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When Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in 1945, his lifelong physician swore that the president had always been in perfect health. Twenty-five years later, his cardiologist admitted that the president suffered from hypertension, and that contrary to what the public was led to believe, his death was a cataclysmic event waiting to happen. But even this was a carefully constructed deceit, designed to protect the reputation of a man that led a country through war, and maintained until now.

This persuasive re-examination of Roosevelt's last years reveals a more profoundly disabled president than the nation knew, and asks whether Roosevelt should be criticized or celebrated for shouldering the weight of a wartime presidency in his compromised state.