The Last 100 Days by David B. Woolner

Author:David B. Woolner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2017-12-12T05:00:00+00:00

ACCORDING TO THE METICULOUS NAVAL LOGS OF FDR’S JOURNEY TO Yalta, the president had traveled 13,842 miles in the previous five weeks. It was an extraordinary expedition, particularly for a man confined to a wheelchair who could manage “to walk” a short distance only with the help of rigid steel braces, a cane, and the strong arm of one of his sons or close aides. FDR had developed this technique after years of convalescence in Warm Springs, Georgia, out of a sheer determination to never be viewed by the public as a “cripple” but instead to be seen as a man who had largely recovered the use of his legs. The first sign that he had succeeded in this effort came at the Democratic Convention in 1928, when he was asked to place the name of Al Smith in nomination for president of the United States. At the same event in 1924—his first public appearance since the onset of his disease—he had made his way from the back of the stage to the podium using crutches as a crowd of more than sixteen thousand looked on in hushed silence, and then burst into rapturous applause as he grabbed the podium, threw back his head, and flashed that famous smile.17

Now, four years later, after countless hours of strenuous effort and practice, FDR made his way to the podium during the 1928 convention using the gait the public soon became so familiar with—swinging each braced leg forward one at a time, steadied by a cane and the arm of his son, head up, smiling and laughing as if he were out for a leisurely afternoon stroll.

The truth, of course, was that this exercise in “walking” took tremendous effort and concentration, and was also highly nerve-racking, as an unexpected fall could have shattered the entire illusion—and perhaps his political career along with it. But as the Washington Post reported that day in 1928, FDR was “now sufficiently recovered from his physical disability to walk,” making his way to the podium “in a perfect thunder of cheering… supported only by the arm of his tall, slender son Elliott.”18

Having convinced the press and public that he had regained the use of his legs, and was no longer “a paraplegic” as the Chicago Daily Tribune described him in 1924, FDR went on with his career as if this was in fact true. He rarely discussed his disability, even with those closest to him, and he used his wheelchair only to get from one point to another and refused to be photographed in it. He also seems to have spent much of his life believing that somehow, someway, he might still regain the ability to stand on his own. FDR never thought of himself as disabled, and—despite his association with efforts to eradicate polio, including the famous “March of Dimes”—almost never mentioned his own encounter with the disease in public.19

For all of these reasons, perhaps the most remarkable odyssey the president took in the spring of 1945

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