Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made

by Derek Leebaert

Overview

"Masterful.” —The Guardian

"Propulsive." —The Wall Street Journal

"Leebaert has done the near impossible—crafted a fresh and challenging portrait of the man and his inner circle.”— Richard Norton Smith, author of An Uncommon Man, former director of the Hoover, Eisenhower, Reagan, and Ford presidential libraries.

“A fascinating and absorbing analysis of FDR’s brilliantly chosen team of four courageous and creative men and women.”—Susan Dunn, author of 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler—the Election Amid the Storm, Massachusetts Professor of Humanities, Williams College.

Drawing on new materials, Unlikely Heroes constructs an entirely fresh understanding of FDR and his presidency by spotlighting the powerful, equally wounded figures whom he raised up to confront the Depression, then to beat the Axis.

Only four people served at the top echelon of President Franklin Roosevelt's Administration from the frightening early months of spring 1933 until he died in April 1945, on the cusp of wartime victory. These lieutenants composed the tough, constrictive, long-term core of government. They built the great institutions being raised against the Depression, implemented the New Deal, and they were pivotal to winning World War II.

Yet, in their different ways, each was as wounded as the polio-stricken titan. Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, Frances Perkins, and Henry Wallace were also strange outsiders. Up to 1933, none would ever have been considered for high office. Still, each became a world figure, and it would have been exceedingly difficult for Roosevelt to transform the nation without them. By examining the lives of these four, a very different picture emerges of how Americans saved their democracy and rescued civilization overseas. Many of the dangers that they all overcame are troublingly like those America faces today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250274694
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/28/2023
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	216,737
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 2.00(d)

About the Author

Derek Leebaert won the biennial 2020 Truman Book Award for Grand Improvisation. His previous books include Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy from Korea to Afghanistan and To Dare and to Conquer: Special Operations and the Destiny of Nations, both Washington Post Best Books of the Year. He was a founding editor of the Harvard/MIT journal International Security and is a cofounder of the National Museum of the U.S. Army. He holds a D.Phil from Oxford and lives in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
PART I: SUFFERING
1. STEPPING FORWARD (Inauguration as Governor, January 1, 1929, to the October Crash)
2. ECONOMIC PLAGUE (October 1929 to Campaign Summer, 1932)
3. SURGE TO POWER (November Elections 1932 to Roosevelt’s Inauguration, March 1933)
4. ACTION NOW (The Hundred Days, March–June 1933)
5. NEW FRONTIERS (Summer 1933 to the Midterm Elections, November 1934)
6. GETTING THE HABIT (Midterm Elections 1934 to Summer 1936s Party Conventions)
PART II: ENDURANCE
7. CREST OF THE WAVE (FDR’s 1936 Campaign to Christmas 1937)
8. FACING THE WORLD (A Super Island-State in the Mid-1930s)
9. FAITH AND MAINTENANCE (January to Summer 1938)
10. TURNING POINTS (Reforms of Summer ’38 to a New Congress, January 1939)
11. SPARK TO FLAME (“Munich” in Autumn 1938, to War in Europe, September 1939)
12. LINE OF FIRE (War in September 1939 to attack in Western Europe, May 1940)
PART III: HOPE
13. DEVOTEES OF FORCE (Blitzkrieg of May 1940 to FDR’s Inauguration, January 1941)
14. ELEVENTH HOUR (Inauguration 1941 to Pearl Harbor, December 7)
15. NEW EXTREMES (Attack at Pearl Harbor to November 1942’s Midterm Elections)
16. WASHINGTON WARS (Operation Torch, November 1942, to the Coal Strikes, November 1943)
17. HARD POUNDING (Stalin in Tehran, November 1943, to D-Day, June 1944)
18. LONG SHADOWS (Operation Overlord, Summer 1944, to FDR’s Death, April 1945)
EPILOGUE

Editorial Reviews

12/12/2022

Franklin Roosevelt came to the White House backed by a coterie of loyal and talented advisers who played critical roles in navigating the Great Depression and WWII, according to this laudatory group biography from historian Leebaert (Grand Improvisation). At the center of the history are Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, who professionalized a corrupt bureaucracy and spearheaded immigration reforms; Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, who kept the New Deal on track and desegregated his department’s Washington, D.C., headquarters on his first day in office; Henry Wallace, who became FDR’s vice president after steering the Agriculture Department through a roster of farming reforms; and Harry Hopkins, who served as a freelance wartime envoy to Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Throughout, Leebaert highlights how the quartet’s personal travails—including bad marriages, sexual indiscretions, and poor health—made them kindred spirits and nonjudgmental counselors to Roosevelt. Still, it wasn’t all peaches and cream—Leebaert reports that Hopkins once floated the idea of ousting Perkins, while FDR “tilted the weight of his influence” to oust Wallace from the vice presidency at the 1944 Democratic National Convention and replace him with Harry Truman. Though the prose occasionally plods, Leebaert thoroughly mines diaries, letters, and oral histories to deliver a fine-grained study of the ties that bound this consequential administration. It’s an enlightening investigation into the alchemy of successful governance. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"One of my favorite books from 2023...Roosevelt, as Mr. Leebaert makes clear, was a maddening boss and not a very nice man who used his knowledge of each lieutenant’s personal vulnerabilities as leverage. But he also had an uncanny knack for spotting men and women who could—at least with things he considered important—get big things done."
—Michael Barone, Wall Street Journal

"Illuminating."
—George Will, The Washington Post

“Mr. Leebaert takes a fresh tack by making his subject the Ickes-Perkins-Hopkins-Wallace bloc. … [And] here is the crucial thing for the gossip-hungry Roosevelt, and a boon for readers of Unlikely Heroes—they were never, ever boring."
—The Wall Street Journal

“In the vein of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals (2005), political historian Leebaert illuminates the dynamics of FDR’s consequential administration by focusing on four of his lieutenants … Leebaert sheds new light on FDR’s managerial capabilities and ably demonstrates that the cultivation of diversified and resilient talent was essential to the administration’s endurance.”
—Booklist

“Leebaert thoroughly mines diaries, letters, and oral histories to deliver a fine-grained study of the ties that bound this consequential administration. It’s an enlightening investigation into the alchemy of successful governance.”
—Publishers Weekly

"Leebaert is good at adducing current themes in past history, including regional divisions, racism, inequality, trickle-down economics, and a politicized and obstructionist Supreme Court...A nuanced study of reformist government in action and its behind-the-scenes players."
—Kirkus Reviews

“Leebaert follows four protagonists from President Franklin Roosevelt’s inner circle during the Depression. … An intimate portrait of FDR’s inner circle during the New Deal. Readers of U.S. history, economics, and political science should greatly enjoy this volume.”
—Library Journal

"Constructs an entirely fresh understanding of FDR and his presidency by spotlighting the powerful, equally wounded figures whom he raised up to confront the Depression, then to beat the Axis. .By examining the lives of these four, a very different picture emerges of how Americans saved their democracy and rescued civilization overseas."
—Daily Kos

"Unlikely Heroes is the most exciting book written about FDR's presidency in decades. Finally, we see exactly how he led the nation."
—James Strock, author, Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership, Founder, Serve to Lead Group

“A brilliantly captivating portrait of Roosevelt and his four most important associates, revealing their interwoven lives and friendships. Not only does it provide a unique perspective on the twelve tumultuous years of FDR’s presidency, it is full of illuminating insights into the upheavals of America today.”
—Liaquat Ahamed, Pulitzer-winning author, Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World

“By bringing alive the friendships among FDR’s key officials, Leebaert enables us to feel like insiders during that desperate time…among the many books about Roosevelt—none grants such vibrant access as does Unlikely Heroes.”
—Major-General Mari K. Eder, U.S. Army (ret), former Deputy Commanding General, U.S. Army Reserves, and author of The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line: Untold Stories of the Women Who Changed the Course of World War II

“No modern American political era has been the subject of more books.... But Derek Leebaert’s personality-driven account of the life and times of our greatest president quickly convinces us there is a place for one more compelling volume. … masterful.”
—The Guardian

"A terrific read."
—The Hugh Hewitt Show

"A surprising, counterintuitive take on Roosevelt... I hope to pick up some secrets on building successful teams while I’m at it."
—Nicholas Thompson, CEO, Atlantic, 2023 summer reading list | McKinsey & Company

"'Unlikely Heroes' pen-portrait of FDR is almost unparalleled in the literature about U.S. presidents. Only a handful of works about Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, TR, and Nixon compare."
—Walter McDougall, Professor of History and the Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania; Pulitzer winner

From the Publisher

01/01/2023

Leebaert (Magic and Mayhem) follows four protagonists from President Franklin Roosevelt's inner circle during the Depression. These four are Federal Emergency Relief Administrator Harry Hopkins, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, the able and visionary Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, and the agricultural scientist Henry Wallace. Leebaert discusses the tumultuous personality of Ickes, the sickly but determined Hopkins, the experienced social activist Perkins, and the scientific imagination of Wallace. Readers discover the various backgrounds that contributed to this New Deal team, including Perkins's fight for child labor reform and Hopkins's work with the New York Tuberculosis Association. The book also details the depression, divorce, financial woes, and alcoholism that struck some within this productive, yet very human cohort. The crippling effects of the Depression, ranging from malnourishment in New York City to the plight of drought-stricken Oklahoma farmers, is well presented, along with descriptions of issues such as child labor, dangerous factory conditions, widespread malnourishment, and violent raids on immigrant communities. VERDICT An intimate portrait of FDR's inner circle during the New Deal. Readers of U.S. history, economics, and political science should greatly enjoy this volume.—Jeffrey Meyer

Library Journal

2022-12-20
A deep examination of the four figures who were central to the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt.

As a political leader, Roosevelt played his cards close to his chest and never forgot a slight, however minor. Three men and one woman served him well in this stance, forming a kind of Cabinet within a Cabinet. Indeed, FDR’s official Cabinet was often hapless in selling the administration’s ambitious programs: “Attorney General Cummings had no wish to campaign because he was eyeing a Senate-confirmed appointment to the Supreme Court. Secretary of State Hull didn’t like making speeches, and made them ponderously anyway, while Commerce Secretary Roper had faded into invisibility. Treasury Secretary Morgenthau, according to Farley, was too nervous to use in any capacity.” As Leebaert—founding editor of International Security and author of Grand Improvisation and Magic and Mayhem—demonstrates, that left Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, Henry Wallace, and Frances Perkins to do the work. All were staggeringly intelligent, and most were flawed in surprising ways: Ickes once “seduced his stepdaughter,” Perkins was a melancholic married to a husband haunted by bipolar disorder, and Wallace harbored a desire to be president himself. When Roosevelt took power at the height of the Great Depression, he “identified the large established government departments that he believed vital to recovery: Agriculture, Interior, Labor, and Treasury.” Not surprisingly, the four stalwarts took leadership and, in one way or another, helped bring about recovery. Without stretching the point to hyperbole, Leebaert is good at adducing current themes in past history, including regional divisions, racism, inequality, trickle-down economics, and a politicized and obstructionist Supreme Court. Interestingly, thanks largely to Wallace and Perkins, FDR paid close attention to rural America, a lesson Democrats might learn today, and to battling segregation by, among other things, refusing government contracts to companies that engaged in discrimination.

A nuanced study of reformist government in action and its behind-the-scenes players.

Kirkus Reviews

A fresh and challenging portrait of the man and his inner circle, bold and convincing enough to invite a rethink of much historical assumption.”

author of An Uncommon Man Richard Norton Smith

The most exciting book written about FDR’s presidency in decades. Finally, we see exactly how he led the nation.”

author of Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership James Strock

A brilliantly captivating portrait of Roosevelt and his four most important associates, revealing their interwoven lives and friendships…full of illuminating insights into the upheavals of America today.”

Pulitzer–winning author Liaquat Ahamed

A fascinating and absorbing analysis of FDR’s brilliantly chosen team of four courageous and creative men and women. It was collective leadership at its best.”

author of 1940 Susan Dunn

Demonstrates that the cultivation of diversified and resilient talent was essential to the administration’s endurance.”

Booklist

Enables readers themselves to feel like insiders during that desperate time…Among the many books about Franklin Roosevelt, none grants us such insight and access as does Unlikely Heroes.”

Major General Mari K. Eder