Three Days at the Brink

FDR's Daring Gamble to Win World War II

Bret Baier, Catherine Whitney

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780062905697
• eBook ISBN: 9780062905703
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

The Instant New York Times Bestseller

"I could not put this extraordinary book down. Three Days at the Brink is a masterpiece: elegantly written, brilliantly conceived, and impeccably researched. This book not only sparkles but is destined to be a classic!” —Jay Winik, bestselling author

From the #1 bestselling author and award-winning anchor of Special Report with Bret Baier, comes the
gripping lost history of the Tehran Conference, where FDR, Churchill, and
Stalin plotted D-Day and the Second World War’s endgame. With the fate of World
War II in doubt and rumors of a Nazi assassination plot swirling, Franklin
Roosevelt risked everything at a clandestine meeting that would change the
course of history.
November 1943: The Nazis and their Axis allies controlled nearly
the entire European continent. Japan dominated the Pacific. Allied successes at
Sicily and Guadalcanal had gained them modest ground but at an extraordinary
cost. On the Eastern Front, the Soviet Red Army had been bled white. The path of
history walked a knife’s edge.
That same month a daring gambit was hatched that would alter
everything. The "Big Three"—Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill,
and Joseph Stalin—secretly met for the first time to chart a strategy for
defeating Adolf Hitler. Over three days in Tehran, Iran, this trio—strange
bedfellows united by their mutual responsibility as heads of the Allied
powers—made essential decisions that would direct the final years of the war
and its aftermath. Meanwhile, looming over the covert meeting was the possible
threat of a Nazi assassination plot, code-named Operation Long Jump.
Before they left Tehran, the three leaders agreed to open a
second front in the West, spearheaded by Operation Overload and the D-Day
invasion of France at Normandy the following June. They also discussed what
might come after the war, including dividing Germany and establishing the
United Nations—plans that laid the groundwork for the postwar world order and
the Cold War.
Bestselling author and Fox News Channel anchor Bret Baier’s new epic history, Three Days at the Brink, centers on these
crucial days in Tehran, the medieval Persian city on the edge of the desert.
Baier makes clear the importance of Roosevelt, who stood apart as the sole
leader of a democracy, recognizing him as the lead strategist for the globe’s
future—the one man who could ultimately allow or deny the others their place in
history.








With new details discovered in rarely seen transcripts, oral
histories, and declassified State Department and presidential documents from
the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Baier illuminates the complex character of
Roosevelt, revealing a man who grew into his role and accepted the greatest
challenge any American president since Lincoln had faced.

Part One

The Making of FDR

Chapter 1

To Whom Much Is Given

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s mother, Sara, once denied that her aspirations for her son had reached as high as the White House or the world stage. “Did I ever think when he was little that Franklin might be president?” she wrote. “Never, oh never! That was the last thing I should ever have imagined for him, or that he should be in public life of any sort . . . What was my ambition for him? Very simple—it might even be thought not very ambitious . . . to grow to be like his father, straight and honorable, just and kind, an upstanding American.” Given the intensity of her devotion to her only son and the firm grip she held on his development, Sara Delano Roosevelt’s modest vision seems disingenuous. He was in every way her golden boy, groomed for an impact far greater than that of a Hyde Park, New York, country gentleman.

Sara Roosevelt would live to see her son elected president of the United States three times before her death. (He would be elected to a fourth term after she died.) Indeed, he reached such heights that he can sometimes seem like an imposing blank canvas onto which generations have projected their hopes and dreams. We magnify the stature of certain leaders, and history further cements the impressions. Reality—the deeper truths, the human failings, the paradoxes—is far more interesting and instructive.

One of those paradoxes, as Roosevelt biographer Jean Smith posed it: “How this Hudson River aristocrat . . . became the champion of the common man.” It’s an intriguing question. Often Americans look to popular leaders to mirror their essence, particularly their humble roots; to listen for them to say, “I understand your plight because I am like you.” That was clearly the case for Dwight D. Eisenhower, born in the hardscrabble arena of late-nineteenth-century Kansas; or Ronald Reagan, whose family suffered from the joint demons of poverty and alcoholism. But it’s not always the case. The wealth of FDR’s parental families, the Roosevelts and the Delanos, ensured that he would never want for anything material, and it would also give him the benefit of world travel, the best schools, and immersion in a circle of influence not available to most people. But the jolting counterbalance to a smooth destiny was polio. Just as his political life was gaining momentum, FDR was felled and crippled, suffering permanent paralysis and a years-long battle to bring himself back to his life’s work, while facing the bitter truth that he would never walk again. The crucible of his devastating illness and its paralyzing effects seemed to enlarge him as a man and gave him a depth and purpose that had not been noticeable before. The historian and Roosevelt biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote in Leadership: In Turbulent Times, “Franklin Roosevelt’s ordeal provides the most clear-cut paradigm of how a devastating crucible experience can, against all expectation and logic, lead to significant growth, intensified ambition, and enlarged gifts for leadership.” And as the political commentator George Will put it, “Just as the irons were clamped on his legs, the steel entered his soul.”

But those are only pieces of the story. While the question of his privileged status is interesting and the daunting challenge of his disability dramatic, it must also be said that Roosevelt was endowed with a number of natural talents and characteristics that served his mission in life well: an optimistic personality, a sincere charm and enjoyment of people, an unwavering self-confidence, a deeply felt sense of fairness, an instinct for risk taking, a thirst for learning, a strong will—and perhaps above all, the ability to communicate, to reach out and touch Americans with the deep timbre of his voice and the power of his words. The iconic image of Roosevelt is the one that stays with us—the jaunty pose with a cigarette holder, the wide grin, the energy vibrating off him in waves.

He also had his share of flaws. He could be remote, treacherous, self-indulgent, and careless with those who loved him most. He was raised with the impression of being the sun around whom all the planets circled, and that elevated self-regard was often manifested in unattractive ways. But at the time he entered the presidency, what mattered most to people was the picture of sheer buoyancy. Stunned by the Great Depression, floundering in a sea of debt and despair, Americans found in Roosevelt a man who seemed able to ride the waves. He gave them a reason to hope.

Roosevelt did not live to write a memoir. Nor did he keep a diary of his thoughts and reflections, as many presidents have. His interior life was largely hidden, recalled only by those who were close to him. Even they acknowledged that his true feelings were beyond their reach. In his long hours of solitary poring over his stamp collection, his thoughts were in shadow. In his closest relationships, even with his wife and children, he was pleasant and patient, yet struggled with true intimacy. But in historical memory he has become one of the rare presidents to transcend party politics, joining George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in that distinction. This complex picture, the measure of a man of both great strengths and personal shortcomings, is Roosevelt’s full legacy.

FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT WAS BORN on January 30, 1882, at the family estate in Hyde Park, New York, to James Roosevelt and Sara Delano Roosevelt. Sara’s difficult labor lasted more than twenty-four hours and almost came to disaster when she was given too much chloroform for the pain. She was unconscious when her son was delivered, blue and still; she didn’t witness the desperate effort to breathe life into his tiny mouth. By the time she awoke, she was happily handed a squalling infant. James wrote in Sara’s diary, “At quarter to nine, my Sallie had a splendid large baby boy. He weighed 10 lbs., without clothes.” The danger was momentarily forgotten, although Sara never bore another child.

James and Sara had wed two years earlier—he a widower of fifty-two, she a self-proclaimed spinster of twenty-six. Before she met James, Sara had abandoned all idea of marriage, and her family money provided her the freedom to travel the world and do as she pleased. James, less wealthy than the Delanos but still well off, had graduated from Harvard Law School, only to discover he despised the practice of law. He preferred business pursuits, investments of varying success, and the genteel life of a landowner and country gentleman, dabbling in local affairs while enjoying his boating and horse stables. He lived happily with his first wife—his second cousin Rebecca Brien Howland—and their son, James Roosevelt Roosevelt (the double last name used instead of “Jr.”), known as Rosy. For years, Rebecca had suffered from ill health, and she died of a massive heart attack while on a day trip aboard their yacht. She was forty-five.

James’s world was shattered, and he thought he’d never marry again. But four years after Rebecca’s death, at a dinner party hosted by Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., his attention was drawn to the beautiful daughter of his friend Warren Delano, Jr., and hers to him. Their attraction to each other grew, despite the age difference, which worried Sara’s father. After all, she was the same age as Rosy. But their love prevailed, and they were married within six months.

They embarked on a ten-month European honeymoon, and by the time they returned, Sara was five months pregnant. Refusing the confinement that was typical for pregnant women then, she remained active until the day she went into labor.

James and Sara named their son Franklin after Sara’s favorite uncle and settled into their family life at the estate at Hyde Park, known as Springwood (a name mostly dropped in favor of simply Hyde Park). It was a beautiful setting, high above the Hudson River, a retreat from the world where Sara could nurture her son, who became the great love and chief occupation of her life.

As was the case with so many other presidents, Franklin Roosevelt’s mother was the wind beneath his expansive wings. The image of Franklin as a pampered little prince might seem inescapable, especially in light of the girlish ringlets and Little Lord Fauntleroy outfits his mother favored when he was small—until he demanded a haircut. That characterization sells Sara short, however. More than his appearance, she was deeply interested in her son’s intellectual, emotional, and character development, and she was often unconventional in her parenting approach. Once, when Franklin was five, she noticed that he seemed sad and asked him if he was unhappy. He replied solemnly, “Yes, I am unhappy.” She asked him why, and he clasped his hands together with urgency and cried, “Oh, for freedom!”

Concerned, Sara discussed the matter with James, and they worried together about whether they were too controlling. (Although Franklin was only five!) So Sara devised a plan. The next day she told her son he could do whatever he pleased for the entire day, and she would step back and not interfere. He raced off to play, happy to be ignored by his mother. When he returned at the end of the day, sated with freedom and looking the worse for wear, Sara concluded he had learned that freedom wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Life resumed as normal.

Sara had an unusual perspective on parenting. She believed that children were essentially miniature adults. “I’ve always believed that children had pretty much the same thoughts as adults,” she said. In her mind, all they were lacking was the vocabulary to express these thoughts. That capacity was best cultivated through reading. Encouraged by his mother to choose his own reading material, Franklin became obsessed with history, especially naval history. His love of the sea was a theme that would last his lifetime.

With no siblings (except for his adult half brother Rosy) and homeschooled by governesses and tutors until the age of fourteen, Franklin learned to enjoy the company of adults and also to feel content being on his own. He developed a life of the mind that could often seem beyond his years and adopted passions that would stay with him for life, such as his beloved stamp collecting, which would later soothe him during the most trying times of his presidency.

Sara realized that Franklin was somewhat sheltered, but she never thought he was lonely. Endlessly curious, he had a gift for making an adventure out of any situation. “I do not believe I have ever seen a little boy who seemed always to be so consistently enjoying himself,” she wrote. That quality seemed to follow him through life—his White House secretary Grace Tully later noted that he was “never boring or bored.”

Even though he spent much time alone, Franklin was a sociable boy, and when other children were present, he loved their company, falling naturally into the role of leader when they played games. Too naturally, his mother thought. When she observed Franklin’s habit of ordering his playmates around while organizing a sport or building a fort, she mildly suggested that he give others a turn at command. “Mummie,” he replied, “if I didn’t give the orders, nothing would happen.”

His father, whom he adored, gladly became his companion in adventures of boyhood and exposed him to the joys of outdoor living: sailing the glorious Hudson River, horseback riding, and shooting. They spent a great deal of time together, so Franklin was blessed with the best of both his parents. James and Sara were also intent on exposing their son to life beyond the cosseted world of their Hyde Park estate, and they traveled widely as a family. In his first fourteen years, Franklin accompanied them on eight trips to Europe—lengthy journeys by sea.

By the time Franklin was fourteen, his parents decided he needed more formal schooling, and they enrolled him at Groton School, the elite Massachusetts boarding academy founded by Endicott Peabody, a college friend of Theodore Roosevelt, who had begun a prestigious career in finance before quitting to become an Episcopal priest. His philosophy of education was centered around spartan living, religious observance, physical exercise, and devotion to the public good. That life-shaping environment would make a tremendous impact on Franklin, who would say, “As long as I live, the influence of Dr. and Mrs. Peabody means and will mean more to me than that of any other people next to my father and mother.” In the beginning, though, he had to overcome two barriers. The first was his size; he was small and thin then, although that impediment would eventually resolve itself. The second was that he was joining a class that had already been together since the boys were twelve, so he had to endure being the new kid. That, too, was eventually overcome thanks to Franklin’s determination to get along and become one of the boys. If he was lonely at first, or dismayed by the strict environment or rough treatment, he never let on in his twice-weekly letters home. That took great self-control and served the purpose of easing his mother’s fears. “It was no time at all, I am told, after he was thrown with boys of his own age that his timidity went out like ice in a spring flood,” Sara wrote with satisfaction. “Almost overnight he became sociable and gregarious and entered with the frankest enjoyment into every kind of school activity.”

It wasn’t quite as easy as that. Franklin loved sports but failed to make the football or baseball team and was relegated to the role of baseball manager, a tedious behind-the-scenes job that involved organizing equipment and being at the beck and call of the players. He did the job cheerfully, without complaint, and his lack of self-pity endeared him to his classmates.

Decades later, when Franklin was president, Charles R. Nutter, one of his instructors, wrote a positive but less-than-glowing evaluation of the boy he had known at Groton:

The fact is—from my remembrance—Franklin was colorless; a nice, pleasant boy who did not get into trouble and did do as he should. But remained submerged. I have been asked about his school days by those who know I was at Groton at the time, and I always say that if I had been told there was a potential President in his form he would have footed the possibilities. . . . I remarked that he was colorless. This condition might be of comfort and inspiration to others who are colorless.

James and Sara kept their distance as they had been told to do, though it was difficult for Sara, who found her son’s brief letters home maddeningly unrevealing. Only once did she break protocol, when Franklin came down with scarlet fever and was quarantined in the school infirmary. Prevented from being at his bedside, she devised a plan to be close to him. She wrote, “Several times each day I would climb a tall, rickety ladder, and, by seating myself on the top, manage to see into the room and talk with our small, convalescing scapegrace.”

James Roosevelt had always impressed upon his son that it was the responsibility of Christians to help those who were less fortunate, and that message was reinforced at Groton. Franklin joined the Groton Missionary Society to do charitable works. He was assigned to help an eighty-four-year-old black woman, the widow of a Civil War drummer—plowing her driveway when it snowed, feeding her c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: Finding FDR
• Prologue: The “Big Three” Dinner Party
• Part One: The Making of FDR
• Part Two: Seeking Greatness
• Part Three: Three Days at the Brink
• Part Four: The Endgame
• The Last Word: 76 Years Later: Keep Talking
• Acknowledgments
• An Excerpt from TO RESCUE THE REPUBLIC
• Notes
• Index
• Photo Section
• About the Authors
• Also by Bret Baier
• Copyright
• About the Publisher