People who thought that she was busy going around trying to stir up difficulty where there was none or less than she imagined, were quite critical of her. She was, we must never forget, a public figure. And in democracies, public figures tend to attract criticism as well as praise. The most dangerous thing would be if anybody were regarded as above criticism. And Eleanor Roosevelt is, in recent years, getting there.

Well, at the time, we certainly regarded them [Elianor and Franklin Roosevelt] as partners. We did not know what has since come out about the difficulties of their marital life, or the problems that Franklin gave Eleanor and his mother gave Eleanor, in many respects. We didn't know much about that.

I think that it is true that Eleanor Roosevelt, by being so active on that front, contributed to that impression very substantially. And it's to her credit that she was interested in this, let me say. But once again, I'm not sure the extent to which Roosevelt - I guess he did use her really, particularly on the civil rights front. No question about it, because she was well identified out there, and brought a good many blacks into the Administration, into the White House, into his presence and so on.

And at the UN she took the advice - she had to take the advice - of the State Department and the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations. They keep our UN representatives on a very short leash. She did as she was told, and voted as she was told.

One has to say that they [Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt] were pioneering to some extent. They didn't know that some of the housing projects that they were putting up for the poor were going to turn into crack dens and rapists' bowers and things of that sort, which they have since become. But you can't always foresee the future. I'm sure their intentions were the best.

Eleanor Roosevelt had both her admirers and her detractors. And they admired her and detracted from her for many of the same reasons. People who liked her social activism, who thought that she was calling attention to problems that needed solving, were all for her.

Do you realize that at the moment we have Barry Goldwater fighting the Moral Majority, with The New York Times rooting for Goldwater? Times have changed.