No Ordinary Time

A Nation on the Edge

In May 1940, Franklin Roosevelt was already carrying burdens few people fully understood. Behind the public image of confidence and ease stood a man whose legs had been paralyzed by polio for nearly twenty years. Every public appearance demanded painful effort, careful staging, and immense self-control. Yet the struggle had changed him. The confident young aristocrat of earlier years had become more patient, more resilient, and more deeply aware of suffering in others.

That same month, the crisis in Europe turned into a catastrophe. Hitler’s armies smashed into Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, ending any illusion that the war might remain distant or contained. Roosevelt had long feared that if Britain collapsed, the United States would one day face Nazi power alone. But in 1940, America was badly unprepared. Its army was small, its weapons outdated, and much of the public remained determined to stay out of another European war.

Roosevelt managed this emergency in his usual way, encouraging overlapping lines of authority and listening to competing voices. His White House was crowded with powerful personalities, including Harry Hopkins, who became his closest wartime adviser, and Missy LeHand, his devoted secretary and companion in daily life. The atmosphere could be chaotic, but Roosevelt preferred it that way. Friction among subordinates gave him room to maneuver and kept final power in his own hands.

Eleanor Roosevelt lived a very different but equally demanding life. Years earlier, the collapse of the conventional marriage after Franklin’s affair with Lucy Mercer had pushed her toward an independent public role. By 1940 she had become far more than a First Lady. She traveled constantly, visited mines, slums, schools, and labor camps, and brought back information no one else in the administration could gather. She served as Franklin’s eyes and ears across the country, while also pressing him toward a broader moral vision than politics alone would allow.

Across the Atlantic, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister just as Europe was falling apart. His friendship with Roosevelt would become one of the decisive relationships of the war. Even before the United States entered the conflict, the two men were moving toward each other in purpose and style. Roosevelt understood that Britain’s survival mattered to America’s future, and Churchill understood that Britain could not survive without American help.