Customer Reviews

Hidden Campaign: FDR's Health and the Election of 1944

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The Hidden Campaign by Hugh Evans is a very disturbing book. The goal of The Hidden Campaign is to investigate the cover-up that occurred among the doctors of Franklin Roosevelt to keep his serious health problems from the American people--especially during his campaign for a 4th term in office. The book raises many questions including: 1. Why was ENT (ear nose and throat) specialist Vice Admiral Ross McIntyre allowed to serve as FDR's primary physician? 2. Why didn't McIntyre treat FDR for chronic hypertension when it first appeared in 1937? 3. Why was FDR or his family never notified that he had congestive heart failure in 1944? 4. When a cardiologist was finally called in, why were his recommendations not followed? 5. Why didn't FDR's doctors tell him that he probably wouldn't survive a fourth term? This book tries to answer these questions and many more. It is obvious that FDR's life was sacrificed for the sake of the war effort, the nation and perhaps even for the benefit of his cronies.

Ross McIntyre is definitely the villain in this story, although Evans never really tells the reader who was calling the shots here. Even years after FDR's death, McIntyre was still trying to perpetuate the lies that FDR suffered from nothing more serious than bronchitis and sinusitis, and that his death took his doctors by complete surprise.

While I found this story fascinating, two things kept me from giving it five stars. First, parts of it read like a doctoral dissertation with actuarial charts of life expectancy of presidents, parents of presidents, FDR's children, vice presidents and cabinet members. Medical records in the appendix contain medical jargon that will not be understood by a novice. Second, at only 134 pages for the body of this book, I thought it was a little light. Still, it is an eye-opening story that shows how the life of perhaps the greatest leader in the 20th century was sacrificed (without his knowledge) on the whim of his doctors. This cover-up truly ended up being a tragedy for us all.

This is a very scholarly book on what FDR's life was like from the medical point of view. Although that is the focus, and it is very authoritative in that respect because the author is a physician who has studied FDR's medical records and interviewed his doctors,the book is of more than medical interest. There is a policy aspect, and a moral aspect, that raises questions. What rights do we have to know about personal matters of our elected officials. Suppose a candidate would not reasonably be expected to live out a term of office. Should this be made public? Why? Why not? Is it unethical for FDR and his crew to have kept these matters secret? Isn't the U.S. better off for FDR's leadership during World War II, despite the fact that today's newspapers would have made mincemeat of him if his condition had been known?

The book is wonderfully written, and of interest to anyone who has a curiosity about the history of the War, or about politics in America. Of course, for FDR fans it's a must; but it's good and important reading for just about everyone else as well.

This is the most reputable book about FDR's declining health in his third term and his health in general. The best FDR biographies also cover this issue well.

Also read FDR's Splendid Deception: The Moving Story of Roosevelt's Massive Disability-And the Intense Efforts to Conceal It from the Public.

The canard that the Democrats ran Roosevelt in 1944 knowing he was desperately ill is a canard. Obviously he wasn't in the best of health as any newsreel of 1944 showed plainly. He was in a wheelchair, suffered extreme hypertension and was under the crippling stress of running a World War and winning it for the Allies. Roosevelt himself was well aware that he was deteriorating physically and went to considerable prains to disguise his condition. He strained the limits of his endurance by riding in the rain in a covertible from the streets of NYC in Novemeber, 1944, to show the world he still had it. The after-effects of this little folly were significant. Of course FDR also traveled halfway around the world to Yalta to meet Churchill and Stalin, exposing himself to the extreme rigors of travel under adversity. The salient point is, you don't change horses in the middle of the stream, especially under the epic conditions posed by World War II.

There is no conspiracy element to any of this. His doctors concealed from him the truth of his medical condition because Roosevelt wanted it that way. When physicians discovered his blood pressure was dangerously high, they merely doused him with medication without informing him of his malady. The same rationale was used in concealing his heart failure from him. Roosevelt was an extremely concealing man and didn't want to be burdened with "superfluous" medical bad news when he was consumed with the gargantuan task of defeating Hitler and Tojo.

A point to consider is this: it was imperative to run FDR in 1944, to conclude the war and win the peace. Tragically, FDR died in April, 1945, and it was left for Harry Truman to preside over the fall of Germany and Japan. I would argue that even a health-impaired Roosevelt was head and shoulders above the two candidates the Republicans offered up in 1940 and 1944. Is there anyone who thinks Wilkie or Dewey could have led America in this crisis as well as the inimitable FDR? This is an interesting, informative book. It's well-written and not laden with medical or technical jargon. Highly recommended.

With the plethora of media coverage and news outlets available today, an episode like the one endured by FDR from 1944 to his death in 1945 certainly could not happen today (I hope not at least). Afflicted with diagnosed and documented hypertension in 1937 that only worsened throughout his life, FDR led a huge deception of the government and the American people and died in office as a result...a duplicitous and egregious action that has been known for quite some time and dispatched here in enormous detail by Dr. Hugh Evans. Ostensibly a work that dispassionately covers the details of FDR's health as it related to his presidency, Evans is surprisingly adept at placing the blame on FDR along with his physician Dr. Ross McIntire and making a sort of hero of McIntire's subordinate Dr. Howard Bruenn. Without doubt, FDR's health was a major issue in not only the 1944 election, but also in the 1940 election as well and the deceit was in full swing by this point (pre-1940).

Evans chronicles FDR's presidency from a physicians perspective, one that is unique especially in contemporary accounts, and describes that although he (FDR) had contracted poliomyelitis in 1927, he was in excellent health for most of his first two terms as president. His hypertension became diagnosed in 1937 and became, if not initially a worsening condition, than a concern that needed attention. Instead, FDR instructed intimates, including Dr. McIntire not to disclose this discovery. As the condition worsened, McIntire became almost obsessed with the deception while doing virtually nothing to make it better (possibly at FDR's direction). Evans discloses the many examinations that FDR went through that showed an appallingly increased blood pressure measurement. Evans is well served here as he takes the obligatory medical speak and converts it to laymen's terms...telling us that increasing and untreated hypertension will undoubtedly lead to congestive heart failure and ultimate death and that these conditions were foretold soon after 1937. As a result, his stance, correctly, is that the government and the voting public had a right to know and at least a strong intervention should have occurred here to protect the presidency and the country in time of war. Evans also discloses that Dr. Bruenn at this point became increasingly concerned with the president's health and made inquisitions to Dr. McIntire as to treatment, all meeting with the afore mentioned deception.

Following through to FDR's final year we see Evans analysis of exam after exam leading exactly to the unfortunate outcome. FDR's degrading appearance matches this diagnosis and the hard work of presiding over the country at war is increasingly matched with longer and longer periods away from the Oval Office for "rest". Finally leaving Washington for Georgia at the end of March 1945, Evans describes the end in exacting detail as witnessed by the few people who were with the president at Warm Springs. As added evidence, we're provided (in the book's appendix) with a medical journal by Dr. Bruenn who cataloged his many interfaces with FDR and who was also there when he died. Evans closes the book with recommendations for independent treatment and monitoring of the executive that would hopefully alleviate this from happening again. These recommendations are certainly cause for review, but my opinion is that the contemporary 24 hour media machine that exists would almost certainly uncover such a drastic deterioration of the president's health as exhibited with FDR.

An important and surprisingly readable account of a presidency that's been chronicled many times over, Dr. Evans "Hidden Campaign" should interest most historians and people concerned with the "human" factor in government. I give this a high recommendation.

Dr. Evans gives us a most complete picture concerning the cover-up of FDR's health during his White House years. Secrecy was the order of the day, as White House physician, Admiral McIntire, carried on a misinformation campaign that effectively covered up FDR's devastating health. If you read this book and Dr. Harry Goldsmith's "A Conspiracy of Silence: The Health and Death of Franklin D. Roosevelt," and the recently released, "FDR's Deadly Secret" by Dr. Steven Lomazow and Eric Fettmann, you will come away with the most complete picture to date, concerning FDR's health.

By the last year of his life, his health had so deteriorated, that FDR had a faith healer come to the White House on numerous occasions, and "lay on hands" in attempt to promote healing. There is also new evidence that FDR did not have polio, but a rare disease, Guillain-Barré syndrome.

A must read for students of the American Presidency, World War II and the role of the media, especially with regard to famous patients' right to privacy. The cover-up that this details is frightening in its implications - would it happen again in this current age of information?