FDR's Fab Four

In Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made (St. Martin's Press, 2023), author Derek Leebaert proposes a fresh way of looking at FDR's eventful presidency, paralleling the president's particular personality and governing style with the stories of four unique people - presidential adviser Harry Hopkins, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes,  Labor SecretaryFrances Perkins, and Agriculture Secretary (and then Vice President) Henry Wallace - who formed a sort of privileged inner circle within FDR's Administration and who remained  key members of the Administration from the Depression-deep "First 100 Days" in 1933 through the whole of the New Deal and the Second World War until the president's death in April 1945. Leebaert credits FDR's complicated inner four with building the institutions and structures that implemented the New Deal and helped pave the path to victory in World War II.

Leebaert likes to lace his account with comparisons to today's Washington and the contemporary political scene. He highlights how differently the federal government operated at that time and the far greater importance cabinet members had almost a century ago. Just as their particular power reflected in part the way FDR chose to govern, the four occupied positions of prominence that they could not comparably occupy today. Theirs was a partnership particularly suited to its time - and hardly likely ever to be repeated.

There may not be that much new to learn about FDR himself or about the New Deal world he and his lieutenants made, but we learn a lot about the four of them - both in their individual lives and in their complex relationships with each other and with the President. Perhaps Leebaert's most distinctive contribution here is how he highlights how each of the four - not unlike their lonely and physically handicapped Boss - suffered from significant personal problems. Thus, for example, FDR's principal advisor, Harry Hopkins, was famously a sickly man much of the time. Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, who had worked for FDR in NY before coming to Washington, had a husband with what today would be considered bi-polar disorder and later a mentally ill daughter as well, all of which put her in a position of financial as well as emotional stress. (The author also highlights the important role her Episcopalian faith played in sustaining her, a religious commitment she shared with Secretary and later Vice President Wallace.) The even by today's standards complicated and troubled marital and family lives of his advisers somehow complement the more famously complicated and troubled marital and family life of the President who hired them and depended on them until the end.

Loneliness in a world full of people is not a novel theme in telling the story of FDR. Leebaert wants us to appreciate how ubiquitous it was among those at the heart of FDR's people-filled circle. For Ickes, "loneliness was the isolating discovery of himself being solely right while everyone else was wrong." Perkins' "loneliness is apparent in the 'very, very few friends' she admitted to having, in her despondent marriage, and eventually in her estrangement from her troubled daughter." Wallace "felt deeply isolated and was seeking spiritual support. the intensity of this quest pushed away people who tried to get close to him." and loneliness shaped Hopkins "during his rise. Early on, his powers had gone unrecognized, and social work could only take him so far."

Despite their difficulties and deficiencies, Leebaert regards FDR's unique "team" of four as "the single most important to ever have shaped their country's history."  Their story, told here together in a uniquely captivating way, also helps us unlock retrospectively aspects of FDR's unprecedented success. "To succeed, [Roosevelt] needed to mask his many resentments and cruelties, while relying on a foursome of equally wounded lieutenants whose deep human vulnerabilities proved central to his pursuits."