The Presidential Coverup You’ve Never Heard Of

…an excerpt from Under This Roof, from Paul Brandus of the award-winning West Wing Reports — pre-orders available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Franklin D. Roosevelt has generally been described by those who knew him as a supremely confident man. In terms of his ebullient personality and certitude that he was leading the Depression-scarred nation in the right direction, this is certainly so. But he was never confident enough to let the American people see him as he truly was: a disabled man who was largely dependent upon others to get around. Barely a dozen years after Woodrow Wilson was incapacitated, his true condition hidden from all but his wife and a handful of trusted aides, FDR cleverly hid his crippling paralysis as well. Americans rarely, if ever, saw their president as he truly was, either.

He asked the press not to photograph him in his wheelchair, and anyone who didn’t comply often faced the wrath of the Secret Service. Agents who spotted a photographer taking pictures of Roosevelt struggling to get into a car would seize the camera and rip out the film. In 1946, a year after Roosevelt died, a survey of White House photographers revealed that anyone taking unauthorized photos “had their cameras emptied, their films exposed to sunlight, or their plates smashed.” This for a president who frequently defended the First Amendment, which gave those photographers the right to take those very pictures.

Americans could read of his affliction — the New York Times and Time magazine each mentioned it before he was sworn in (Time referred to FDR’s “lameness”) — but actual images of the president in a wheelchair are exceedingly rare. Of the thousands upon thousands of photos taken of America’s longest-serving president, the FDR Library in Hyde Park, New York, has just three in its vast archives.

Roosevelt was so determined to hide his affliction that even longtime White House aides were surprised to learn the truth. Longtime usher J. B. West encountered the president frequently when he began working in the White House in 1941. Yet the first time he saw him in a wheelchair he was shocked: “Startled, I looked down at him. It was only then that I realized that Franklin D. Roosevelt was really paralyzed.” Another time, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, wife of China’s leader, was leaving an Oval Office meeting. “Please don’t get up,” she said. Roosevelt: “My dear child, I couldn’t stand up if I had to.”

Yet FDR never complained about being crippled. Anyone who expressed sympathy to his condition was often cut off with a terse “No sob sister stuff;” the president simply didn’t want to hear about it. He didn’t want to speak about it either. He mentioned it but once, on March 1, 1945 — six weeks before his death — in a speech to Congress. “I hope you will pardon me,” he said, “for the unusual posture of sitting down during the presentation . . . but I know you realize that it makes it a lot easier for me in not having to carry about ten pounds of steel around on the bottom of my legs.”

That he endured such a debilitating illness for years, without complaint, while guiding the country through both its worst economic calamity and a world war is testament to the man’s toughness, patience, and perseverance — among the most important qualities that any president of the United States could hope to possess.

21 Presidents, 21 rooms, 21 insider stories. That’s “Under This Roof,” by Paul Brandus of the award-winning White House-based news service West Wing Reports. Pre-order your copy now on Amazon and Barnes & Noble — and follow Paul on Twitter: @WestWingReport