That Man: An Insider's Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt (review)

Reading this recently discovered, posthumously published memoir of former Attorney General and Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson's service to President Franklin Roosevelt, one feels a delightful sense of robbing a bygone era of its settled history. Written between 1953 and 1954, Jackson's unassembled manuscript sat inside a file entitled "Roosevelt Book" until surviving family members discovered it in 1999. The book is thematically divided into eight chapters, dealing with "That Man" as politician, commander-in-chief, administrator, economist, companion and sportsman, and leader of the masses.

That Man is refreshing in two ways. First, although there is an eponymous play on the way in which FDR's opponents characterized him—with a name so offensive that it could not be called—the account is reasonably balanced, and there is no attempt to defend Roosevelt as anything more than just a man. On two fronts, Roosevelt is given the thumbs-down. According to Jackson, "Roosevelt certainly was not accomplished as an administrator" (111) and "the President was at his weakest in dealing with economic or business problems" (119). These judgments lend credibility to the author's claim that "I do not expect to see his like again" (155).

Second, unlike many other memoirs published soon after Roosevelt's death, this book is conscientiously about "That Man," and not "That Man and I." As such, it is a rich resource for those seeking an intimate, eyewitness perspective on FDR that is not excessively self-referential. Readers should be assured that while Jackson was never at the top echelon of officialdom, he was between 1937 and 1941, the year of his appointment to the Supreme Court, one of Roosevelt's principal advisors on many matters of state, including the Court-packing plan and the "lend-lease" exchange with Great Britain.

FDR enthusiasts looking for new tidbits about the man and his actions may be disappointed or relieved to find that Jackson's account of FDR is consistent with many other contemporary and scholarly accounts. For instance, on Roosevelt's draft of the Neutrality Proclamation of 1939, Jackson endorsed the same conclusions that others have made about FDR's inimitable facility with words: "not one word could be found that could be usefully added to what the president in extemporaneous fashion had written, and not one thing could be substituted to advantage" (80). Jackson also echoes the consensus that Roosevelt "liked the Presidency better than any man I have known who has occupied it" (42).

That said, scholars of different persuasions would still find pleasure in the many historical "testimonies" (2) that only one as close as Jackson was to FDR could share. This book will be of interest to the historian, the political scientist, the biographer, and the rhetorical critic. Let me illustrate with three of Jackson's historical testimonies. The historian and the political scientist will benefit from a reading of Jackson's textured account of how FDR wrestled with his decision to send Great Britain 50 World War I-era American destroyers in 1940 in return for long-term leases for bases on British territories in the western Atlantic and the Caribbean (82-106). Jackson convincingly argued that Roosevelt's (often understated) resistance to the idea derived from the possibility that Britain, once in possession of American ships, "might be tempted or driven to bargain for peace by a surrender of her navy, which would assure Hitler mastery of the seas" (84). A second testimony is perhaps more interesting, and especially so to the Roosevelt biographer. While we know that Franklin Roosevelt spent many a fishing trip with his senior advisors deciding important matters of state, Jackson here provides perhaps the most detailed published account of exactly what went on during one of such trips in late 1937 (137-47). It is also in these passages that we enjoy the finest contribution of this book, as we gain insight...