THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 16, 1994 TAG: 9410140794
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY RUTH WALKER
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time represents an extraordinary blending of material about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and their associates, about the U.S. home front in World War II and about faraway battlefields and international conferences.
Goodwin, who has written a book about the Kennedys and the Fitzgeralds and one about Lyndon Johnson, comes across as an admirer of the Roosevelts, but she doesn't fawn over them. She has produced a worthy addition to the vast Roosevelt literature.
The author recognizes Franklin Roosevelt's ``magnificent sense of timing.'' He was, she writes, ``committed to the Allied cause from the start of the war, but he understood that he had to bring an isolationist people along little by little, through a combination of decisions, speeches, and events.''
One of his achievements for the Allied cause was the lend-lease program under which he was able to transfer munitions and other supplies to countries whose defense seemed vital to that of the United States.
Eleanor Roosevelt, an inveterate traveler, appeared more than willing to share her findings and opinions with her husband, with government officials and departments and with the readers of her widely syndicated newspaper column.
Many years earlier, Eleanor had learned to report her observations to Franklin. At his behest, during his governorship of New York, she visited state institutions and told him her conclusions.
It is, Goodwin says, impossible to imagine Eleanor without a cause. Among her causes was racial equality in the armed forces and in benefits under New Deal programs. When race rioting broke out in Detroit, there were those who blamed Eleanor Roosevelt, the author points out.
``Eleanor,'' Goodwin writes, ``never claimed credit for anything her husband did or said, and there is no way of tracing the direct connection between Eleanor's ruminations about democracy and Franklin's concept of four freedoms, but the link seems obvious.''
This book is replete with details about the military buildup of the United States, industry's conversion to war production and the utilization of women in factories (a development encouraged by Eleanor).
Goodwin criticizes President Roosevelt's ``brutal decision'' to remove thousands of Japanese Americans from their homes for placement in camps. Eleanor, we are told, was shaken by his action. The author points out that the president, who was pressured on all sides to act against the Japanese Americans, showed no qualms when he signed the evacuation order, although he later expressed regrets. Goodwin quotes the American Civil Liberties Union's assessment that the decision was ``the worst single wholesale violation of civil rights of American citizens in our history.''
Goodwin, in discussing the president's failure to do more for European Jews, finds some merit in his view that the best way to help them was to win the war. But she argues that there were smaller steps that could have been taken.
Not surprisingly, Lucy Mercer (later Rutherford) makes a number of appearances in this book. In 1918, Eleanor discovered the love affair between Franklin and Lucy and offered him a divorce. He declined and promised he would not see Lucy again, we are told. Goodwin shows that Lucy was a guest at the White House on a number of occasions when Eleanor was away. And she was with the president at Warm Springs, Ga., when he suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage. MEMO: Ruth Walker is a retired book editor of The Virginian-Pilot and The
Ledger-Star. She lives in Norfolk. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
BETTMAN ARCHIVES
``No Ordinary Time'' focuses on the roles Franklin and Eleanor
Roosevelt played during World War II.
by CNB