Curtis Bean Dall

Curtis Bean Dall (October 24, 1896 – June 28, 1991) was an American stockbroker, Vice-Presidential candidate, author, and the first husband of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, daughter of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Life and career

Dall was born in New York City, the son of Charles and Mary Dall, and grew up on a farm in Piscataway, New Jersey. He attended the Mercerberg Academy and Princeton University, became a stockbroker and was on the floor on Black Tuesday, the day of the 1929 Stock Market crash. Since Dall remained prominent in Wall Street circles, his relationship with his in-laws was tense, but he wrote that he always got along well with the president.

Curtis Bean Dall married Anna Eleanor Roosevelt in 1926. In 1932, Anna's father Franklin D. Roosevelt, was elected the 32nd U.S. President. Curtis and Anna had two children: Anna Eleanor Roosevelt on March 25, 1927, and Curtis Roosevelt on April 19, 1930. The two were commonly referred to as "Sistie" and "Buzzie" by the press. The two July 30, 1934 at Minden, Nev." (Syracuse Herald, January 18, 1935, p. 11.) Six months after her divorce, on January 18, 1935, Anna married journalist Clarence John Boettiger.

In World War I, Dall was commissioned an ensign in naval aviation and served in France, witnessing President Woodrow Wilson's arrival in Brest. In World War II, Colonel Dall served stateside in Army Air Forces staff positions. Although initially attempting to be loyal to the Roosevelt White House, irreconcilable philosophical and temperamental differences soon became apparent. By the time FDR became president, Anna already wanted to end the marriage, but due to image concerns agreed to allow brother Elliott Roosevelt to get "the first White House divorce" in 1933. Afterwards Dall was allowed limited contact with the Roosevelt family and Anna's two children with him. After the war, Dall moved to Texas.

Curtis Dall is most well known in recent times for his book My Exploited Father-in-law, in which he speaks of his ex-father-in-law, and his relationship with, as he saw them, the corrupt power of the banking elite of the time. In reference to the Great Depression of the 1930s he states: "Actually it was the calculated 'shearing' of the public by the World Money-Powers, triggered by the planned sudden shortage of the supply of call money in the New York money market."

Dall's short memoir adds little to the history of the New Deal and skips over his relationship with Anna. Eleanor Roosevelt's and Anna's correspondence reveals that they loathed Dall, who admitted to be on acerbic terms with Louis Howe and other FDR advisers. The title My Exploited Father-in-law refers to Dall's belief that sinister forces, represented in part by Howe, Bernard Baruch, Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, and Henry Morgenthau, manipulated FDR in the service of the "Godless Dictatorship" of the "One-Money-One-World-Super State".

Dall became convinced that an "evil" global conspiracy, which he traced back to the Illuminati, secretly controlled history for its own enrichment. He wrote: I have depicted the "Goliath," here, and I have fashioned "A Stone for Goliath," as it were...Behold it: the Federal Reserve Board with its shadowy new international counterparts, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Prince Bernhard's farflung Bilderberg Group and lastly their discredited stooge, the self-described United Nations.

Dall's memoir contains historically interesting details of his conversations with Commander George Earle, who while serving in Istanbul in 1943 attempted to negotiate a separate peace with Germany's Wilhelm Canaris and Franz von Papen; and with Admiral Husband Kimmel, who believed he was deliberately set up by the White House at Pearl Harbor. He was interviewed by film maker Anthony J. Hilder about FDR and the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Dall was the chairman of the board of the Amalgamated Broadcasting System.

Dall became involved with the "racist Right's ill-fated efforts at forming a third party". In 1960 the Texas-based Constitution Party put-up retired Marine Corps Brigadier General Merritt B. Curtis for president, and campaign manager Curtis B. Dall for vice-president.

In 1968, his name was filed for the Presidential primaries in New Hampshire. He was then a member of the Christian Crusade National Advisory Board and Chairman of "Liberty Lobby" Board of Policy. In 1971, he was Chairman of the Liberty Lobby.

He died in Beaufort, South Carolina in 1991, aged 94.

Works

• Hilder, Anthony J. The War Lords of Washington - ISBN 0935036431, 9780935036435 - A 50-page transcript of an interview with Colonel Curtis Dall, FDR's son-in-law, about Roosevelt's chicanery over Pearl Harbor.

Sources

• Memorials > Curtis B. Daft '20, Princeton Alumni Weekly, June 3, 1992
• National Park Service bio of Anna
• Social Security Death Index
• "Curtis Bean Dall" on OneWorldTree, hosted at Ancestry.com (subscription required)
• Syracuse Herald, Jul 6, 1936. Picture of Curtis B Dall with his two children
• Syracuse Herald Journal, Feb 2, 1968. Picture. Name filed for New Hampshire Presidential primary
• Dall, Curtis: My Exploited Father-in-Law, Christian Crusade Publications, Tulsa, OK, 1968.
• Hansen, Chris: Enfant Terrible: The Times and Schemes of General Elliott Roosevelt, Able Baker Press, Tucson, AZ, 2012.
• Roosevelt, Curtis: Too Close to the Sun, Public Affairs, New York, 2008.

External links

• Franklin Roosevelt, My Exploited Father-in-Law (1968) e-book

Further reading

• The Franklin D Roosevelt Library at NARA has recently "...received correspondence between Curtis B. Dall, Anna Roosevelt's first husband, and the Roosevelt family, donated by his daughter Mary Dall Twichell...." http://www.archives.gov/research/accessions/2006-quarter-3.html
• The New York State Archives has 34 feet (10 m) of the Anna Roosevelt papers. http://www.archives.nysed.gov/a/researchroom/rr_health_mh_recguide.shtml