And Nobody Read It....

I just bought this newspaper, the April 13, 1945 Chicago Tribune, on Ebay for $25. I was the only bidder. It is one of countless newspapers reporting the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt but this one contains a little different information than all the others.

Just below the picture of the new President Truman on the front page appears an article by Walter Trohan (no byline but most definitely Trohan) entitled "President's Health Failed Steadily Since Late '43".

(double click on the article to enlarge it)

The article reports that Howard Gerald Bruenn, a cardiologist, was commissioned into the Navy in late 1942 and was almost constantly with FDR since he was commissioned. It also discusses a "parade of doctors" that had been seeing FDR and that he was told in the Summer of 1944 that he had six months to live (as confirmed in the Lahey memorandum). It also mentions that an operation for cancer was anticipated by Dr. Lahey but he later determined it was "too late." The doctor mentioned who "refused to operate" was William Calhoun Stirling.

This is not at all the picture painted by Bruenn in 1970 of the gallant leader struck "out of the blue" by an unexpected brain hemorrhage. In his paper Bruenn clearly asserts that he saw the FDR for the first time in March 1944.

The widely circulated Tribune laid out a story that was largely accurate the day after FDR died. For the most part- either nobody read it or nobody cared!

In 2010 we have finally brought the true story of FDR's Deadly Secret back to the front pages of America. Perhaps this time it will be believed!