It didn't hurt, of course, that Roosevelt was also a political genius. He knew how to pass legislation in Congress. He knew how to talk to the American people, the way he talked to my grandfather. While he was busy rebuilding the economy, he saw that war was coming in Europe and that he needed to prepare our country, help the British, and support and encourage Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

F.D.R. had another quality important in a President: the self-confidence to abandon a policy that wasn't working. He believed in experimentation, but he didn't deny the evidence when an experiment proved unsuccessful. In any highly dynamic time, with new and complex challenges, the President needs an appetite for experimentation and the determination to keep what works and scrap what doesn't.