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“The Grandest Job in the World”: FDR’s first two terms and his response to the massive problems posed by the Great Depression.
“The Juggler”: World War II and FDR’s relationship with Stalin and Churchill.
The first segment, "The Grandest Job in the World," focuses on the
first two terms of Roosevelt's presidency and explores the central
paradox of his presidency: that a man of privilege came to be a
hero to a vast and varied coalition of ordinary Americans and a
villain to members of his own social class. The episode moves
inside the Oval Office to show FDR's response to the massive
problems posed by the Great Depression, and out to the heartland to
document how his programs and personal style - ebullient,
risk-taking and surprisingly cunning - restored hope to Americans
who had lost hope. This section also looks at how FDR engineered
the "splendid deception" that hid the extent of his physical
disability from the American people and how his relationship with
his wife affected both his personal and political life. The last
section, "The Juggler," is devoted to the wartime years, using
FDR's remarkable correspondence with Winston Churchill to chart the
calculated and even devious path by which the American president
maneuvered support for England before he led his country through
the greatest war in history. This segment also traces FDR's
management of the war, including his growing personal ties to
Churchill and his relationship with Stalin and the Soviet Union,
and explores Eleanor's attempt to convince him to maintain the
principles of the New Deal, despite the pressures of war.