Sold – Eleanor Roosevelt Reveals An Informal News-Management Arrangement With Walter Winchell
“Because in the past you have checked with me about rumors, I thought you would not mind my telling you that your statement...was without foundation.".
Anna Roosevelt, only daughter of Franklin and Eleanor, married for the first time in 1926. She lived in the White House in 1933-34, as by that time Anna was seeking both a divorce and financial independence. She began working as a writer, a career she continued after her second marriage to journalist...
Anna Roosevelt, only daughter of Franklin and Eleanor, married for the first time in 1926. She lived in the White House in 1933-34, as by that time Anna was seeking both a divorce and financial independence. She began working as a writer, a career she continued after her second marriage to journalist John Boettiger in 1936. Together they worked at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer until 1943 when Boettiger went into the military and Anna returned to the White House as her father’s confidential assistant. She accompanied FDR to Yalta and served as White House hostess during her mother’s absence.
Starting during the Jazz Age, Walter Winchell wrote six fast-paced columns each week (printed in nearly 2,000 newspapers), and in the 30’s added Sunday radio broadcasts. Combined, they reached 50 million homes. Feeding the public’s craving for scandal and gossip, he became the most powerful – and feared – journalist of his time. He supported Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, and in 1940 it was Winchell who broke the news of FDR’s decision to seek a third term.
The following letter reveals what was in essence an unwritten practice between Winchell and the Roosvelts for him to check with the First Family before running with a story that reflected negatively on them. He received access, they obtained input. The arrangement is understandable but, perhaps, not quite appropriate in a system where the press is theoretically supposed to be a watchdog over public servants. In any case, Winchell was an unlikely source for anti-Roosevelt stories, particularly inaccurate ones.
Typed Letter Signed as First Lady on White House letterhead, Washington, July 24, 1943, to Winchell, chiding him for abandoning his practice and failing to contact her in advance of publishing an inaccurate allegation that Anna had secretly got a divorce from Boettiger in Nevada. “Because in the past you have checked with me about rumors, I thought you would not mind my telling you that your statement that my daughter was in Nevada with me to get a divorce was without foundation in fact. Anna was not in Nevada at all – she has been plugging away in Seattle with her many responsibilities.”
Perhaps the rumor was generated by Boettiger’s enlistment and Anna’s upcoming move to Washington. The Roosevelts were extra sensitive because with the 1944 election just around the bend, personal attacks on them were picking up. They would lead ultimately to FDR’s famous Fala speech, in which he stated that his destractors had “not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala.”
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