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| President Franklin D. Roosevelt in healthier days delivering one of his famous Fireside Chats. Today is the 68th anniversary of his final chat, March 1 1945. Many times FDR would use his previous speeches as a Fireside Chat as is the example here. |
FDR’s FINAL FIRESIDE CHAT—On March 1, 1945,
President Franklin Roosevelt had just returned from the Yalta Conference when
he spoke to Congress and the American people in his last major national radio
address. Thanks to a wonderful historic
website www.oldradioworld.com
many of the historic radio broadcasts can be relived.
The
text of FDR’s speech is full of common sense.
He points out the world needs to be in the business of preventing
war. He said, we cannot fail our
soldiers again like we failed them at the end of WWI. The world needs a plan for peace. The speech lacked FDRs usual oratorical
skill. It was delivered by a tired man
and it is obvious as it ends so abruptly.
FDR
died six weeks later, April 12, 1945 in Georgia.
LINK TO FIRESIDE CHAT
WHAT IS YALTA?
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| Yalta Conference Feb. 1945 inside Livadia Palace |
The B/W photo here was
taken by the Army Signal Corps at the Yalta Conference which was held at Yalta
in the Crimea (Black Sea) from February 4 - 11, 1945. Roosevelt, Churchill, and
Stalin met to plan the final defeat and occupation of Germany. They also agreed
on how to deal with the liberated countries of Eastern Europe.
At the Yalta Conference,
Roosevelt was 63, Churchill was 71, and Stalin was 67. Roosevelt died, just two
months after Yalta and six weeks after his final Fireside Chat.
LIVADIA PALACE SITE OF YALTA CONFERENCE
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| Livadia Palace, Summer home of Czar Nicholas II and site of Yalta Conference in 1945 |
The Yalta Conference was
held Livadia Palace in the town of Yalta, Ukraine. It was
the summer home of the last czar of Russia, Nicolas II. The gardens and palace buildings over look
the Black Sea. Moscow Architect Ippolito
Antonovich Monighetti was commissioned to design the summer palace in
1861. Completed in 1866, Livadia is
built of white Crimean granite in a neo-renaissance style and has 116 rooms
with its interiors and courtyards having different styles.
HOW ILL WAS FDR AT YALTA?
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| Yalta Conference photo by U.S. Army Signal Corps photographer |
For more on FDR’s final illnesses link to: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/health/05docs.html?pagewanted=all
The U.S. Army Signal Corps
took the images of the Big 3 at Yalta both in color and black and white. At first, in the color photo I thought I saw
a cigarette in FDR’s hand. And, in the
later more famous black and white image you can actually see the smoke curling
up from the cigarette in his hand.
Everybody smoked and FDR was no different. He’s 63 in the photo and looks ten years
older.
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| Smoking gun at Yalta MODERN YALTA VIA YOU TUBE |
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