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

by Robert Klara

Overview

In April 1945, the funeral traincarrying the body of Franklin D. Roosevelt embarked on a three-day, thousand-mile odyssey through nine states before reaching the president'shome where he was buried. Many whowould recall the journey later would agree it was a foolhardy idea to start with - putting every important elected figure in Washington on a single train during the biggest war in history. For the American people, of course, the funeral train was just that - the train bearing the body of deceased FDR. It passed with darkened windows; few gave thought to what might be happening aboard. A closer lookinside the train, however,would reveal a Soviet spy about to leak a state secret, a newly widowed Eleanor Roosevelt, who just found out that her husband's mistress was in the room when he died, and the entirefamily ofincoming president Harry S Truman. The thrilling story of what took place behind the Pullman shades, where women whispered and men tossed back highballs, has never been told. On the occasion of the sixty-fifth anniversary of FDR's death, Klara chronicles the action-packed threeiday train ride during which, among other things, Truman hammered out the policies that would galvanize a country in mourning and win the Second World War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230108035
Publisher:	St. Martin's Press
Publication date:	06/21/2011
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

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

Prologue

Pine Mountain

The Mainline

The West Hall

Twelve Long Hours

The Train of Secrets

Car No.3

Where the Sundial Stands

Homeward

"We do not fear the future"

Aftermath

Editorial Reviews

Klara revives a long-forgotten event with precision and pathos, allowing readers a coveted Pullman berth for a ride through three of this country’s darkest yet most formative days.”

—Gay Talese, author of A Writer's Life

 

"A riveting, sumptuously detailed look inside a luxurious, mysterious private train swaying from one presidency to another—the picture windows in its last car showcasing a bronze coffin to thousands of trackside mourners ignorant of the vivid tensions in the cars ahead."—John Stilgoe, Robert and Lois Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape, Harvard University and author of Outside Lies Magic: Discovering History and Inspiration in Ordinary Places

 

“Robert Klara’s FDR’s Funeral Train is a well-written and vivid account of America’s greatest national mourning since Abraham Lincoln was shot.  Every page here is illuminating.  At times Klara practically transports the reader back to 1945.  A major new contribution to U.S. history.”—Douglas Brinkley is author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America

 

"No fan of FDR and his presidency can afford to pass up this book.  Robert Klara takes you inside FDR's funeral train, and into the minds and hearts of those who made the president's last journey with him.  Klara offers a unique, never-before-told perspective on the sudden transfer of power, the players who wanted to grab some of that power and the widow whose grief was tinged with the bitter taste of betrayal.  A remarkable story by a true storyteller."—Lorraine Diehl, author of The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station

 

"No one in 1945, friend or enemy, was unmoved by the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, after his dozen critical years in the White House.  FDR's Funeral Train vividly recalls the nerve-racking week behind the headlines, when his family and his government rose above a trainload of personal problems to help the nation across the chasm left by his demise.  An exciting addition to the Roosevelt bookshelf, Klara’s book is overflowing with the stuff that every history reader craves – fresh, original research."— Julie Fenster, author of The Case of Abraham Lincoln and FDR's Shadow

 

"With great skill and riveting detail, Robert Klara uses a three day train journey to provide readers with a fascinating glimpse into the inner-workings of the Washington elite in the days after FDR's death. This fast-paced narrative is filled with vivid portraits and plenty of intrigue. It also manages to shed new light on a critical moment in our nation's history."—Steve Gillon, author of 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America and Resident Historian, The History Channel  

 

"An intriguing account of FDR's last journey and a must read for all those still caught up in the romance and mystery of rail travel"—David B Woolner, Senior Fellow, Roosevelt Institute and Associate Professor of History, Marist College

"FDR's Funeral Train is a fascinating tale well told.  Hop aboard with the skilled storyteller Robert Klara.  You'll be glad you did."—James Bradley, author of Flags of our Fathers and Flyboys

 

"Klara charms as he informs. A little gem."—Kirkus (starred review)

 

“Evocative account of the sometimes awkward juxtaposition of those who had served and now mourned one president and those who were eager to begin working for, and influencing, another.”—Asbury Park Press

 

“A riveting tale of how several railroads brought Franklin D. Roosevelt’s body home.”—Trainstalk

 

“A book that reveals much of the heretofore hidden angst and intrigue that had accompanied a dead president on his final journey back home.”—Charlottesville Daily Progress

 

"Klara, a veteran reporter, has put together a thrilling piece of history. Sixty-five years after FDR’s death, Klara has managed to provide a fresh look at history as well as the political landscape of the 21st century."—The Daily Beast

From the Publisher

April 1945: From his death in Warm Springs, Ga., to his burial in Hyde Park, New York, Franklin Roosevelt's final journey. News of FDR's passing indelibly marked the Greatest Generation. Stunned by the loss of the only president many of them had known, huge crowds of mourners lined the tracks of his funeral train as it made its three-day journey through nine states. "The people did not wave," Life reported. "They wept." Klara takes us the entire route, furnishing information about the railways and their officials who shared logistical responsibilities, the locomotives and the lavish Pullman cars. However, the author focuses primarily on the train's passengers: Roosevelt's grieving widow Eleanor, twice-shocked to learn her husband's long-ago mistress, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, was present when FDR suffered his cerebral hemorrhage; bleary newsmen charged with generating copy at every stop; FDR's cousins Daisy Suckley and Polly Delano; his secretary Grace Tully and his famous dog Fala; presidential aide Lauchlin Currie, exposed years later as a KGB spy; Harry Truman, who used the train ride to confer with advisors to quickly come up to speed on the nation's business and to prepare an address to Congress that would introduce him as the nation's leader; speech writers, advisors and aides both to the old and new president, including the former director of the Office of War Mobilization and soon to be Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes. On the trip's penultimate leg, the slow train followed an announced route through densely populated areas, carrying the president, the cabinet, nine Supreme Court Justices, dozens of congressional leaders and the heads of major federal agencies, a security riskunthinkable in today's climate. In the manner of Bob Greene's Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen (2002) or Jody Rosen's White Christmas: The Story of an American Song (2002), similar, bite-sized slices of World War II-era home-front history, Klara charms as he informs. A little gem. Agent: Gary Heidt/Signature Literary Agency

Kirkus Reviews

“FDR put steel in the spine of a nation stunned and bewildered by the disaster of Pearl Harbor, promising, “We shall gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God.” The depth of feeling his death aroused and the sorrow that surrounded the train bearing his body to the capital and finally to the banks of the Hudson River is recalled and captured by Klara…This slim volume recreates vividly a sense of what America was like in 1945 and puts us aboard the melancholy train.”--(Brian John Murphy, Fairfield, Connecticut)

AMERICA IN WWII magazine