Free Killing Patton The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General by Bill O'Reilly Page B
Authors: Bill O'Reilly
bouquet of roses, grown in the warmth of a greenhouse for just this purpose, is carried onstage and presented to Olga Lepeshinskaya. The audience is still on its feet. She curtsies as she accepts the bloodred flowers. But when she looks up at the box where her beloved sat just moments ago, he and Winston Churchill are gone.
In six days of negotiations, the two men have redrawn the map of Europe. But Churchill has been wasting his time. For the Russians have no plans to honor their promises. When the war finally ends, they plan to grab as much land as possible, ensuring that millions of people will soon live their lives under the murderous thumb of Marshal Joseph Stalin.
Time to celebrate.
5
F ENWAY P ARK
B OSTON, M ASSACHUSETTS
N OVEMBER 4, 1944
9:00 P.M.
The man with five months to live surveys the joyous crowd, as he revels in the ongoing applause.
Unbeknownst to him, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is waiting to deliver the last campaign speech of his long and storied political career. Red, white, and blue bunting covers the stadium. The surface of the old ballpark is dark. Roosevelt stands tall atop the speaker’s platform in center field, stretched up to his full six-foot-two height, awash in the cheers of forty thousand Bostonians and bathed in brightness by giant spotlights shining down from atop the roof.
FDR has been president of the United States for nearly twelve long years—and is just days away from being elected to a record fourth term. He wears a gray fedora and thick gray overcoat on this brutally cold autumn night. His legs are withered and weak from the polio that has long ravaged his body. Even with steel braces encircling his hips, thighs, and knees, FDR must grip the lectern to balance himself.
“This is not my first visit to Boston,” Roosevelt reminds the crowd, gently trying to calm their boisterousness. The president’s subtle request for quiet is spoken into the microphone in that genteel upper-crust voice that these working-class men and women recognize from the radio.
But the good people of Boston refuse to sit down and let him speak. Most have never glimpsed the president in person until this moment. Indeed, many have only heard his voice and seen his picture in the Boston Globe .
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“Free admission,” reads the ticket that got them all into the ballpark on this cold Saturday night. “Bring your friends.”
And they did.
The voices of those cheering are made up of men too old to fight, veterans home on leave, rosy-cheeked young children, and “Gold Star” mothers—those mournful women who have lost a son in combat.
The night is being broadcast nationwide on the radio. Festivities began with the twenty-eight-year-old Italian American matinee idol Frank Sinatra singing the national anthem. Sinatra’s given name is Francis, but he claims that he was inspired to name his newborn son, Frank Jr., after the president. “What a guy,” Sinatra marvels after his performance, referring to Roosevelt. “And boy does he pack ’em in.”
Despite the adoration of the public, Roosevelt is not a man of the people. He was born into wealth and privilege and has never known hard labor. As a young man, FDR collected stamps and shot birds, which he then stuffed himself and put on display. These are his hobbies to this very day. The president still spends his free time tending to the more than one million stamps in his possession, and his ornithological collection is on display at the family home in Hyde Park. Somewhat ironically, he speaks fluent German, thanks to his early years of schooling in Germany, near the warm springs at Bad Nauheim, where his father temporarily moved the family so that the elder Roosevelt might recuperate from a heart problem. The cure did not take, and FDR’s father died when Franklin was just eighteen, leaving the future president a sizable inheritance that would ensure him a life of luxury. His wealth made him stuffy and
In six days of negotiations, the two men have redrawn the map of Europe. But Churchill has been wasting his time. For the Russians have no plans to honor their promises. When the war finally ends, they plan to grab as much land as possible, ensuring that millions of people will soon live their lives under the murderous thumb of Marshal Joseph Stalin.
Time to celebrate.
5
F ENWAY P ARK
B OSTON, M ASSACHUSETTS
N OVEMBER 4, 1944
9:00 P.M.
The man with five months to live surveys the joyous crowd, as he revels in the ongoing applause.
Unbeknownst to him, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is waiting to deliver the last campaign speech of his long and storied political career. Red, white, and blue bunting covers the stadium. The surface of the old ballpark is dark. Roosevelt stands tall atop the speaker’s platform in center field, stretched up to his full six-foot-two height, awash in the cheers of forty thousand Bostonians and bathed in brightness by giant spotlights shining down from atop the roof.
FDR has been president of the United States for nearly twelve long years—and is just days away from being elected to a record fourth term. He wears a gray fedora and thick gray overcoat on this brutally cold autumn night. His legs are withered and weak from the polio that has long ravaged his body. Even with steel braces encircling his hips, thighs, and knees, FDR must grip the lectern to balance himself.
“This is not my first visit to Boston,” Roosevelt reminds the crowd, gently trying to calm their boisterousness. The president’s subtle request for quiet is spoken into the microphone in that genteel upper-crust voice that these working-class men and women recognize from the radio.
But the good people of Boston refuse to sit down and let him speak. Most have never glimpsed the president in person until this moment. Indeed, many have only heard his voice and seen his picture in the Boston Globe .
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“Free admission,” reads the ticket that got them all into the ballpark on this cold Saturday night. “Bring your friends.”
And they did.
The voices of those cheering are made up of men too old to fight, veterans home on leave, rosy-cheeked young children, and “Gold Star” mothers—those mournful women who have lost a son in combat.
The night is being broadcast nationwide on the radio. Festivities began with the twenty-eight-year-old Italian American matinee idol Frank Sinatra singing the national anthem. Sinatra’s given name is Francis, but he claims that he was inspired to name his newborn son, Frank Jr., after the president. “What a guy,” Sinatra marvels after his performance, referring to Roosevelt. “And boy does he pack ’em in.”
Despite the adoration of the public, Roosevelt is not a man of the people. He was born into wealth and privilege and has never known hard labor. As a young man, FDR collected stamps and shot birds, which he then stuffed himself and put on display. These are his hobbies to this very day. The president still spends his free time tending to the more than one million stamps in his possession, and his ornithological collection is on display at the family home in Hyde Park. Somewhat ironically, he speaks fluent German, thanks to his early years of schooling in Germany, near the warm springs at Bad Nauheim, where his father temporarily moved the family so that the elder Roosevelt might recuperate from a heart problem. The cure did not take, and FDR’s father died when Franklin was just eighteen, leaving the future president a sizable inheritance that would ensure him a life of luxury. His wealth made him stuffy and
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