Ross McIntire

Background

Ross McIntire was born on August 11, 1889 in Salem, Oregon. He was the son of Charles McIntire, a building contractor, and Ada Thompson.

Education

After early schooling in Salem, McIntire entered Willamette University, now the University of Oregon, Medical School in 1907. He received the M. D. in 1912 and began private practice in his hometown.

Career

In April 1917, two days before America declared war on Germany, McIntire was commissioned assistant surgeon with the rank of lieutenant in the navy medical corps. His first duty was aboard the armored cruiser New Orleans. At the end of the war, McIntire, now a full lieutenant, decided to stay in the navy and remained with the New Orleans on her postwar cruise with the Asiatic fleet and as a station ship at Vladivostok. In 1920, McIntire returned to the United States and during the next decade was stationed at naval hospitals in San Diego and Washington, D. C. , served three tours of duty aboard the hospital ship Relief, and pursued graduate work in his medical specialties, ophthalmology and otolaryngology. He returned to the Naval Hospital, Washington, in 1931 at which time he renewed a wartime friendship with Admiral Cary Grayson, President Woodrow Wilson's physician and former medical director of the navy. It was Grayson who recommended McIntire when Roosevelt asked about a personal doctor. From 1935 to 1945, as personal physician to the president, McIntire saw more of Roosevelt than anyone except Eleanor Roosevelt. Affable and self-assured, McIntire easily joined the small circle of White House intimates who enjoyed the president's confidence. It was McIntire's habit to sit with the president in his bedroom each morning to watch him for any indication of ill health. He visited the president again at 5:30 P. M. and finally at bedtime. Although McIntire was not a specialist in rehabilitation for polio the disease that struck Roosevelt in 1921, he became a conscientious monitor of the president's physical therapy program. McIntire was at Roosevelt's side on many trips, including the Atlantic Conference, Hawaii in 1944, Teheran, and Yalta. Roosevelt's sudden death on April 12, 1945, prompted questions about the state of the president's health during the war years and particularly at the time of the election of 1944.

McIntire was widely criticized for having been overly sanguine about the chief executive's health. Some observers complained that he had been secretive and deceptive, and that because of political considerations had cynically certified a dying man as fit for a fourth term. In rebuttal McIntire said that in 1944 the president had been in excellent condition for a man his age. He never wavered in this opinion. Years later McIntire received support from the doctor most qualified to comment on the case. In 1970, Dr. Howard Bruenn, a young navy cardiologist who had attended Roosevelt in his last year, wrote that during his final year Roosevelt was not too ill to perform the duties of the presidency. While fatigued by hypertension and reduced cardiac reserve, Bruenn said, Roosevelt was able to exercise his judgment and "to use the fruits of his unique knowledge and experience in guiding the war effort. " In the end, the president was felled by a sudden cerebral hemorrhage, a medical occurrence that could not be predicted. He retired as surgeon general on December 31, 1946. In 1947, after leaving the navy, McIntire organized the American Red Cross blood program under which the first regional blood center was opened in Rochester, New York, the following year. When he resigned as national administrator of the program in 1951, he had established forty-three region alblood centers and 120 mobile units. President Harry S. Truman, on the occasion of McIntire's departure, lauded him for his energetic leadership, remarking that the admiral was "one of the large number of people who are willing to do whatever is necessary for the welfare of the country. " From 1947 to 1954, McIntire served as first chairman of the President's Committee for Employment of the Physically Handicapped. This marked the start of the nation's program to meet the employment problems faced by handicapped persons, including 250, 000 disabled World War II veterans. He died in Chicago.

Achievements

• While McIntire was well known as Roosevelt's doctor, he received insufficient recognition for his achievements as surgeon general of the navy and chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. Roosevelt appointed him to the dual posts in 1938 with the temporary rank of rear admiral, assignments that he held in addition to his White House duty. In 1944 he was promoted to vice admiral, the first navy medical man to wear three stars. As surgeon general, McIntire supervised the tremendous wartime expansion of the navy's medical department and, by all accounts, was an outstanding administrator. The final years of McIntire's life were spent as executive director of the International College of Surgeons, a worldwide association devoted to publicizing medical developments and new surgical techniques.

Works

More photos

• book

  • White house physician,

    (5 7/8"x8 5/8" 244 page hardcover published by G. P. Putna...)

  • Handbook Of The Hospital Corps United States Navy 1939
  • Twelve Years with Roosevelt by Ross T McIntire
  • Cineplasty. With a Foreword By Ross T. Mcintire

Personality

In his quiet but forceful way, McIntire helped break down the barriers impeding qualified handicapped people seeking employment. The National Association of Manufacturers cited his leadership as "one of the outstanding achievements of the postwar period. "

Connections

McIntire married Pauline Palmer of New York in 1923. They had no children.

Father:

Charles McIntire

Mother:

Ada Thompson

Wife:

Pauline Palmer McIntire

14 March 1900 - 2 September 1986