My disability pride reading led me to post-polio syndrome, which led me to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In the past few weeks, I have read two medical biographies1 about FDR. The convergence of my own musings on health and wellness, FDR’s health battles, and the 2024 presidential election fascinates me.
It seems that we expect our presidents to have transcendent health. FDR knew that his political career was over in 1921 if he didn’t pretend that he could walk again after polio permanently crippled his legs. In Hugh Gregory Gallagher’s words, FDR’s Splendid Deception paid off and he was elected President of the US four times.
However, his physical disability wasn’t the only medical condition FDR kept from the public. Most of his presidential medical records disappeared shortly after his death, but through other sources such as first hand accounts, it is clear that President Roosevelt was very ill during the two years leading up to his death in office. Whether it was post-polio complications, heart problems, cancer, or some combination thereof may never be known for sure, but whatever it was had to be kept from the public or he would never have won reelection.
Recent events seem to justify FDR’s concerns about his political prospects if he was perceived to be physically disabled or ill. President Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race following the extreme backlash and ostracization of him appearing old on TV. If the natural condition of being old is enough to lose the presidency, the malignant and highly aggressive skin cancer FDR may have had would definitely have challenged his reelection.
The last chapter of Lomazow and Fettmann’s FDR’s Deadly Secret was the most interesting as it expanded the discussion of presidential medical secrets beyond FDR and efforts to prevent it. They identify Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson as presidents who “covered up life-threatening or debilitating illnesses” while Ronald Reagan “carefully controlled the information” shared about his serious medical operations. (215)
Lomazow and Fettmann argue that there is nothing to prevent presidents from continuing to do this. However, based on what has happened with President Biden, I suspect that the current technology and instant new feeds has made medical deceptions significantly more difficult. Both FDR biographies described how, particularly in the last few months, FDR was physically deteriorating before people’s eyes and that therefore those eyes were limited. If smart phones had been around, I doubt he would have been able to hide from the public that he was dying, and he likely would not have won that fourth election.
- Gallagher, Hugh Gregory. FDR’s Splendid Deception. Vandamere Press; Arlington, VA. 1999. Lomazow, Steven, MD, and Eric Fettmann. FDR’s Deadly Secret. Public Affairs; New York. 2009. ↩︎
Feature image credit: mask of zorro by Robert Bjurshagen from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)
Carolyn Ristau 
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