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By Root 2040 0

bedroom. Anna stayed beside him and grew increasingly worried. After consulting with Grace Tully, she confronted Admiral Ross T. McIntire, the president’s personal physician.13 (McIntire wore a second hat as the Navy’s surgeon general, and in retrospect the two jobs may have been more than he could handle.)14 What was happening to her father? Anna asked. McIntire, originally an ear, nose, and throat specialist, saw no reason to worry. The president was recovering from his usual winter bout with influenza, he said. A week or two in the sun, and he would be fine. “I didn’t think he really knew what he was talking about,” Anna said later.

“Do you ever take his blood pressure?” she asked.

“When I think it necessary,” McIntire testily replied.15*

At Anna’s insistence, Admiral McIntire reluctantly scheduled a checkup for the president at Bethesda Naval Hospital on March 27, 1944. “I feel like hell!” Roosevelt told White House aide William Hassett as he entered his limousine.16 Anna rode with FDR up Wisconsin Avenue to Bethesda. When they reached the hospital grounds, the president pointed to the tall tower that dominated the facility. “I designed that one,” he said proudly. And it was true. While campaigning in the Midwest during the 1936 election, Roosevelt had been struck by the design of the Nebraska state capitol in Lincoln—a twenty-two-story skyscraper rising out of the prairie. Like President Grant many years earlier, FDR deplored the pedestrian style of federal architecture. “Therefore, I personally designed a new Naval Hospital with a large central tower of sufficient square footage and height to make it an integral and interesting part of the hospital itself, and at the same time present something new,” he wrote his uncle Frederic Delano.17 Roosevelt laid the cornerstone for the hospital on Armistice Day 1940 and spoke at its dedication in 1942.

FDR’s SKETCH OF BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL

Waiting for FDR inside the hospital was Lieutenant Commander Howard G. Bruenn of the Naval Reserve, the staff consultant in cardiology from Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. McIntire had instructed Bruenn to examine Roosevelt, report his findings directly to him (McIntire), and say nothing to the patient.18 “I suspected something was terribly wrong as soon as I looked at the president,” Bruenn recalled. “His face was pallid and there was a bluish discoloration of his skin, lips and nail beds. When the hemoglobin is fully oxygenated it is red. When it is impaired it has a bluish tint. The bluish tint meant the tissues were not being supplied with adequate oxygen.”19

Bruenn noted Roosevelt was having difficulty breathing. With his stethoscope he listened to FDR’s heart. “It was worse than I feared,” said Bruenn. X-rays and an electrocardiogram revealed that the apex of the heart was much further to the left than it should have been, indicating a grossly enlarged heart. Blood pouring through the atrium to the left ventricle of the heart was meeting resistance. Bruenn heard a blowing sound—a systolic murmur, which indicated the mitral valve was not closing properly. When he asked the president to take a deep breath and hold it as long as he could, Roosevelt expelled it after only thirty-five seconds.20 His blood pressure was 186 over 108. Bruenn could not understand why McIntire had not reacted earlier. The conclusion seemed obvious: Roosevelt was suffering from congestive heart failure. His heart was no longer able to pump blood effectively. If it continued untreated, the president was unlikely to survive for more than a year.21

Roosevelt chatted amiably with Dr. Bruenn throughout the examination but did not inquire about his condition, nor did Bruenn (in keeping with his instructions from McIntire) volunteer any information. But the young cardiologist recognized that the situation was critical. He immediately reported the findings to Admiral McIntire, along with his recommendations: bed rest with nursing care for one to two weeks; digitalis; a light, easily digestible diet with reduced sodium intake; codeine (½ grain)