BiographyIf Orson Welles were making Citizen Kane now he would have to change the ending. The flawed newspaper magnate's last word would not be "Rosebud".
It would be "Roosevelt". For while the reputation of Conrad Black, the modern "Kane" who this week decided to sell his flagship paper, the Daily Telegraph, and other titles, crashed and burned - he was at home in his study writing a biography of America's greatest president since Lincoln. This week the Telegraph's parent company, Hollinger International, also launched a lawsuit against Black and others seeking the return of $200 million. in allegedly misappropriated funds.
Lord Black is a man who divides opinion. To some media commentators he is "bullying, bombastic, verbose and vain". To others, he was the model hands-off proprietor who saved the Telegraph. Either way, the newspaper world has lost a flamboyant figure.
To compose such a high-profile biography of Roosevelt shows chutzpah. Elected president four times, FDR was architect of the New Deal, and a great wartime commander. His life and legacy are daunting enough to have scared off most academic suitors since James MacGregor Burns, writing in the 1950s. There is no towering modern life of FDR to match those on Eisenhower and Nixon by Stephen Ambrose. (A somewhat similar situation exists in Ireland where we still await a serious biography of de Valera).
So Black has nerve, but is he a player or a gentleman amateur? The initial signs are not good. His book is 1,300 pages long, which immediately suggests the need for rigorous pruning. One disappointed New York punter at a book signing decided against buying on the grounds of weight. "I have arthritis," she said. The cover quotes his mates, notably Henry Kissinger, saying how wonderful the book is. Study methods included hiring a team of researchers and spending a whopping $8 million on documents.
Yet Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom will come as a disappointment to those looking to kick a man while he's down. It is an enthralling read. Roosevelt was a colossal figure and it has taken another massive personality to give him the biography he deserves.
Black's principal claim is that "Franklin D. Roosevelt was the most important person of the twentieth century". This greatness rests on key achievements of which the most important is that FDR "was, with Winston Churchill, the co-savior of Western civilization." His accomplishments place him alongside Washington and Lincoln as America's finest presidents. "Few now dispute that in saving American democracy and capitalism from the Great Depression, and bringing America to the rescue and then the durable protection of the civilized world," Black concludes, "Franklin Delano Roosevelt belongs in the same pantheon as the father of the country and the savior of the Union and emancipator of the slaves."
Much of the pleasure of this book comes in how these dramatic claims are developed in a meticulous yet lively narrative. The incidental details provide plenty of colour, such as Roosevelt's embarrassment at his family's great wealth coming originally from drug trading, and his lifelong suspicion of German militarism after a childhood visit to Bayreuth. The supporting cast is wonderful, not least snooty cousin Alice, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, who had "a tongue that could clip a hedge".
Champion of Freedom makes a convincing case that the defining experience of Roosevelt's life was his battle with polio. Before 1921, he was a charming, handsome and well-connected New Yorker who played at politics because it was his birthright. Fighting the illness made him earn the privilege to serve. Wheelchair-bound and only able to walk with the aid of full-leg steel braces, Roosevelt worked on building massive upper body strength. It gave him the stamina to compete, and created a powerful visual impression of bull-like strength. He took care never to be photographed in wheelchair. Incredibly, many of those who voted for him were unaware of his disability.
FDR proved himself a great president twice over, through the New Deal and during the second World War. Black's analysis is at its most innovative on the New Deal. Historians have tended to focus on the effects of that programme in alleviating popular distress. For Black it is the story of how America regained its economic health and wealth. By the end of FDR's first term (1932-36), unemployment was down from 30 per cent to 5 per cent. The New York Times Business Index had reached 100 for the first time since the Wall Street Crash. Corporate America, which had a $2 billion deficit in 1933, now showed a $5 billion profit. Crucially, the New Deal enabled the US to take advantage of a wartime economy; by 1945, the year of FDR's death, America produced half of everything that was made in the world.
This legacy alone would guarantee Roosevelt's position as a first-rank president; the second World War made him a great one. Perhaps his single finest act of statesmanship was in bringing the United States out of isolation. Add to this the smashing of totalitarian forces on battlefields around the world, and the laying of the foundations for the post-war international system: it is an astonishing record of success that established America as the world's undisputed No 1 power. Even controversial dealings with Stalin at Yalta are open to Black's benign interpretation that had Roosevelt lived the cold war might have been averted.
The sheer weight of FDR's historical legacy (and that of his vice-president, Harry Truman) has been a millstone round the neck of the Democratic Party ever since. The first half of the 20th century was dominated by Democratic presidents - Woodrow Wilson, Roosevelt, and Truman - who stamped their authority on the world order. But it was Republicans - Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan - who did the same in the second half. No Democrat other than Truman enjoys anything close to FDR's historical reputation.
Franklin D. Roosevelt held the elixir of political and military success. His reward is the kind of judgment delivered by Churchill. "If anything happened to that man I couldn't stand it," he said watching the President's plane leave the runway after the 1943 Casablanca Conference. "He is the truest friend, he has the farthest vision, he is the greatest man I have ever known."
Richard Aldous teaches history at UCD. His Harold Macmillan and Britain's World Role is published by Macmillan
Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom By Conrad Black Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1,280pp. £30