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The April 1945 journey of FDR's funeral train became a thousand-mile odyssey, fraught with heartbreak and scandal. As it passed through the night, few of the grieving onlookers gave thought to what might be happening behind the Pullman shades, where women whispered and men tossed back highballs. Inside was a Soviet spy, a newly widowed Eleanor Roosevelt, who had just discovered that her husband's mistress was in the room with him when he died, all the Supreme Court justices, and incoming president Harry S. Truman who was scrambling to learn secrets FDR had never shared with him. Weaving together information from long-forgotten diaries and declassified Secret Service documents, journalist and historian Robert Klara enters the private world on board that famous train. He chronicles the three days during which the country grieved and despaired as never before, and a new president hammered out the policies that would galvanize a country in mourning and win the Second World War.
"In 1948, Harry Truman, President of the United States, almost fell through the ceiling of the Blue Room in a bathtub into a meeting of the Daughters of the American Revolution. A team of the nation's top architects was hastily assembled to inspect the White House, and upon seeing the state the old mansion was in, insisted the First Family be evicted immediately. What followed was the biggest home-improvement job the nation had ever seen"--
When the Civil War ended, Jefferson Davis had fallen from the heights of popularity to the depths of despair. In this fascinating new book, Donald E. Collins explores the resurrection of Davis to heroic status in the hearts of white Southerners culminating in one of the grandest funeral processions the nation had ever seen. As schools closed and bells tolled along the thousand mile route, Southerners appeared en masse to bid a final farewell to the man who championed Southern secession and ardently defended the Confederacy.
Critically acclaimed author Robert Klara's The Devil's Mercedes chases down one of the most improbable stories of the postwar era: the national drama that erupted when Hitler’s armored limousine surfaced in the US. In 1938, Mercedes-Benz began production of the largest, most luxurious limousine in the world. A machine of frightening power and sinister beauty, the Grosser 770K Model 150 Offener Tourenwagen was 20 feet long, seven feet wide, and tipped the scales at 5 tons. Its supercharged, 230-horsepower engine propelled the beast to speeds over 100 m.p.h. while its occupants reclined on glove-leather seats stuffed with goose down. Armor plated and equipped with hidden compartments for Luger pistols, the 770K was a sumptuous monster with a monstrous patron: Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party. Deployed mainly for propaganda purposes before the war, the hand-built limousines—in which Hitler rode standing in the front seat—motored through elaborate rallies and appeared in countless newsreels, swiftly becoming the Nazi party’s most durable symbol of wealth and power. Had Hitler not so thoroughly dominated the scene with his own megalomania, his opulent limousine could easily have eclipsed him. Most of the 770Ks didn’t make it out of the rubble of World War II. But several of them did. And two of them found their way, secretly and separately, to the United States. In The Devil’s Mercedes, author Robert Klara uncovers the forgotten story of how Americans responded to these rolling relics of fascism on their soil. The limousines made headlines, drew crowds, made fortunes and ruined lives. What never became public was how both of the cars would ultimately become tangled in a web of confusion, mania, and opportunism, fully entwined in a story of mistaken identity. Nobody knew that the limousine touted as Hitler’s had in fact never belonged to him, while the Mercedes shrugged off as an ordinary staff car—one later abandoned in a warehouse and sold off as government surplus—turned out to be none other than Hitler’s personal automobile. It would take 40 years, a cast of carnies and millionaires, the United States Army, and the sleuthing efforts of an obscure Canadian librarian to bring the entire truth to light. As he recounts this remarkable drama, Klara probes the meaning of these haunting hulks and their power to attract, excite and disgust. The limousines’ appearance collided with an American populous celebrating a victory even as it sought to stay a step ahead of the war’s ghosts. Ultimately, The Devil’s Mercedes isn’t only the story of a rare and notorious car, but what that car taught postwar America about itself.
"A fascinating account of an extraordinary moment in the life of the United States." --The New York Times With the world currently in the grips of a financial crisis unlike anything since the Great Depression, Nothing to Fear could not be timelier. This acclaimed work of history brings to life Franklin Roosevelt's first hundred days in office, when he and his inner circle launched the New Deal, forever reinventing the role of the federal government. As Cohen reveals, five fiercely intelligent, often clashing personalities presided over this transformation and pushed the president to embrace a bold solution. Nothing to Fear is the definitive portrait of the men and women who engineered the nation's recovery from the worst economic crisis in American history.
An Unplanned Life is the scintillating memoir of George Elsey, a small-town kid from western Pennsylvania who, at age twenty-four, was assigned to Franklin Roosevelt's top-secret intelligence and communications center in the White House. As an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve, Elsey helped brief the president and his senior associates on war events. He and his map room colleagues acted as the secretariat for Roosevelt's cabled exchanges with Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Chiang Kai-shek; filed records of "summit conferences"; and stored in safes plans for future operations. He also traveled with the president in order to code and decode the classified messages that flowed between the presidential train or ship and the White House. Elsey's duties continued with Harry Truman's succession to the presidency. He decoded the famous message from Secretary of War Henry Stimson reporting the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and carried it to President Truman. In 1947, he shed his Naval Reserve uniform and joined the White House's civilian staff as assistant to the special counsel to the president. In 1949, he became administrative assistant to the president, and, in 1952, he became a member of the Mutual Security Agency staff. During those years, he grew very close to Harry Truman, and thus, a major portion of An Unplanned Life relates to his experiences then. In the first postwar winter, Elsey was frequently the only staff member who accompanied President Truman on the USS Williamsburg. In September 1946, Elsey submitted a report to Truman on U.S.-Soviet relations, which came to be well known as the "Clifford-Elsey Report." Providing Truman with notes for some two hundred of his "back-of-the-train" informal talks, Elsey played a part in the best remembered feature of the "Whistle-Stop Campaign" that resulted in "the political upset of the century." In addition to his years at the White House, Elsey also touches on his post-White House years-his time in private industry, his months with Clark Clifford when Clifford was trying unsuccessfully to extricate America from Vietnam, and his long association with the American Red Cross. An Unplanned Life is a fascinating look at the life of an extraordinary individual who played an important and unprecedented part in two different presidents' decisions and affected the course of our nation. Anyone with an interest in history will find this memoir fascinating and invaluable.
“Just when you thought you knew everything about Franklin D. Roosevelt, think again. Joseph E. Persico [is] one of America’s finest historians. . . . You can’t properly understand FDR the man without reading this landmark study.”—Douglas Brinkley, professor of history at Rice University “Persico’s exploration of FDR’s emotional life is fascinating.”—USA Today In Franklin and Lucy, acclaimed author and historian Joseph E. Persico explores FDR’s romance with Lucy Rutherfurd. Persico’s provocative conclusions about their relationship are informed by a revealing range of sources, including never-before-published letters and documents from Lucy Rutherfurd’s estate that attest to the intensity of the affair, which lasted much longer than was previously acknowledged.FDR’s connection with Lucy also creates an opportunity for Persico to take a more penetrating look at the other women in FDR’s life. We come to see more clearly how FDR’s infidelity contributed to Eleanor Roosevelt’s eventual transformation from a repressed Victorian to perhaps the greatest American woman of her century; how FDR’s strong-willed mother helped to strengthen his resolve in overcoming personal and public adversity; and how both paramours and platonic friends completed the world that FDR inhabited. In focusing on Lucy Rutherfurd and the other women who mattered to Roosevelt, Persico renders the most intimate portrait yet of an enigmatic giant of American history. Praise for Franklin and Lucy “Persico is judicious in his treatment of these sensitive matters. . . . He understands that Lucy Mercer helped FDR awaken his capacity for love and compassion, and thus helped him become the man to whom the nation will be eternally in debt.”—The Washington Post Book World “A stylish and well-written book filled with interesting characters, marital dramas and spylike subterfuge.”—Chicago Tribune “A powerful narrative that rarely fails to pull you along to the next chapter.”—Louisville Courier-Journal “Utterly absorbing.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Author : Richard Wightman Fox Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company Page : 398 pages File Size : 11,74 MB Release : 2015-02-09 Category : History ISBN : 0393247244
"[A]n astonishingly interesting interpretation…Fox is wonderfully shrewd and often dazzling." —Jill Lepore, New York Times Book Review Abraham Lincoln remains America’s most beloved leader. The fact that he was lampooned in his day as "ugly and grotesque" only made Lincoln more endearing to millions. In Lincoln’s Body, acclaimed cultural historian Richard Wightman Fox explores how deeply, and how differently, Americans—black and white, male and female, Northern and Southern—have valued our sixteenth president, from his own lifetime to the Hollywood biopics about him. Lincoln continues to survive in a body of memory that speaks volumes about our nation.
"An exquisitely timed book ... Code Red is a worthwhile exploration of the shared goals (and shared enemies) that unite moderates and progressives. But more than that, it is a sharp reminder that the common ground on which Dionne built his career has been badly eroded, with little prospect that it will soon be restored.” —The New York Times Book Review New York Times bestselling author and Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. sounds the alarm in Code Red, calling for an alliance between progressives and moderates to seize the moment and restore hope to America’s future for the 2020 presidential election. Will progressives and moderates feud while America burns? Or will these natural allies take advantage of the greatest opportunity since the New Deal Era to strengthen American democracy, foster social justice, and turn back the threats of the Trump Era? The United States stands at a crossroads. Broad and principled opposition to Donald Trump’s presidency has drawn millions of previously disengaged citizens to the public square and to the ballot boxes. This inspired and growing activism for social and political change hasn’t been seen since the days of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies and the Progressive and Civil Rights movements. But if progressives and moderates are unable—and unwilling—to overcome their differences, they could not only enable Trump to prevail again but also squander an occasion for launching a new era of reform. In Code Red, award-winning journalist E. J. Dionne, Jr., calls for a shared commitment to decency and a politics focused on freedom, fairness, and the future, encouraging progressives and moderates to explore common ground and expand the unity that brought about Democrat victories in the 2018 elections. He offers a unifying model for furthering progress with a Politics of Remedy, Dignity, and More: one that solves problems, resolve disputes, and moves forward; that sits at the heart of the demands for justice by both long-marginalized and recently-displaced groups; and that posits a positive future for Americans with more covered by health insurance, more with decent wages, more with good schools, more security from gun violence, more action to roll back climate change. Breaking through the partisan noise and cutting against conventional wisdom to provide a realistic look at political possibilities, Dionne offers a strategy for progressives and moderates to think more clearly and accept the responsibilities that history now imposes on them. Because at this point in our national story, change can’t wait.