FDR's funeral train : a betrayed widow, a Soviet spy, and a presidency in the balance

Author

Robert Klara

Call Number

• 973.917 K633 (CEN)

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Edition

1st ed.

Publication Information

New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Physical Description

xx, 244 p. : map ; 25 cm.

Summary

In April 1945, the funeral train carrying the body of Franklin D. Roosevelt embarked on a three-day, thousand-mile odyssey through nine states before reaching the president's home where he was buried. It passed with darkened windows; few gave thought to what might be happening aboard. A closer look inside the train, however, would reveal a Soviet spy about to leak a state secret, a newly widowed Eleanor Roosevelt, who just found out that her husband's mistress was in the room when he died, and the entire family of incoming President Harry S. Truman. The story of what took place behind the Pullman shades, where women whispered and men tossed back highballs, has never been told. On the occasion of the sixty-fifth anniversary of FDR's death, Klara chronicles the three-day train ride during which, among other things, Truman hammered out the policies that would galvanize a country in mourning and win the Second World War.

Contents

• Pine Mountain
• "Run slow, run silent"
• The fish room
• The main Line
• Twelve hours
• The train of secrets
• Car No. 3
• "Where the sundial stands"
• Homeward
• "We do not fear the future."