FDR's Funeral Train A Betrayed Widow, a Soviet Spy, and a Presidency in the Balance

by Klara, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780230619142
• ISBN10: 0230619142
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-03-16
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Summary

The April 1945 journey of FDR's funeral train became a thousand-mile odyssey, fraught with heartbreak and scandal. As it passed through the night, few of the grieving onlookers gave thought to what might be happening behind the Pullman shades, where women whispered and men tossed back highballs. Inside was a Soviet spy, a newly widowed Eleanor Roosevelt, who had just discovered that her husband's mistress was in the room with him when he died, all the Supreme Court justices, and incoming president Harry S. Truman who was scrambling to learn secrets FDR had never shared with him.Weaving together information from long-forgotten diaries and declassified Secret Service documents, journalist and historian Robert Klara enters the private world on board that famous train. He chronicles the three days during which the country grieved and despaired as never before, and a new president hammered out the policies that would galvanize a country in mourning and win the Second World War.

Author Biography

Robert Klara is an editor and writer. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Daily News, American Heritage, New Jersey Monthly, and The Christian Science Monitor. Klara has been a staff editor for numerous magazines, including Town & Country and Architecture, and has also worked as a researcher for legendary author Gay Talese. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xi
Pine Mountain	p. 1
"Run Slow, Run Silent"	p. 23
The Fish Room	p. 37
The Main Line	p. 53
Twelve Hours	p. 71
The Train of Secrets	p. 97
Car No. 3	p. 127
"Where the Sundial Stands"	p. 149
Homeward	p. 157
"We Do Not Fear the Future"	p. 181
Epilogue	p. 193
Dramatis Personae	p. 199
Acknowledgments	p. 203
Notes	p. 205
Index	p. 239
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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