Joseph P. Lash; Pulitzer-Winning Writer, Friend of Eleanor Roosevelt

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph P. Lash, whose works include “Eleanor and Franklin,” died last Saturday at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was 77 and died of complications of a heart ailment, a hospital official said.

Lash, a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, won a Pulitzer in 1971 for his book about President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mrs. Roosevelt. The book also won the National Book Award and the Francis Parkman Prize and was the basis of a nine-hour ABC television miniseries.

He also wrote “Eleanor: The Years Alone” in 1972 and “Love, Eleanor” in 1982.

In the latter book, Lash revealed that previously secret intelligence documents claimed he had had an affair with Mrs. Roosevelt in 1943. He denied the reports.

“I felt almost nauseous,” he said in an interview.

‘It Was Platonic’

“Anyone who reads that correspondence can see my physical feeling was only for (Lash’s wife) Trude, and whatever feeling Mrs. Roosevelt had, it was platonic.”

Lash also wrote that President Roosevelt did not believe the reports and that records indicate that Roosevelt was so angered by the surveillance that his orders led to the dismantling of the Army’s counterintelligence corps.

“Love, Eleanor” focused on letters among Lash, his wife and Mrs. Roosevelt.

Born Dec. 2, 1909, in New York City, Lash graduated from City College of New York and Columbia University.

Joined Socialist Party

He had joined the Socialist Party in 1929, and several years later he and others formed the American Student Union. He served as its national secretary from 1935 to 1939.

Lash was an Army Air Corps veteran of World War II. He joined the New York Post in 1951, specializing in foreign affairs, and later became that newspaper’s assistant editor of the editorial pages. He left in 1966.

In 1943, the year in which Lash allegedly had the affair with Mrs. Roosevelt, he was a 33-year-old Army sergeant studying meteorology at Chanute Field in Illinois. He had met Mrs. Roosevelt through his work as a Young Socialist leader and was being investigated for communist affiliations.

Lash, who lived on Martha’s Vineyard at the time of his death, was also the author of “Dag Hammarskjold: Custodian of the Brushfire Peace;” “From the Diaries of Felix Frankfurter;” “Roosevelt and Churchill, 1939-41,” and “Helen and Teacher,” about Helen Keller. The latter book focused on the relationships among Keller, her teacher, Anne Sullivan, and Sullivan’s husband, John Macy, whom Keller also loved. It also was made into a television film in 1984.

His last book, “Dreamers and Dealers,” which deals with young intellectuals who participated in the New Deal, is expected to be released within the next six months.

He is survived by his wife and a son.