No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Review)
A friend once told me, “Ron Chernow doesn’t write a short book.” The same is true about Doris Kearns Goodwin, and in both cases I’m grateful for their depth of analysis. No Ordinary Time – Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II is a joint biography of the modern American power couple. While I have read plenty about Franklin Roosevelt over the years, I was pleased to gain greater insight into the life of Eleanor. Her life was what really made Goodwin’s books shine. This book is the third I have read by Goodwin, after Team of Rivals and The Bully Pulpit. I place No Ordinary Time behind the other two, but this position speaks to my rich enjoyment of the first two books more so than any shortcomings in Goodwin’s analysis of the Roosevelts. I simply find Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt more compelling than FDR. Needless to say, there’s no question why No Ordinary Time won the Pulitzer. This book provides impressive insight into America’s leadership, its people, and the outside forces that defined a generation during World War II. Best of all, Goodwin provides this insight with engaging storytelling and a thought-provoking style. I fully recommend No Ordinary Time, and I look forward to reading more by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Here are my notes from her book.
After FDR’s paralysis, Eleanor Roosevelt became his eyes and ears to understand the county and its people. Eleanor described how FDR taught her to inspect state facilities. One example included Eleanor’s inspection of an insane asylum. She brought back a menu to which FDR asked, “Did you lift the lids? Did you actual confirm that this is what they fed the patients?” Eleanor learned the skills of inspection and in turn developed the talents of an investigative reporter. She came to look for the attitudes of workers and the facial expressions in addition to their words.
Even as late as February 1940, military leaders were still arguing for the superiority of horses over tanks and other mechanized fighting. Despite awareness of the Polish cavalry being destroyed by the German artillery, leaders thought that the barriers of rivers and mountains coupled with the unreliability of machines and the difficulty of developing roads and bridges would keep horses as the superior tool for combat. Yet during military maneuvers, the limited tank force of the United States similarly tore through the horse cavalry. The initial US maneuvers in Louisiana received the following assessment from Time Magazine: “Against Europe’s total war, the US Army looks like a few nice boys with BB guns.”
When FDR announced his munitions support for Britain, he labored whether to place a single additional phrase critiquing Italy for joining the war. It is commendable, in hindsight and—particularly in an era that rarely sees care given to words—that he would spend so much time and energy on the message he was delivering.
The argument that World War II was really just an extension of World War I seems supported by the fact that after Germany invaded Paris, the soldiers went to find every German flag in the city because they symbolized a lost German battle from the Great War. Hitler also ordered the destruction of two WWI memorials as soon as he entered the city.
Eleanor Roosevelt observed in a letter to her daughter, “I think men are worse than women on committees, and they do think more of their importance. I hope I’ll never think I am of any importance; it makes one so stuffy!”
I don’t remember previously reading about the circumstances when FDR was nominated for a third term. The speech that Eleanor Roosevelt gave to the angry and fractured Democratic convention was remarkable. As the delegates considered whether to honor FDR’s request to have Henry Wallace join the ticket, Eleanor observed that this was not “an ordinary nomination in an ordinary time...this is no ordinary time, no time for weighing anything except what we can best do for the country as a whole.” Her words calmed and unified the convention.
Goodwin offered an interesting aside—or perhaps middle given the significant role of women in FDR’s life—when Princess Martha of Norway lived at the Roosevelt’s home in Hyde Park. Roosevelt once observed, “Nothing is more pleasing to the eye than a good-looking lady, nothing more refreshing to the spirit than the company of one, nothing more flattering to the ego than the affection of one.” Franklin’s son, Jimmy, noted that FDR was “at his sparkling best when the audience included a few admiring and attractive ladies.”
I did not fully realize what a role the federal government played in subsidizing private factories to build up the supplies for World War II. The generous amortization plan allowed government funding the plants and private companies to collect the profits. Military historians credit the write-off provision as a key element of war production because it turned high taxes into a benefit by inducing business keep its earnings in the form of expanded factories and new equipment.
Goodwin distinguished Eleanor and Franklin as follows: “While Eleanor thought in terms of what should be done, Franklin thought in terms of what could be done.”
After the draft, 40% of those who reported were physically unfit for duty. This statistic is interesting given current fears over obesity and fitness. It is not that these current fears are any less valid, but it appears they are not wholly unique.
In describing FDR’s creative idea for the lend-lease program, Goodwin summarizes as follows: “Roosevelt made up for the defects of an undisciplined mind with a profound ability to integrate a vast multitude of details into a larger pattern that gave shape and direction to the stream of events.”
FDR on Democracy: “Yes, the decisions of democracy may be slowly arrived at. But when that decision is made, it is proclaimed not with the voice of one man but with the voice of 130 million.”
It is interesting that it took Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor to spur Americans into saving money and investing in bonds. Statistics often refer to past savings trends, but those stats may be inflated by the forced savings of war as supplies went to munitions.
After Germany attacked the Soviet Union, FDR sent Harry Hopkins to see Stalin. Stalin’s request was for aluminum to build planes. Even he saw in the opening days of war that mass production was the key to victory.
After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Churchill considered the war won. British politician, Sir Edward Grey, commented that “The U.S. is like ‘a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it, there is no limit to the power it can generate.’”
I did not know—or had forgotten—the story for FDR walking in on Churchill after the prime minister had gotten out of the bath. FDR apologized; to which Churchill said, “The prime minister of Great Britain has nothing to conceal from the President of the United States!”
One factor that FDR had to consider in a way that military leaders did not, was the spirit of the American. He understood that he needed to sustain the spirit of the people. It was easy for the military leaders to direct a battle plan. But factors like successfully bombing Japan did much to boost morale in the week of Pearl Harbor, even if the attack itself had a nominal effect for military strategy.
Rationing in WWII simplified living, particularly due to rubber and gas rationing. “all in all, pleasures became simpler and plainer as people spent more time going to the movies, entertaining at home, playing cards, doing cross-word puzzles, talking with friends, and reading.” Driving for leisure stopped, so alternative and more local options for entertainment took root.
After losing Missy LeHand to her stroke, his mother to death, and Harry Hopkins to love, FDR found himself painfully alone in 1942. He turned to Eleanor but also his cousins, Laura Delano and Margaret Suckley. Both had been raised to be pleasant company, and FDR observed, “You’re the only people I know that I don’t have to entertain.” Anna Roosevelt’s daughter, Eleanor Seagraves described them as “charming, witty, intelligent, and full of fun.” Eleanor Roosevelt had little patience for the cousins and believed their conversations were insubstantial—chattering and gossiping. Eleanor’s secretary, Tommy Thompson, once write, “evidently the President likes women who are not too serious.” I wonder how much of FDR’s pleasure from women like his cousins stems from always dealing with the most serious issues on the largest scale.
Politics plagued FDR after the North Africa invasion. Despite fortuitously calm seas and a safe landing, dealing with the representatives of Vichy France was unpopular. Still, the superior American forces succeeded, and General Erwin Rommel reasserted the military wisdom that “The battle is fought and decided by the quartermasters before the shooting begins.”
The Nazis decoded that FDR and Churchill were meeting at Casablanca. But they took the message literally that they were meeting at the “White House,” so they failed to pursue an attack on the North African summit.
FDR impressed those around him by his ability to remain affable and unruffled even as the war grew in scope. He was steadfast in keeping at least his cocktail hour as a regular opportunity for no politics or war. Inversely, Hitler “seems to have aged 15 years during three and a half years of war,” wrote Joseph Goebbels in his diary. Hitler ceased any activity other than work, which soon devolved in to obsessive and unproductive brooding.Eleanor’s barrage of correspondence to General George Marshall played a tremendous role in eliminating white-colored distinctions in the army’s recreational facilities. The Jim Crow laws were prevalent in the army, which spurred Lena Horn to stop touring army bases; she argued that German POWs has more opportunity to hear her than Negro soldiers. This rampant racism stayed constantly on Eleanor Roosevelt’s mind, and her access to power prompted her to speak and act.
In the midst of the 1943 coalminers strike and racial disturbances, Eleanor Roosevelt said, “The domestic scene is anything but encouraging and one would like not to think about it, because it gives one a feeling that, as a whole, we are not prepared for democracy.” Interesting that a 160-year-old democracy could prompt such a fear. This feeling by Roosevelt seems to reflect the fragility of self-governance.
Journalist Seldon Menefee concludes that racism occurred in cities like Mobile, Alabama that grew rapidly—many of whom were populated by poor whites from rural homes—because “the whiteness of their skins is the one thing that gives them a degree of social status.” Seldon supported this conclusion by pointing to attacks by white welders on black welders who were supposed to work in shipyards together and a letter to the editor by welder, Archie Adams, who wrote, “We realize the fact that they are human beings, but we don’t any more want to work or want our women to work alongside a Negro than yuh would want to take one into your dining room and sit him down between your wife and mother to eat dinner...” Not only are these horrifying sentiments, but it’s striking to consider that they occurred only decades ago.
To lead the post-war efforts, FDR appointed Bernard Baruch, an esteemed and staunch Republican. It’s hard to imagine either party similarly reaching across party lines today.
Once it became clear the United States would win the war, FDR set his sights on peacetime America. He set out economic objectives and leaned on political scientist, James MacGregor Burns, who argued that it was a false dichotomy to view liberty and security or freedom and equality as mutually exclusive. His argument that fear mongering over giving up liberty and freedom crippled the country’s ability to address economic depression and poverty.
Three weeks after the D-Day invasion, the United States had a million men on the shores and over a half million tons of supplies. The remnants of vehicles and supplies left on the beaches would have been enough to supply a small war, but the United States supply line from England was so immense that it hardly mattered. Once the allied forces had a toehold on the beach, the supply line was set.
Biographer Hugh Gallagher describes FDR’s disability as “a splendid deception.” Until he appeared before Congress on March 1, 1945, he had never before been wheeled in his chair nor sat before Congress. No one recorded or photographed the extent of Roosevelt’s paralysis. Most of the public did not realize how crippled he was. Roosevelt had long feared revealing this frailty would lessen his peers’ regard for him. Instead—at least in this time and place amid the war—it magnified his charm and personality. Eleanor Roosevelt described the speech as similar to FDR’s chats when he had friends over in his private study.
At The end of Roosevelt’s life, there are suggestions he knew he was dying. Yet despite the first-hand accounts describing his final days by those closest to him, there seems lack of intimacy as to the breadth and depth of what FDR was feeling as he faced his own mortality.
Harry Truman arrived at the White House after FDR’s death, not yet knowing the president had died. Eleanor told Truman to which he asked, “is there anything I can do for you?” Eleanor replied, “is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now.” As true as her words were, it’s a pretty amusing reply given the grief and shock Eleanor was facing.
The world was shocked at Roosevelt’s death. He was in his thirteenth year as president. Republican Senator Robert Taft put it this way: “The President’s death removed the greatest figure of our time at the very climax of his career, and shocks the world to which his words and actions were more important than those of any other man.”
Eleanor lost her husband and home in just over a week. Though she acknowledged a staunch understanding that the White House is the public’s home, the sadness of leaving the place to a life of a widow had to make the mourning all the more expansive.
This description is how Goodwin described Franklin and Eleanor: “They made an extraordinary team. She was more earnest, less devious, less patient, less fun, more uncompromisingly moral; he possessed the more trustworthy political talent, the more finally tuned sense of timing, the better feel for the citizenry, the smarter understanding of how to get things done.” These points culminated in the reality that they made each other better than they would have been alone.
After finishing No Ordinary Time, I experienced the mixed emotion unique to reading a good book: satisfaction and joy from what I read embedded with the melancholy of finishing something so enjoyable. I don’t tend to re-read books, simply because there are so many unread books that I want to explore. Perhaps that is the source of the sadness—willfully saying goodbye to a book, not for any shortcomings of the book but simply to move on to something else. I’m too loyal to so lightly say, “goodbye” in real life. Yet it is a regular occurrence with books. Needless to say, I’m saddened to finish No Ordinary Time. As I have come to expect, Doris Kearns Goodwin is masterful, and I recommend her book to anyone who loves interesting characters, weighty history, and a better understanding how the past shapes today.
