I think she [Eleanor Roosevelt] was a shrewd politician, and very good in public relations, although she had the usual media help in this. As a Republican and a conservative, I can say ruefully that the Democrats and the liberals tend to get it; that when she said something, it was put in a nice way and highlighted properly by the appropriate media, so that it sounded good.
William A. RusherI think she [Eleanor Roosevelt] never was called because she probably didn't know an awful lot. The whole burden of the criticism of her on the subject of Communism is naiveté, not participation. And again, being a public figure and our representative at the UN, there was nothing Communist about her, certainly.
William A. RusherAnd 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.
William A. RusherPeople 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.
William A. RusherThese people looked Japanese, were originally Japanese, were numerous. We had no way of knowing to what extent they had been infiltrated. To their great credit, it seems not to have been very much at all. But I can understand why. And I rather respect Eleanor for standing out against the tide at that point. But it certainly was a tide. And I'm not going to say it was unjustified.
William A. RusherWell, I didn't read My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt very carefully. I was away during a lot of that, in the war and so on. She was not all that good a writer. She was a little bit on the banal side, and you know, what happened, and then this happened, and then that happened... But I will say this. She got very well paid for it.
William A. Rusher