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c-span.org. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> dr. lomazow we've known him as a researcher into president roosevelt and his health. he's a certified doctor, more than 40 years and president of newer logical association of jersey, dr. lomazow is also a former part of medical state examiner and former president on history and magazines as well as and experience pub published in conjunction with an exhibit at the club. i remember that. and coverups that rewrote history is now available and we'd like to welcome dr. steve

to you today. [applause] >> good morning. >> good morning. >> a brief exert from chapter 12, the weather in washington d.c. on the morning of march 4th, 1933, fdr's first inauguration day was frigid and gloomy, bank failures and foreclosures on farms and homes were on the rise. the new york stock exchange had suspended trading. acquiescing to tradition, a dower herbert hoover rode with his successor on the one and a half mile parade route to the capitol. franklin waved his hat and grinned to the crowds to

camouflage his inability to walk, woodrow wilson's former physician and no stranger to presidential coverups had a wooden passageway corrupted from the capitol rotunda to the swearing in. film of franklin traversing the final 35 feet down a ramp to the speaker's podium shows his body, upper body swaying back and forth as he propelled himself to the lectern with son james on his left. neither his cane or his vice grip on james' arm. even the oath of office had to be staged to create the impression that franklin was standing unassisted to face chief justice. his right hand raised and his left surreptitiously grabbing for support with the bible open

to corinthians for him. and he pivoted to grab the specially constructed lectern with both hands and spoke the words that would become the most memorable he ever uttered. this great nation will endure as it has endured will revive and will prosper. let my alert-- assert my firm belief, the only thing we have to fear it fear itself. -- he said. many millions listening across the radio to the new president's patrician voice doubtless were thinking, what does he know about fear? had he ever had to worry about going without a meal, loosing a job or forced to abandon his or her home or farm? but franklin had known fear.

illness had more than once brought him to the brink of death. every time he went out in public, he faced the prospect of falling flat on his face and in 1930, he heard the most-- three most terrifying words in the english language, you have cancer. my name is dr. steven lomazow. during my job as a neurologist, my job has been unravelling medical mysteries and communicating to patients in clear language as i've done in this book. for the last 18 years though, one of my greatest passions has been in researching the most complex, the most highly guarded and most historically important medical mystery of all, the truth of the health of franklin delano roosevelt. the conclusions i've drawn are based on the weight of the evidence and much of it presented in this book, in medical biography for the first

time. if some of my assertions are not documentable beyond a reasonable doubt i say so. the scenario i layout for another of his illnesses, prostate cancer. much of what you're about to hear is not speculation, but fact. fdr unmasked discusses the swarms of illnesses that he was confronted with, crippling polio, frequent viral and bacteriaal infection, a nearly fatal hemorrhage aboard his friend vincent astor's yacht. and gastrointestinal bleeding leading up to pearl harbor. and other medical crisis, attacks of excruciating abdominal pain. two incurable cancers, countless surgeries to camouflage the pigmented lesion

above his left eye and last years, cardiovascular disease and frequent epileptic seizures, just to mention a few. new revelations in fdr unmasked include information from the archive of a previously obscure cancer surgeon who befriended fdr and began treating him in 1930 while he was governor of new york p. also discussed in detail for the first time is the relationship between fdr and vincent astor, the closest male friendship of his life and more excitingly to me as a physician, a medical coverup that began two decades after fdr's death that attempted to literally rewrite history. after leading the subtitle of this book, one might ponder how medical coverups can last for 73 years for a man who lived for only 63 years. the first began in 1921 after

the 39-year-old former assistant secretary of the navy and vice-presidential candidate contracted a children's disease. franklin's political mentor told him if the extent of his paralysis ever became public his career was, using howe's words, kaput. from that point on, the severity of his polio was minimized. polio was a roadblock that took fdr to took him seven years to run for public office of the contrary to books published in 2016 and 2022, the disease did not provide him with an infusion of empathy that carried him to the presidency. what did carry fdr to the presidency was an extraordinary intellect, determination and ambition, attributes tempered in his youth as the only child of an equally determined and domineering mother. even before 1921, polio,

medical problems implant -- intervened at every milestone of his career, and it came about in 1912 when fdr was about to run as a second term as new york state senator and landed flat on his book with a potentially fatal case of typhoid fever. howe conducted a successful campaign with an invisible candidate and after the victory in 1912, addressed a letter of congratulations to beloved and revered future president. even elinore's permanent emotional break with her husband came to a head in 1918 when she discovered love letters from lucy mercer in his luggage after he contracted a severe case of spanish flu, the it deadliest pandemic. and his friends, family,

intercircle of advisors and teams of physicians disguised the state of his health, promoting the fantasy after robust leader always in excellent physical condition for a man his age and why did i choose the image of fdr as the sphinx for the book cover? that ancient egyptian relic renowned for telling a riddle it would never answer. reporters were so baffled for franklin's decision to run for an unprecedented third term, he had an image of him as a sphinx complete with cigarette holder and glasses and presented to him at the annual gridiron club banquet. he was so fond of this parody, he used it for the oddities

room when he opened a year later. and the fdr's sphinx has been returned to the prominent position in the exhibition a few yards from here and i urge you to go see it. time magazine wrote june 10th, 1940, the mystery last week, franklin del ano roosevelt, head of the last, although he was in his 8th year as president, although he had moved, worked, eaten, laughed. exhorted, in the intense public scrutiny, his facial grimace, the tone of his voice, each mannerism the dark mole over

his left eyebrow, the mole on his right cheek all of these were public property intimate to every u.s. citizen and still there was no man in the u.s. who could answer the question, who is franklin roosevelt? the press was complicit in the deception. during his lifetime no photographs nor even any political cartoon of fdr in a wheelchair or compromising position came to light. america's highest weekly circulating magazine, liberty, became a regular platform to dismiss any idea of ill health at that arose and reinforced the medical myth of fdr's super human vitality. beginning with the speech, nominating to the presidency in 1928, virtually everything the public knew about fdr is what they heard directly from him on the radio, what they read about in the newspapers and magazines and what they saw in edited news reels and untouched photographs and even severe

heart disease was not admitted until 25 years after his death and only as part after new and larger coverup to conceal other serious medical problems and these deceptions still dominate the narrative of franklin's health. the scheme was so successful that, in fact, except for polio, virtually nothing was known about his health for decades after he died. a comprehensive independent paper written in 1957 stated quote, the evidence to date shows only partial signs or traces of a deteriorated physical condition at the most critical time, the election of 1944. only an observer could have forecast the succeeding events with certainty, unquote. what the paper does reveal is that the medical coverup orchestrated by fdr's physician mcintyre and press secretary early had been wildly successful and even the full extent of his polio did not

appear in print until hugh gallagher's 1985 book, fdr's deception. and those were only the coverups that took place during his lifetime. two decades after his death, fdr's daughter, anna, and her husband, a physician, conspired with dr. howard brewen, the cardiologist who treated him for the last two years of his life to rewrite history. the hoax was perpetrated by manufacturing a detailed false medical narrative and publishing that bogus account in a prominent medical journal. this narrative sought among other deceptions to disspell any idea of fdr having been the sick man, more him having any cognitive or neurological problems at all. the deception was specifically meant to hoodwink the greatest story in james mcgreggor who in the late 1960's unwittingly

accepted the false narrative he was fed and enthusiastically incorporated the falsehoods into his second fdr biography, soldier of freedom, that book won the pulitzer prize in 1971. in january of 1970 burns had written to bruin that the release of soldier of freedom had been -- there was a cover feature of a saturday review to coincide with a medical paper to be published in april of 1970 at the fifth -- at the 25th anniversary of fdr's death. and here is the cover of that magazine. the subtitle reads, quote, the young cardiology had an emergency summons to conduct a heart examination, unquote. this characterization, this mischaracterization is another part of the deception.

bruin was not young, but rather a full professor of medicine at the highly prestigious columbia university college of physicians and surgeons and one of america's leading clinical cardiologists, he had graduated from johns hopkins medical school in 1925, this young man. and is recruited in 1942 at age 37 with one child and another on the way, specifically to take care of the president. and accidentally, he also treated eleanor. bruin's disclosures, burns wrote, which are full and authoritative as anything we're likely to have on the matter, will force us to revise the most interpretations of the significance of roosevelt's medical condition during the final year. this is surely music to the ears of the three co-conspirators. the book remains the primary source for subsequent

biographies fdr in the final year. i call that paper the gospel according to bruin. anna never said anything publicly and she died in 1975, but bruin continued to promote and enhanced the deception in interviews and films and shortly -- and shortly-- until shortly before his death in 1995 at age 90. his last interview was with doris kearns goodwin who included portions in her book "no ordinary time", which also won the pulitzer prize in 1995. conventional belief holds that other than polio fdr was completely healthy until march of 1944 when dr. bruin diagnosed wholly unsuspected heart failure after allegedly examining him for the first time and supposedly took place because anna felt that the presidential physician ross

mcintyre was not delivering good medical care to her father. >> and a stroke, that came as a bolt out of the blue, unquote, fdr had no seriously problems other than high blood pressure and gallstones and his dramatic weight loss was due to an enforced diet and cared little about his health and never asked anything about it, because, quote, he had a job to do, unquote. none of this is true. margaret daisy sookly, fdr's quoted companion, perpetrated her own coverup. she edited her diary on of problems, and seizures, and left it under her bed to be

discovered at age 99. equally important, maybe more important, daisy had been the archivist of the library in the opening in 1941 and likely exerted editorial control for content until she retired in 1963. to fully comprehend the motivation hyped these coverups. one must understand the incredibly magnetic personality of fdr and the love and loyalty he generated to those fortunate enough to be in his inner circle. and was told, quote, you realize like all people who work with this man, i love him. if he told me to jump out of a window i would do it without hesitation, unquote. the good doctor and the wily miss sokoli continued to jump through that window for half a

century. fdr's epilepsy, sounds shocking, but true, first described in fdr's deadly secret, my 2010 biography written with journalist eric feltman has since been found to be true by a colleague's medical journal. the seizures which occurred frequently after 1943 are the best way to ascertain who was participating in a medical coverup by virtue of silence reporting them. these shocking events, though not understood, were nonetheless described by over a dozen observers and others who surely witnessed scores of them, including his frequent companion, his doctors, his daughter, and his wife did not. the first female cabinet member, francis perkens who had known fdr from his days as a senator, described it to the

historians in 1955. quote, the change in his appearance had to do with the oncoming of a glassy eye and an extremely drawn look around the eyes and cheeks and dropping of the muscles in the jaws and when he fainted as he did occasionally, not for many years, but for several years, that was all accentuated. it would be momentary and brief and he'd be back again. unquote. even anna mistook the episodes as little brain burstings she described to close friends. a record of that was found at the herbert hoover library in north branch, iowa as well as other documents about fdr's health thanks to sookly never made it to hyde park. the story of high school relationship with vince sent astor one cannot truly understand fdr without

examining that close relationship. among other events, astor hosted him on the 263 foot yacht for medical treatment and acted as a personal spy master for over a decade. vincent was the done of john jacob astoriv the wealthiest man who went down with the time in 1912. he was a 20-year-old freshman and britishry of his father's enormous estate. he had named his best friend and brother-in-law to be the executor of the estate, rosie, who assigned the law firm. by the time the friendship blossomed in 1912 they had in

vincent's word, grown. and loved the sea. mr. astor found early the solace of the sea wrote in 1928. reporters cannot infest the ocean, the social gulf between americans is not so much in money as in newspaper headlines. fdr referred to crews as quote, the only place i can get away from people, telephones and uniforms. to learn more about this, google vincent astor in a highly informative article by a person employed by this. and ended with assassination attempt on him during a speech in miami, florida by an immigrant brick layer that

instead killed the mayor of chicago. the other guests who regularly sailed aboard that yacht were almost exclusively the gentry that astor was most comfortable socializing with and collectively been known as the normal gang. and one of the gang, a physician of modest means from mobile, alabama, trained in new york city in 1929 as a cancer surgeon at the institution that is known as memorial kettering center. and at cornell, new york's prestigious hospital. and another member of the gang, a young heiress, helen trooper brown had been treated at the hospital and became enamoured of his confidence and demeanor. helen hooper brown was the wife

of lathrup brown, fdr's apartment mate at harvard. and fdr served as best man at the wedding and he had done likewise at their marriage. and fdr unmasked provided rock solid evident that he began treating fdr while he was governor of new york. shortly before that fateful cruise, which is involved surgical procedure, vincent wrote, for obvious reasons on this particular trip it will be essential to have a member of your particular profession on board. and i don't know of anybody who would fit in as well as you. a stunning handwritten postscript added, quote, our primary preliminary trip will be kept under the hat unless our principal guest gives it out. unquote. another previously unknown

letter of the doctor to his father is the best eyewitness record of his intimate friendship with fdr and astor as well as the events surrounding the assassination attempt. and they were strange bed fellows and life long friend. and there are famous files in the library. and third cruise over easter 8th, 1934, a telegram in the file addressed to fdr tt the white house, from a cancer treatment center requests a meeting before the departure aboard ship to demonstrate how to use a medical device he invented that would be of quote, great benefit to the cancer patient, unquote. dr. hider was the ship's doctor. the file reveals an unexpected medical complication and its

coverup, which necessitated a week's extension of the cruise. franklin's son james and elliott were hurried summoned to the ship likely as transfusion donors. and the coverup between the press secretaries in miami and washington. a letter written just after the crisis by press secretary roads, quote, robbie, alias for fdr was vincent astor's dachshund, was really, really, ill, quote. and without a doubt he knew that hider had been the president's doctor and made no mention. he concocted a detailed false story for his brother elliott's presence. why does this matter?

the present day narrative of the life of the most consequential president of the united states -- of the 20th century, was false accord to go bruin. fdr was a very sick man and battled serious illness for decade previously until the narrative of franklin's life has been set straight, especially with respect to his health, the magnitude of his accomplishment cannot be properly assessed. fdr unmasked goes a long way towards achieving that end. thank you, i look forward to your questions. [applause] >> thank you, very gratifying. if there are any questions, we're asked to step up to the

microphone. questionless? yes, sir. >> to what degree was eleanor kept apprised of fdr's medical circumstances? >> the only records we have of fdr's condition eleanor's files. as we know they had parallel lives. she was aware of everything, when asked about his health she generally denied there was any problems. that's in the book. >> the great katherine smith who wrote the book. >> oh, thank you. you have met a lot of resistance in the fdr industry, i guess, about your theories and your proof. can you talk a little about that? >> well, again, i've been doing what i do for the last 50

years. i entered medical school in 1972. i am-- this all unfolded before my eyes and we had some interesting success in 2010, but this book goes a lot farther particularly with respect to being treated for cancer while he was-- dr. hider's records are brand new and all the things about vincent astor, indeed his closest male friendship of his adult life also enhances what we are talking about. historians are pretty well burnt into the stone and sometimes it's hard to rewrite history and that's why that's the subtitle of the book. i'm confident that with time, the truth, which is i'm talking about, will come out. and like i said at the end does this make fdr's accomplishments

worse or shine a light on him? the answer, as i said, if you understand what he had to go through from the time he was going through it, fighting terminal diseases, making up diagnosis, doing anything you can to get what he had done, his fortitude, his determination and his marvellous intellect to be the greatest president of the 20th century, and it enhances what he did. it doesn't diminish it at all. >> dr. lomazow, we talked about your book while it was in progress and what i found was more compelling was the analysis of the mole or tag or whatever on his left eyebrow which was obviously visible. so, how that changed over the course of time. i wonder if you could elaborate on that? >> well, again, interestingly,

as you know, fdr founded warm springs and his idea about hydrotherapy caused him to buy warm springs and literally franklin roosevelt was one of the most-- one of the best and most rehabilitative physicians in the 1920's and if not in american history, but one of the things he liked to do and one of his treatment for his polio, he felt that being in the sun was a very, very important thing and he wrote letters to people saying, it's even best if you do it completely naked. if you can't do it like that, do it with a bathing suit. this letter is-- that was his treatment. now, when you have a blotch over your eye, and what wasn't known at the time was the relationship between ultraviolet radiation of the sun and the development of

melanoma. sometime around 1929, 1930, he heard the three words and the dr. hider just like dr. bruin was recruited to take care of it. hyder is an interesting person, son was born in 1945 so i had long conversations with him. he actually shunned the life style of the rich and famous and went back to mobile, alabama and became an obstetrician where he delivered babies and operated on people often for little recompense. he was very friendly with vincent throughout his life and the richest man in the world would come and visit him in alabama, as late of 1982, last the last time he remembers it. go to the website, my cohort wrote it at the library, it's a fabulous document and you'll learn all about things you really never knew before. fdr's life, what we know something about fdr's life, but

what we don't know is what we don't know and now i think we've learned a lot more, but there's a long way to go even as yet. so i thank you for that. >> okay. thank you, bill. [applause] >> being up-to-date in the latest in publishing with book tv's podcast about books, with current nonfiction book releases and best seller lists as well as industry news and trends through insider interviews. you can find out about books on c-span now our free mobile apps or wherever you get your podcasts. >> a healthy democracy doesn't just look like this, it looks

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