Secret Affairs

Originally published in 1995. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down, but he concealed the extent of his disability from a public that was never permitted to see him in a wheelchair. FDR's Secretary of State was old and frail, debilitated by a highly contagious and usu...

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Autore principale: Gellman, Irwin
Natura: Online
Lingua:inglese
Pubblicazione: Johns Hopkins University Press 2022
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Accesso online:ONIX_20220715_9781421430287_595
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author Gellman, Irwin
author_browse Gellman, Irwin
author_facet Gellman, Irwin
author_sort Gellman, Irwin
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description Originally published in 1995. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down, but he concealed the extent of his disability from a public that was never permitted to see him in a wheelchair. FDR's Secretary of State was old and frail, debilitated by a highly contagious and usually fatal disease that was as closely guarded a state secret as his wife's Jewish ancestry. The undersecretary was a pompous and aloof man who married three times but, when intoxicated, preferred sex with railroad porters, shoeshine boys, and cabdrivers. These three legendary figures—Franklin Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, and Sumner Welles—not only concealed such secrets for more than a decade but did so while directing United States foreign policy during some of the most perilous events in the nation's history. Irwin Gellman brings to light startling new information about the intrigues, deceptions, and behind-the-scenes power struggles that influenced America's role in World War II and left their mark on world events, for good or ill, in the half-century that followed. Gellman had unprecedented access to previously unavailable documents, including Hull's confidential medical records, unpublished manuscripts of Drew Pearson and R. Walton Moore, and Sumner Welles's FBI file. Gellman concludes that while Roosevelt, Hull, and Welles usually agreed on foreign policy matters, the events that molded each man's character remained a mystery to the others. Their failure to cope with their secret affairs—to subordinate their personal concerns to the higher good of the nation—eventually destroyed much of what they hoped would be their legacy. Roosevelt never explained his objectives to his vice president, Harry Truman, or to anyone else. Hull never groomed a successor, and Welles kept his foreign assignations as classified as his sexual orientation. Gellman tells the dramatic story of how three Americans—despite private demons and bitter animosities—could work together to lead their nation to victory against fascism.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-888482024-04-02T22:12:17Z Secret Affairs Gellman, Irwin History of the Americas thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHK History of the Americas Originally published in 1995. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down, but he concealed the extent of his disability from a public that was never permitted to see him in a wheelchair. FDR's Secretary of State was old and frail, debilitated by a highly contagious and usually fatal disease that was as closely guarded a state secret as his wife's Jewish ancestry. The undersecretary was a pompous and aloof man who married three times but, when intoxicated, preferred sex with railroad porters, shoeshine boys, and cabdrivers. These three legendary figures—Franklin Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, and Sumner Welles—not only concealed such secrets for more than a decade but did so while directing United States foreign policy during some of the most perilous events in the nation's history. Irwin Gellman brings to light startling new information about the intrigues, deceptions, and behind-the-scenes power struggles that influenced America's role in World War II and left their mark on world events, for good or ill, in the half-century that followed. Gellman had unprecedented access to previously unavailable documents, including Hull's confidential medical records, unpublished manuscripts of Drew Pearson and R. Walton Moore, and Sumner Welles's FBI file. Gellman concludes that while Roosevelt, Hull, and Welles usually agreed on foreign policy matters, the events that molded each man's character remained a mystery to the others. Their failure to cope with their secret affairs—to subordinate their personal concerns to the higher good of the nation—eventually destroyed much of what they hoped would be their legacy. Roosevelt never explained his objectives to his vice president, Harry Truman, or to anyone else. Hull never groomed a successor, and Welles kept his foreign assignations as classified as his sexual orientation. Gellman tells the dramatic story of how three Americans—despite private demons and bitter animosities—could work together to lead their nation to victory against fascism. 2022-07-15T15:15:11Z 2022-07-15T15:15:11Z 2019 book ONIX_20220715_9781421430287_595 9781421430287 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/88848 eng image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International https://muse.jhu.edu/book/69482 Johns Hopkins University Press 10.1353/book.69482 10.1353/book.69482 1f9b1002-ec35-4fcf-94be-32cfd0a1dfd3 9781421430287 538 open access
spellingShingle History of the Americas
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHK History of the Americas
Gellman, Irwin
Secret Affairs
title Secret Affairs
title_full Secret Affairs
title_fullStr Secret Affairs
title_full_unstemmed Secret Affairs
title_short Secret Affairs
title_sort secret affairs
topic History of the Americas
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHK History of the Americas
topic_facet History of the Americas
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHK History of the Americas
url ONIX_20220715_9781421430287_595
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