Rendezvous with Destiny

(3 of 5)

He still relishes jokes and wisecracks. He can still drop off for a cat nap anywhere, anytime. He still looks forward to a nightly old-fashioned or two in his study before dinner as a high point of his day. He has grown almost impervious to political criticism. He rarely becomes angry at all—and then it is usually when somebody snipes at him through one of his children. The four Roosevelt sons in service help explain the President's great sensitiveness to the casualty lists—always the first thing he asks about when told of a battle.* That sensitiveness, in turn, his intimates say, helps explain his Darlanesque "expediency" dealings. The President has said, in effect: Maybe we shouldn't deal with this fellow, but if we do I think we can accomplish our objective and save 30,000 lives.

The President now thrives on the hardest work of his life. His early-morning routine has changed little: awake at 7:30; a quick but thorough go at the Washington and New York papers (he reads Columnists Clapper and Lippmann regularly); breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and milk; then, propped in bed in his year-round lightweight, solid-color pajamas, with a blue cape around his shoulders, a chat with his secretaries on the day's schedule. Despite their best efforts and the President's recurring resolutions to cut down, his daily list of callers always seems to grow longer. Franklin Roosevelt likes people and loves an audience; Secretary "Pa" Watson still faces the problem of dragging away overtime visitors in the midst of Presidential anecdotes.

Assistant President. About 10 a.m. the President is wheeled over to his office. There, first thing, he attacks the mountains of mail and documents piled up in his workbaskets. He reads with page-at-a-glance rapidity. But part of his speed in getting through his paper work results from the fact that he reads military and State Department reports carefully, but most domestic messages get a quick send-off to James F. Byrnes in the opposite wing of the White House. Jimmy Byrnes has now actually become what so many of his predecessors were wrongly touted to be: a genuine Assistant President. Other intimates hesitate to say that the little ex-Senator and ex-Justice, who has grown steadily in Mr. Roosevelt's esteem and confidence, is now closer to the President than is Harry Hopkins. But Jimmy sees him oftener in daytime than Harry does. One big difference: Hopkins' after-dinner sessions with the President are almost always about war problems on which the President makes his own decisions next morning. Byrnes gets most of the big domestic problems to decide for himself. Aside from his concern about inflation, his associates say, the President is almost wholly immersed in the conduct of the war.