The Dying President (original) (raw)

The Dying President: Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1944–1945 is a 1998 book by historian Robert Hugh Ferrell about the cardiovascular illness which Roosevelt suffered during the last year of his life and presidency. Ferrell examines the lengths to which the president and his medical advisers went to keep the public in the dark about the illness, as well as the political and diplomatic problems that arose both from the illness and the secrecy. He argues that Roosevelt was too sick to have remained in office, and that his inability to work led to critical foreign-policy mistakes in the closing year of World War II and a failure to properly prepare Harry S. Truman to take over as president after Roosevelt's death.