents of the United States of America,” by Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey. Copyright 2006 by the White House Historical Association. For more information about President Roosevelt, please visit The Myth of FDR’s Secret Disability | TIME.com Presidency The Myth of FDR’s Secret Disability The press sometimes described his condition in great detail, and LIFE even published a picture of him in a wheelchair Follow @TIMEIdeas The recently discovered film clip of President Franklin D. Roosevelt being pushed in a wheelchair, despite showing neither Roosevelt’s face nor the wheelchair, has become an object of considerable public interest. One reason people find the clip so fascinating is that it seems to represent a radically different era in American political life—one in which the president could rely on the press corps to help him hide from the larger public something so glaringly obvious as the fact that he was a paraplegic from having contracted polio at age 39.

An NBC Nightly News report on the discovery stated that there was “a gentlemen’s agreement” between FDR and the press corps to hide the extent of his disability, and the Associated Press wrote that it was “virtually a state secret.” That has long been the conventional wisdom, repeated in countless books and articles. But it is inaccurate. In fact, the press sometimes described his condition in great detail. A 1932 New York Times Magazine profile of the then-Governor of New York described how, at his Hyde Park home, he “wheels around in his chair.” A TIME article from February 1, 1932 said that swimming and exercise “have made it possible for the Governor to walk 100 ft or so with braces and canes.

When standing at crowded public functions, he still clings precautiously to a friend’s arm.” Before his inauguration as President in 1933, TIME noted, “Because of the President-elect’s lameness, short ramps will replace steps at the side door of the executive offices leading to the White House.” And a TIME article from December 17, 1934, described a scene in which “bodyguard Gus Gennerich helped the President into his wheel chair, rolled him the length of the West colonnade to the new White House offices.” Another profile, this one in the New Yorker in 1934, stated that “he is almost always pushed to the west end of the White House in a small wheelchair.” Seven years later, on January 20, 1941, LIFE magazine noted that “by 11 o’clock he is up, dressed and on his way in a wheel chair down the long passageway to his office…” (Not that it slowed him down in any way.

The headline for the article was “Roosevelt: From Breakfast in Bed to Wisecracks at Movies, President Retains His Bounce after Eight Years.”) As for incriminating images, it took far more than a “gentlemen’s agreement” for the FDR administration to discourage photos and newsreel film of the president in his wheelchair. Rather, the Secret Service used force. As Editor & Publisher reported in 1936, if agents saw a photographer taking a picture of Roosevelt, say, getting out of his car, they would seize the camera and tear out the film. “By what right they do this I don’t know,” the correspondent wrote, “but I have never seen the right questioned.” A 1946 survey of the White House photography corps confirmed this, finding that anyone the Secret Service caught taking banned photographs “had their cameras emptied, their films exposed to sunlight, or their plates smashed.” But several of the country’s most powerful publishers—media titan William Randolph Hearst, Time Inc. owner Henry Luce, Chicago Tribune boss Robert McCormick—did not support FDR politically and had no interest in making the President look good.

Indeed, in 1937 Luce’s Life magazine disregarded White House rules and published a photo of Roosevelt in a wheelchair. It was shot from a distance, and the figures are not identifiable, but the caption clearly states, “The President is here shown on his way to visit a sick cabinet member at the old-fashioned Naval Hospital on E Street.” Roosevelt’s press secretary was furious and wanted to launch an investigation, as he stated in a memo that is held at the FDR Presidential Library. LIFE Magazine August 16, 1937 issue of LIFE Magazine, the photo of FDR in a wheelchair is on the right page on the upper top left. The misconception that FDR’s disability was a “state secret” guarded by the press has endured for so long in part because there is an element of truth to it. The examples above notwithstanding, mentions of Roosevelt’s wheelchair were extremely rare. Far more commonly, news coverage depicted him as someone who had been stricken by polio but who had triumphed over his affliction—which of course he had, despite the fact that he remained paralyzed. This was the image that FDR and his advisers wished to project, and they largely succeeded.

But the myth has also lived on because of our tendency to romanticize the past as a rosier time—in this case, a time when the press was not out to get politicians, and when leaders were judged on their merits, not on the way they look in a flight suit or whether you’d like to have a beer with them. But as historical research often shows, the past was every bit as complicated as our own time. Matthew Pressman is a doctoral student in history at Boston University. His article “Ambivalent Accomplices: How the Press Handled FDR’s Disability and How FDR Handled the Press,” will be published this September in The Journal of the Historical Society. The views expressed are solely his own. Subscribe Popular Among Subscribers FDR: A Giant Despite His Disability - The New York Times The New York Times The Opinion Pages |FDR: A Giant Despite His Disability Search FDR: A Giant Despite His Disability By CURTIS ROOSEVELT and INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE AUG. 5, 1998 Continue reading the main story ST. BONNET DU GARD, France— The presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was unique in many obvious ways.

He was elected four times, serving just over 12 years before he died. We usually remember the American presidents who had a war to contend with or a huge domestic crisis. FDR had both, the Depression and World War II. When FDR was president, from March 1933 to April 1945, it was not a secret that he had had a severe bout with polio. But the extent of his disability was not well known. Not only could he not walk, but he could not stand without braces that ran the entire length of his legs. In those days, people were generally, inhibited about referring to someone's disability. The rare reference to him as "a cripple" was meant to cripple FDR politically, and it always backfired. Oddly enough the public today may be less aware of FDR's disability than the public was when he was alive. But it is essential that people know of his disability. Not to grasp that we, the American public, overwhelmingly supported a severely handicapped leader in the White House is to completely miss one of the extraordinary events in the history of American democracy. Continue reading the main story FDR the man cannot be understood without comprehending that he was crippled.

He could have died from the severity of his polio attack in 1921. As it was he lost all movement in his legs and even some strength in his right hand. For six to seven years he tried to regain some use of his legs, but his success was marginal. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Within the first year of contracting polio, when the extent of FDR's disability became generally known in political circles — it could hardly be hidden in public appearances — his political future was written off. The only exceptions to this opinion were Louis Howe, FDR's aide, and FDR himself. (Eleanor Roosevelt supported her husband's ambition but doubted that he could ever return to active life.) When FDR successfully returned to politics in New York state, he was vastly relieved to find that his disability seemed to have had little impact on voters. FDR's opponents found that labeling him a cripple was a nonstarter. When FDR ran for president in 1932 he and his advisers again worried about the impact of his disability, but it turned out to be an issue of no consequence. As a campaign issue it never surfaced during FDR's career.

This does not mean that FDR was open or casual about his inability to walk. On the contrary, he wanted little or no mention of it, particularly any comment that conveyed sympathy. "Sob stuff," he called it. He was very much of the stiff upper lip tradition. In short, FDR was extremely sensitive to anyone's calling attention to his infirmity. His family made no mention of it except if some practical arrangements were to be made. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy The press tacitly agreed to not take pictures of FDR in his wheelchair. When he was settled in his chair there would be lots of photos, but not before. Journalists, with whom he met regularly, never talked to FDR about the fact that he could not walk. It would have been rude to raise the topic with the president — or even to seem to be aware of his useless legs. In those days people had a different view of privacy, even when it came to public figures. Appearing in public presented logistical problems for FDR. Such occasions, when the president had to put on his heavy braces, required planning.

By swinging his hips, which pushed his legs forward, leaning on a cane with one hand and gripping the arm of a sturdy companion with the other, FDR seemed to be walking. Thus he was able to navigate the few steps to a podium or to greet official guests when protocol required him to stand. Although FDR was no longer concerned about political opponents using his crippled condition against him, he was sensitive about his personal privacy. He remained vulnerable in spite of the confidence he radiated. There is perhaps another reason for FDR's desire to minimize the appearance of his crippled condition. Probably no president has been more conscious, more astute, in gauging the public's response and reaction to him personally. Advertisement Continue reading the main story He knew instinctively that American voters did not want to have the president's disability thrown in their faces. As the years go by, fewer and fewer Americans will appreciate the fact that their forebears were quite happy to elect a handicapped person as president of the United States. We cannot allow the memory of FDR's disability to fade even more. A full picture of this extraordinary American political leader must be given.

We must grasp the fact that every day the president could not get out of bed, get dressed, reach the bathroom or get to his desk without the assistance of another person and a wheelchair. He was totally dependent upon both. Considering these restrictions, FDR's extraordinary leadership and achievements become even more impressive. - The writer, a grandson of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's, contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune. The huge secret about FDR’s death - Macleans.ca The huge secret about FDR’s death Americans were told their president died of a sudden stroke. Not true, says a new book. Email Dwight Eisenhower’s heart attack, LBJ’s gallbladder, Kennedy’s many ailments, even George Bush Sr.’s bout of nausea in Japan: ever since the occupant of the White House became the Most Powerful Man in the World, the health of U.S. presidents has been of consuming interest. Much of that concern is pure finger-on-the-nuclear-button angst, but a significant portion derives from the fate of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

When the first leader of superpower America died in office in 1945, it was a shock to most of his countrymen, who were largely unaware of just how sick FDR was. In fact, according to neurologist Steven Lomazow and journalist Eric Fettmann, authors of FDR’s Deadly Secret, they are the first to crack wide open the secrecy that has shrouded Roosevelt’s health until now. FDR, they write, died of cancer, a disease that had deleterious effects on his mental as well as physical health. In concealing the cancer from the American people, the authors argue, Roosevelt was “rolling the dice with history”: he won (mostly), but it was a very close run. By the time his health began seriously declining in the 1940s, Roosevelt was long accustomed to disguising his disability. At 39, 11 years before he was first elected president in 1932, polio left the ambitious politician paralyzed for life from the waist down. FDR took care never to let it show in public.

He used a wheelchair in private, but before crowds walked with the help of five-kilogram iron braces fitted to his hips and legs, and he had hand controls in his cars so he could be seen driving. Voters never noticed—or, pinning their hopes on Roosevelt through catastrophic depression and the greatest war in history, never wanted to see—the stage management. During the 1944 campaign, caught in a New York parade during a persistent rainstorm, the president’s open car was several times whisked out of the cavalcade and into a heated garage. Secret Service agents would stretch Roosevelt out on blankets laid on the garage floor, remove all his clothes, towel him dry and rub him down; re-dressed in dry clothes and fortified with a shot of brandy, FDR was soon back in the downpour. Roosevelt’s health was thus never an election issue, and his physicians’ explanation of his sudden death—caused, in their words, by “a bolt out of the blue,” a massive and unforeseeable stroke brought on by overwork—was accepted by Americans.

Even at the time, though, privileged observers, like prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King and Churchill’s personal physician, Lord Moran—both of whom recorded their shock at FDR’s appearance months before his death—knew better. In 1970, Howard Bruenn, Roosevelt’s last surviving doctor, finally admitted his patient had been fighting severe heart disease throughout 1944 and 1945. But that still isn’t the whole story, according to Lomazow and Fettmann. They maintain FDR died from melanoma, malignant skin cancer that metastasized from his forehead to his brain, causing his fatal stroke. The brain cancer diagnosis fits better than heart trouble with the fact that the likes of King and Moran were even more shocked by the president’s sometimes rambling mental state than by his appearance. But the authors’ best evidence lies in photos, including their book’s cover image, that show a lesion over FDR’s left eyebrow. The photos date from 1923 on, and the once tiny spot steadily grows through the Depression before disappearing in 1940, probably through surgery.

Since FDR’s medical records went missing after his death (a fact suspicious in itself), the case will never be conclusive. But Lomazow and Fettmann are right that this ancient history matters. It raises anew the moral argument over whether a political leader has any right to medical privacy. If Roosevelt really did have an eyebrow lesion surgically removed in 1940, he would have known then, even before the U.S. entered the Second World War, that he had scant years to live. FDR may genuinely have believed he was still the best man to win the war—and who can gainsay him that?—but he chose not to let the voters decide. And for a man with limited life expectancy, Roosevelt was cavalier about his vice-presidents, picking them for domestic political reasons, not by who was best suited to lead in dangerous times. That the untested Harry Truman turned out, in the judgment of historians, to have been an exceptional successor, was more a matter of luck than of FDR’s foresight. Rolling the dice, indeed. Show comments Hide comments (46) The huge secret about FDR’s death Thank you for your kind coverage of our book.

I particularly enjoyed the wonderful photograph you chose.____Indeed, during his lengthy term of office, Prime Minister King had met with many Presidents and his graphic observations of compromised Roosevelt in his later years are an important and highly credible part of the historical record. February 3, 2010 at 2:24 am Maybe it was a consciously good choice (Harry Truman) on his part! Carolyn A on February 5, 2010 at 3:12 pm FDR’s choice in 1944 for VP was Henry Wallace (an all but announced Communist). But southern conservative Democrats blocked his choice for VP because they realized FDR didn’t have long to live. The choice for VP in 1944 was in reality the choice for President (in one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on the American public). FDR was dead within weeks after his inauguration. Truman was a compromise candidate. Mittymo on April 12, 2014 at 5:47 pm Very interesting. Wasn't cancer the "C" word back then? People didn't really talk about it.

Our leaders' health is a public issue, not only because it affects how they do their job but also because it raises awareness about diseases. February 6, 2010 at 3:01 am What makes anyone think the "voters" can choose any better? Stop whining. FDR was a very great man, and he saved us. He could not guarantee everything. Nuff said. Danpat Ram on February 6, 2010 at 4:07 pm So what? Still a great man, despite the warts, personal and physical. His New Deal of the 1930's is exactly what the U.S. needs now, but will never get. Elected four times, through some of the darkest times in recent history, loved by the poor, blacks, and the unemployed. And thanks to advisors like our own John Kenneth Galbraith, the initiator of social welfare programs millions still enjoy today., as well as enormous public work projects like the TVA . That he was ill much of the time, severely physically disabled, and certainly no saint makes his story all the more poignant and significant.

Of course, unlike one of our own, if he had only gotten advice from his long dead mother and had conversations with his dog…Now there's a story- talk about lying to the voters- our own King was certifiable, eccentric and just plain nuts. Bill on February 8, 2010 at 7:57 am the fact that these programs lacked any Constitutional justification or authorization; have bankrupted America; reduced nearly half the population to perpetual government-maintained indigence; and needlessly extended the Depression for years apparently bears little weight. They did succeed in making a lot of democrat voters, and therein lies the essence. April 12, 2013 at 10:01 am if only the poor didn’t love being poor so much. if they would just stop wasting what little money they have on booze and abortions and instead spend more on bootstraps, then there wouldn’t be a communist muslim atheist nazi in the white house. right? sensorsweep on November 13, 2013 at 5:38 pm And wanted absolute power.

He got reelected so many times that he changed the supreme court from conservative to liberal in a way that was technically legal (he kept on appointing liberal justices for 12 years) but unfair and ultimately destructive to America. He is why presidents are now limited to two terms. Mittymo on April 12, 2014 at 5:58 pm A lot of the usual huffing and puffing here on both sides of the ideological spectrum. Funny how the focus here is on the New Deal and its relevance to now. In fact, the health issue referred to arose after the New Deal was done. Roosevelt was almost totally focused on the looming war by 1940 and soon brought tons of the corporate capitalists some here think so evil back to help him win that war. It was the war that was the issue, and winning it proved vastly more important to the future of this nation and the world than the New Deal did. As to his hiding melanoma, I fail to understand why that mattered any more than all the other health issues that were patently obvious about this president from the start, including that he could not walk!

Besides, melanoma often can be stopped in the outer skin phase, and FDR may well have assumed he had. It is only when it become metastatic that it does you in rapidly – in about nine months. Presidents live and die in office for all sorts of reasons. Like every other president, FDR saw himself as indispensable and invulnerable. He was only wrong about one of those – just ask Truman on the day FDR died. jbk on April 13, 2014 at 3:22 pm Truman remains the only leader ever to use nuclear weapons. He may have been "exceptional" but not necessarily in a good way. Dad on February 9, 2010 at 8:40 pm Yes, he ordered the dropping of the nuclear bomb – but he wasn’t dropping it on Switzerland. He used it against the Empire of Japan, which had murdered, tortured, and raped millions. And they surrendered within days after Nagasaki. How many MORE people would have been killed without the two atomic blasts? Furthermore, more people were killed by a single night of bombing raids in Tokyo than were killed by the nuclear blast at Hiroshima.

Christopher on April 12, 2012 at 9:03 am For further affirmation of Christopher’s claim, seek out a book by Laurens van der Post called either The Prisoner and the Bomb, or Night of the New Moon. The existence of two titles is due to British vs American publishing rules. The Japanese Empire had to be stopped lest millions more innocents die. April 13, 2013 at 1:34 pm more people died in tokyo, so it’s ok that fewer died in hiroshima/nagasaki?? the war crimes of the imperial japanese government don’t excuse the war crimes of the usa. japan wanted to surrender before hiroshima. they were afraid of the ussr, especially after the soviets invaded manchuria. and then there’s the argument that the bombings had little to do with japan but instead were a warning to the ussr.. does that make it ok too? sensorsweep on November 13, 2013 at 6:04 pm There was also a 100,000 POWs in Japan at that point in time.

If we would have invaded the Homeland, one of Japan’s first moves would have been to kill all of them. This was well known to all of the POWs. Boothie on April 12, 2012 at 9:20 am That the man died of secret causes does not interest me, nor that voters were deceived, because I accept government prevarication as a matter of course. However, people deserve to know when they've been lied to, and this certainly seems research-worthy. Who knows? With enough repetitive reminders to sink an aircraft carrier, the people of the world may accept that their leaders must B.S. them on a daily basis in myriad ways in order to maintain stability, and dangerous forms of ethnocentric assertion such as ultra-nationalism may come to seem laughable rather than laudable. Poisonally, that's how I feel about it. Fine work, gentlemen, and a fine post, as well. Cheers from Los Angeles, April 12, 2012 at 9:04 am Wallace was a Communist stooge, not a genius.

Paul on April 12, 2012 at 10:09 am Henry Wallace was a businessman, a mystic, and a communist stooge. After Roosevelt realized that Wallace had disclosed classified information to Stalin during a trip to the Soviet Union, Roosevelt replaced Wallace with Truman in the vice-presidency. A few months later, Roosevelt died. We came that close to having a Marxist in the White House seventy years before Obama. When the NorKs attacked South Korea in 1950, Wallace was shocked — SHOCKED! — that the peace loving communists of North Korea had attacked South Korea. Dracovert on April 12, 2013 at 9:36 am please please please look up the definitions of marxism, communism and socialism and then compare those to obama’s actual record. not his multi-contradictory tea party conspiracy theory but his actual record. his policies are by definition not marxist, etc. this is junior high school level stuff. sensorsweep on November 13, 2013 at 5:07 pm Please please please don’t be so silly.

I took the state Gold Medal in American history in high school after I took the state Silver Medal in world history. Obama’s family on both sides were radical Marxists, Obama surrounded himself with Marxist mentors (Davis, Alinsky) and radical and criminal associates (Williams and Rezko) plus the Chicago thugocracy. Obama and the Mainstream Marxist Media have desperately tried to conceal the facts. You are the most ignorant fool I ever heard of or you are a psychopath enabler. Which is it? Dracovert on November 13, 2013 at 5:43 pm it was a little more complicated than “roosevelt replaced wallace with truman”. wallace was vastly more popular than truman by the public and easily would have won the vote at the convention to be VP, but due to petty deal making and meddling by truman’s supporters… sensorsweep on November 13, 2013 at 5:29 pm FDR's personal physician diagnosed the President with congestive heart disease in 1944 and was treating him for that. You can see that in the PBS series "American Experience," on FDR (4 part episodes).

telemann on May 25, 2010 at 3:11 am It's always to follow up your readings about your history. But still, this has no evidence or whatsoever to prove that. June 11, 2010 at 8:46 am We never should have fought that war. Lindbergh was right. We should have taken in every refugee from Hitler and Tojo. And Roosevelt did not give anything away at Yalta the Red Army had not already won on the battlefield Brian Allan Cobb on April 12, 2013 at 7:51 am I find it ironic that, in a review examining the real cause of Roosevelt’s death, you state as a fact that he had polio. While that has been the widely accepted diagnosis, evidence examined recently points to Guillson-Barré syndrome as a more probable cause. f margeryk on April 12, 2013 at 9:08 am media covered up his infirmities, as they did Kennedy’s philandering and Johnson’s scandals. That’s how it rolls for Democrats.

April 12, 2013 at 9:22 am “That’s how it rolls for Politicians.” is more apt. sensorsweep on November 13, 2013 at 5:30 pm FDR and JFK were both too sick to serve in the presidency, and both concealed (lied about) the fact. Even worse, we now have a Marxist psychopath in the White House and he is systematically destroying the Republic. Psychopaths always fail, and a major factor in their failure is that they believe that life has treated them badly, life is terrible, and they expect to fail. They want to make sure that everyone, nominal supporters and nominal opponents, suffer along with them as they fail. Economic cycles in the Soviet Union were recession alternating with depression for seventy long, miserable, heart-sick years. We are now four years into our own version of the USSA. April 12, 2013 at 9:25 am dude, you really need more tinfoil for your hat. Daniel Dreibelbis on April 13, 2013 at 6:46 pm I listened to Dr.

Donald Dipettite give a talk about a hypothetical person with terminal high blood pressure at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. He proceeded to describe the decline in the patient over time, with attention to medical details as those details progressed until the patient’s death. At the close of his talk, Dipettite revealed that the person was Roosevelt. Dipettite did not indicate that the cause of death was cancer. He said that the immediate problem was uncontrolled high blood pressure. His doctors knew he had high blood pressure but did not know how to treat it. (Remember, blood pressure medicines came later) Supervisor on April 12, 2013 at 10:43 am So the author claims FDR had malignant melanoma in 1940 when the supposed lesion was removed and then died of malignant melanoma FIVE YEARS LATER? Sorry, but there was no chemotherapy in 1940 and in any case chemo and radiation don’t work on malignant melanoma even today – when median survival time is only 8.1 months from diagnosis!

FDR may indeed have had a melanoma removed from his eyebrow in 1940, but it wasn’t the cause of what killed him FIVE YEARS LATER. Monica Lewinsky on April 12, 2013 at 11:21 am Following removal of the skin lesion, melanoma often returns 5, 10 even 20 years later as metastatic disease. The median survival time of 8 months refers to metastatic melanoma. ralphbaritone on April 13, 2013 at 10:18 pm Median means FDR could have had brain cancer (and mental impairment) for longer that 16 mos. And judging from some of the decisions he made, I believe he must have been at the far end of the survival scale (constantly being manipulated by the clandestine Soviet agents ever at his side, whispering in his ear, & offering him advice straight from the Kremlin). See “Stalin’s Secret Agents,” by Evans & Romerstein.

Mittymo on April 12, 2014 at 6:13 pm If you think those agents were “whispering in his ear,” your thinking is a lot worse than his was then. Hiss did not contribute a thing to the decisions made at Yalta – he submitted exactly ONE memorandum on one tiny and irrelevant matter. Hopkins was a close confidant and was not an agent, despite Diane West’s totally discredited claims about him that contradict all the known evidence. The other spies were even more removed. FDR made a mistake in putting the oddball Wallace in the VP slot, and he was FULLY on board with the maneuvering by which he was replaced in 1944. Does anyone really think someone else could have told FDR what to do about that in 1944? Good grief, what naivte. jbk on April 13, 2014 at 3:39 pm I must say, this article sets a new record: Most attention ever drawn to a MacLeans page from the Aryan Brotherhood, KKK, and Michelle Bachmann P.A.C.

fabuloso on April 12, 2013 at 6:00 pm Has anybody thought about Jack Layton? I expect but don’t know for sure that he knew his condition was terminal during the election but kept it quiet. April 12, 2014 at 5:04 pm Mostly won? From Stalin’s perspective I suppose. (See “The Unnecessary War,” by Patrick Buchanan.) Germany didn’t want war with Britain. Hitler hoped Britain would be Germany’s ally & help fortify Europe’s defenses against the advancing Soviet bear. (See Mein Kampf.) Recall that the Soviet goal was to spread communism worldwide, either through overt revolution, war or covert subversion. WWII encompassed all aspects of the Soviets’ strategy. Hitler wanted to move east & reclaim lands take from Germany under the Treaty of Versailles. But Britain & France (at the urging & promised backing of FDR) declared war on Germany, not the other way around. After Britain & France declared war on Germany, it was forced to take unplanned defensive moves in order to secure the resources with which to fight that war.

Today people characterize Rudolph Hess’s flight to Britain to ask for peace as the actions of a deranged, lone-wolf, madman. But likely Hess was communicating the wishes of the German leadership. During the 1930s, the Soviets conducted a quiet revolution in America & used its deeply penetrated puppet to help it conquer broad swaths of territory in Europe in the 1940s. That’s how the economically backward Russian became the powerful Soviet Union, spreading its tentacles into other parts of the world, & fomenting both the Korean & Vietnam wars. See “The Crushing of Eastern Europe,” by Anne Applebaum, “The Unnecessary War,” by Patrick Buchanan, “Day of Deceit,” by Robert Stinnett, “Operation Snow,” by John Koster, and “The Chief Culprit,” by Victor Suvorov. Plus (as Stalin had hoped), both Britain & France were seriously weakened by the War. Had FDR lived or had conservative Democrats not blocked FDR’s choice for VP (Henry Wallace), all of Europe may have fallen under Communist control.

“We can’t expect Americans to convert overnight, but we can help their leaders to adopt small, creeping measures of socialism that will spread & grow until Communism finally takes over.” Nikita Khrushchev, expounding on Soviet tactics & strategies High level agents like Laurence Duggan, Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, Lachlin Currie, etc. not only helped shape our foreign policy, but they also helped open the door for other Soviet agents to gain entry into our government. Earl Browder & CPUSA recruited them, & the moles inside our government provided passage for the new recruits into highly sensitive areas of our government. See “Stalin’s Secret Agents,” by Evans & Romerstein. “I have a troubled sense of the futility that marked our experience. What an inane outcome! Look at what happened: We destroyed one set of tyrants only to build up others that were even more virulent, vicious, & pernicious! We “won” that war only in a limited military sense. ~ General A. C.

Wedemeyer, former commander of allied forces in China, discussing the outcome of World War II Mittymo on April 12, 2014 at 5:01 pm Nuts, but there is a lot of this out there these days – on the left, Oliver Stone, on the right, Diane West. Two peas in a pod. Germany didn’t want war with Britain? Laughable. The British were desperate to avoid a fight with Hitler at almost all costs. Hitler made a deal with his supposed main adversary so he could conquer Poland, turn to the West, take it over and prepare to invade England. But, oh, those ungrateful Brits, they went to war with him anyway, kept him from conquering them, and forced them to go after Russia instead. Poor Hitler. What choice did he have? And, yes, let’s all weep for the Europe that might have been, Russia with one half, the Nazis with the other. And England as a cowering tributary. Boy, how tragic that FDR made sure that did not happen.

jbk on April 13, 2014 at 3:34 pm Hamilton Fish, House ranking Republican member on the Foreign Relations Committee, met with German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in 1939. Von Ribbentrop told him he had made over 20 trips to Britain to seek assurances that Britain would help Germany defend against the Soviets’ designs on Europe. Russia was invited to join in the joint defense pact (instigated by Wm. Bullitt, FDR’s personal emissary) wherein England & France pledged to protect Poland from German attack, but Stalin feared that if the Soviets joined the coalition, it would probably discourage Hitler from reclaiming the German territory ceded to Poland under the Treaty of Versailles. So, he declined. A German-Soviet non-aggression pact, however, would give Hitler a free hand to reclaim those lands from Poland. Moreover, Stalin felt certain that England, as Poland’s ally, would declare war on Germany, drag a reluctant France into the conflagration, and Italy would rush to Hitler’s side.

The Soviet Foreign Office explained Stalin’s decision in a telegram to its embassy in Tokyo: “The ratifying of our treaty with Germany was dictated by the need for a war in Europe.”4 See “Josef Stalin: Verwandler der Welt,” by Adolph von Thadden, page 88. “Nonintervention represents the endeavor… to allow all the warmongers to sink deeply into the mire of warfare, to quietly urge them on. The result will be that they weaken and exhaust one another. Then… (we will) appear on the scene with fresh forces and step in, naturally in the interest of peace,” to dictate terms to the weakened belligerents.”2 Josef Stalin, March 10, 1939, speech in Moscow (with his eye on the prize, i.e., the conquest of Europe) Nikita Khrushchev said that Stalin considered war with Germany inevitable (as it was the gateway into Europe). But first, he wanted to see Germany debilitated by war with the West. It must be our objective that Germany wage war long enough to exhaust England and France so much that they cannot defeat Germany alone….

Should Germany win, it will itself be so weakened that it won’t be able to wage war against us for 10 years…. It’s paramount for us that this war continues as long as possible, until both sides are worn out.5 Josef Stalin, text of a speech Stalin delivered on August 19 to a closed session of the Political Bureau in Moscow, as published in the Swiss periodical Revue de droit international on August 25, 1939 Britain & France declared war on Germany, not the other way around, even though Germany & the Soviets attacked Poland at nearly the same time (with the Soviets conquering far more Polish territory than did Germany).

Question: What disease caused US president Franklin D Roosevelt to use a wheelchair?
Answer: Polio