History with David Rubenstein

(theme music plays) RUBENSTEIN: Hello, I'm David Rubenstein.

I'm gonna be joined in conversation today with Jonathan Darman.

He is a journalist and a historian and we're gonna be talking about his book, Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a President.

We're coming to you from the Robert H. Smith Auditorium of the New York Historical Society.

Welcome to our conversation.

DARMAN: It's wonderful to be here.

Thank you.

RUBENSTEIN: So what prompted you to think that the world needed another book by FDR?

Um... (laughter) DARMAN: It's a good question.

Um, I wanted to write about FDR, um, as you say it's something a lot of people have done, uh, because I was sort of wrestling with a question that felt urgent when I started the book and feels in a lot of ways more urgent now, which is how does a President bring hope to the country?

And I think that Franklin Roosevelt, with his leadership of the country through the Depression and through World War II, is probably the best example that we have of a President who comes into office and is able to convince people in America, not only that the future is going to be okay in a time of challenge, uh, but that together, they can do big things.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay.

And, uh, it's the premise of your book, more or less if I got it right, that if he had not had polio, he might not have developed the empathy that he oft later showed, the resilience, and his wife might not have developed some of her qualities that enabled them both to go to the White House and to be effective as President and First Lady.

Is that right?

DARMAN: That's right.

Because Franklin Roosevelt, as you know, had a whole career in politics before he got polio at the age of 39.

And you look at that person who, um, was a young, charismatic, attractive politician and you say, "What if this person had never gotten polio?

Might he, if everything had sort of gone his way, have ended up in the White House someday?"

Potentially, yes, um, but I don't think that person would've been a great President.

Because he needed to first experience what real suffering and setback is like and come to understand how it is that you can find your way out of that.

RUBENSTEIN: I always had thought that the country really didn't know the extent of his, uh, polio or his illness.

You point out that most people who read newspapers knew he had polio, it was well de, uh, described.

They may not have realized how incapacitated he was.

But did he try very hard to not be photographed in hi, a wheelchair or walking with his cane and so forth?

How did he try to do that?

DARMAN: Yeah, this was some of the most fascinating stuff.

For me when I was working on this as well, 'cause I think we all have this idea that there was this sort of code of silence and ignorance in the public really about his disability.

And I think, particularly when you're talking about his life in the 1920s in the years when he's on his rise to the presidency, there's a key distinction to be made between his being okay, essentially, with people understanding that he had a disability, that he just didn't ever want to be seen in any circumstance where he would appear weak or helpless.

And that's why he was sensitive about stuff like being seen in a wheelchair or ever being in a circumstance where he might fall in public.

And there are a lot of cir, uh, circumstances where he really came close to that.

That was his main concern really, was controlling the optics of it.

RUBENSTEIN: Or being carried, sometimes he was carried by other people and he didn't want... DARMAN: He was carried by other people all the time, yeah, uh, but he didn't want to be seen in public being carried.

RUBENSTEIN: So when was FDR born?

DARMAN: FDR was born in 1882, um, at his family estate in Hyde Park.

RUBENSTEIN: And who was his father?

DARMAN: His father was James Roosevelt.

Um, James Roosevelt was a member of this sort of illustrious Roosevelt family.

Um, he was an older man at the time that FDR was born.

It was actually his second marriage and his second family.

He had had another son from his first, um, marriage before his first wife died.

RUBENSTEIN: And who was his mother?

DARMAN: His mother, uh, was Sara Delano Roosevelt.

I sort of think of her as the, um, the 1880's equivalent of a helicopter parent.

You know, she was involved in every single aspect of Franklin Roosevelt's upbringing which was unique in that time and I think also explains a lot about what he became.

RUBENSTEIN: Uh, when he went to Harvard, did she not rent a place up there as well?

DARMAN: Yeah, I mean, she, she, she wants to be there in his life at all moments.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay, so he grows up in, uh, Hyde Park and mostly he cares about the outdoors.

Um, reasonable athlete maybe or not, not that good?

DARMAN: He was not a great athlete.

Um, he goes to Groton School, um, late and he still is a, is a pretty scrawny young guy and Groton School is this Episcopal academy in Massachusetts.

It's where the sort of sons of the Protestant elite went.

And everything there was about sort of your, uh, physical prowess as an athlete.

And he's sort of middling at best, so he doesn't stick out there at all.

In fact, he gets bullied.

RUBENSTEIN: And, uh, speaking the word bully, that is a word often was used by, uh, Teddy Roosevelt.

How was Franklin Roosevelt related to Teddy Roosevelt?

DARMAN: Teddy Roosevelt was Franklin Roosevelt's 5th cousin.

RUBENSTEIN: Once removed?

DARMAN: Once removed, yes.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay, so they were distant but they didn't really know each other that well, did they?

DARMAN: No.

I mean, Franklin's parents were close to Teddy Roosevelt's siblings but because of just sort of circumstances of life, I don't think there was a particularly close connection between the Hyde Park Roosevelt's and Teddy's branch of the Oyster Bay Roosevelts.

RUBENSTEIN: So at Harvard, he does become the head of The Crimson which is, uh, the student newspaper.

How did he do that if people didn't think he was so wonderful?

DARMAN: Well, he's been raised to think of himself as this sort of special, wonderful person because he's a Roosevelt.

And the problem is the rest of the world doesn't really seem to agree.

Um, and then all of a sudden in his sophomore year, his cousin, Teddy, is catapulted into the presidency after the assassination of William McKinley.

And I think that sort of elevates, uh, Franklin's status on campus in that moment but I think more importantly, it really focuses Franklin Roosevelt's attention on politics as an arena where he can distinguish himself.

RUBENSTEIN: So when he graduates, what's he do?

DARMAN: He, he, he goes to law school 'cause that's what Teddy had done.

But, you know, you hear these accounts of him as a young lawyer doing trusts and estates work, he was, he was bored all the time.

And there's, there's actually a story, um, where he is, he's on a weekend, he's there with the other clerks, and they're talking about what they wanna do with their careers.

And he says he wants to run for the New York State Legislature, uh, then he wants to become Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and then he wants to become Governor of New York, and then he wants to become President of the United States.

And that's actually the path that Teddy Roosevelt had had and I think that's not a coincidence.

RUBENSTEIN: So but actually, he did run for the state legislature, right?

DARMAN: He did run for the state legislature.

RUBENSTEIN: And he won?

DARMAN: He won, yep, um, and he gets there, and he's, by that point, he's basically sort of determined that he's gonna do a really good Teddy Roosevelt impersonation.

He's gonna be the Roosevelts in the Democratic Party for the next generation.

RUBENSTEIN: After serving in the state legislature, does he run for another office?

DARMAN: He runs for state legislature twice.

He then gets plucked, uh, to be in the Wilson administration as the... RUBENSTEIN: How did, how did... DARMAN: Assistant Secretary... RUBENSTEIN: How did he come to the attention?

Was it his name that made him, um, well known by the Wilson Administration?

DARMAN: Uh, yeah, I mean, uh, so he goes to the 1912, uh, Democratic nom, uh, nominating convention which was in Baltimore, and Teddy Roosevelt is running for President that year.

So to have this Democrat and he's sort of using, dropping Teddy's name liberally and he supports Wilson at the convention, and that makes a good impression on the, the Wilson people.

So then when Woodrow Wilson ultimately wins, um, and they're sort of thinking about who to put in the administration, they think, "Okay, we've got this Democratic Roosevelt, let's put him in the Navy Department," which is where Teddy was.

RUBENSTEIN: So he had the same job as Teddy Roosevelt, sis, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, more of less?

DARMAN: Yes.

And, I think it's the first time in Franklin Roosevelt's life where his image of himself, uh, starts getting mirrored back to him by the rest of the world.

He, he does very well in Washington in those years.

He takes to the fact that it's a small town, um, people there like having a sort of charming Roosevelt around, they like the proximity to power, and he really likes the attention that he's getting there.

RUBENSTEIN: All right, how did he meet Eleanor Roosevelt?

DARMAN: So he and Eleanor Roosevelt, they met for the first time as small children before, you know, any of them are imprinting memories.

Um, they don't actually form their close bond and, ultimately, their romantic connection until a number of years later when he's a student at Harvard and she's 18 years old, and she's just returned from being a student in Europe.

RUBENSTEIN: And her father, who was an alcoholic, dies and that father was Teddy Roosevelt's brother?

DARMAN: That's right.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay, so after they get married, they have a nice relationship for a while but at some point, um, he develops a relationship with his Social Secretary, Lucy... DARMAN: With her Social Secretary.

RUBENSTEIN: Her Social Secretary, Lucy Mercer.

Um, and how did she discover this relationship?

DARMAN: So she starts to get a hint of it.

Um, I think she's intuits in the su, summers of 1916 and 1917.

She was spending those summers at the Roosevelt family cottage on Campobello Island.

That World War I had started at that point and Franklin was, was staying in Washington and he's writing her these letters about people that he's spending time with, and Lucy Mercer is appearing in those letters.

And, she comes back to Washington in the fall and she gets this sense that everyone else has seen this, and Franklin and Lucy were not discreet.

So it's not just a betrayal, it's sort of a humiliation, um, that, that she's dealing with in those years.

RUBENSTEIN: But eventually she, she unpacks one of his suitcases and uncovers letters that he has written, love letters to Lucy Mercer?

DARMAN: That's right.

Um, that happens in the fall of 1918.

He had been in Europe, um, at the very end of World War I in his capacity as Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

He comes back, and she's unpacking his bags and she finds these letters.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay, so she says to him, "Okay, wanna get a divorce, get a divorce?"

And what does he say?

DARMAN: This isn't just a casual affair, I think he really had a strong love attachment to Lucy Mercer.

And by all accounts, he really did think about, "Okay, what if we got divorced?"

And there are a number of reasons why he doesn't go that way.

But...the real thing for Franklin is the political career.

I think he thinks, you know, this is, this is 1918, he thinks, "Okay, I wanna be President of the United States someday."

Um, maybe it's conceivable that the public might be okay with a politician who was divorced, but not someone who's had this very public affair where he's humiliated that his wife and everyone sort of knows the story.

RUBENSTEIN: So in 1920, um, the Democrats nominate James Cox to be President.

He's, uh, from Ohio.

DARMAN: That's right.

RUBENSTEIN: And why does he pick, uh, Franklin Roosevelt to be his Vice President?

What, he is ... Roosevelt had served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, uh, one or two terms in the, in the New York State Legislature, why would that qualify you to be on the ticket?

DARMAN: Yeah.

So Assistant Secretary of the Navy now sounds like not a very impressive job.

It's the number two job in the Navy Department.

And those years had been wor, the years of World War I, um, so it was a pretty high visibility... RUBENSTEIN: Okay.

DARMAN: Position.

He goes to the convention, uh, where, where they're selecting the President and Vice President, and he makes a big sort of show of himself.

He uses his very commanding physical presence.

He's tall, he's handsome, he's athletic and he sort of is running around, he's jumping over rows of chairs, he's starting fights, and it gives people this idea of, "Oh, there's a young man in a hurry."

And then when you combine that with the fact that it's someone who was, he came from New York, that was an advantageous thing to have on the ticket in those years, um, it makes him someone who's seen as a good candidate, RUBENSTEIN: So he gets on the ticket and, uh, the ticket loses overwhelmingly... DARMAN: Yeah.

RUBENSTEIN: To, um, the distinguished ticket of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.

Is that right?

DARMAN: That's right.

RUBENSTEIN: So, uh, they lose, so he's lost, he's somewhat humiliated.

It's a very bad loss.

I think, uh, did they lose New York state as well?

DARMAN: Yeah, they lost New York state.

And, and at this point, um, you know, Franklin hasn't won an election, he's never won anything larger than a legislative race.

And he had, during his Navy Department years, he had tried several times to sort of get, uh, statewide office in New York and failed, and so he has this sort of taint of looking like a loser.

And that's something that I think he's pretty worried is gonna stick to him and really get in his way.

RUBENSTEIN: All right, so he's out of office, uh, no job.

What is he to do for a career then?

DARMAN: So, he's looking at it and he says, "Okay, I'm gonna spend these years trying to, to make money."

So he takes a job in a law firm, again doing work that he doesn't find particularly stimulating.

And then he basically takes another job that's in finance where he is someone who makes a lot of introductions, um, and he's, and he's sort of a, a social presence, um, you know, in, in the New York office.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay, so his family goes to Campobello.

For 100 years earlier, they've been in Campobello which is is ... Is that in the United States?

DARMAN: It's off of the coast of Maine, it's a Canadian island.

You go, you, to get there, you go through Maine, yes.

RUBENSTEIN: So, it's not easy to get there and not a lot of electricity, I guess, or other things at the time.

But, his children and his wife are up there one summer and he says he's gonna come up.

So before he gets there, he goes to a Boy Scout, um, jamboree of some type and what happens there?

DARMAN: He was a sort of philanthropic benefactor of the Boy Scouts, and he goes to visit the camp and there was a polio outbreak there.

He didn't know it at the time, but at some point during his visit there, we think he probably comes into contact with the polio virus and that's the moment that his life really changes.

RUBENSTEIN: All right, so he goes up to Campobello, he goes to spend time with his kids.

Normally he's very active, but is he able to be that active that, those particular days or is he a little more lethargic?

DARMAN: So by the time he's there with his kids, um, he's not feeling well.

They go out in the boat at one point, they see, they see a forest fire, they go ashore, and they put out the fire.

He swims in the water and he's really exerting himself, um, quite, quite strenuously in what are gonna be the last moments that he's, that he's walking.

RUBENSTEIN: So finally he's not feeling well, goes back to his bed.

And what happens then?

DARMAN: He basically, he goes to bed that night, he says he's complaining, he has a what he calls lumbago, um, and he, and he has this sort of night, horrible night of, of fever.

He gets up in the morning, um, and he tries to sort of go about his day normally.

And it's clear right away that that's not gonna happen.

He can barely bring the razor down his face.

He feels his legs buckle underneath him, and he basically retreats back to his bed at that point and, and, and he's really in within 24 hours of that gonna lose the ability to walk and never get it back again.

RUBENSTEIN: So is there an emergency clinic or hospital in Campobello?

DARMAN: No, I mean, Campobello, as you say, it was a lovely place, but it's about the worst place that you could get seriously ill in the summer of 1921.

There's no electricity, there's only one phone line on the whole island, and there's only one local doctor from the nearby town in Maine who services the whole island by boat.

RUBENSTEIN: So he has his top aide, Louis Howe, there and then his wife was there, and they eventually find some doctor to come.

Who is the doctor?

DARMAN: The first doctor they get there is a famous surgeon named William Keane, and he very confidently says, "I think he's got a blood clot, um, and he's gonna be fine."

And that turns out to be quite wrong, his diagnosis.

RUBENSTEIN: So when did they decide they need another doctor and who do they get?

DARMAN: Well, Louie Howe who's there and is sort of paying attention to this, I think he has a sense right away that Keane is not the right person to get.

And so he, he's writing letters, he's describing Franklin's symptoms, and some of Louis' contacts including Franklin's uncle, uh, then, you know, basically they piece together he might have polio.

So they start saying, "Okay, who is the leading expert in the treatment of polio?"

And they find a guy named Robert Lovett.

Um, and ultimately they get Robert Lovett to come to the island, um, at the end of August and he does really just a quick examination of Franklin Roosevelt and it becomes clear to him right away that he does have polio.

RUBENSTEIN: So his illness is such that he basically has no control below his waist, he can't move his legs, or things like that.

And, um, he, uh, decided to stay there for a while or they bring them back to New York?

DARMAN: They ultimately will bring him back to New York a couple of weeks later, and he gets checked into a hospital here.

RUBENSTEIN: All right, and the hospital confirms the diagnosis?

DARMAN: Yeah, and it gets announced to the public.

In the first story that appears about this in the New York Times, there's a quote from Franklin's doctor saying, "No one need fear any permanent disability."

They knew that wasn't true, um, but I think what they were doing was trying to, they knew that if, that if people thought he was gonna be permanently disabled, they might think, "Well, his political career is over."

So they were really trying to influence that perception.

RUBENSTEIN: All right, so he has rehabilitation, and he gets lots of treatment, but the thing that he seemed to like the most was going to Warm Springs in Georgia.

What was Warm Springs and why did he, um, go there so much, and did it actually help him?

DARMAN: So he hears about Warm Springs for the first time about three years after he first gets polio and he hears about it as this sort of miraculous place in Georgia where there are these spa waters that have cured other paralysis victims.

And by that point, he's really sort of looking for a miracle.

Uh, because the conventional wisdom was muscle recovery that wasn't coming back after one to two years probably wasn't going to come back, and he wasn't walking yet at that point, so he wasn't willing to accept that.

So he was immediately drawn to Warm Springs.

And he has two thoughts right away.

One of them is, "This does feel like magic water."

And then the second thought is, "It's a shame that it's only for me."

And I think that's really the real miracle of Warm Springs is it unlocks this tremendous capacity for empathy in Franklin Roosevelt and it really sort of acquaints him with his own ability to help other people that's gonna be so essential for him going forward.

RUBENSTEIN: But is there any evidence that the many years he spent there, and later he bought, uh, Warm Springs, that it actually improved his physical health?

DARMAN: It was good for him because it was, it was, he was in warm water.

In the wintertime, he was able to swim which was good exercise for him.

But no, he never regained the ability to walk there in the way that other polio patients did.

RUBENSTEIN: So eventually, um, he goes back to work, hard to work but then sometimes he goes to work and falls down... DARMAN: Yeah.

RUBENSTEIN: Getting there?

People see him, it's very embarrassing to him.

And then, amazingly, Al Smith, um, who was at one point the Governor of New York, calls him and how does Al Smith want him to help?

DARMAN: So this happens in the fall of 1928, and Al Smith had been Governor of New York for a number of years, and he was the Democratic nominee for President in 1928 and he's thinking about what, what can he do to help his chances.

And he knows that as, as a, as a Governor from New York State, he needs to win New York State.

And he's, he's very good at getting out votes here in New York City but not great at getting out votes in the rest of New York State.

And I think he gets this idea that if he can have Franklin Roosevelt on his ticket, that that'll help him bring up his margins.

RUBENSTEIN: Not only on his ticket, but you mean if he runs for Governor of New York... DARMAN: That's right.

RUBENSTEIN: That'll strengthen the Democrats coming out of New York there, therefore, giving more votes to Al Smith, therefore, he could win New York, and the presidential, and then maybe win the presidency?

DARMAN: That's right, exactly.

He does not think that highly of Franklin Roosevelt at this point, and Al Smith loved being Governor of New York, and he thinks if somehow Franklin gets elected Governor of New York, Al Smith thinks, "I can be both President and the sort of unofficial Governor of New York."

RUBENSTEIN: So, so, uh, Roosevelt has said and his wife has said many times, "I'm out of politics for a while, I've still gotta rehabilitate."

So how does it come about that he changes his mind after a call with Al Smith?

DARMAN: You're right.

He's spending these years really chiefly devoting himself to recovery.

And I think he has this idea that he is going to walk again, still.

So he wants more time before he reenters politics.

But I think another thing that he's gotten out of this, these years is this incredible strategic ability and this respect for timing.

So when Smith comes to him and makes this call, ultimately, I think Franklin comes around to the idea that this is his moment.

And what's really sort of bittersweet there is, at least in his mind, he's making a choice between having a political future and ever walking again.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay, so what happens in the 1928 election?

Does Al Smith win?

DARMAN: Al Smith does not win.

He loses in a landslide to Herbert Hoover.

RUBENSTEIN: And what happens to FDR?

DARMAN: So Franklin Roosevelt surprises everyone and they go through this sort of drama on election night where it's clear, it becomes clear pretty early on that the Smith ticket is gonna do poorly.

And everyone around Franklin Roosevelt thinks, "Well, if Al Smith not gonna win, then Franklin's definitely not gonna win."

Um, one person who doesn't quite give into that thinking is that fierce competitive mother of his, Sara Delano Roosevelt, who stays up all night and she watches the returns come in and she's, and she's one of the first people to know the great surprise that Franklin Roosevelt squeaks by even though Al Smith at the top of the ticket loses New York State.

RUBENSTEIN: All right, so in those, years, the term of Governor was two years.

So he gets elected in 1928 and already he's thinking, "Well, I should be like, uh, Teddy Roosevelt, I should run for President."

And the next Presidential election's gonna be 1932.

So what does he do in the first two years as Governor to get himself ready to get reelected as Governor, and then get ready to run for President?

DARMAN: Because he has this sort of Cinderella story victory in 1928, um, from the moment that that, that that becomes public, people start talking about him as not just someone who might run for President the, in four years, but as the front-runner.

So I think he's focused in his first two years as Governor sort of doing as good a job as he can, and he wants to sort of win reelection by as large a margin as he can, which is exactly what happens.

RUBENSTEIN: So he runs for reelection in, uh, 1930 and what happens?

DARMAN: He wins by a huge landslide and that wasn't immediately clear.

He's running against a guy named Charles Tuttle, had been the, uh, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District and people thought this was a good sort of anti-corruption candidate.

But Franklin does a, has a really easy job defeating him.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay, so who were the principal, uh, competitors for the nomination in 1932?

DARMAN: Uh, there were a number of, of people who were running.

His, his chief sort of opposition is around a guy named John Nance Garner who was the Speaker of the House.

He had just gotten placed as Speaker of the House.

He didn't wanna run for President, uh, that year in 1932 but he, he has to run for President, essentially, because he is told to do so by William Randolph Hearst, who is a big, big figure at the time in media and in politics, and sort of Hearst is one of these people who gets this idea that he's gonna do everything he can to stop Franklin Roosevelt from getting the Democratic nomination for presidency.

RUBENSTEIN: And he didn't, he didn't... Why did he not like Roosevelt?

DARMAN: Well, the short answer is because Roosevelt was someone that people thought would, would maybe be President of the United States someday and Hearst didn't like anyone who was gonna be President because it wasn't him, uh.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay, so in the end, Joe Kennedy, one of the wealthiest men in the United States and the father of President Kennedy, uh, cuts a deal with William Randolph Hearst.

What is that deal?

DARMAN: Kennedy goes to Hearst and he says, "If you wanna stop Roosevelt, you can stop Roosevelt.

But if you wanna pick a President, the only one you're really gonna be able to give it to is Franklin Roosevelt."

And I think Hearst who's, who's got a high opinion of himself, likes the idea of himself as a kingmaker.

So he switches, somewhat opportunistically, at the last minute and, and likes the idea that he's gonna be seen as the person who brings Franklin Roosevelt over the line.

RUBENSTEIN: And the condition is that John Nance Garner, he is gonna be the Vice President, right?

DARMAN: That's right, Garner is, is at his home in Washington totally oblivious to this.

He gets woken up from the Hearst press to in, inform him of all that's going on.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay, so he gets the nomination, uh, and then the election against Hoover is not that difficult because Hoover had gotten us into a bit of an economic problem, I guess you could say.

DARMAN: That's, that's right.

I mean, I think, in Hoover's mind he thinks he's lucky, uh, when he, when the Democrats nominate Franklin Roosevelt in 1932.

He knew Franklin Roosevelt.

They had been friends in Washington a decade earlier.

He doesn't rate Franklin very highly and I think that's, that's another moment where these people don't understand how he's been changed by these years.

So he's actually quite happy when he gets, uh, Franklin Roosevelt to run against him.

RUBENSTEIN: So on Inaugural Day, Roosevelt give us his first inaugural address and the most famous line of which is, "We have nothing to... DARMAN: Fear but fear itself."

RUBENSTEIN: And who wrote that line?

DARMAN: That's a good question.

It's always this sort of interesting authorship question with Franklin Roosevelt.

He has other people who draft his speeches, but then he leads these revision processes.

But with the inaugural address, he does something in the drafting process, which is, is he, he writes a note saying, "This is the draft that was written by Franklin Roosevelt."

And he gives the time and date.

And I think that's because he knows that this is an address that's gonna live in history and he wants people to think that it's his.

RUBENSTEIN: So after spending all this time studying Franklin Delano Roosevelt, do you come away admiring him more than you did before or less?

DARMAN: I, I come away admiring him a great deal, um, and more I would say than I did before.

I mean, part because when you write about the years that I write about, the years that he spends in recovery and rehabilitation from polio, you get to see him sort of at his best on an interpersonal level.

A lot of politicians, you could say there are moments where they're doing things in their life, where that are, that are altruistic.

But is it really for, for the altruistic purpose or are they really just trying to look like someone who cares?

There's no way you can say that about Franklin Roosevelt's work at Warm Springs.

It's, there's no definition of sort of political calculation that says that you should spend a huge chunk of your personal fortune and a huge amount of your time really getting quite involved in other people's recovery.

He does that just because he wants to help those people.

RUBENSTEIN: Well, it's a great story, it's a really very interesting book and you tell it very well.

And thank you very much Jonathan Darman for being here.

DARMAN: Thank you so much.

(applause) (music plays through credits)