THE ROOSEVELTS AND THE ROYALS:
Franklin and Eleanor, the King and Queen of England, and the Friendship That Changed History

By Will Swift, Ph.D.

On June 11, 1939, just three months before the outbreak of World War II, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth paid a visit to the United States—the first time a British monarch had ever set foot on American soil. Their hosts were Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, who honored them with a hot dog picnic at their estate in Hyde Park, New York. In THE ROOSEVELTS AND THE ROYALS (Wiley & Sons, July 1, 2004; 355 pages), royal historian Will Swift tells the fascinating story of how today’s “special relationship” between the U.S. and Britain began sixty-five years ago with this legendary picnic.

In an engaging narrative, Swift offers an important political history as well as an entertaining biography of the 100 year friendship of the Roosevelt and Windsor dynasties. Previous historians have treated the 1939 royal visit to New York City, Washington, DC and Hyde Park as a mere footnote to history. For the first time, Swift sets the record straight by showing how the visit was a crucial component of an extensive British propaganda campaign to win isolationist America to its side as war in Europe began to look inevitable. The New York Times headline eloquently summed up the picnic in Hyde Park: “King Eats Hot Dog, Asks for More,” while FDR called the visit "a beginning of the coming together of the two English-speaking races, which would continue after the war." Indeed, the visit symbolically ended the American Revolution and healed British-American relations at a perilous time.

With fresh anecdotes and 47 rare photographs, Swift traces the bond between the Roosevelts and the British royal family back to the early 1900s when Teddy Roosevelt befriended King Edward VII, and long after Eleanor Roosevelt’s close alliance with the king and queen after FDR’s death. Swift’s book is based on interviews with the Roosevelt grandchildren and on previously unpublished letters of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke of Windsor, and the Duke of Kent that he found in the FDR Library and the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle. His book is the first to explore the four leaders, their two radically different marriages, and one powerful alliance that still steadies the world today.

Filled with extraordinary stories, some of them shared with the author by the Queen Mother, THE ROOSEVELTS AND THE ROYALS shows how charm can be the strongest political weapon.

THE ROOSEVELTS AND THE ROYALS: Franklin and Eleanor, the King and Queen of England, and the Friendship That Changed History
By Will Swift
John Wiley & Sons
Publication date: July 1, 2004
Price: $27.95
ISBN: 0471459623