FDR - Jean Edward Smith [398]
“It was the saddest Taps I had ever heard,” remembered Bill Livingstone, who had been captured by the Germans after bailing out of his damaged B-17 in 1944. “Tears ran down my face, as they did on the faces of the rest of the group. When the sergeant finished playing, we all stood silently, with our heads bowed. Then we marched on.”179
* Hopkins and his young daughter, Diana, had lived in the Lincoln Suite down the hall from FDR since the death of Hopkins’s wife in May 1940. When Hopkins remarried in July 1942, his new wife, Louise Macy, joined them. But the inevitable friction that developed between Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Hopkins in such close quarters caused Hopkins to seek other accommodations, and in December 1943 he, Louise, and Diana moved to a town house near 33rd and N Streets in Georgetown.
* According to FDR’s medical history, as reported by Dr. Howard G. Bruenn, the president had not had his blood pressure checked since February 27, 1941—three years previously—when it had measured 188/105. By current standards Admiral McIntire would be considered guilty of egregious neglect for failing to consult a cardiologist and recommend remedial treatment at that time. But in the 1940s—and indeed, even into the 1960s—a majority of physicians believed that rising blood pressure was a necessary physiological response by an aging body to force blood through hardened arteries.
According to Dr. Daniel Levy, the director of the Framingham Heart Study, “Leading physicians believed that it was dangerous and irresponsible to lower high blood pressure. That position grew out of scientific dogma from the nineteenth century which suggested that with normal aging elevated blood pressure was necessary … to supply enough blood to organs, especially the kidneys.” Dr. Daniel Levy and Susan Brink, A Change of Heart 45 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005); Howard G. Bruenn, “Critical Notes on the Illness and Death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt,” 72 Annals of Internal Medicine 580 (1970). Also see Ray W. Gifford, Jr., “FDR and Hypertension: If We’d Only Known Then What We Know Now,” 51 Geriatrics 29–32 (1996).
* Roosevelt’s medical file, including all clinical notes and test results, was kept in the safe at Bethesda Naval Hospital. It disappeared immediately after the president’s death. Supposition holds that the file was removed by Admiral McIntire and later destroyed.
* American anti-Semites, of whom there were many, often referred to FDR as “Rosenfeld” and the New Deal as the “Jew Deal.” Some to this day continue to believe that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was Jewish, and the limericks that circulated about his and ER’s racial attitude, particularly during the 1940 election, were truly revolting.
* Dr. Stephen S. Wise, a Reform rabbi and longtime Zionist, was the foremost Jewish spokesman in the 1930s and 1940s. A longtime leader of the interfaith social justice movement, Wise was a crusader for political change and in that capacity strongly endorsed FDR for governor in 1928 against Albert Ottinger, New York’s Jewish attorney general. Roosevelt’s narrow victory was no doubt assisted by Jewish voters influenced by Wise. Wise believed in FDR and trusted him, and Roosevelt for his part respected Wise and always appreciated his political assistance. Many writers on the holocaust, particularly the noted scholar David S. Wyman of the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), are critical of Wise for placing so much faith in FDR. David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews 69–70 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984).
† The United States did not establish official diplomatic relations with the Holy See until January 10, 1984, during the administration of Ronald Reagan.
* In issuing the statement Roosevelt overrode the objections of the State Department, which believed it too strong and too definite. “In the first place, these reports are unconfirmed,” wrote R. Borden Reams, a specialist on Jewish matters in the