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Enhanced Transcript
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT - PART TWO
NARRATOR
On July 17th, 1940 Eleanor Roosevelt was at her home, Val Kill, listening to the radio broadcast of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
NARRATOR
With the world at war in Europe and Asia, the delegates had nominated Franklin Roosevelt to run for an unprecedented third term as president. Now he sent word that he wanted the controversial Secretary of Agriculture, Henry Wallace, as his running mate. The delegates threatened to revolt. From the White House, Roosevelt threatened not to run. The convention was spinning out of control. Party leaders and an anxious FDR turned to his strongest ally to help hold the convention together.
Eleanor Roosevelt v/o (lower third)
I got a call from the convention begging me to come out. I called Franklin, and he said, "Well, would you like to go?" and I said, "No, I wouldn't like to go. I'm very busy, and you told me I didn't have to go." He said, "Well, perhaps they seem to think it might be well if you came out." And I said, "But do you really want me to go?" and he said, "Well, perhaps it would be a good idea." So that meant, I suppose, that I had to go.
Eleanor Roosevelt v/o
Pandemonium had broken loose in the hall. You couldn't hear yourself speak. The noise was something terrible. I went forward and stood and, to my surprise and everyone else's, I imagine, there was silence in a very short time.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
"Delegates to the convention. This is no ordinary time. You cannot treat it as you would treat an ordinary nomination in an ordinary time"
Trude Lash
She talked very briefly, without notes, though she had very carefully prepared it.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
You will have to rise above considerations which are narrow and partisan. You..
Mary Bain
She just brought us all up. She was just electric, is about the only thing I can think of.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch cont.
This is only carried by a united people who love their country and who will live for it to the fullest of their ability, with a determination to bring the world to a safer and happier condition
Trude Lash
There was pandemonium, so much applause. She pulled it together. They agreed to the President’s choice for Vice-President. And it was a miracle.
Mary Bain
People loved every minute of it. Some people cried and some people just... It was just amazing.
Trude Lash
The President called her and said this was a job wonderfully done. It was just marvelous. And Mrs. Roosevelt sat there and beamed.
NARRATOR
Eleanor exulted in her triumph, but the election itself filled her with dread. More than a quarter century in politics had taken a heavy toll on her family. Just before election day Eleanor wrote, "From a personal standpoint I'd give anything to leave Washington and, if Franklin is elected, I wonder if the amount he can do will be worth the sacrifice that all of us have to make."
NARRATOR
Publicly Eleanor did not reveal how much she worried about her family. All the Roosevelt children had troubled lives. They struggled with feelings of jealousy, with failed marriages, and financial difficulties.
Eleanor Roosevelt niece
Among the five children, there were 19 marriages. Partly that might be due to the puzzlement of being children of famous people, and not knowing who was your friend really, or who wanted to get close to your parents.
Trude Lash
Mrs. Roosevelt tried very hard to make it clear to them that access to their father was really often the main purpose of why people fell all over themselves for them. But it was difficult for them to believe. The White House is a very seductive place to be.
Nina Gibson
It was very difficult for them, as the children not just of the president of the United States but of Eleanor Roosevelt as well. I mean, they sort of had a double whammy.
Eleanor Roosevelt v/o
If they wanted to really talk to their father, they had to ask for an appointment. and even when they got the appointment, sometimes affairs of state would be so important that they didn't get the full attention of their father. And this is a very difficult thing for youngsters to accept.
NARRATOR
Now 56, Eleanor still blamed herself for not having been a better mother. Feelings of guilt and inadequacy continued to send her into fierce depressions.
Trude Lash
When she had one of her Griselda moods, there was practically nothing you could do. I never fully understood what brought on this great sudden sadness and withdrawal. She could turn to ice. I was scared to death of those moods.
Eleanor Roosevelt niece
I think that she was a moody, even maybe sad person, because she felt in herself a lack of ability to be to be spontaneous. I think she wanted to be a happy person. I have an image of her in the White House; I was leaving and she came to the door and she stood out under the portico and just stood there waving goodbye while we drove down the driveway. And I had a terrible feeling of a lonely, lonely person.
Eleanor Roosevelt v/o - Lower Third ER broadcast on Dec 8, 1941
I am speaking to you tonight at a very serious moment in our history. Army and Navy officials have been with the President all afternoon. In fact the Japanese ambassador was talking to the President at the very time that Japan's airships were bombing our citizens in Hawaii.
NARRATOR
The attack on Pearl Harbor that brought America into World War II changed Eleanor and Franklin's political partnership. FDR's priority now was to win the war and he had less and less time to spend on domestic issues with her. As the country mobilized, their four sons enlisted.
Trude Lash
She knew they all would have to go to war. American young people, so many of them, she had the feeling, would die. And she was deeply disturbed. She feared that her sons wouldn’t all come back, because the probability was, they wouldn’t. And it undid her.
NARRATOR
Eleanor still confided many of her feelings to Lorena Hickock but the intensity of their relationship had diminished over the years. Now Eleanor often turned for emotional support to a young man the same age as her sons -- Joseph Lash.
NARRATOR
Lash had been a student leader, affiliated with the American Youth Congress. When a Congressional committee investigated foreign influence on American political groups, the Youth Congress was targeted. Despite warnings that many of its members were Communists, Eleanor believed that they were simply idealistic and she defended their right to free speech.
Joe Lash 1972 Interview
When I was testifying, Mrs Roosevelt appeared and the hearings weren't finished and we were supposed to come back the next day. She said, "I can take six of you." So she scooped us into her limousine. And lo and behold we were having dinner with the President. And that night we spent at the White House and the next morning she came to the hearings again. The hearing room came alive. Everyone was on their toes.
Joe Lash synch archive
I didn't say that. I just agreed with what you said ...
Joe Lash 1972 interview
We somehow sort of hit it off right from the beginning. From that point on it became I think for several years her closest friendship.
Lou Harris
They enjoyed the same kind of jokes, the sense of humor. Above all, they belonged to the same part of the human equation, and they had the same kind of mission, the same kind of way of looking at the world.
Trude Lash
It was real love, on both sides. Joe adored her. I mean, here was someone like nobody he had ever seen. Certainly it was a friendship between a man and a woman, but there was no sexual part to it. And it made both of them very eager to see each other and to talk together.
NARRATOR
Eleanor did not seem to realize their friendship might be misconstrued. In 1942 Lash was assigned to an air base in Illinois. Because of his radical background, military counter- intelligence monitored his activities- including two weekends he spent with Eleanor - one at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago.
Trude Lash
Joe had a room next to hers and came into her room. He was very tired. He had not slept all night. And she said, "Why don’t you lie down, Joe," and sat on the bed next to him and talked with him. And I’m sure that was all.
Athan Theoharis
Mrs. Roosevelt was advised by officials of the Blackstone Hotel that military intelligence had been monitoring her during her stay. Eleanor Roosevelt had real difficulties with the surveillance of her activities. She wanted to preserve her privacy and she wanted to have the freedom to move around as any other American. She complained to White House aide Harry Hopkins, who in turn conveyed her displeasure to General of the Army, George Marshall.
NARRATOR
Marshall put a stop to the surveillance. But the agents gave their file with its allegations of a sexual affair to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
Trude Lash
If they had listened to how they talked, they would have found out what this relationship was all about: close. She might have called him "Joe dearest," as she did. But this was then the Hoover interpretation. Hoover knows everything about all what goes on in all the bedrooms in the nation. And if he didn’t know, he’d invent it.
NARRATOR
This was not the FBI's first report on Eleanor.
Blanche Cook
Eleanor Roosevelt’s FBI file is one of the wonders of the Western world. It is one of the largest individual files that Hoover compiled. And it goes on for over 3,000 pages. She writes to Joe Lash, the letter is in the file. She visits with Joe Lash, the visit is in her file. Anything she says against segregation, against lynching, is in that file. They are following her everywhere.
NARRATOR
Hoover's notes reveal his intense dislike of Eleanor, and the FBI would watch her for the rest of her life.
Athan Theoharis
It reflected a conviction on the part of senior FBI officials that Mrs. Roosevelt’s advocacy of racial equality was inimical to the national interest. He found her a threat to American society and values.
NARRATOR
For Eleanor, the war against fascist Germany and Japan made America's own failings -- especially racism -- even more intolerable. Her public support of racial equality enraged many Americans.
Vernon Jarrett
World War II exposed a great contradiction in American life. Here you were fighting Hitler, the world’s premier ideologue of racism. And in your own country, if you were a black soldier in a uniform, you had to be very cautious about your life. They were still lynching African Americans, hanging them up, setting them on fire, shooting them like they were garbage and dogs.
NARRATOR
During the war thousands of people - black and white - moved to northern cities like Detroit to work in defense industries.
Vernon Jarrett
In Detroit, you had a lot of workers there that said, "We just can’t accept black people. We cannot accept black people in any kind of jobs that we had declared rigidly in our minds not to be black jobs."
NARRATOR
By 1942 the atmosphere in Detroit was ugly. Blacks and whites clashed in housing projects and on street corners. Again and again Eleanor called for tolerance, for equal housing and job opportunities for all Americans. And she wrote one memo after another warning FDR about rising racial tensions.
NARRATOR
On June 20th, 1943, Eleanor's worst fears came true. Riots ripped through Detroit. White mobs roamed the streets, hauling blacks out of cars and beating them. African Americans responded in kind.
NARRATOR
The next morning federal troops arrived, and restored order. Nearly one thousand people were injured; twenty five blacks and nine whites were dead. As America tried to understand what had happened, southern newspapers found an easy scapegoat.
Vernon Jarrett
And of course, who did they blame? Eleanor Roosevelt. And they laid it on her. They accused her of being a communist. They accused her of everything.
Lou Harris
I asked Mrs. Roosevelt one day, I said, "Why do you do so many things that make you so controversial?" She said, "I have access to the President. And if I don’t use that access to do things that need to be done in this country, need to be done for people, I would be sorely remiss and irresponsible."
NARRATOR
In the weeks following Detroit, Eleanor and civil rights leaders appealed to FDR to speak to the nation about the problem of race. But Roosevelt felt his hands were tied by powerful white southerners in Congress whose votes he needed for the war effort. He had a war to win, he said.
FDR synch
Our ultimate objectives in this war continue to be Berlin and Tokyo.
NARRATOR
The campaign in the Pacific was one of the toughest and bloodiest of the war. For months, Eleanor had wanted to visit the troops fighting there. Now FDR agreed, thinking the trip might reduce her negative press. In August 1943 she set off alone, without even her secretary. She went with trepidation -- she knew that vicious "Eleanor" stories were common among the men.
Edna Gurewitsch - friend of Eleanor Roosevelt
Word had got out that a woman was arriving. For security reasons, they couldn’t say it was the president’s wife. And she said she always felt how disappointed they would be because they were expecting a Hollywood starlet and all they got was her.
NARRATOR
On the advice of her sons, who were all serving in the military, she insisted on spending time, not just with the officers, but with the enlisted men.
Eleanor Roosevelt on camera
Just as the Marines were ordered to leave Guadalcanal, an officer found a private looking very sad, very depressed. He said, 'What's the matter with you?' And he said, 'I haven't shot a Jap.' So the officer said, 'Well, listen, I tell you what to do. You go up that ridge over there and jump up all of a sudden and say, 'To hell with Hirohito!' and they'll jump up other people all around and you'll get a Jap.' So he goes off and a little while later the officer sees him again and was still very gloomy and he says, 'Did you do what I told you to do?' He says, 'Yes sir, I did just what you said. I said, 'To hell with Hirohito!' and they all jumped up just as you said they would but they all shouted, 'To hell with Roosevelt!'
NARRATOR
The men loved her. Admiral Halsey, commander of the Pacific fleet had opposed her visit but he changed his mind. "I marveled at her hardihood, both physical and mental," he reported. She saw patients who were grievously wounded. I marveled most at their expressions as she leaned over them. It was a sight I will never forget. She alone accomplished more good than any other person who passed through my area." The suffering of the men," Eleanor said, ""left a mark from which I think I shall never be free."
NARRATOR
By 1944 the war had taken its toll on FDR. Sixty two years old, he had been president for 11 years. Now he sought a fourth term.
Trude Lash
Eleanor Roosevelt felt that he desperately needed rest. On the other hand, she did not feel that she could say or push very hard against his running, because the war was on and he felt he had to finish the job.
FDR synch Lower Third - January 1945
As I stand here today having taken the solemn oath of office in the presence of my fellow countrymen...
Eleanor Seagraves - Granddaughter
The grandchildren came back for the inauguration - there were 13 or 14 of us.. We brought our homework with us and stayed a month at the White House. And then when I had to go back to school in San Francisco, I popped into the Oval Office and said good-bye. And I said, "I’ll see you this summer, Papa." And he said, "Yes. Good-bye, old thing." But I noticed how thin he looked. He didn’t quite fill out his clothes. And I wondered how long he can go on.
Geoff Ward
Franklin Roosevelt was ill and suffering from heart disease. And Eleanor seemed oddly oblivious of this and would nag him to do things: helping a particular group of refugees, that sort of thing when he was trying to (A) stay alive and (B) keep the big picture in his mind.
Curtis Roosevelt - Eleanor Roosevelt' s grandson
Very rarely did she bring in papers to the cocktail hour, because that was his hour. But in one instance, my grandmother did bring a lot of papers in. And he must have been very, very tired, and so he picked up the papers and he flopped them down in front of Anna, my mother and said, "Sis, you handle these." And it was totally out of character for him. So my grandmother just left in hurt and went back to her study. And my mother did say to her father, "Pa, I think you’ve got to make amends." And he said, "Yes, I know." So he had himself wheeled in, and no one knows what he said, but she came down to supper with him.
NARRATOR
FDR depended more and more on their daughter Anna. Unlike her mother, Anna made no demands on her father. She was warm and cheerful, and she carefully watched his health. To Eleanor's great disappointment he asked Anna, not her, to accompany him to Yalta for his meeting with Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill.
FDR synch
Mr Speaker, members of the Congress...
NARRATOR
After FDR returned his failing health was apparent to all.
FDR synch
I hope that you will pardon me for an unusual posture of sitting down during the presentation of what I want to say but I know that you will realize that it makes it a lot easier for me .....
Eleanor Roosevelt v/o
When Franklin went to Warm Springs in April of 1945, he said to me that he felt that there were certain things I had to do and I had better wait and come down later. He would take two people whom he enjoyed having with him, Margaret Suckley and Laura Delano and he said in an amusing way that he did not have to make any effort with either of them.
NARRATOR
Eleanor stayed behind in Washington. On April 12th she attended a fundraising event at the Sulgrave Club. Just before 5 o'clock, she received a telephone call telling her to come home immediately. "I got into the car and sat with clenched hands all the way to the White House. In my heart of hearts, I knew what had happened."
NARRATOR
Franklin had died that afternoon of a brain hemorrhage. Eleanor travelled through the night to Warm Springs. And there she learned why he had discouraged her from going with him.
Franklin D. Roosevelt 3
Laura Delano made it her business to tell Eleanor that Lucy Mercer was with FDR when he died in Warm Springs, which was devastating for Eleanor to learn that the woman FDR had first had an affair with in 1917 was there at his side when he died.
Blanche Cook
And she discovers also that her daughter Anna had arranged for many other visits during the war years, between Lucy Mercer and her husband. And this is a very big blow to her pride, to her heart.
NARRATOR
As Franklin's body was carried on the journey to Washington, Eleanor was barely seen.
NARRATOR
For more than 40 years, for better and for worse, Eleanor's life had been intertwined with Franklin's. Now, her anger she felt numb, detached from the nation's sorrow. "It was almost as though I had erected someone a little outside of myself, who was the president's wife," she wrote. "I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself."
NARRATOR
Just days after FDR's funeral, Eleanor moved out of the White House back to her home, Val Kill. She had time to reflect on Franklin's death, his final betrayal, and Anna's complicity.
Blanche Cook
Her heart has been really shredded. It took a long time for her to forgive her daughter. And she does forgive her and she even understands how it happened.
NARRATOR
As she struggled with her feelings, the depth of her mourning surprised her. "My husband and I had come through the years with an acceptance of each other's faults and foibles, warm affection and agreement on essential values. We depended on each other."
Trude Lash
She actually was much more intimately connected with the President than she thought. She took it for granted that she could go to the Oval Office and ask him questions that he knew the answers to and nobody else did. She felt that the warmth, of going to the President’s bedroom in the morning and of talking with him, of joking with him at the dinner table. All that had been there and not questioned, and not particularly acknowledged, but now it wasn’t there.
NARRATOR
In May 1945, just one month after Franklin's death, Germany surrendered to the Allies. By August, World War II was finally over. Eleanor was relieved, but she did not feel like celebrating. "I miss Pa's voice" she wrote Anna, "and the words he would have spoken."
NARRATOR
Franklin and Eleanor had experienced two world wars; they had witnessed unimaginable destruction, and millions of senseless deaths. For years they had talked about how to prevent another war and FDR had laid the groundwork for the United Nations.
President Truman archive v/o and synch
May Almighty God give us the wisdom to carry on in the way of FDR.
NARRATOR
In December 1945, the new president, Harry Truman asked Eleanor to be a delegate to the UN's first meeting in London.
NARRATOR
Eight months after Franklin's death, Eleanor arrived in England to begin a new career.
Margaret Bruce - Secretary at United Nations
She was a very impressive figure, someone that people queued up to see. Of course in England, Franklin Roosevelt was a great hero. We thought he was wonderful, the way he had come to the help of Britain. And Eleanor came as his widow at that time. She was not completely playing her own role.
Eleanor Roosevelt v/o and on camera -
I knew that as the only woman, I 'd better be better than anybody else. So I read every paper. And they were very dull sometimes, because State Department papers can be very dull. And I used to almost go to sleep over them, and– [laughs] But I did read them all. I knew that if I in any way failed, it would not be just my failure; it would be the failure of all women. There’d never be another woman on the delegation.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
We will now come to order.
Margaret Bruce
They assigned her to one of the committees, the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural because they didn’t think she could do much harm there.
Curtis Roosevelt
The condescension of the other male delegates was fairly obvious because they didn’t know of the Eleanor Roosevelt who was a political pro.
NARRATOR
The United Nations quickly became the diplomatic battleground of the new Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West. Eleanor's tough sparring with her Russian counterpart became the talk of the assembly.
Soviet Delegate Vishinsky synch
Americanski delegacione
Margaret Bruce
She countered sometimes very violent attacks with firmness and diplomatic politeness, but nobody was under any misapprehension of where she stood.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
I'm extremely sorry that we have to take up your time to go in again to a discussion which has been thoroughly covered for two weeks...
Curtis Roosevelt
When she got into the brickbats and in-fighting in the UN Committees and so forth, Eleanor Roosevelt knew how to handle it far better than some of these chaps did.
NARRATOR
The delegates were so impressed with Eleanor's performance they elected her to chair the committee drafting a Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Eleanor Roosevelt v/o
There are many parts of the world that had not even an elementary understanding of what human rights really meant. There was a feeling that one needed to define more clearly what human rights and freedoms were to mean.
NARRATOR
It took a year of relentless negotiating.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
The Soviet amendment of Article 22 introduces few elements into the article...
Curtis Roosevelt
All of the naivete that sometimes people attribute to her in the 1930’s or even 1940’s, had passed away.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
An identical text was rejected in Committee Three.
Curtis Roosevelt
And she was able to see what’s possible. How far can I push this? How can I get that? How can I keep from losing something over here?
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
The question of discrimination is comprehensively covered in Article 2 of the Declaration.
Margaret Bruce
Every comma was argued over in all the languages. There were big items and there were small items. And points of drafting and points of substance. And Eleanor had to rule on many of these.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
It is my ruling, as chairman of the committee, that the point raised by the Soviet member is out of order.
Curtis Roosevelt
She also enjoyed the work. She worked 18 to 20 hours a day. She got 4 to 6 hours of sleep a night, if that. We would be having breakfast, and she would say, "Please try and get the Pakistani, Madame Begum, over for supper this evening, and see if you can’t get Mr. Malik to join us." And it’d be revolving in her head, the maneuvering.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
It is not a treaty, it is not an international agreement. It is not and does not purport to be a statement of law or of legal obligation. It is a declaration of basic principles of human rights and freedoms
Margaret Bruce
"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience, and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." Well, it started out as "all men", which immediately caused a problem. "Born free and equal in rights, being endowed with reason" was something the Soviet bloc and those who don’t particularly believe in religion fought over. And then "act towards each other in a spirit of brotherhood," well, the "brotherhood" stayed because it became rather pompous if you added "sisterhood." But, "all men" was certainly changed to "all human beings".
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
The Soviet proposal for deferring consideration of the declaration requires no comment. We are all agreed, I'm sure, that the declaration must be approved by this assembly at this session.
NARRATOR
On December 10, 1948 the United Nations finally voted on the document
Margaret Bruce
It was adopted at something like 3 o’clock in the morning.
Chairman synch
In favor of adoption: 48.
Margaret Bruce
Everyone really felt this was a great historic moment for the world.
Chairman
It is particularly fitting that here tonight should be the person who has been the leader in this movement, the person who has raised to even greater honor so great a name. I refer of course to Mrs Roosevelt, the delegate of the United States.
Lou Harris
She was becoming a statesperson. She had been most concerned with domestic affairs while the President was president of the United States but she undertook this and made her own mark. This in a way was the making of Eleanor Roosevelt, a separate person, standing tall on her own two feet.
NARRATOR
After Republican Dwight Eisenhower became president in 1952, Eleanor Roosevelt, like all presidential appointees, resigned her post. She was 68. For the first time in nearly twenty-five years she had no official duties to perform.
NARRATOR
She traveled extensively. She made the first of three trips to the newly established state of Israel. She visited Japan, the Soviet Union, and India. Although her visits were private, she was greeted like a head of state nearly everywhere she went.
.NARRATOR
She was often accompanied by her friend and physician Dr. David Gurewitsch. Gurewitsch was the son of Russian emigres, a worldly, cultivated man.
Edna Gurewitsch
David was a man who loved intimacy, and she could unburden herself. And his being a doctor helped because he was accustomed to listen and to advise. So that was very good for her.
Curtis Roosevelt
David was charming. He was very courtly, a gentle person And he was capable of having fun, he could practically be a naughty boy, and my grandmother would giggle.
Geoff Ward
I think Eleanor Roosevelt really was in love with David Gureswitsch. And I think she really deeply regretted that she was so much older than he, and that he had other interests in younger women. She really wanted all of David Gurewitsch, and the emotions ran very high.
NARRATOR
"David dear, I am not stupid and know that twenty years lie between you and me. I know you love youth and beauty and independence and I would not want to keep you from those joys, but I would be so happy and so grateful if there were ways when you wanted me to do something for you.. What I have in the few years I have left is yours before it is anyone else's. My whole heart is yours...
Geoff Ward
She was realistic enough in the end and when he married, she rallied heroically and remained a companion and good friend.
NARRATOR
Eleanor found a measure of personal happiness but she was still troubled by her failure as a mother.
Trude Lash
She was very concerned about her sons because they went into so many ventures and so many of them didn’t succeed. And with Franklin, she had the feeling that he was relying too much on his charm and didn’t work hard enough.
Russell Hemenway
Franklin was probably the most political of her children. Looked just like his father, talked like his father, sounded like his father. He was very, very charismatic.
NARRATOR
When FDR Jr. was elected to Congress in 1949 it seemed he had a golden future. But like most of his siblings, he lacked his parents' discipline.
Russell Hemenway
If you’re elected to Congress, one assumes you’re going to spend some time there. Franklin spent very little. He preferred the high life in New York. He was a young man, and he was spirited and attractive. New York was his meat. He just loved it.
Franklin D. Roosevelt 3rd
He was, yes, a party animal. He like other people. And he enjoyed playing around, whatever. He had five wives. That speaks for itself, I guess.
NARRATOR
After his term in Congress he tried, like his father before him, to run for Governor of New York. But he lost the nomination to Averell Harriman. He ran for Attorney General instead. Again he lost.
Lou Harris
The morning after the election at the hotel where Frank was staying, and suddenly I heard him weeping in the bathroom, weeping openly. And this was totally out of character. And he came out, his eyes were red, and I said, "Frank, what in the world’s the trouble? Are you all right?" He shook his head and said to me, "Lou, I must tell you," he said, "It’s just too much. Just too much for one individual to bear." And I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "To be the son of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt." He said, "It’s so much to live up to. And I guess I’ve not done it.
NARRATOR
The Roosevelt children often resented the public Mrs Roosevelt, who cared so deeply for the needs of her friends, and for complete strangers.
Curtis Roosevelt
My mother and uncles felt, that my grandmother had not given to them that which she was capable of giving to people outside. They saw Joe Lash having, as we would say today, a quality relationship. That was something they never experienced. So there was no small amount of jealousy. It was quite, quite plain.
Trude Lash
I understood that always. I would have been, too. They felt they weren’t the most important ones, though I don’t believe that. I think they were. But they weren’t the exclusive ones. There were many others of us who were close to her.
NARRATOR
Eleanor still pushed herself with a relentless schedule of lectures and meetings, travel and committees. She denounced Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist witch hunt. She was on the board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and she spoke to audiences around the country trying to build public support for desegregation.
Blanche Cook
Eleanor Roosevelt really wants a Democrat back in office, and she really wants her convictions back on the national agenda. And she does everything to make that happen.
NARRATOR
In 1952 and again in 1956 Eleanor's choice for president was the former Governor of Illinois, Adlai Stevenson.
Stevenson archive synch
I think that I am going to carry the primary in Florida tomorrow.
ER archive synch
I think he would make the best president.
Larry Fuchs
She believed he was an idealistic man, a man of great vision who could motivate large numbers of people to make a more humane and just society. She was firm in her opinion he would make the best president of the United States that we had had since her Franklin.
NARRATOR
Eleanor was an invaluable ally for Stevenson. She used her prestige to further his candidacy, and offered advice gained from decades of successful campaigning.
Party leader archive synch
The first lady of the world, Mrs Franklin Delano Roosevelt!
NARRATOR
When the Democratic Party delegates opened in August 1956. Eleanor was asked to address the convention on the opening night.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
We must be a united party. It is true we have differences.
Blanche Cook
She is the grand lady of the party. She has a tremendous amount of prestige. Nobody can be nominated without her approval in the Democratic Party. And Eleanor Roosevelt goes all out.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch cont'd
I believe that it is absolutely imperative that the Democrats come back to power. But they must come back with the right ticket. Our party is young and vigorous! Our party may be the oldest democratic party, but our party, our party must live as a young party and it must have young leadership!
NARRATOR
Without ever mentioning Adlai Stevenson, Eleanor made it clear whom she supported. Three days later, he won the nomination for president.
NARRATOR
Eleanor campaigned non-stop for Stevenson, but she could not win the election for him.
Henry Morgenthau
They were riding in a limousine to a meeting in Harlem, New York City. The car stopped, and people gathered around the car and began to poke their heads right in the window, and they recognized Eleanor Roosevelt and perhaps Adlai. She said he cringed in the corner and said to her, "What am I going to say to these people?" And she said that "I realized then that if he didn’t know, there was nothing I could tell him."
NARRATOR
President Eisenhower beat Stevenson by a landslide. Eleanor was bitterly disappointed. She hoped, she said, never to be so involved in another political campaign.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch and v/o
We are now trying to win to the free world the uncommitted people of the world in Asia, in Africa, and in South America. And most of those people are colored peoples.
NARRATOR
Even in her 70's Eleanor still sparked controversy.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch continued
And the suggestion that we do not consider our own citizens as equals makes them feel there is something really radically wrong in everything that we offer them. So they’ll take a good look at what the Communists offer. (voice - off "What can we do about this?") Face it. And realize that we can’t afford to have two kinds of citizens. We must have equal citizenship for anybody in our country.
NARRATOR
Conservative newspapers, disturbed by her ever more outspoken support of civil rights, dropped her My Day column. Protestors picketed her appearances, threats were made on her life. In 1958 the Ku Klux Klan learned she was going to speak at a civil rights workshop at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee.
Allida Black
The day before she’s supposed to go, the FBI contacts her and says, "Mrs. Roosevelt, we can’t guarantee your safety. The Klan’s put a bounty on your head, a $25,000 bounty on your head. We can’t protect you. You can’t go." Eleanor says, "I didn’t ask for your protection. I appreciate the warning. I have a commitment. I’m going."
Vernon Jarrett
She was relentless. She made a statement to the effect that if you don't take a stand, you got to leave the impression that you're cowardly. She used the word "cowardly."
Allida Black
So Eleanor flies into the Nashville airport and she’s met by this 71-year-old white woman. No Secret Service. No cops. No young muscle men around her. You know, this elderly white woman picks up a 74-year-old Eleanor Roosevelt. And here they are, they're going to stand down the Klan! They get in their car, they put a loaded pistol on the front seat between them, and they drive up at night through the mountains to this tiny labor school to conduct a workshop on how to break the law, how to conduct non-violent civil disobedience. And she drove through the Klan to do it.
Geoff Ward
She was tough as nails. She had made herself tough. She was just as tough as FDR, just as tough as Theodore Roosevelt.
Vernon Jarrett
She didn’t stop, because this woman evidently was convinced that she was doing the American thing. She was thinking about the future of her country.
NARRATOR
Most Americans never knew of the threats on Eleanor's life.
Eleanor Roosevelt on camera
And I thank you Mr. Sullivan for giving us this opportunity...
Ed Sullivan
Why thank you, Mrs. Roosevelt.
NARRATOR
By the late 1950's, she seemed to be everywhere
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
Give to the American Cancer Society.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
A real campaign is being put on by the Soviet Union
NARRATOR
In politics, in print.
NARRATOR
On television and radio.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
I wonder if you realize that more than two thirds of the people in the world are underfed
NARRATOR
Eleanor used the programs to promote issues she felt were important and to make money to help her children.
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
Years ago most people never dreamed of eating margarine but times have changed. Nowadays you can get a margarine like the new Good Luck margarine which really tastes delicious. That's what I have spread on my toast. Good Luck! I have thoroughly enjoyed it!
Frank Sinatra synch
To all the maidens and damsels. To all the frauleins and mademoiselle
Edna Gurewitsch
I went down for lunch one day, and Maureen Corr, her secretary said, "Mrs. Roosevelt, it’s a call from California. It’s Frank Sinatra." And Mrs. Roosevelt said, "Find out who he is, dear, and what he wants." It was an invitation to appear at a special.
Sinatra synch
There is a Gallup poll taken every year to select the ten most admired women in the world. This year, for the 11th consecutive time, the name at the top of that list is that of a lady whose friendship I treasure very much. Ladies and gentlemen, the most admired women of our time - Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt. Now then if you had one minute to leave one word with say, twenty five million people, what would that word be?
Eleanor Roosevelt synch
That one word would be hope. Next time you are found with your chin on the ground. There is a lot to be learned. So look around. Once there was a silly old....
PICTURE : Color footage Val Kill. Eleanor Roosevelt at Val Kill with friends
NARRATOR
In the last years of her life, Eleanor enjoyed, more than ever, the time she could spend at Val Kill. Her house was always filled with people -- grandchildren, close friends, former New Dealers, visiting dignitaries and neighbors. She seemed a better mother to her grandchildren than she had been to her own.
Nina Gibson
I wasn't beautiful. I wasn’t social. And my parents really weren’t sure what to do with me. So my grandmother became my substitute parents. And I spent a lot of time with her, because I felt welcome at her house, and she was wonderful to be around.
Edna Gurewitsch
In those years, she enjoyed life very much. She enjoyed parties, giving them. She was a wonderful hostess. She enjoyed good food. In the summer her cook made the most marvelous frozen Daiquiris, which she enjoyed. She was great fun. She laughed with real gusto.
Eleanor Seagraves
We saw a lighter, happier–even though she was older– happier person. A little more relaxed, and very sure of herself in a gentle way.
NARRATOR
More than half a century after her father's death, Eleanor made the journey he had promised they would take one day - to the Taj Mahal, the monument to eternal love. She stayed through the evening, sitting alone in the moonlight. "As long as I shall live I shall carry in my mind the beauty of the Taj. At last I know why my father always said it was the one thing he wanted us to see together."
NARRATOR
By 1962 Eleanor's age was catching up with her. For the first time in her life, she admitted she was tired.
Eleanor Roosevelt niece
That summer she didn’t seem her old self. There were some engagement she actually didn’t want to go to. At night she would have sweats. Then she started to bleed. And she was forced really to go to New York City to specialists.
NARRATOR
Doctors found she was suffering from bone marrow tuberculosis
Eleanor Roosevelt niece
She did persuade them to let her back to her apartment. She was just very tired. She didn't want to fight anymore.
NARRATOR
Eleanor Roosevelt died on November 7, 1962. She was 78 years old.
Larry Fuchs - Friend
All government offices and all overseas installations were ordered to fly the American flag at half-mast. It was acknowledgement that what we already knew from the polls and from stories that would come from little villages and hamlets all over the world, that she was the most admired woman in the world.
Priest speaking synch at her funeral
The world has suffered an irreparable loss.
Vernon Jarrett
Eleanor Roosevelt had a sense of discovery. She kept discovering herself and she kept growing. I don't think she knew that she would become the Eleanor Roosevelt that she did.
Edna Gureswitsch
She transcended politics, all religions. She was recognized as the best that America could be.
Curtis Roosevelt
This popularity of Eleanor Roosevelt was quite extraordinary. You look at her life: There’s no way that you can record legislation that she was responsible for. It isn’t any of the ways in which we normally peg a person’s recognition. It is because of who she was. And who she was, the vibrations of it, continue to echo.
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