Describes Franklin D. Roosevelt's fight to overcome the handicap of polio and examines the effects of this struggle on his character. " While F.D.R.'s bout with polio is a well-known fact, we never think of the 32nd President of the United States as a man who could not walk, a man for whom even standing with leg braces was an ordeal. In that unenlightened era, his handicap was concealed from the public eye. Yet this disabled man converted retreat into advance in his personal life before leading his nation out of depths of the Great Depression and though the horrors of World War II. In fact, it is author Goldberg's thesis that Roosevelt's struggle with crippling disease gave him greater strength, greater understanding. The compassion of the New Deal was not part of F.D.R.'s aristocratic heritage, but was acquired by sharing the plight of fellow polio sufferers from all walks of life at Warm Springs. As a rehabilitation psychologist, Goldberg gained access to little-known medical records that make this the definitive account of F.D.R.'s physical handicaps, their psychological impact, and the effects of his health on his judgment and decision-making capacities. Goldberg quotes from interviews with the doctors who treated Roosevelt, surviving Harvard classmates, Margaret Suckley, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, and several Warm Springs associates. With the taste and acute understanding, Goldberg makes us privy to the details of F.D.R.'s polio, how he and Eleanor coped with it, and the effects of his life, both public and private. The reader cannot help but have a new appreciation for this great American, acclaimed by many as the leader of the twentieth century" -- Dust jacket.