'You are one of the most difficult men to work with that I have ever known,' Harold Ickes, the Secretary of the Interior, once told FDR. 'Because I get too hard at times?' Roosevelt asked. 'No,' Ickes replied, 'because you won't talk frankly, even with people who are loyal to you.' Joseph Persico, whose admiration for FDR, like that of many Americans, is close to hero-worship, treats FDR's endless deceptions and tricks with indulgence. John Steinbeck, whom FDR once persuaded to do some spying for him in Mexico, came to the conclusion that he liked mystery, subterfuge and indirect tactics for their own sake. But maybe, like many privileged people, he didn't see why the world shouldn't be arranged to suit his designs. His mother was worse: when her sister got stranded in Europe in 1939 she simply couldn't understand why Franklin would not send a battleship to pick up his aunt.

LRB 4 April 2002 | PDF Download