Hi Robert Meeropol, thank you for your post and I am sorry about the spelling mistake. As Dick says Josh White's recording of the song pre-dates the death of Roosevelt.

I have found this in the album notes of the CD Pasiones: Songs of the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 recorded by Jamie O'Reilly and Michael Smith.

Song: 'Beloved Comrade' (performed with a poem by Ernest Hemingway)
Words: Lewis Allan Music: Fred Katz. Written in 1936 for those killed in Spain, frequently sung in memory of President Roosevelt. Josh White was asked to sing this song for President Roosevelt. Tom, the father of director Peter Glazer, was the first to perform this song in public.

Peter Glazer does not mention Beloved Comrade or Robert Meeropol in his book Radical Nostalgia, which is a curious omission if the CD note is correct since the book (just re-issued in paperback)is essentially about the commemoration of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.