Every public person wishes to escape “privately” from time to time.
Caveat:
This does not mean to “hide” anything salacious, criminal or embarrassing. It may only mean to have the personal freedom to enjoy a good book, or a quiet dinner, or singing a loud ‘happy birthday’ at a family gathering. Without intrusive eyes and flapping lips.
Franklin D. Roosevelt: Dissembler
Long before FDR was crippled by polio and truly curtailed from many activities he long enjoyed, he was essentially a private fellow. His innermost thoughts, public and private, and especially his feelings, were his and his alone.
As an only child, surrounded by adults, with few opportunities to pal around with age peers, he began to zealously guard his private world, especially from his doting mother. When his elderly father had a heart attack, mother and son conspired to withhold anything that might upset Mister James and cause further suffering.
When FDR went to boarding school, and then Harvard, the “withholding” tendency now included his mother. If he was lonely, or felt excluded, or wished to socialize more privately (i.e. lady friends), Sara Roosevelt did not need to know.
As time went on, his friends and associates, even the closest of them, called him “dissembling.” It is a fine word. FDR knew it, and frequently admitted that “he never let his right hand know what his left hand was doing.” And he liked it like that. Always would.
FDR: 1941: The Crucial Year
After eight years as President, Franklin D. Roosevelt despite all odds, was beginning to turn a slight corner in battling the worst economic depression the country, and indeed the world, had ever known. Some businesses had been closed for a decade, leaving millions without jobs, and families struggling for bare survival. Many people were literally homeless, camping in tar-paper shanty towns they called Hoovervilles, after FDR’s predecessor who was saddled with the blame.
By the end of 1939, there was another mammoth crisis on the horizon. Germany, under its brutal dictator Adolph Hitler, was rampaging through Europe, gobbling up whatever territory fancied him at the moment. By mid-1940, the Netherlands and France both fell within a few weeks. The only hope for Europe was maybe Great Britain, and that was a huge “maybe.” They were barely hanging on themselves.
Unbeknownst to just about everyone, Roosevelt and 65-year-old Winston Churchill, recently appointed British Prime Minister, had been engaged in confidential correspondence, both written and via telephone, for some time. They were like minded on many fronts, and FDR was always a sincere and sympathetic ear for the feisty Churchill. And they were both remarkably astute and canny politicians.
But… FDR was president of a country that was strongly isolationist. Americans had suffered quite enough during the First World War, only twenty years earlier, and sympathetic or not, did not wish to engage in another European conflict that was none of America’s business. Roosevelt’s hands were tied and he knew it. Even after his unprecedented election to a third term in 1940, any effort to aid GB, or other European nations fighting for their survival was certain to be met with massive resistance on the US home front. Americans were soundly non-interventionists. But there signs they might waver in their neutrality. Sympathy-ties leaned more and more against Germany.
One Non-Secret About FDR
While a huge percentage of the US population had no idea that their president was seriously crippled, many of them knew he was “lame.” (His word of choice.) Lame, i.e. requiring a cane for mobility, is not nearly as devastating to strong public leadership as being in a wheelchair. Or being carried about. There was a tacit conspiracy among government officials, and especially the press, to keep photos of his obvious infirmity from the public. Sitting in a chair was fine; a wheelchair was not.
One thing FDR was happy to acknowledge openly, was his love for sailing. He had learned to handle a sailboat on the Hudson River in his youth. He loved being on the water, just being aboard and preferably handling the wheel.
The Left-Hand Vacation and the Right-Hand Meeting
In August 1941, President Roosevelt, under enormous pressure, let it be know that he was taking some time off. As usual, Washington was beastly hot, and air-conditioning was still in its infancy. Other than occasional trips home to Hyde Park, FDR had not been away for several months. An outing on the Presidential yacht, the USS Potomac, for a cruise up to New England was just what the doctor ordered, and according to his staff, put a gleam in the President’s eyes.
Perhaps he was glad for the outing. Perhaps he was even gladder because he was about to put one over on everyone!
Look-a likes, or body doubles, are not uncommon. Movies use them regularly to protect their valuable stars from injury – or to perform feats beyond said star’s ability. Doubles are occasionally used to allow people to be in two places at once. Size, coloring, similar clothing or mannerisms are all that is needed. That, plus enough space to blur the image.
So on August 5, the Presidential yacht sailed past the Massachusetts capes, where a crowd enjoying themselves on the beach was waiting along the shores to catch a glimmer of the President. FDR was aboard, relaxing in his captain’s chair, and waving to the crowd who waved back.
The only hitch was that the POTUS was not on board at all. He had actually boarded the USS Augusta some time earlier, and was steaming ahead toward Newfoundland. He had planned a secret Meeting aboard the HMS Prince of Wales with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. It was the first face-to-face meeting between the two heads of state, which led to the Atlantic Charter. And FDR had managed to keep it a secret!
He confessed all to Congress on August 21.
Sources:
Bell, Jack – The Splendid Misery – Doubleday, 1960
Davis, Kenneth – FDR: The War President 194043 – Random House, 2000
Meacham, Jon – Franklin and Winston – Random House, 2003
warfarehistorynetwork.com
https://www.fdrlibrary.org/polio
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/great-debate
