Early carries ball to the end
Roosevelt’s closest friend calm in crisis
WASHINGTON (UP) – Probably no one will ever know what it cost Stephen T. Early to pick up the telephone and say, “Flash: The President is dead.”
The 56-year-old Steve, the oldest and closest friend of Franklin D. Roosevelt, hadn’t expected he would ever have to handle this story.
In 12 years at the White House, he had done a lot for the Chief. For 24 hours a day through most of those years, he had been on call to reporters. Almost daily he met with them in person at regularly scheduled press conferences and fielded their questions expertly and honestly.
Steve had been the buffer between the administration and a news-hungry public. Often the questions he got were put with hostile intent. Steve always gave the best answer he could.
But he had reason to hope there was one story he would not have to cover. For the time finally came when Steve decided to return to private life. The years were passing, and he was staying at the White House at a considerable financial sacrifice.
Howe, McIntyre die
Only he and the Chief were left of the quartet of friends who moved into the executive mansion offices when Mr. Roosevelt became President in 1933. Lewis McHenry Howe was the first White House secretary to go. Marvin McIntyre was next. Their deaths left Mr. Early the only one left of the original group of secretaries.
Last month, the President said regretfully that Steve could go – if he would stay on until a successor could be found to Maj. Gen. “Pa” Watson, Mr. Roosevelt’s military aide and secretary who died January 20. They agreed that Steve would leave his post early in June.
That was why Steve never thought he would have to handle the story which hit him between the eyes yesterday.
Shocking personal loss
But he was wrong, and when the time came Steve performed like the veteran newspaperman he is. The President’s death was a shocking personal loss to him; it also was the biggest news story of his career, bigger than the death of President Harding which he covered as a newspaperman.
Before telling the story to the newspapers, however, there were other unhappy tasks which Steve had to perform first. It was Steve who, with Vice Adm. Ross T. McIntire, broke the news to Mrs. Roosevelt. It was he who called the soon-to-be President Truman to the White House.
This took time, and it was already late afternoon. So, Steve didn’t waste any precious moments summoning reporters to his office. Instead, he got on the phone to the three press associations for a “conference call” and made his report.
Give all details
Later, he received reporters in his office, as he had so often before. He told them everything that had happened that tragic afternoon in the White House – down to the last detail.
But it was the telephone call that revealed Steve at his crisp, efficient best. Everyone knew how deeply he loved the Chief. It would have been understandable if his voice had trembled a little.
But it didn’t. It was an apparently calm Early, who picked up the telephone and said, “Flash: The President is dead.”