Joseph P. Lash, 77, author, friend of Eleanor Roosevelt

BOSTON (AP) Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph P. Lash, 77,whose works included Eleanor and Franklin, died Saturday inMassachusetts General Hospital.

Mr. Lash died of complications of a heart ailment, said ahospital official.

Mr. Lash, a close friend of the late Eleanor Roosevelt, won aPulitzer in 1971 for his book about President Franklin D. Rooseveltand his wife.

He also wrote Eleanor: The Years Alone in 1972 and Love, Eleanorin 1982.

The latter book focused on letters between Mr. Lash, Mrs.Roosevelt and Mr. Lash's wife, the former Trude W. Pratt. In it, herevealed that previously secret intelligence documents claimed he hadhad an affair with Mrs. Roosevelt in 1943. He denied the reports.

"I felt almost nauseous," he said in an interview in 1982,recalling reports of the alleged affair.

"Anyone who reads that correspondence (in the book) can see myphysical feeling was only for Trude, and whatever feeling Mrs.Roosevelt had, it was platonic."

Mr. Lash also wrote that President Roosevelt did not believe thereports and that records indicate Roosevelt was so angered by thesurveillance that his orders led to the dismantling of the Armycounterintelligence corps.

In 1943, the year of the alleged affair, Mr. Lash was a33-year-old Army Air Corps sergeant studying meteorology at ChanuteField in Illinois. He had met Mrs. Roosevelt through his work as aYoung Socialist leader and was being investigated for communistaffiliations.

He also was the author of Dag Hammarskjold: Custodian of theBrushfire Peace; From the Diaries of Felix Frankfurter; Rooseveltand Churchill, 1939-41, and Helen and Teacher, about Helen Keller.

He is survived by his wife.

A private burial is planned this week on Martha's Vineyard.