The Great Deception: FDR’s Last Campaign, 1944

In March 1944 President Franklin Roosevelt was in the final year of his unprecedented third term as U.S. President. At the time, his general physician noted that “Roosevelt represents a textbook case of untreated hypertension progressing to [likely] organ failure and death from stroke.” It’s unclear how much FDR knew of his diagnosis; family members and close staff knew he was failing but not all the details. Still, he ran for a fourth term. Already hiding his paralysis from the public, FDR, his family, and staff went to great lengths to distract and disguise his worsening heart condition. And he won. He died 100 days after being sworn in.

Allen Stone, a retired broadcast journalist who witnessed and reported on many key events of the 1960s and 1970s, received the prestigious duPont-Columbia award for work (with others) on the 40th anniversary of the JFK assassination. For Renesan, he has made several presentations connecting past and current events.