Missy Lehand // The Unknown Gatekeeper to President FDR

1930 to a time where our nation's economy was deteriorating and more than a quarter of the American population was unemployed Marguerite Lahan a self-made Massachusetts native became the private secretary to President of the United States by way of Franklin Delano Roosevelt winning the election on November 8th as a part of his staff she was his right-hand woman and often referred to as a gatekeeper of his White House nickname Missy by the Roosevelt children lehand well typically unrecognised had great power and influence over some of the most powerful men in Washington including FDR during the eight years the two shared in the Oval Office Missy was the private secretary to FDR which doesn't sound like a big deal but she was the first woman to have that job and also FDR had a very small managerial staff he had four secretaries who all had different roles and she was the only woman who was part of that group later on in his second term she came to service what we would think of as White House chief of staff and that his job has never been held by a woman before I started the research I thought it was going to be about a romantic relationship which is just kind of and shame on me and shame on everyone else so that's the only thing we can think of when you've got a woman working for a man but what I discovered instead was just her power and influence and how people really did use her or try to use her she wasn't used very easily as the gatekeeper you know getting past her to get to FDR she was very protective of him and if anybody wanted to talk to I'll get an appointment with FDR they had to go through Missy she was like the chief of staff there they could not wake FDR up at night after he went to bed without her permission so the story about that was on September 1st 1939 when Hitler marched into Poland or sent his armies into Poland setting off World War two that phone call came to Missy and she had to say oh yeah we can wake the president up for that news so they sent the phone call down to him she ran downstairs to his bedroom and then the two of them sat out through the night together dealing with that which would just be the you know the defining crisis of those years fantastic relationship with Eleanor a lot of people don't realize how close Missy and Ellen I really were they when all of this started when he really became president they weren't expecting that they really was surprised so they've kind of held on to each other and muddled their way through together and the children I mean she was very close with all the children she ate dinner with it every night she was part of the family I think that that Eleanor appreciated what Missy enabled her to do that she had the freedom to be Eleanor she had the freedom to leave the White House for long periods of time because she and Missy had really forged a working relationship for Missy respected Eleanor's role as first lady of New York and later of what of the country and would never try to usurp that role but at the same time she knew how things how Eleanor wanted things done speaking with my mom we had a few conversations about all the stuff that we had and a lot of stuff but we had stuff throughout the house but I always had initiates conversations there was never anything you know look at look we had family in the White House and like that it was kind of you know not spoken of my family did not talk about her a lot they would have considered that not appropriate because they'd be bragging so we didn't hear a lot of stories growing up we heard some the one that I really love is Missy was very frugal and so when they had a formal dinner or I don't know a steak dinner she would go to Filene's or Jordan Marsh and go to the lingerie department and she would buy a beautiful beautiful mic out and that would be her evening dress a lot cheaper she did get a mink coat that was her work one of her big indulgences [Music] she took to social life in Washington like with a splash I mean she enjoyed dressing beautifully she appears on the cover of Life magazine and Time magazine was named one of the five best dressed women in Washington and that was just in the time in which he lived women weren't on magazine covers because of their ideas they were on there because they were pretty mrs. fun things one with her her bracelets her charm bracelets she has two of them my cousin has the other one and they have all these very interesting things on them and then there's the four-leaf clover for her being Irish the other thing we have is this beautiful cigarette case because she did love to smoke though she had a real sense of style and dignity but at the same time she was just a whole lot of fun and everyone mentioned her great sense of humor and her great laugh and just just the twinkle that she always had in her eye [Music] women in Washington can turn very hard and very nasty Missy always kept her grace and her humor Missy was was very ladylike very much in the background always said she didn't know anything about politics and it's just how she kept under the radar and did what she did but the people in the know knew how influential she was so lobbyists and Senators would would take her out to dinner and and share their plans and ideas and if she thought they were something that would help Roosevelt she passed them on it was just the way the game was played and people knew that very quickly Missy just had a real talent for recognizing people who could do the president good and who were not out for their own game she had the smarts the intuition on how to read people that I think helped her along in life she also arranged a lot of his social calendar not the official White House calendar but it's the evening she knew or if he wanted to go out to someone's house for dinner she would set that up and that was when he could really let his hair down and have a few drinks and you know Eleanor didn't come along you know making everybody go home early and stop drinking and that was another way that she helped him build up relationships with people she thought would be good for him she had an apartment right there in the White House she was on call 24/7 any kind of correspondence or anything he wanted Missy to handle personally he would write on the top Missy to do this and then I'm a writer from the post composed a whole book with all the different things there's several different things every morning FDR would have a meeting around his bed and they would go over the schedule it would be the appointment secretary usually a man named Marvin McIntyre though he was sick a lot Missy Steve early the press secretary Louis Howe or later on PAH Watson just different people who had those management roles and they would talk about what was on the schedule so she was aware of that always had input into that but my favorite thing is that her backdoor access because she is I said she had the only officer joining his she looked out over the Rose Garden and you could come in I mean to think that the white house was this easy to get through but you would just come in the back door or go through Missy's office and one of the people she brought in that way was Tommy Corcoran he became the white house lobbyist one of the most important people in the early New Deal and she just like Tommy he was a lawyer he was a lawyer lobbyists he was an Irishman and she started going in you know he come in and brief her and she'd go into FDR's office and say Tommy's out here and he says you know yada yada yada yada and FDR said oh I want to hear about that bring Tommy in and before long Tommy was coming every day but you don't even always see him on the appointment schedule because he was coming in the back door we had pictures of her with the dedication when I saw my grandmother in the picture with a ship named after her that's when we started asking questions who was this and how is how is she related to us and was never you know growing up and going learning about history we never heard anything about her name her name is never mentioned any we're hoping Missy would have had a diary or some kind of a the only journals Missy had that we came across were her day books with all the appointments that she had and all the appointments at FDR had in which day and time and you know just a regular appointment book but we're we all wish she had written some kind of memoir she is overall a fascinating person who really sacrificed tremendously to serve a president and you don't you just don't see people doing that it's always you know what's in it for me but she had no plans to write a book she made that very clear that's why she never kept a diary everybody else who worked in the White House wrote a book it made a bunch of money after I mean as soon as Roosevelt was cold I mean including Henry at a nest they ran the kitchens and her food was infamously bad she wrote a book she wrote two books she wrote a cookbook and Missy really just wanted to serve FDR and and surf the White House and the American people I think she was a real Patriot Missy enjoyed her time in the White House but unfortunately in 1941 she suffered a stroke which left her unable to serve and took her away from the family she had in the nation's capital Missy should not only be remembered as the gatekeeper to FDR but someone who is genuine hard-working and beloved by many when you read what people said about her she was just a nice person she was um she didn't play a lot of dill out of gamesmanship I like so much goes on she wasn't leaking stuff to the press she's just a just a good person and I think that's one reason I still find her so fascinating is she just did well by doing good [Music]

Channel: Alaina Jacques

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Id: aA9kzTBz9gE

Length: 11min 14sec (674 seconds)

Published: Tue May 01 2018