FDR - Jean Edward Smith [380]
When Roosevelt’s condition failed to improve, McIntire convened a team of senior consultants to review Bruenn’s findings. They unanimously rejected his diagnosis. After all, someone said, Admiral McIntire had been treating the president for years and it was impossible to imagine that FDR had become so ill overnight.24
“I was only a lieutenant commander,” Bruenn remembered. “McIntire was an admiral. But I knew I was right, so I held my ground.”25 Finally McIntire agreed to let two outside consultants, Dr. James Paullin of Atlanta and Dr. Frank Lahey of Boston, examine the president. Afterward, both agreed that Bruenn was correct. Lahey believed Roosevelt’s condition was sufficiently serious that he should be informed of “the full facts of the case in order to insure his full cooperation.”26 McIntire rejected the suggestion. He preferred not to tell the president of the diagnosis. The conference agreed on a scaled-down version of Dr. Bruenn’s original recommendations. Low doses of digitalis would be administered, callers would be held to a minimum at lunch and dinner, and Roosevelt would be asked to cut his consumption of cigarettes, limit his cocktails in the evening, and try to obtain ten hours of sleep.27
In addition to keeping Roosevelt in the dark about his condition, McIntire also misled the public. Speaking to the press on April 3, he blithely reported the president was fine; FDR had come through his medical checkup with flying colors. “When we got through we decided that for a man of sixty-two we had very little to argue about, with the exception that we have had to combat the influenza plus respiratory complications that came along afterwards.” McIntire made no mention of the president’s heart condition or the treatment that had been prescribed.28*
Roosevelt responded quickly to his new regimen. X-rays taken two weeks after treatment began showed a definite decrease in the size of the heart and a notable clearing of the lungs. His blood chemistries were normal, and an EKG revealed marked improvement in the heart’s rhythm. Dr. Bruenn was reassigned from Bethesda to the White House and examined FDR almost daily. “At no time did the President ever comment on the frequency of these visits,” said Bruenn, “or question the reason for the electrocardiograms and other laboratory tests that were performed from time to time. Nor did he ever have any questions as to the type and variety of medications that were used.”29
On April 19 Roosevelt, accompanied by Bruenn, McIntire, Pa Watson, and Admiral Leahy, departed Washington for what was planned as a two-week stay at Bernard Baruch’s secluded South Carolina plantation, Hobcaw Barony, but which stretched into almost a month. “The whole period was very pleasant,” Bruenn recalled. “The president thrived on the simple routine. I had never known anyone so full of charm. At lunch and dinner alike he animated the conversation, telling wonderful stories, reminiscing with Baruch, talking of current events, pulling everyone in. He was a master raconteur.”30 According to Bruenn, Roosevelt displayed no cardiac symptoms, although his blood pressure remained elevated, ranging from 240/130 after breakfast to 194/96 in the evening.31
Returning to Washington in early May, Roosevelt wrote to Hopkins, who was recovering at White Sulphur Springs from abdominal surgery complicated by a bout of jaundice. “It is a good thing to connect up the plumbing and put your sewerage into operating condition,” he told Hopkins. “You have got to lead not the life of an invalid but the life of common sense. I, too, over one hundred years older than you are, have come to the same realization and have cut my drinks down to one and a half cocktails