The Secret President
First Lady Edith Wilson secretly ran the country.
After President Woodrow Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke in 1919, he was left partially paralyzed and incapacitated. His wife, Edith Wilson, concealed the true extent of his illness from the public and Congress. For over a year, she acted as a secret steward, deciding which matters were important enough to bring to her husband, effectively running the executive branch in one of history's most shocking presidential cover-ups.