James Roosevelt Dies at 83; Last Surviving Child of Ex-President

James Roosevelt, the last surviving child of President Franklin D. Roosevelt who carved out his own, often controversial career in politics and business, died Tuesday at his home. He was 83.

A son, H. Delano Roosevelt, said death resulted from Parkinson’s disease and complications of a stroke. Roosevelt’s wife, Mary, said her husband suffered another small stroke Monday, “but it didn’t seem to do much to him. I was with him. He died at dawn.”

Already a young man when his father was first elected President in 1932, Roosevelt worked a range of jobs from laborer to insurance salesman and Hollywood movie mogul (he was a vice president of Samuel Goldwyn Productions Inc. and produced the 1940-41 films, “Pastor Hall” and “Pot o’ Gold”) before joining the Marines in World War II.

After the war, in which he won the Navy Cross and Silver Star for gallantry during a raid on Makin Atoll in the Pacific, Roosevelt carried on the family tradition and entered politics, where he achieved mixed success. Of his family name, Roosevelt once wrote: “It was my greatest asset, no doubt of that. But if it was a plus, it was also a minus. I was not my father. . . . I had to be myself.”

Roosevelt became chairman of the California Democratic Party in 1946. He ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1950 against Earl Warren but won a Los Angeles County congressional seat in 1954. While in Congress in 1965, he was defeated in a race with Sam Yorty for mayor of Los Angeles.

He gave up the congressional seat to become an ambassador to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, and despite his Democratic heritage, became a prominent member of “Democrats for Nixon.”

“James Roosevelt was an outstanding presidential aide, congressman and diplomat,” Nixon said from his New Jersey home Tuesday. “I was honored to count him among my greatest supporters and most trusted advisers. But the job he did best was also one of the most difficult: being the son of a President. By being loyal to his father’s memory and ideals without being reluctant to exercise his own independent judgment, he immeasurably enriched F.D.R.’s legacy.”

Roosevelt lost his state Democratic Party chairmanship after attempting unsuccessfully to persuade Dwight D. Eisenhower to oppose President Harry S. Truman for the 1948 Democratic presidential nomination. Eisenhower at that point had not committed to either political party.

In Truman’s hotel room during a campaign stop in Los Angeles, the President reportedly told Roosevelt: “. . . If your father knew what you were doing to me, he would turn over in his grave. But get this straight: whether you like it or not, I am going to be the next President of the United States. That will be all. Good day.”

The second of six children and a native of New York City, James Roosevelt grew up immersed in politics in New York’s statehouse in Albany and the nation’s capital in Washington. “Of course, my childhood was unusual because I grew up in a politically charged environment,” he once told a reporter. “The experience was invaluable.”

A graduate of Groton and Harvard, he served as an administrative assistant and briefly as press secretary to his father in the White House.

Throughout his multiple, colorful careers, Roosevelt’s political and business clout came under intense scrutiny.

After making 200 speeches and managing his father’s 1932 presidential campaign in Massachusetts, Roosevelt--then a junior at Harvard--became a key figure in parceling out federal jobs to political supporters and was dubbed “czar of Massachusetts patronage” by Time magazine. Later, he quit as an executive with a New Jersey yeast company after a White House aide discovered that the firm was a front for a bootlegging operation.

While serving as U.S. ambassador to UNESCO, Roosevelt became a vice president and director of Investors Overseas Services, a firm based in Switzerland that collapsed amid fraud charges against some of Roosevelt’s associates, including fugitive Robert L. Vesco and Bernard Cornfeld. The Securities and Exchange Commission dismissed a lawsuit against Roosevelt after he signed a 1973 court order pledging not to violate securities laws. He acknowledged no wrongdoing at IOS.

In addition to stirring resentment among Democratic Party loyalists by heading Democrats for Nixon in 1972, he endorsed Republican Ronald Reagan for President in 1984. Earlier, when he endorsed and campaigned for Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976, Wally Albertson, then president of the California Democratic Council, remarked that “the younger Democrats don’t know Mr. Roosevelt, and the older liberals like myself have a bad impression of him for supporting Nixon.”

He once criticized his political detractors by saying: “There are some liberals who won’t recognize one’s right to some independent thought. That’s the opposite of the liberal point of view, which respects the inherent right to freedom of choice.”

Roosevelt moved to Orange County in 1972 and became a lecturer at UC Irvine and Chapman College. He also was a business consultant and served on the Orange County Transportation Commission, of which he was chairman in 1986.

In 1983, Roosevelt launched the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, a well-funded nonprofit lobbying organization that sought to preserve Social Security benefits put in place by his father in the 1930s.

In March, 1987, Roosevelt traveled to Capitol Hill to defend his 1.8-million member committee against accusations that it used “scare tactics” to solicit millions of dollars by mail from the elderly. “Our cause is a good one,” Roosevelt said, “our methods are honest.”

His personal life was also troubled: He was married four times, with one divorce marked by his stabbing.

He is survived by his wife, Mary, and seven children, including James Roosevelt Jr., who ran unsuccessfully in 1986 against Joseph P. Kennedy, son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, for the Massachusetts congressional seat once held by Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill.

Funeral services are scheduled for 4 p.m. Sunday at Newport Center United Methodist Church. A military burial will follow at Pacific View Memorial Park in Newport Beach.

Donations in Roosevelt’s name may be made to the UC Irvine College of Medicine Foundation.