Letter? I Never Got Any Letter, Herbert.

Hoover wanted FDR to join him in reasserting faith in the old-time conservative philosophy—support for a balanced budget and a stable currency through the gold standard. Had he done so, Hoover confided to a friend, FDR would "have repudiated two thirds of the so-called New Deal."

To avoid being co-opted, and because he felt like taking a vacation (as usual, without Eleanor), Roosevelt spent 12 critical days during the transition aboard Vincent Astor's yacht, selecting top cabinet members in coded ship-to-shore messages. Roosevelt made decisions more impulsively than Obama. "I like the cut of his jib!" he said of Harold Ickes, who was hired five minutes after meeting FDR for the first time. He mixed progressive Republicans like Ickes with conservative Democrats and liberal New Dealers, but stiffed his biggest rival, Al Smith.

After barely escaping assassination when he disembarked in Miami, Roosevelt received an urgent letter from Hoover telling him that a banking crisis that began with bad car loans in Detroit was threatening to melt down the financial system of the United States. FDR still refused to be drawn in. To run out the clock, he ignored the letter and later fibbed to Hoover that his secretary had lost it. Today, of course, FDR's cat-and-mouse game would have been on "Hardball" by 5 p.m.

FDR rightly figured that Hoover had the power to close the banks without his cooperation, but not the guts. If the economy slipped lower still, allowing him to enter stage left as the hero, that was fine with Roosevelt. He'd make the tough decisions when he got to office. Today's Detroit crisis poses a similar challenge to Obama. Should he step in now, or pick through the wreckage of the auto industry after he takes the oath? If he follows the Roosevelt example, he'll choose the latter, more confident course.

Roosevelt's first Inaugural in 1933 is remembered for the line "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." This was actually a bit of inspired nonsense; if you're worried about putting food on the table, that's a fear of something more than fear itself. Instead, FDR's more important line was "action and action now." He used the word "act" or "action" six times in the speech.

It's not a coincidence that in his interview with "60 Minutes," Obama also stressed the importance of immediate action. And he made reference to experimenting with different policies, an echo of FDR's 1932 speech—ghosted by a reporter—in which he said: "The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly"—a novel concept in the Bush era—"and try another. But above all, try something." This became the watchword of the New Deal.