WHEN FDR DIED

In one obvious respect this is a remarkable book, for the sheer persistence of its detail. Bernard Asbell has projected the day FDR died, in its most significant consequences and its most obscure minutiae. He has drawn his material from the books written by the public figures closest to Roosevelt and from the ungrammatical recollections of houseworkers, and he has interviewed a very great number of people whose careers depend on their knowledge of Washington entanglements. In his recreation of April 12, 1945 Asbell describes the very last minutes of the President in his Warm Springs' retreat; Mrs. Roosevelt's fortitude then and during the funeral; how Truman learned that he was the new President; how the news was broken over the airwaves and how it was received by various segments of the American public and in the capitals of the world. One would be hard put to point to a representative area of reaction that the author has not made use of. His book is written in a dramatic, adulatory style and should have human interest appeal. An appendix consists of FDR's funeral and burial instructions addressed to his oldest son James.