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sorting Sara’s things. He wore a black armband on the left sleeve of his jacket and would continue to do so for well over a year. Late one afternoon Grace Tully brought him a box he had never seen. She untied the twine that held it closed, and together, she and the president looked inside. They found a number of bundles wrapped in tissue, each carefully labeled in Sara’s firm hand. One held the gloves she had worn at her wedding. Another contained Franklin’s first pair of shoes. Others held his baby toys, his christening dress, a lock of his baby hair. Beneath the bundles were his boyhood letters written from Groton and Harvard. Roosevelt’s eyes filled with tears. He told Tully he would like to be alone. She hurried from the room. No one on the White House staff had ever seen the president weep.103

* Over the years allegations have been made that Churchill declined to order preparatory air defense measures for Coventry so as not to reveal that the British were able to decrypt (code name Ultra) German radio signals. To the contrary, the Air Ministry took prompt defensive action. Fighters were scrambled, bombers dispatched to hit the fields from which the German planes departed, and the antiaircraft barrage that night over Coventry was greater than any yet put up and succeeded in keeping the attacking aircraft at very high levels. Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life 683–684 (New York: Henry Holt, 1991).

* “I try to get away a couple of times a year on these short trips on salt water,” said Roosevelt in his 1941 Jackson Day message to the Democratic faithful. “In Washington the working day of the President averages about fifteen hours. But at sea the radio messages and the occasional pouch of mail reduce official work to not more than two or three hours a day.

“So there is a chance for a bit of sunshine or a wetted line, or a biography or detective story or a nap after lunch. Above all there is the opportunity for thinking things through—for differentiating between principles and methods, between the really big things of life and those other things of the moment which may seem all-important today and are forgotten in a month.” 10 Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt 82–83, Samuel I. Rosenman, ed. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950).

* The phrase “arsenal of democracy” was first used by Jean Monnet, a representative of the French government in Washington, in a conversation with Justice Felix Frankfurter in late 1940. Frankfurter was struck by the phrase and suggested to Monnet that he desist using it until Roosevelt could make it his own. Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy also came upon the phrase (Monnet and McCloy were very close friends), and it was contained in a speech draft submitted to the White House by the War Department. When he saw it, Roosevelt said, “I love it,” and included it. Samuel I. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt 260–261 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952); Kai Bird, The Chairman: John J. McCloy and the Making of the American Establishment 121 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992).

* At his press conference on July 5, 1940, Roosevelt gave an offhand answer to a question about his long-range peace objectives in which he casually alluded to five freedoms, two of them falling under the heading “freedom of speech.” The fifth freedom, freedom from want, was suggested by Richard L. Harkness, then with The Philadelphia Inquirer, later with NBC News. “I had that in mind but forgot it,” said FDR. “That is the fifth, very definitely.” Press Conference 658, July 5, 1940. 16 Complete Presidential Press Conferences of Franklin D. Roosevelt 21–22 (New York: Da Capo Press, 1972).

† Willkie’s visit to England was the product of a December 1940 meeting between the chief British intelligence agent in the United States, William Stephenson, and Roosevelt. When FDR asked how he could make a gesture to hearten the British, Stephenson suggested sending Willkie. Roosevelt liked the idea, and at a New Year’s Eve party Justice Frankfurter, evidently speaking on the president’s behalf, broached the idea to