 Thank you, John, for the kind introduction. I'd also like to thank the Naval War College for inviting me here today. I'm really deeply honored to be here, and I certainly appreciate all of you taking the time to be here as well. Now, I suspect that some of you are probably here on your lunch hour, so I promise not to keep you too long. In fact, today I plan to follow some wise advice about speeches. A good speech I was once told should have a strong beginning and a strong ending, and the two should be as close together as possible. We'll see if I can do that. So today I'm going to talk about my first book, Sailor in the White House, The Seafaring Life of FDR. The book was published in hardcover by the Naval Institute Press in 2003. This past summer they issued a softcover edition. Now I suspect that no matter how many more books I write, that Sailor in the White House will remain my favorite, not just because it was my first, but because so many of the individuals that I interviewed, Roosevelt contemporaries all, were so willing to speak with me about their time and private interactions with President Roosevelt. And one of these individuals was my own cousin, who served as a Secret Service Agent on the Roosevelt White House staff, and was on duty with the President when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Now the book remains for most of them the only opportunity they ever had to share their intimate stories about sailing with the 32nd President, and although most of them are no longer with us, their stories and their private photographs, which they so graciously allowed me to publish, will live on for all Americans to cherish and enjoy, and for that I will always be grateful. Now the genesis of this book began with a visit to a former fishing shanty on Nantucket Island's Old North Wharf. On a crisp fall morning in 1990, I had the first inkling of the extraordinary untold story of Franklin Roosevelt's Love with the Sea. During that visit at the fishing shanty, which is now the home of the venerable Old Wharf Rat Club in Nantucket, I first learned that only three months after taking the oath of office in March of 1933, Roosevelt embarked on a 10-day, 400-mile sailing vacation, and he would make an overnight stop in Nantucket Harbor. After hearing about this visit, I started to explore the details of the 1933 trip and to write a magazine piece about it. But along the way, what I discovered was quite astounding. Not only had President Roosevelt skippered his small sailboat on that June day, but he would continue to sail aboard small vessels and larger ships throughout the course of his entire presidency. During FDR's visit to Nantucket Island, the Wharf Rat Club Commodore rode out to greet the president, bringing him some hot co-hog chowder, a Wharf Rat flag, and an invitation to become an honorary member of the club. The next morning, FDR's schooners sailed out of Nantucket Harbor with the president at the helm and the Wharf Rat flag flying on the four mast. Now, this was just the beginning of a long string of sea-going adventures by America's new sailor-in-chief. Now, the Navy and the United States Secret Service would have their hands full over the next 12 years, keeping up with the president's travels. Now, Franklin Roosevelt's greatest love was the sea, and during his 12 years as president, he was never far from it, spending countless hours on the water, sailing, fishing, swimming, or as commander-in-chief aboard one of dozens of Navy vessels with hundreds of sailors catering to his every need. When he could not be at sea, he surrounded himself with all things nautical. FDR was a prodigious collector of maritime and naval items, including more than 200 fully-rigged ship models, some 1,000 paintings and prints, 2,500 books, and 900 of those were catalogued in FDR's own hand. Pamphlets, letters, logbooks, manuscripts, one of the greatest maritime and naval collections of the 20th century. FDR frequently would receive nautical gifts from admirers all across the globe. In fact, when he was New York governor, he received a handcrafted speedboat model named Pardon Me. Now, the model came from a prisoner in Singsing, but there's no evidence that the model accomplished the prisoner's goal. Now, Roosevelt collected so many mementos from his sailing and fishing trips that the reception and conference room near the Oval Office became known as the fish room, due to the large volume of memorabilia stored on display there. Now, not everyone agreed with FDR's policies and the actions he took over the course of his presidency, but I suspect few would disagree that when Roosevelt saw a problem, he took swift action to address it. FDR liked to say, to reach a port, we must set sail, sail not drift. So today, we'll examine how the sea helped to shape America's new sailor-in-chief as he led this nation towards a better day, sailing and not drifting into the future. If anything should happen to me when I am at sea, President Roosevelt once said, I want to be buried at sea. You know, it has always seemed like home to me. In fact, FDR once wrote Vincent Astor, his Hudson Valley friend and fellow sailor, that the only decent thing for public officials to do is to die at sea and to get put overboard without fuss or feathers. Although FDR's wishes would not come to pass and he would be buried in the rose garden of his beloved Hyde Park estate, Roosevelt was able to spend an extraordinary amount of time during his 63 years sailing, fishing, swimming, or simply watching the water, which helped him to relax and gain perspective. As America's greatest seafaring president, Roosevelt spent more time on the water than any American president before or since, logging thousands of miles sailing the world's ocean, sometimes staying afloat for weeks at a time. Now, some criticized him for taking too many sea-going trips, but FDR argued that the voyages allowed him to personally assess the world's situation instead of relying solely upon White House briefing books. Roosevelt had a special relationship with the sea, a connection which until now has never been fully explored in the countless biographies written about the only American president to ever be elected to four terms. His love affair with the sea began at a very early age when this sheltered child of privilege first started to sail the world's oceans with his parents as passenger aboard luxury ocean liners, remarkably making nine Atlantic ocean crossings by the age of 14. Over the course of his life, he was aboard more than 110 different vessels, including luxury ocean liners, ice boats, ferry boats, dispatch boats, patrol boats, canoes, kayaks, schooners, sloops, yachts, yolls, paddle wheel steamers, battleships, destroyers, transport ships, houseboats, heavy and light cruisers, seaplane tenders, amphibious ships, tugboats, gunboats, and even a World War I era submarine. Now, despite the fact that in 1921, Polio left Roosevelt unable to walk or even stand on his own, it did not keep him from his first love, the sea. After 1921 being at the helm of a sailboat was really the only circumstance in which FDR's disability was irrelevant. He could once again be a young man, not paralyzed or dependent upon others, and not burdened by the problems of the world. When Roosevelt was sailing, he was master of his environment, his movement, and his destination. It was not uncommon for Roosevelt and his crew of amateur sailors to take to the sea in a small sailboat, sailing hundreds of miles with only a chart, compass, and FDR's expert sailing skills to guide them. An accomplished blue water sailor, Roosevelt ran a tight ship. He navigated using dead reckoning, plotting courses believed steered and distances believed travel to provide a theoretical position of the boat. Dressed in the oldest clothes he had, Roosevelt would take his small craft into the places where the Navy and the Coast Guard vessels could not follow, leaving him totally isolated from the Navy and his secret service guards. Now, one such cruise, as I mentioned previously, began only three months after Roosevelt was sworn in as the country's 32nd president on March 4, 1933. Remarkably, despite his exhausting and hard fought victory over Herbert Hoover and the monumental problems he was about to face, Roosevelt's thoughts quickly turned to his upcoming vacation cruise. The month after taking the presidential oath, Roosevelt already was corresponding with George Briggs, an old sailing pal and making plans for the type of sailboat he would charter for the cruise. On that June 1933 cruise, which began in Marion, Massachusetts and ended in Campobello, FDR's summer home, President Roosevelt skillfully and with a great deal of delight, evaded his guards, sailing his 45-foot rented schooner, Amber Jack II, into a narrow cove where he remained shrouded by heavy fog for three days. Now, in what may appear to be a shocking lapse of security, certainly by today's standards, Roosevelt never permitted secret service agents to travel aboard his vessel. Instead, they were relegated to trailing behind aboard Navy or Coast Guard boats, often losing touch with the elusive president for hours at a time. Secret service agent Edmund Starling, traveling by car along the road, the coast, tailing the president, became concerned for Roosevelt's safety, especially when the Navy lost touch with him. So Starling feared that the new president could become the target of kidnappers or gangsters who were plying their bootlegging trade along the East Coast. So he hired a local fisherman to take him out in the heavy fog in search of Roosevelt. The fisherman had a flimsy homemade boat powered by an old Ford engine. He stood erect, one hand on a teller and another on a stick that controlled the engine speed. Between his feet, he held an old brass compass that he would glance at from time to time. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing, rolling through the thick fog as though it were broad daylight. Within a short time, they found the president's vessel in a shallow cove. Roosevelt clad in an old gray sweater and flannel trousers was loafing on deck, smoking a camel. Hello, Ed, the president said, I thought we lost you. Roosevelt flashed a broad smile and said he didn't care how long the fog lasted, he was having a wonderful time. Now, Roosevelt had a keen sense of the sea and a great skill at reading charts in the water and an uncanny ability to know where sandbars and shoals lurked. Now, the temperament and skills required to be a good sailor have much in common with those required to be a good politician. Both are subject to much that is beyond one's control, and Roosevelt used the same skills that made him America's greatest seafaring president to navigate the equally treacherous political waters throughout the course of his entire career. As FDR's grandson Christopher explained, the president was a joyful, enthusiastic and vigorous sailor who respected his adversary, the sometimes overwhelming and fickle sea. Now, Roosevelt was a man of infinite patience and one who was able to keep life in perspective when things around him were in turmoil. Once asked how he kept from worrying about problems, he replied, if you spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your big toe, after that anything else would seem easy, which was an obvious reference, obviously, to the superhuman struggle of Roosevelt to recover from polio. He refused to get locked in on a single course in case it was a shift in the political landscape. Instead, he remained ready to alter courses, make compromises and shift positions as the situation warranted. Now, Admiral Emery S. Land, who headed America's massive shipbuilding effort in World War II, the actual largest shipbuilding program in the history of the world, Roosevelt was a great trial and error guy who, after trying one approach and failing, was ready to take a different tack, just as he did at the helm of his sailboat. Admiral Land had very high praise for FDR's knowledge of the Navy, noting, quote, Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew more about the ships and men who sailed them than any other man who ever held high office. His understanding and knowledge of ships made possible a buildings and operations program without which the war would have been lost. FDR summed up his sailing and I would argue his political philosophy very simply. He said, that's the fun of sailing. If you're headed for somewhere and the wind changes, you just change your mind and go somewhere else. Now, during that same 1933 New England cruise, Roosevelt came face to face with the only thing he ever really feared, fire. The President knew he would be unable to help himself if he were trapped in a fire. His legs paralyzed from polio. Surprisingly, the fire which broke out aboard the President's schooner on that windy June day off the coast of Pulpit Harbor, Maine, never made it into the history books. On that morning on June 25th, the President was in his cabin. Amius Ames, a college friend of Jimmy Roosevelt, was loafing up on deck. When he heard a great commotion down below, suddenly Ames recalled he saw President Roosevelt's head come flying up out of the hatchway. Flames were licking out of the bilge and Jimmy Roosevelt grabbed the President and threw him up the hatchway where Ames caught him seating him by the wheel. Now, the press accounts of that day only mentioned that the President's schooner had a bulky motor and a stove that wasn't too hot. Nothing about the fire. Which is a good example of FDR's lifelong ability to hide from the press information which he did not want publicized. Jimmy simply put the fire out himself using an extinguisher. Now, in June of 1933, prohibition was still the law of the land, but the new President, who always enjoyed his evening cocktails, made sure there was an ample supply of liquor on board for the 10-day cruise. When the President's schooner was at anchor off Southwest Harbor, Maine, FDR turned to Jimmy and said, the sun is over the yard arm. Well, Jimmy knew what that meant, and he immediately went below and brought up a well-filled silver cocktail shaker, giving it to the President, who was seated by the wheel. President Roosevelt took the cocktail shaker and shaking it high over his head, laughing vigorously fit to kill. Now, the big cocktail shaker gleamed in the late afternoon sun in full view of the two destroyers and Coast Guard cutters following the President. Of course, the Navy was dry, and certainly the sailors on board must have been more than a bit envious as FDR shook the glistening shaker. Amious Ames recalled that the President's action got a great laugh, at least on their boat. Now, New York Times reporter Charles Hurd, who was following the President in the press boat, recalled the day that he and a few reporters visited Roosevelt aboard his schooner. The President asked the reporters if they had established a daily routine aboard their boat. Hurd replied, yes. He said they ate, they slept, they caught up on their reading, and then they relaxed with cocktails after they anchored and sent off their dispatches. Drinking? Have you got liquor on board? The President said. We have a few medicinal supplies, well that's all right, Roosevelt said, especially since you're not accustomed to the cold and wet. Do you have enough? We are husbanding it carefully, sir, but you're very thoughtful, how about you? Of course we've no liquor, the President said firmly, for the time being this is a commissioned Navy craft, and the Navy is dry. Oh, well we had thought it's too bad you can't join us, the reporter said. The President quickly interrupted, with ice, glasses, and water, and if someone should occasionally bring along, the reporter reached into his coat producing a bottle. Mr. President, we'd be honored. You'll find the ice chest in the galley forward and the glasses on a shelf just above it, Roosevelt said. Now, Roosevelt's sense of humor and wit were legendary. When the Women's Christian Temperance Union criticized the Navy for using champagne to christen ships, he felt remarked, Madam, remember, after a ship has tried alcohol once, it takes to water the rest of its life. In addition to sailing the oceans of the world, Roosevelt thoroughly enjoyed ice boating on the frozen Hudson River. While a student at Harvard, young Franklin was thrilled when his mother presented him with his very own ice boat. Long time, Albany, New York Mayor Erastus Corning found just how important ice boating was to FDR when he visited the President at his Hyde Park home in the late 1930s. Officials from the newly constructed Port of Albany had asked Corning, then a State Senator, to convince the President to override a Coast Guard decision to abandon the use of ice breaker boats to keep the Hudson River open for commerce. Corning met privately with Roosevelt and presented the case that he should order the Coast Guard to keep the river open thereby helping the economy of a democratic city still in the throes of the Great Depression. As the meeting drew to a close Corning recalled that the President seemed somewhat bemused. He asked Corning to step over the French windows looking out to the Southwest and tell him what he saw. Corning said he saw the Hudson River. That's right, President Roosevelt said. This is the Crumb Elbow Reach where I learned to use a kayak and to sail as a boy and to ice boat at the helm of my own hawk and on my uncle on his bigger ice boats. Now my ice boating days are behind me, but I look forward to seeing my sons take their sons out on the family's boats on winter days in the future. The problem is Arastus that the channel here is nearer my shore than the other and if kept open would leave too little ice for good sailing. My answer to the good people of the Port of Albany is a regretful no, but the reason is strictly off the record. Of course the pressures from the commercial interests and the war finally would prevail and ice breakers eventually would maintain the navigation channel in spite of FDR's opposition. While FDR's ice boating days were over his sailing days certainly were not. A vigorous and daring sailor came to the water throughout his two terms as governor of New York and four terms as president. In fact one testament to his skill came from an old sea captain who watched as FDR definitely navigated some of New England's most treacherous reaches. That's not yachting the old sea captain observed that's Gloucester fishing sailing by all that's holy. He must have his relatives with him and the old captain was right. Franklin Roosevelt's ancestors were linked to the sea. They were whalers, ship builders and sea captains engaged in the China trade. Their life was the sea they knew how to sail and so did Franklin. It was in his blood. Although Eleanor did not like the water as much as Franklin she certainly did her share of traveling by train car and yes sometimes the water serving as the eyes and ears for her paralyzed husband. Now comedian Bob Hope once told the story that after being asked by FDR to go overseas and entertain the troops he questioned the president as to why he was chosen for this important assignment. According to Hope the president said he was selected because he was popular, talented and expendable. Where should I go sir? Hope asked FDR I don't know Roosevelt said just follow Eleanor. Roosevelt loved the freedom of being on the water. He spent time afloat every year of his presidency except 1942 when security concerns kept him on dry land. He said the sea helped to clear away the personal cobwebs accumulated in Washington. Despite secret service concerns President Roosevelt frequently traveled through the U-boat infested North Atlantic during wartime to meet with allied leaders. He repeatedly resisted efforts to keep him on dry land insisting that he must personally attend the various wartime conferences and his preferred method of travel was aboard a cruiser, destroyer or battleship. Now on one such trip in 1943 Roosevelt's life was threatened along with the lives of a number of top military leaders traveling aboard the battleship USS Iowa. On that November afternoon Roosevelt was sitting in his wheelchair on deck of the battleship which was zig-zagging through the North Atlantic on the way to the Cairo conference. Roosevelt was enjoying the salt air and observing an anti-aircraft drill during which weather balloons were launched and then shot down by anti-aircraft fire from the convoy of destroyers. Suddenly an officer shouted from the bridge to Roosevelt sitting two decks below this is not a drill it's the real thing it's the real thing a live torpedo had actually been fired at the Iowa and was racing full speed toward a direct collision with the battleship's hull right beneath the president's cabin. Now one of the destroyers broke radio wartime silence and warned the battleship to take immediate evasive action. I was captain rapidly maneuvered the 52,000 ton battleship healing her over in a 90 degree turn at 31 knots. Now Harry Hopkins who was standing next to FDR wanted to move the president inside. No, where is it the president said in his usual fearless manner he called to Arthur Prittiman his valet. Arthur, Arthur take me over to the starboard rail I want to watch the torpedo. A terrified Arthur Prittiman who was shaking all over followed orders wheeling FDR over to the rail to watch the torpedo heading heading directly toward his vessel. The torpedo first thought to be an enemy weapon in fact came from an American destroyer the USS William D. Porter which had failed to remove the primer to the torpedo thus allowing it to ignite when it became wet from the heavy seas. Fortunately the swift action of the captain on Roosevelt's ship saved the day. Now ships on which FDR would travel were outfitted with special cruise gear including an elevator, wheelchair ramps a bed that was 12 inches longer than the standard a toilet bowl raised to wheelchair level a railing installed around the bathtub which was outfitted with a decorative shower curtain instead of the stiff navy canvas style and the mirror was lowered to enable him to sit and shave. Although many special accommodations were made to assist the handicap president move around the ship more naturally FDR strived his entire life to hide from the public the severity of his disability of the more than 35,000 photographs in the FDR presidential library only three photos show FDR seated in a wheelchair the fourth never before published photo shows him seated in a wheelchair and it appears in my book with the president who traveled as extensively as FDR and with so many interactions with the press nearly a thousand press conferences over the course of his presidency one wonders how he was able to avoid being photographed while in a wheelchair or being carried by his aides while I pose the question to my cousin who was on Roosevelt's secret service detail in the White House first he said there was a code among journalists back then they simply would not photograph FDR in that fashion but once in a while a rogue photographer would snap a picture of the president in the wheelchair the agents simply would snatch the camera from the reporter remove the film and tell the photographer to never do it again and they always complied imagine that today the previously unpublished photograph of FDR in the wheelchair appearing in my book was taken aboard Vincent Astor's Norma Hall a 263 foot German built diesel yacht described as an ocean liner in miniature with 11 state rooms a pine panel library a dining room for 18 a special operating room for emergencies and a cabin for all officers of the 42 member crew now Vincent Astor was once called the richest boy in the world he was a Hudson Valley neighbor of FDR who had inherited his vast fortune at the age of 20 his fortune was estimated at that time $30 million and he inherited it from his father John Jacob Astor who died aboard the Titanic now their friendship blossomed after FDR was stricken with polio in 1921 and Astor allowed him to exercise in his indoor heated pool in Ferncliffe Astor's 2500 acre estate in nearby Rhinebeck he even installed a wheelchair ramp on his yacht so FDR could easily board Astor like FDR had a social conscience and backed reform movements as well as financing scientific explorations although only 9 years younger than FDR Brook Astor said Vincent Astor looked at him as a father and was absolutely devoted to him Vincent Astor once said that he and Roosevelt grew to the same age everyone seemed to want something from the president but Astor simply offered his friendship wanting nothing in return now over the course of his life FDR took three lengthy fishing trips aboard Norma Hall and two shorter cruises one to fish in Long Island Sound and another in 1934 to view the America Cup races here in Newport FDR wrote a friend that the Norma Hall was the only place I can get away from people with phones and uniforms the presidential flag was hoisted above the yacht the first time in history that the presidential flag was flown above a private yacht in March of 1934 Roosevelt took a 17-day Easter cruise to Florida aboard Norma Hall the following year he embarked Norma Hall in Jacksonville, Florida for a 12-day cruise to the Bahamas both of these trips were filled with good food, lots of fishing and plenty of good-natured practical jokes and pranks but Roosevelt's first lengthy trip aboard Norma Hall actually was in 1932 while he was still president-elect he decided to take a fishing trip to the Bahamas with some of the richest and most powerful men in the country Harvard Menwell and it was the source of some criticism in the press especially since he had criticized Herbert Hoover for the plight of the so-called forgotten man the New York Sun, a Republican leaning newspaper, published a composition entitled at sea with Franklin D they were just good friends with no selfish ends to serve as they paced the deck there was George and Fred and the son of Ted and Vincent he signed the checks on a splendid yacht in a climate hot to tropical seas they ran they dismissed from mine was the well-known forgotten man but the criticism quickly faded once FDR tanned and rested after 12 days at sea sailed into Biscayne Bay and was greeted at the dock by thousands of well-wishers along with one man who had something else in mind the president-elect was driven in a green open-top Buick to the stage where he would make his remarks Roosevelt was hoisted above the back seat of the car with his legs resting on the cushions his speech was brief telling the crowd that he had a wonderful vacation caught lots of fish and gained 10 pounds upon finishing his remarks the first of five shots rang out Roosevelt's bodyguard pushed him down in the back seat and the Secret Service ordered his car away but FDR countered that order when he saw that the bullet had hit Chicago Mayor Anton Sermak was countered FDR's order and again told the driver to leave but FDR calmly ordered the driver to stop and insisted that Mayor Sermak be placed in his car where Roosevelt comforted him keeping his hand on his pulse all the way to the hospital and the mayor did not survive Jews Zepi Genzara an unemployed bricklayer who hated all presidents and people of power was tried convicted and executed 35 days after firing at Roosevelt now Roosevelt spent the night aboard Astor's Yop before returning by train to New York the next day where he was met by more than a thousand police and Secret Service agents he would never again be as unprotected at major public events although he persists his entire life to sneak away from his guards wherever he could Secret Service agent Edmund Starling said Roosevelt's absolute lack of fear made it difficult to protect him over the course of his presidency now following Pearl Harbor Roosevelt's sea-going travels were restricted as I said but only for a single year he finally returned to the water in the summer of 1943 where he scheduled a Canadian fishing trip during which he would relax and fish aboard a small launch from a US patrol boat in the Whitefish Bay area of Lake Huron Roosevelt gave the fishing trip an official name the Whitefish Bay US Navy exploration expedition but it was a fishing trip but fishing aboard a small launch in a heavily protected lake was not Roosevelt's idea being at sea so four months after the Lake Huron trip the President was aboard the USS Iowa on his way to Cairo for the wartime conference with Allied leaders in July the following year Roosevelt again was at sea aboard the USS Baltimore for a conference with Admiral Chester Nimitz and General Douglas MacArthur now Roosevelt weary from the war and from battling a variety of ailments over the course of his life became the first and last president elected to the fourth term in November of 1944 despite concerns over his health two days after his final inaugural address Roosevelt and his advisors left Washington under the cloak of darkness to board the Navy cruiser USS Quincy for the final wartime conference he would attend with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin the destination was a Mediterranean sea some four thousand miles away this is the last time that Franklin Roosevelt would be at sea upon his return he reported the Congress on the Yalta conference and then left for the little White House in warm springs Georgia where he had hoped to relax and recuperate as he had done so many times before but this time he would not be returning to the White House and he would not live to witness the surrender of Nazi Germany a victory due in no small part to Franklin Roosevelt's leadership courage and determination over the course of the entire war Roosevelt once said we always held to the hope the conviction that there is a better life a better world beyond the horizon during the course of his lifetime Franklin Roosevelt never stopped believing in that brighter future both for himself and for the nation I think Thomas Jefferson said at best when he wrote I steer my bark with hope in the head leaving fear a stern in my opinion there's no better way to describe the life of Franklin Roosevelt thank you all very much thank you you have any questions yes sir how old was he when he developed polio? 39 and after that he would travel aboard houseboats for a while just sort of in Florida looking for a cure there was no cure but he was just looking for a cure and he bought a couple of houseboats over the course of two or three years and he and some friends would just travel around and fish and swim and sun himself but of course there was no cure and that was 1921 and after that he ran for governor of New York in 1928 and he served two terms there were two year terms at that time 28 and 30 and it's interesting when he was in New York he found a way to get to the sea now Albany is not on the sea as we all know but he found a way to get to water he sailed aboard a New York state 73 foot wooden yacht called the inspector and he would be gone for weeks at a time and he would sail the barge canal and the airy canal at the time and all the various lakes on inspection trips and the newspaper and Albany dubbed it the floating capital because he was in it so much he became president at what age? he was 43 44 and then he died at 63 yes sir the Iowa is it the same Iowa that's in existence today or was it an older one? I think it's an older one yeah yes sir was his collection it is it's largely intact and it's primarily housed at the FDR presidential library in Hyde Park they can't display it all because there's just so much of it so they have rotating exhibits and they'll bring some of the ship models out and then they'll put some of the ship models away but most of it is all still there it's an extraordinary collection and the interesting thing is that of the 2,500 books he started a very ambitious project he had 5,000 books in his library but 2,500 were nautical books and he started to actually catalog them all by hand and there's 900 of those and then he stopped after that and that's all at the library as well yes sir was he responsible for canceling prohibition? well he he ran against prohibition and that was part of his campaign to repeal prohibition and of course during prohibition he still enjoyed his evening cocktails and continued to do that throughout the course of his career but he did he was in favor of doing that and in fact on his cruise on Amberjack 2 the cruise that he took in 1933 that was when prohibition was repealed he sent his son James Roosevelt who was with him on the cruise to go and vote against to go to the conference they had in Boston and make sure they understood that the president actually president at that time was in favor of repealing it was he ever secretary of the Navy? he was assistant secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson yes sir did he ever go sailing with Joe Kennedy? well it's interesting he didn't go sailing with Joe Kennedy but in 1932 when he was 1932 when he was running for president Joe Kennedy followed him in his massive yacht as the president would travel around at various locations and that was in 1932 before he became president and part of the reason that historians believe that the president did that was to show that he was vigorous and wasn't a paralytic hopeless person and so he went sailing with his sons in 1932 and went all along the New England coast and Joe Kennedy followed him in a large vessel not a little sailboat like Roosevelt does the Kennedy supply this guy? I don't know I wouldn't be surprised yes sir to complement what you said about Roosevelt's feeling of being pole again after the polio of Lee was at sea in the 90s the famous actor Christopher Reed who played Superman who became a quadriplegic because of the yachting accident was aboard the 12 meter US 14 northern light and the story was told by the captain once they were under way Christopher Reed turned to him with a smile and said to the captain you know I feel like I can walk again it does and he was a tremendous sailor tremendous sailor and in the back of my book just as fast as I can the 110 vessels I was able to find that he was aboard and some of those vessels he was aboard more than once and there are probably some that are not in the historical record that obviously are not in that list but it's an extraordinary number of vessels for anyone to be on yes sir just a comment and you may know this already one of the captain Navy captain had a lot of voyages with FDR he had to view it and he's a major collection of his medals and memorabilia in that corner oh there, okay yes sir this son used to keep his boat during the winter if one of the boat guys in East Greenwich he did a sailboat it was a sailboat and I don't know much about it how did you? it probably would have been well it might have been Jimmy I don't know, Jimmy or Franklin they usually accompanied him on these cruises that he would take but they always used his name to expedite oh I'm sure they did it's interesting because you know because he was paralyzed he was sensitive to that and of course that's why the press didn't see a lot of that but Governor Al Smith in New York when Roosevelt was running for governor people were starting to say well you know he's paralyzed and Governor Smith said you don't have to be an acrobat to be governor so he said he's got a great mind and that's really all you need but yes ma'am clarification yes yes there was a museum in Long Beach Harbor is that the same side of it that you have been on? you know I'm not sure I'm not sure of that oh okay yeah and that was a concern with the secret service during wartime because whenever they would bring a vessel into the navy yard and they would start to make these special accommodations people would say aha we know who's going to be aboard this vessel so they had to do that very clandestine yes sir when he was running for president was the knowledge of his physical disability made known to the public as well or was it concealed to a good extent? well it was known to the public because some of the New York City newspapers in fact I can't remember which one it was but said this man is not capable of being governor he's paralyzed so when Franklin Roosevelt would go along on some of the campaign trips he would make fun of that and he would say look at this pathetic poor paralyzed man and he'd stand up because he couldn't stand up on his own but he would be able to hold on to something or hold on to his sons so I think he had heavy full length braces my cousin used to remember carrying those braces they were ten pounds and today if you had a brace it would be made of something much lighter it would be very heavy for him but he was able to lock the knees in place and he sort of simulated walking and people would see that and they would think well I guess it wasn't too bad but one secret service agent that I interviewed said he had no idea until he went to the White House Detail how severely handicapped he was and he said that he couldn't not only could he not walk by himself so if you look at that movie that was made popular a few years ago Pearl Harbor it shows the president standing up from his wheelchair well that's historically incorrect he was not able to stand up from his wheelchair yes sir that was a well known fact he was a cripple when I was a kid in high school so it wasn't anything hidden he tried to hide it you know because he was sensitive it was known so that's why he took that 1932 cruise and that's why he tried to show himself as a vigorous sailor and campaigned all across the state but he didn't you know he did try to hide it over the course of his life especially once he became president during the war my father bought a boat from the Habermaster in Newport so after work we all went down to take the boat home well the side lights didn't work so we went out Newport Harbor was a non-camp from those days and we were suddenly bought by a group of our Marines and we searched the boat my father talked about it we thought we were going to jail but Roosevelt was the only ships here departing for one of his conferences so he's active in this area yeah it's interesting that he wouldn't permit secret service agents to travel aboard his vessel they had to either tail behind in another vessel or they would have to as that one agent did follow him along the coastline in his car you know today obviously that would never happen it was interesting because one of the I asked my cousin who was on his detail I said you know what kind of weapons did you carry back then like the secret service today have all sorts of weapons summoned into their clothes and everything and he said well we had a 38 snub nose revolver and I said and what else and he said well there was a submachine gun in the car if we needed it but you didn't have the kind of issues that you have today the scariest part of his detail protecting the president was walking Fallah who was his little Scottish terrier because he said he knew that if anything ever happened to that dog he would be stationed somewhere far far away so the secret service gave him the code name the Informer because as soon as people would see Fallah they would know that the president must be nearby so frequently they would take him out and his train the Ferdinand Magellan would pull up at a railroad siding they would have to take Fallah out and walk him around and of course people would immediately see him and he was the most famous dog in America yes sir just another anecdote about that when he came back I think you all just made a comment because there had been adverse publicity against him and Ellen along and his comment to Congress was that's fine but don't attack that changed the course of that last election my little dog Fallah Eleanor doesn't resent attacks and I don't resent attacks and my sons don't resent attacks but Fallah does resent attacks and he's Scotch and when the Republican fiction writers in and out of Congress made up this story I left him on the Aleutian Islands and he had to send a destroyer back for thousands and thousands of dollars his Scotch soul was furious and he said he'd never been the same dog since so that just turned the whole tables of the election people said well you know the old master was back and he won obviously a fourth term yes sir when Jack Kennedy was president he had a protective detail stationed on a T-T-Bo right tied up here oh did he and I got a border every weapon made known to men really it was some different protection back with president Roosevelt yeah it's incredible yes sir when did you go up there for the purpose? that was an inspection trip it was in 40 well it was 43 during the election when he was running for his fourth term and that's when you know the people said well he left fallow up on the Aleutian Islands and where are the Aleutians? I don't I don't alright