It’s now well documented by historians that President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his associates went to great lengths to ensure that he was never photographed being pushed in his wheelchair. Various accounts talk about the way he’d lean on people so it looked like he was more mobile than he was, or even walking — and be solid as a rock if he was standing or sitting. But now Ray Begovich, a journalism professor at Franklin College south of Indianapolis, has found a rare piece of film showing FDR being wheeled in for a major World War II conference. It’s believed this may be the only piece of movie film showing him being wheeled (photos such as this do exist). Here’s the AP report with the video:
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.