A FAMILY MATTER

by James with Sam Toperoff Roosevelt ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 1980

FDR's son concocts a WW II fantasy with himself as hero. Major James Roosevelt is with Carlson's Raiders in the South Pacific when FDR recalls him to Washington for special duty, nominally as head of the new Military Manpower agency (a front) but actually as FDR's very private gun in riding herd on the super-secret Manhattan Project. FDR wants a firm date on delivery of a working A-bomb and sends Jimmy as his personal representative to Los Alamos to talk with Major General Leslie Groves and with top scientists; the scientists are complaining about being excluded from the final phases--and about the dubious usefulness of an A-bomb at this stage of the war. But then Jimmy's assignment becomes more specific. FDR has just returned from the Teheran conference and has decided to trade atom secrets with Stalin (who already is quite familiar with the Manhattan Project via his spies) to ensure FDR's war aims and a postwar parity in atomic research. So Jimmy is ordered, in effect, to steal atomic secrets via Albert Einstein; and the finale has Jimmy handing over secrets to Stalin's handsome son Vasily in Zurich. . . . Dubious crypto-history, and faintly unseemly as yet another bit of Roosevelt-kin exploitation; but passable spy-action for those with a fondness for A-bomb history and/or White House home-life gossip.

Pub Date: July 28, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1980

Categories: FICTION