Rare film depicts Franklin Roosevelt in wheelchair

[n2doc]

y Devin Kelly
July 13, 2013, 5:00 a.m.
Drowsy from watching hours of unedited World War II film footage, Ray Begovich snapped to attention when one eight-second snippet flashed before him.

Begovich, a journalism professor at Franklin College in Illinois, was visiting the National Archives in College Park, Md., doing research for a biography on President Franklin Roosevelt’s director of war information.

The 16-millimeter film showed Roosevelt visiting the Navy's U.S. heavy cruiser Baltimore on July 26, 1944.

Toward the end of the film, a photographer captured Roosevelt exiting a doorway down a ramp. The president moved in a gliding motion, the top of his head barely visible, as he was in a wheelchair.

Begovich was no Roosevelt scholar. But he knew what he was looking at had to be rare. No moving images of Roosevelt in his wheelchair were thought to exist -- due to a deliberate effort to conceal the president’s disability from the public during his lifetime.

clip at link

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-fdr-wheelchair-video-20130712,0,392047.story

[Seeking Serenity]

1. I remember seeing a film clip of Roosevelt

addressing a joint session of Congress during the war, where he acknowledged his disability. He apologized for giving his speech while seated, but explained that it was hard for him to stand because of his braces. I saw that as part of a documentary on FDR. I've never been able to find it again.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. I think that was State of the Union, 1945. n/t

[Cooley Hurd]

5. It was his address to Congress following the Yalta Conference

The travel to and from the conference took so much out of him that he just didn't have the strength to stand. One month later, he was dead.

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. Jesus. And people think gov't and media keep them out of the loop *now*. n/t

[LuvNewcastle]

4. I've often thought that concealment of Roosevelt's condition

was not necessary. Maybe it was a good idea when he first ran for office, but he was so loved by the public that I think that most people would have overlooked it. I'm not so sure that he did it so much to deceive Americans anyway; I think that maybe he thought it was important that he looked strong in the eyes of other countries.

My grandmother was a big fan of FDR and she told me a lot about him when I was growing up. He was her favorite President and he became my favorite as well. I only remember her mentioning that he had polio once or twice. She was aware that he was paralyzed, but it wasn't important to her at all. The American public is a lot more forgiving than people give them credit for.

[loyalsister]

6. I'm sure a lot of that came from advisors

Even back then they stage managed the president.

[LuvNewcastle]

7. I agree. It's been happening for a very long time. n/t

[Baitball Blogger]

8. Chris Matthews had an interesting thing to say about this concealment myth.

Though he was born the same year that Roosevelt's presidency was coming to an end, Matthews insisted that there was plenty of evidence to show that this attempt to conceal Roosevelt's disability--during the actual time he was president--is a myth.

[LuvNewcastle]

9. Interesting. I'd like to hear what he has to say.

Like I said, my grandmother knew he was paralyzed and she never talked about it being covered up, so maybe there's something to it.

[loyalsister]

10. No way

It is well documented in the book A Splendid Deception, the author talks about the fact that it was known in political circles kind of like how people knew about Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. But, he refused to be seen publicly in a wheelchair because it became a campaign issue when he ran for governor of NY.
His campaign managed the talk about it very well. They had whispering campaigns about how physically fit he was. They publicized an insurance policy.
And he had specially made braces along with a well rehearsed method with an aid on each side to make it appear as if he walked up stairs and long distances on his own.
If people knew he made sure they saw him as resilient and mostly unaffected. A man's man who could overcome anything.
There is no way he would have been elected if the entire public knew.