How I Saved Roosevelt

The two Americas of Sondheim's Assassins

It is February 15, 1933. In Bayfront Park, Miami, Franklin D. Roosevelt sits on the lowered canvas roof of a green Buick convertible. In less than three weeks, he will become the 32nd president of the United States. Among the 25,000 people who have gathered to hear Roosevelt speak is a slight man in his early thirties by the name of Giuseppe Zangara. He…