I 1949

My Life with F.D.R.

11

he is, according to Loo\ Magazine,
a Fellow of the American Medical
Association, of the American College
of Surgeons and of the American
‘Academy of Ophthalmology and
Otolaryngology, and that he is on the
staffs of the Ancker and Charles T.
Miller Hospitals in St. Paul, Minne-
sota.

The doctor writes that Father “had
suffered a heart attack, probably a
coronary thrombosis, but there was
nothing to corroborate the rumor,”
and that on “a one-day trip to the
Mayo Clinic at Rochester, Minnesota
... an examination revealed an in-
Iaperable tumor, possibly malignant,
the prostate gland . . . but none of
ihese rumors was ever substantiated.”
K Before quoting Dr. Wold’s specific
llegations, and answering them, I'd
ike to make the statement that to the
|>est of my knowledge, or that of my
amily, Dr. Wold never met my Fa-
her, never examined him, never even
liscussed his health with any mem-
Kier of our immediate family or my
ather’s physician, Dr. Ross T. Mc-
ntire.

H In his article, Dr. Wold makes the
■assertion: “In the late summer of
J1938, while Roosevelt was visiting a
Ison, James, at the Mayo Clinic, the
first of a series of strokes occurred.”
[But see the pictures on pages 13-16
— for visual evidence contradicting this
■ unproved statement!]

A My father at no time had a strode
anything akin to it until he suf-
Bfered the cerebral hemorrhage which
^^aused his death on April 12th, 1945.

I was in Seattle in 1938 when Father
and Mother were both at the Mayo
Clinic with Jimmy. Father called me
on the telephone to tell me that Jimmy
had come safely through his serious
operation. He sounded cheerful and
said he felt fine. Each day he was in
Rochester, Minnesota, he visited Jim-
my in the hospital.

Furthermore, as soon as Jimmy was
definitely out of danger, my father
and a good-sized party of friends
went on a long fishing trip off the
Galapagos Islands. It was during this
trip that Father won a pool for hav-
ing caught the largest fish on the trip
—a 235-pound shark!

It seems ridiculous to think that a
few days after a man had suffered a
stroke his physicians would allow him
to go deep-sea fishing—and that he
would be able to catch a 235-pound
shark!

A little further on in his writing,
Dr. Wold tells of the severe attack of
influenza which Father had following
his return, in December, 1943, from
the Cairo and Teheran Conferences.
He writes:

“About this time a parade of doc-
tors were called to the White House.
Everyone refused to talk for publica-
tion, but some of the physicians pri-
vately discussed Roosevelt’s symp-
toms. They agreed that he had a
stroke and was suffering from gen-
eral deterioration, and two of them
doubted that he could live until July
1st, 1944.”

At this point I’d like to ask a ques-
tion: How would you feel if you