National Archives reveals newly donated FDR papers

The 5,000 documents and gifts collected by Roosevelt's secretaries include a note from Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, who had an affair with Roosevelt that forever changed his marriage to Eleanor Roosevelt when she discovered the infidelity in 1918.

Rutherfurd wrote Roosevelt's personal secretary, Grace Tully, a week before his death in 1945 to arrange a visit with a portrait painter and photographer. The “Unfinished Portrait” was in progress when the collapsed and died at a retreat in the southern state of Georgia.

The meetings with Rutherfurd were kept secret from Eleanor Roosevelt until after her husband's death, and the letter is evidence Tully was involved in communications between Rutherfurd and Roosevelt.

The 14 boxes of items had been sealed with duct tape for years and were considered the last great privately held collection of papers for Roosevelt's presidential library in Hyde Park, New York.

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