From: Richard Garfunkel [rjg727@optonline.net]
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 11:01 AM
To: Jonathan.alter@newsweek.com
Subject: FDR – your new book
Been reading your interesting book each evening and taking my time on each chapter. With regards to your statement regarding the Lucy Mercer decision on page 44, you wrote, “…Franklin and Eleanor never shared a bed again.” In fact, after the birth of her last child, John, in 1916, she refused to become pregnant again and moved into her own adjoining room. This was her primitive, but effective version of birth control. In my opinion, and others, this precipitated their future problems. The Roosevelt's, all of them; Teddy, his sons, FDR and his sons had very high and active libidos and many, many children. To have his sexual life cut off at age 34 seems quite strange and unreasonable. But it surely seems that it was Eleanor's attitude that caused the cessation of their intimacy. Ironically there has only been speculation whether his affair with Lucy Mercer was ever consummated. There is an excellent novelized treatment of their relationship by Ellen Feldman, called “Lucy.” Lucy Mercer was a beautiful women who eventually was paired up with the very rich, older widower Winthrop Rutherford, took care of his young children, had none of her own, lived quite graciously until his death. She died not too long after FDR.
It seems that she was more affected by his (FDR's) seeming rejection than the sexual consequences. She had been rejected by her mother, father, cousin Alice and others. Also the story told by Eleanor to Joseph Lash (who else?) about how Sara pressured FDR with threats of disinheritance is also not exactly accurate. A later view is that Eleanor was not that compliant regarding the granting of a divorce. It could have been Blanche Cook (Eleanor's main biographer) and some others who have speculated that Eleanor said she would not grant a divorce and was much more stubborn and aggressive about preserving the marriage. Eleanor changed over the years regarding her memory and views on some critical issues. But there is no doubt that FDR did measure his political future regarding the specter of divorce. He may have seen that a break with Eleanor for the penniless Lucy, a Catholic, was a losing option. But FDR never once talked about that episode in his lifetime. He was always able to “compartmentalize” people and things. With regards to the relationship between Eleanor and Mama, there is no real evidence that in her mother-in-law's lifetime (died in 1941) that Eleanor ever had words with her, or even did not have the most cordial and respectful relationship. She was very grateful to Sara's generosity, love for her grandchildren and concern for Franklin. Later on, in retrospect she seemed to have second thoughts. Though she seemed inhibited by their twin residences, many people lived with extended family, in-laws, grandparents, etc, up and way past the 2nd World War. To read something else into Sara's affection for her son seems to beg the question. She said, “I am the child of my son!” Eleanor wasn't used to a loving parent. By the way Dore Sharey's version of their relationship in “Sunrise at Campobello” was deemed inaccurate, as was his whole romanticized treatment. When the family saw the show, they said, great play, not our lives!” It reminds me of Cole Porter when he saw the movie “Night and Day,” and remarked similarly, “great movie, not my life.”
As for the vituperative bitter Alice Roosevelt Longworth, she was quite jealous of Eleanor's marriage. Even though TR's children were fearful of FDR, and they mocked him, they saw him as a rival to their father's legacy. Alice was secretly in love with Franklin, and jealous of her more homely cousin. Her marriage to that low-life Nicholas Longworth was a disaster. Even her only child, a sickly daughter, who would eventually die at a young age, was supposedly the child of William Borah, not the syphilitic and impotent Longworth. Alice mocked Eleanor mercilessly at her salon. But on Inauguration Day (March, 1933), in the midst of that disastrous time period, FDR invited the Oyster bay Roosevelt's to the White House as part of their family guest list. Alice had not been there since TR had departed the Presidency. Eleanor objected to her being invited. She was insulted that he would invite this vicious cousin who mocked her voice, and mannerisms for the sheer joy and pleasure of it. But FDR knew better, and he understood that it was easier to “get flies with honey than vinegar.” Alice was so taken with his “beau geste,” that in FDR's lifetime she never did her “Eleanor act” in public. So he won!
Richard (RJG)