What's this about FDR's failure at Yalta

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A.� Hmm. This is a tricky one. It would appear that Franklin D Roosevelt, one of the greatest American presidents, gave too much away to Russia at the Yalta conference in February, 1945.< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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Q.� Why has this just come out

A.� Alen Salerian, a former chief psychiatric consultant to the FBI, has studied Roosevelt's medical records and claims he was gripped by clinical depression. It's an amazing claim and challenges the traditional view of that Roosevelt was determined to grab back land from the Soviet armies occupying much of Europe.

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Q.� What was the conference

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Churchill privately believed that a stronger American president could have saved Czechoslovakia and perhaps Hungary from Russian domination.

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Q.� So the new evidence backs up this theory

A.� It certainly seems that way. Salerian said FDR had suffered a recurrence of depression that had struck after he contracted polio in 1921. Roosevelt, who died two months later during his record fourth term in office, should have stood aside at Yalta for Harry Truman, his vice-president, Salerian claims.

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'It was irresponsible for Roosevelt to represent our country at Yalta, and his illnesses may have had terrible consequences,' Salerian said. He claimed these reports had been hidden by 'Roosevelt's heirs'.

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Q.� And is there any backing for these claims

A.� Yes. Roosevelt expert Andrew Johnsson, a history lecturer at the University of Southern California, said: 'Churchill could not understand why his old ally allowed so much to slip away at Yalta. If Roosevelt was both mentally and physically weak at Yalta, that explains a lot.'

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Whatever the cause, an iron curtain soon fell between the Soviets and the West. Interestingly, the psychiatrist's claims coincide with a new exhibition of presidential portraits at Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Memphis.

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Q.� FDR is featured

A.� Yes. The exhibition includes images of the 42 presidents before George W Bush. Douglas Chandor's portrait of Franklin Roosevelt was a study for a larger painting, never completed, of Roosevelt's 1945 meeting with Churchill and Stalin at Yalta.

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Exhibition curator Frederick S Voss said: 'This portrait ... makes Roosevelt look a lot healthier than he was. He'd just come back from Yalta. He looked terrible. The people around him took one look at him and knew that this was a man who was not going to see the end of his presidency. Within a month and a half of sitting for this picture, he was dead.'

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The lower half of the canvas includes several studies of Roosevelt's hands. In some he's holding a pencil and a pince-nez. 'How different and unique Roosevelt was,' Voss said. 'He had a patrician upbringing, but it never hurt him. What president could get away with fondling his pince-nez in public Not in this era where presidential candidates routinely put on lumberjack shirts and cowboy boots regardless of what part of the country they're from.'

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Steve Cunningham