Arthur Prettyman

Arthur Prettyman

U.S. Navy. Harry S. Truman Library.

Quick Facts

Significance:

Valet to Franklin Roosevelt

Place of Birth:

Baltimore, Maryland

Date of Birth:

July 20, 1899

Date of Death:

February 4, 1957

Place of Burial:

Arlington, Virginia

Cemetery Name:

Arlington National Cemetery

Arthur Prettyman was born in Baltimore on July 20, 1899. He attended Howard University before entering the navy during World War I. He retired from the Navy after 21 years of service but was recalled from retirement to serve as President Roosevelt’s valet in 1939.

Like those before him, Prettyman was responsible for much activity connected with the president’s daily routines in the bedroom. In effort to be more efficient, he tried to select the president’s wardrobe for the day, but FDR preferred to make his own choices. FDR was very fond of Prettyman, “always making a fuss over Prettyman, kidding him about having a pretty face like his name. Prettyman wore a small, neat moustache and the president teased him about being a lady killer.

Prettyman retorted, “One does not refute the Chief Executive, Mr. President."  

“You would,” replied the President.¹

Prettyman was such a familiar figure, particularly when walking the president’s dog, Fala, that the Secret Service kept him under cover when the president’s location was to remain unknown. Secrecy would break down every time the president’s train stopped and Prettyman would take Fala out for a trackside walk. Consequently, the Secret Service gave Fala a code name of “The Informer.”²

His wife, Mildred, worked at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving in Washington, and often did not know where her husband was when he traveled on secret missions with the president. He traveled with the president to Casablanca and Teheran, and met Chiang Kai-shek, Churchill, Stalin, and other world leaders.

Prettyman was with FDR when he died at Warm Springs. After that, Prettyman served as valet to President Truman, who praised Prettyman as a fine public servant” and “a man of complete loyalty. There was not a better or more efficient man on a job like that.”³ He died February 4, 1957 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
 

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NOTES

¹ Lillian Rogers Parks and Frances Spatz Leighton, The Roosevelts: A Family in Turmoil (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall Inc.), 57.

² It’s not entirely clear if Prettyman or Fala was “The Informer.” See Grace Tully, F.D.R., My Boss, Scribner’s Sons, 1949, p. 131.

³ “Arthur Shelton Prettyman, 57, Served 2 Presidents as Valet,” Evening Star, February 05, 1957, Page A-12.