Hidden Strength

(revised edition) by Hugh Gallagher, Vandamere Press, 242 pages .

When this pioneering book was first published a decade ago, it ended forty years of silence about the true extent of Franklin Roosevelt’s paralysis, the genuine gallantry of his struggle to overcome its effects, and the extraordinary collaboration between President and press—unthinkable in our adversarial time—that kept the brutal truth of FDR’s condition from the American electorate. The author, himself a polio paraplegic, managed to convey as no biographer ever had before—and without a mawkish moment—what it must have been like for this vigorous, athletic young man to find himself imprisoned in a wheelchair and then to fight his way to the pinnacle of American political power in spite of it. The vivid, moving story set forth in this newly revised edition (which includes several newly discovered photographs) should provide inspiration for anyone struggling against any sort of handicap.