The Confidante

Wednesday, September 13: The Confidante with Christopher Gorham

The Confidante is the first-ever biography of Anna Marie Rosenberg, the Hungarian Jewish immigrant who became FDR’s closest advisor during World War II and, according to Life, “the most important official woman in the world”—a woman of many firsts, whose story, forgotten for too long, is extraordinary, inspiring, and uniquely American. Her life ran parallel to the front lines of history yet her influence on 20th century America, from the New Deal to the Cold War and beyond, has never before been told.

As Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s special envoy to Europe in World War II she went where the president couldn’t go. She was among the first Allied women to enter a liberated concentration camp, and stood in the Eagle’s Nest, Hitler’s mountain retreat, days after its capture. She guided the direction of the G.I. Bill of Rights and the Manhattan Project. Though Anna Rosenberg emerged from modest immigrant beginnings, equipped with only a high school education, she was the real power behind national policies critical to America winning the war and prospering afterward. Astonishingly, her story remains largely forgotten.

"What The Confidante provides, with cinematic color and encyclopedic clarity, is a resurrection.” —THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

CHRISTOPHER C. GORHAM holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Tufts University, and Syracuse University College of Law. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Literary Hub, and online. THE CONFIDANTE is his first book.

Email tthorpe@clamsnet.org for more information.

Free. Sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Library. 508-645-3360