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Sometime in the near future, U. S. citizens will elect their first female president. Despite that official mandate, though, said woman would not be the first female to govern and set policy for the country. That honor goes to Edith Wilson, wife of Woodrow Wilson, who held the job from 1913-1921.
In an amazing and long-rumored chapter in American history --- only fully brought to light in documents released in 1991 --- the second Mrs. Wilson acted as de facto Commander in Chief while her husband floated in and out of a comatose state during the last year and a half of his presidency. Unthinkable in today's mass media, she shielded the extent of the President's illness and ability to function both mentally and physically not only from the American people, but government and White House staff.
Levin's exhaustive and impeccably researched book, nearly a decade in the making, is not so much a portrait of the intellectual but stubborn and elitist Wilson as it is of his tenacious and doggedly protective Edith. After his well-liked first wife died in office, the depressed President became obsessed with social-climbing widow Edith Bolling Galt. He eventually proposed only two months after meeting her --- then waited almost that long for an answer.
Wilson immediately took his wife into his confidence, alternately soliciting and brashly receiving her opinion on everything from Cabinet assignments to major policy speeches. Sensitive documents that even the most highly placed senators would never lay eyes on were game for the First Lady's dissection. Unfortunately, many of her views were egregiously colored by personal prejudices and pettiness, best exemplified in the case of Colonel Edward House. Once Wilson's best friend, closest confidante, and brilliant international negotiator, he was eventually shut out of his duties --- and history --- by a woman who saw no room for competition for her husband's attentions.
Most of EDITH AND WOODROW --- perhaps too much --- simply sets the stage for the events of October 1919 to March 1921, again impossible to imagine in a modern context. Wilson, on the ropes politically due to his stubborn insistence that America enter the post-World War One League of Nations on his unbendable terms, suffered a paralyzing stroke. Rushed back to the White House, Edith orchestrated an effort admirable in its sheer audacity: With the compliance of two physicians, she essentially cut off contact between Wilson and the entire world with locked doors, drawn curtains, and bland, generic press bulletins.
With Woodrow vacillating being an alert weakness and a vegetable-like state, Edith controlled all incoming visitors, mail, and official documents. And even then only choosing which ones to bring to her husband's attention and which to answer on her own. Her numerous directives --- always hastily handwritten and beginning with the phrase "The President says..." --- became inescapable as the former brilliant orator and political leader slowly disintegrated into a shuffling, slack-jawed, barley coherent shadow of his former self.
Policy decisions, signed treaties, presidential directives, and strong opinions, all in Edith's hand, flowed from the shut off sickbed room. And on the occasion that a group of senators or media from the outside world did get a peek in, Edith helped stage Wilson's appearance on a "good day" with a mastery of PR manipulation. The heart of Levin's thesis --- backed by voluminous evidence --- is that the Wilson handling the presidential business was not the one people assumed, despite Edith's demur dismissal of her own contributions.
After Woodrow Wilson's death, Edith continued her role as a one-woman "guardian, publicist, and propagandist" for his political legacy. Her memoir, considered by even apologists to be prejudiced and untruthful, glorified Wilson to the point of deification, while demonizing enemies for offenses ranging from imagined or slight to truly substantive.
Why history has not hailed Edith Wilson as a role model is one of the most interesting aspects of Levin's book. Her personal pettiness, roughshod authority, and haughtiness often made her wholly unsympathetic. And her one-woman decision to hide the true extent of her husband's mental abilities not only prevented the established political succession and the daily business of government, but left the country essentially leaderless during a very critical time.
And though it takes too long to get to the meat of a story that is often written a bit dryly, EDITH AND WOODROW is an intriguing read, a book on par with a recent spate of biographies/analyses on presidents, including JOHN ADAMS, ROOSEVELT'S SECRET WAR: FDR and World War II Espionage, PRESIDENT NIXON: Alone in the White House, and REACHING FOR GLORY. But none of those have the amazing, bizarre, and significant revelation of Levin's important book: For a year and a half, the United States was largely helmed by a woman...and one who didn't even think her gender deserved the right to vote!
--- Reviewed by Bob Ruggiero
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