The New Yorker:

F.D.R.’s widow became a celebrated Presidential spouse during her years in the White House. After his death, her role transformed into something powerful and new.

By E. J. Kahn

On April 12, 1945, Mrs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the most celebrated widow on earth. Since that date, she has spiritedly, and characteristically, upset the longstanding American tradition that the widows of Presidents should be rarely seen and practically never heard. Some observers of the contemporary scene credit her with having involuntarily jeopardized another tradition. “God knows I’m not the kind of guy who would want to sound the least bit disrespectful toward Bess Truman,” an old-school Democratic Party leader told a friend not long ago, “but there’s no getting around the fact that Eleanor Roosevelt is still the first lady of this country.” This unofficial ranking has been bestowed on Mrs. Roosevelt, in public as well as in private, by many other people, quite a few of whom have argued that she can be even more aptly termed the first lady of the world. She was thus hailed, early this winter, by Bernard Baruch, a man bristling with distinctions himself, among them the fact that he is the only admirer of Mrs. Roosevelt who has been bold enough to demonstrate his affection for her by gallantly kissing her while she was standing in the receiving line at a formal diplomatic function.

Mrs. Roosevelt is the only representative in the United Nations General Assembly in whose honor all the other representatives have spontaneously risen to their feet, this demonstration having taken place as she walked through their ranks on her way to the speakers’ platform. Last December, when she went to Geneva, Switzerland, to attend a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, of which she is chairman, she was received like a visiting head of state, and on at least one occasion while she was in that notably peaceful land its constabulary had to be called out to maintain order, owing to the eagerness of the Swiss—who by now might be expected to be blasé about the high-caste folk who turn up there for international debates—to get a glimpse of her. Even among Americans, except in certain die-hard quarters, Mrs. Roosevelt has attained a stature far surpassing that which she automatically had by virtue of her residence in the White House.

Go to link