Blanche Wiesen

By the time Blanche Wiesen Cook completes the final volume of her acclaimed three-book biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, she will have spent about 20 years writing about the former first lady. The lure? "This is the first time all of my interests come together. And Eleanor Roosevelt is really a woman for our time. Every issue on the agenda in her time is an issue on the agenda right now," says Cook, a diplomatic historian and peace activist.

The years 1933 to 1938 witnessed the Depression, the New Deal, the threat of World War II, the Spanish Civil War, the awakening of the Civil Rights movement and the beginnings of the Red Scare. It was a remarkable time of change and challenge on both the international and domestic fronts. Yet the period is often called the Franklin Roosevelt era.

The years 1933 to 1938 witnessed the Depression, the New Deal, the threat of World War II, the Spanish Civil War, the awakening of the Civil Rights movement and the beginnings of the Red Scare. It was a remarkable time of change and challenge on both the international and domestic fronts. Yet the period is often called the Franklin Roosevelt era.

By the time Blanche Wiesen Cook completes the final volume of her acclaimed three-book biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, she will have spent about 20 years writing about the former first lady. The lure? "This is the first time all of my interests come together. And Eleanor Roosevelt is really a woman for our time. Every issue on the agenda in her time is an issue on the agenda right now," says Cook, a diplomatic historian and peace activist.

An age that divorces readily yet expects its politicians to be blameless monogamists would do well to study the Roosevelts. They made their marriage work. They respected each other's ideals, and despite widely diverging paths, remained a team. To be sure, Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt were very different from you and me. They had more money. They shared the cocoon of class and confidence which enveloped the New York landed aristocracy of the turn of the century.

Your article about Eleanor Roosevelt, "Before Hillary, There Was Eleanor" (by Blanche Wiesen Cook, Opinion, Jan. 17) highlighted for me the farsightedness of this great humanitarian. Her call for "indoor plumbing and toilets in every new home" certainly put her thinking ahead of her time. The question raised by one of Franklin Roosevelt's advisers as to how "anybody would be able to tell the rich from the poor" continues to have significance today. Unfortunately, after almost 60 years, the plumbing and toilets are now inside, it is the poor who are living outside.

Sorry to have been tardy in coming to your rescue; I've been beyond your circulatory system for a time. In your April 19 issue, Brenda Maddox says in her review of Blanche Wiesen Cook's "Eleanor Roosevelt" that both Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd and Marguerite LeHand were at Warm Springs when F.D.R. died there in 1945. Miss LeHand died in 1944. And, in your same April 19 issue, in the Paperbacks section, you first-name G. M. Fraser's Flashman as "Jack." When you did the review of this hardcover edition two or so years back you called Flashman both Henry and Harry in the same review.

"The Player," Faye Fiore's article about our First Lady's lack of popularity (Jan. 4), serves as another reminder of the very dubious stature women hold in our country. As a cheerleader in high school, then after college as a part-time model, I was very popular with the boys. A few years later, as an assistant press secretary to the Carter-Mondale Re-Election Campaign for the State of New York, I became less popular with the boys. Fiore's article states Hillary Clinton's popularity is a "dismal" 48% compared to Barbara Bush's 83%. I venture to say my popularity as a cheerleader and model was around 83%, but it certainly wasn't above 48% in the fall of 1980.

The relationship of Eleanor and Franklin Delano Roosevelt has fascinated observers ever since they married. Friends and relatives were surprised in 1905 by the wedding of a handsome, flirtatious, fun-loving mama's boy to his serious-minded cousin, who did not share his zest for outdoor recreation or cocktails and was no great beauty either. Their affinities were more obvious during Franklin's political career, particularly his 12-year tenure in the White House, when Eleanor became the nation's most activist and controversial but ultimately beloved first lady.

For more than a decade, Blanche Wiesen Cook has lived with Eleanor Roosevelt--an experience that might well have been disastrous, biographically speaking, given that two women could hardly differ more in background or personal style. The subject was an American aristocrat, a pragmatist, and a stately lady; the author is the daughter of German Jews, an intellectual street fighter, a radical, and a cut-up. The possibilities for mutual incomprehension would seem boundless.

An age that divorces readily yet expects its politicians to be blameless monogamists would do well to study the Roosevelts. They made their marriage work. They respected each other's ideals, and despite widely diverging paths, remained a team. To be sure, Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt were very different from you and me. They had more money. They shared the cocoon of class and confidence which enveloped the New York landed aristocracy of the turn of the century.

By common agreement of the mass media, political pundits and the special prosecutor, it will no longer be possible to judge Bill Clinton's presidency without exclusive reference to his alleged sexual peccadilloes. The semen-stained dress has set an irresistible standard. But, heck, why should DNA testing stop with Monica Lewinsky's frock? Now that the scientific tools are available, why not settle the pressing question of whether previous presidents were guilty of infidelities?

Nora Sayre, a cultural historian, essayist and film critic who wrote acutely observed analyses of America in the 1950s and '60s, died of emphysema Wednesday in New York. She was 68. Sayre came of age in the 1950s as the only child of writers whose circle included many of the leading Hollywood writers and literary figures of the period. Observing their struggles with the social and political dislocations of the McCarthy era led her to focus on the culture of the Cold War years in her own writing.