Schlesinger

by Richard Aldous

  What made the situation doubly difficult for Schlesinger was that Marbury was a member of the Harvard Corporation. To Schlesinger’s astonishment, Marbury arrived in his office in Widner unannounced, demanding to know on what basis he was spreading rumors about Hiss. “He then went into a long song-and-dance about his own absolute conviction of Hiss’s innocence,” Schlesinger reported to Joseph Alsop. “I need not state my astonishment and dismay over the action of a member of the Harvard Corporation seeking, in the interests of one of his clients in private law practice, to bring pressure on a member of the Harvard faculty. In any case, he did not get very far.”15

  Whatever Schlesinger’s reputation as a gossip, he had felt no compunction about passing along Chambers’s allegation about Hiss to the State Department in 1946. By the 1950s, however, he was increasingly alarmed about the witch-hunt atmosphere in Washington for which critics such as Dalton Trumbo said he bore some responsibility. Disgust at the inquisitorial tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who would appear before television cameras brandishing lists of what he claimed were Communist sympathizers (including in 1952 Schlesinger himself), soon edged out older concerns about the penetration of the US government by Soviet agents. “Obviously the central and overriding enemy of cultural freedom in the world is Communism,” he wrote anxiously to the novelist James Farrell, “but I doubt very much whether Communism can be plausibly considered the central and overriding enemy of cultural freedom within the United States today.” The battles of the ’30s and ’40s did not need to be refought. “As you know, I fought some of those battles too,” he reminded Farrell, “but I believe now that we have better things to do than to pay off old scores.”16

  As American politics in the early 1950s turned ever more paranoid and intolerant, divisions within the Left about how to deal with McCarthyism became increasingly rancorous. The debates played out in a series of American Committee for Cultural Freedom meetings in March 1952. Farrell took the lead, arguing that if “our object in the United States was to deal with conditions of cultural freedom . . . we ought to go after McCarthyism.” The majority, however, led by the likes of Sidney Hook and Daniel Bell, resisted a blanket condemnation of McCarthy or his -ism. Writing to the political thinker Hannah Arendt on March 14, the novelist Mary McCarthy despaired, “I can’t believe that these people seriously think that Stalinism on a large scale is latent here, ready to revive at the slightest summons. But if they don’t think this, what do they really think?” To Schlesinger, she complained of “the miserable sophistry,” adding, “I wish the Committee would go on record as condemning McCarthy by name.”17

  It was these divisive meetings that provoked Schlesinger to give the CIA’s Frank Wisner an account of events and to express his fears about the direction in which the ACCF was heading. Later he also wrote to Cord Meyer, Wisner’s deputy, to reinforce the point. “My concern about the ACCF was the role of ex-Communists so obsessed with Communism that they defended Joe McCarthy and argued that critics of McCarthy were ‘objectively’ (an old Communist Party formulation) pro-Communist,” he reported, adding that he thought “the ACCF an increasingly useless body.”18

  In the spring of 1952, just as Schlesinger was losing interest in the ACCF, other political opportunities unexpectedly opened for him. On March 29, Schlesinger’s ADA friend, Joseph Rauh, offered him a last-minute spare ticket to hear President Truman address the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner (an annual Democratic Party fundraiser) in Washington, DC. Borrowing a black tie from Philip Graham and hoping no one would notice that he was wearing a dark blue suit rather than a tuxedo, he soon found himself gossiping with his old boss Averell Harriman, Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, and ADA chairman Wilson Wyatt—“the three nicest men in public life.” After the dinner, Truman, apparently preparing to run for a full second term, gave a “lively” speech “delivered with humor and composure”; it was, Schlesinger said afterwards, “a good, fighting campaign speech.” Which is a reason why most in the room were astounded when at the end Truman announced that he would not be running in November. “He hurriedly finished the speech, leaving the audience still stunned,” Schlesinger wrote in his diary. “Half the people did not seem to know what had happened.”19

  Harriman had already asked Schlesinger to join him for a drink at the Metropolitan Club after the dinner. Now Stevenson joined them, for the first of a series of awkward “After you,” “No, after you” conversations between two contenders for the nomination, both of whom, it seemed, thought it too vulgar to say they wanted the job. Harriman pressed Stevenson to run “for the sake of the party and of the nation.” Stevenson buried his head in his hands and “looked as if he were going to cry,” telling Harriman, “at the moment I don’t give a goddamn what happens to the party or the country.” Either way, Schlesinger now found himself one step closer to the inside track.20

  His view of Truman had risen since the 1948 election, when he had hoped the thirty-third president would decline to run again. By 1952, he had even written, with the New Yorker’s Richard Rovere, a best-selling polemic that praised Truman for firing General Douglas MacArthur, the media-hungry commander of US forces in Korea, on April 11, 1951, for insubordination. Schlesinger had written to Harriman, the president’s special assistant, a few days before MacArthur was fired, pointing out that “no general has so systematically lobbied and intrigued against his commander-in-chief since McClellan [sacked by Lincoln].” MacArthur should be recalled, he urged, a decision that might “be greeted favorably” and “break through the present miasmic atmosphere and reestablish the sense of presidential leadership and initiative.” Certainly Schlesinger did his best to shape that positive opinion. His three-hundred-page book with Rovere, turned around in just ninety days, added fuel to the flames of an already intense national debate. On one side stood the China Lobby and the Asia First faction; on the other, internationalists and the “Wise Men” of the East Coast foreign policy establishment, notably Harriman. How extraordinary it was, Schlesinger and Rovere told readers, that MacArthur, a general who “had been forced, through apparent bungling on his part, to order one of the most tragic retreats in the history of American arms [from the 38th parallel],” and who had attempted to “usurp the diplomatic function” of the president, then “returned and rode the streets, not in a cart, but in a conqueror’s Cadillac.” With such rhetoric, The General and the President was read and discussed, said the New York Times, “as passionately almost as the subject which gave it rise,” enthralling anti-MacArthurites but outraging his supporters. “The young man wanting to know how to write so that he can whittle a great man down to any desired dimension,” judged S. L. A. Marshall, a chief US Army combat historian, “could use this [book] as a model.”21

  One person who did appreciate the book, however, was Harry Truman, who wrote to “Doctor Schlesinger” on November 5 to say “you analyzed the situation just as it is.” As to MacArthur, the president remarked, “like all other egotists do, he wanted to place the blame as far from himself as possible.” Schlesinger was delighted, replying that “We felt that the facts ought to be placed squarely on the record; and we are gratified indeed to know that you did not find our analysis too far off the beam.” In what might have been a sycophantic flourish had he not already said much the same in print, Schlesinger reassured Truman, correctly, that “the relief of MacArthur will go down, I am confident, as one of the wisest and most courageous of the many wise and courageous decisions of your administration.”22

  But would Truman run again? As the election year came around, Schlesinger prepared a note for Adlai Stevenson urging him to be ready to run. “I do not think President Truman knows yet (any more than FDR at this point in 1940) whether or not he will run again,” he said, and “even if he had made his decision, moreover, there would be no point in communicating it.” But Stevenson had to prepare in the event that Truman did not run, he urged. “Your name is constantly being mentioned in this connection,” he told Stevenson, so “it seems to me th
at more ought to be done in the next months to acquaint [the] country with you and your record.” Keep your name “before the public eye,” he advised, pointing out that “after all, a deadlocked convention might lead to anything.” To Joseph Rauh, a Stevenson confidant and ADA friend, he added the practical suggestion “that we should get out rather quickly a biography of Adlai—and not a hack job either.”23

  By January 1952, not only had Truman decided against running, he had even quietly informed Stevenson of this fact. “Early in January 1952, I asked Adlai Stevenson, governor of Illinois to come to the Blair House for a talk,” Truman recalled that July. “I told him that I would not run for President again and that it was my opinion he was best fitted for the place.” Stevenson told him that he would be standing again as governor and would not run for two offices at the same time. Truman tried again on March 4, telling him, “I felt that in Stevenson I had found the man to whom I could safely turn over the responsibility of party leadership.”24

  After this second meeting Stevenson paid a call on Schlesinger in Cambridge to survey the ground, while again taking care to restate his reluctance about entering any race (a familiar posture). Schlesinger advised that, in the event, if Stevenson did not run, the next months “will really tear apart the Democratic Party.” “You are the only solution,” Schlesinger told him. Afterwards, he wrote to Stevenson “to say that, while I appreciate better the complexity of your position, I still hope like hell that you can see your way clear to becoming a candidate.” Four days later, Truman brought the issue to its pressing point by announcing his withdrawal.25

  On April 16, Stevenson at last appeared to make a decision, announcing that he would not be seeking the nomination, on the previously stated grounds that he was already a gubernatorial candidate in Illinois. His close confidant and protege, George Ball, believed the reluctance was more political, “largely, I think, because he thought he could not beat Eisenhower [the emerging Republican candidate].” Stevenson’s sage withdrawal, however, opened up a pathway for Averell Harriman. Except that Stevenson could never quite manage to tear himself away. Only a day after his statement on the presidency, Stevenson turned up for a vast New York fundraising dinner at which Harriman was the guest of honor, and inevitably stole his thunder. Harriman, despite Schlesinger’s best efforts, was not a good public speaker, and, unnerved by Stevenson’s presence, he blew his chance with a dull, faltering performance. “Probably the trouble was that he tried too hard,” the Alsop brothers wrote in their syndicated column, “for he is conscious of his peculiar problem, and he works over his major speeches so endlessly and painstakingly that he tends to go stale before delivering them.” Afterward, Stevenson slipped the knife in, noting that while Harriman “would make a very good president,” his performance “had not pleased the politicians” and demonstrated that he probably could not beat Eisenhower.26

  By the time the delegates arrived at the Chicago Democratic convention in late July, matters remained unresolved, with none of the leading candidates, including Harriman, Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, and Senator Richard Russell Jr. of Georgia having anything close to enough votes to secure the nomination. “We are still living in the age of miracles if we believe in them enough,” Harriman urged his young speechwriter. Schlesinger had worked hard for Harriman, but by that July he believed the only chance for victory was an endorsement from Truman. “It is my guess that the President will support you and that you will have enough votes to keep Adlai from entering seriously,” he advised. “I do not think Adlai wants the nomination if he has to make a real fight for it; I think he means it rather literally when he talks about a draft. So I am tempted to think he may not yet become a really serious candidate.” But Harriman had been unable to reach the president, who, for reasons genuine or political, had checked himself into Walter Reed Hospital with a viral infection. Truman thereby avoided delivering the news to his old friend, an unusually rich one, that he had given up on his chances of winning the nomination. Instead, as a courtesy, Truman intended to back the vice president, Alben W. Barkley, who stood little chance of winning. Sensing the shifting tides, Schlesinger warned Harriman that he needed to be nimble at the convention. Go for the win if he could, Schlesinger advised, but be ready to take the kudos as kingmaker too. “If the moment should come when it seems certain [Stevenson] will be nominated,” he wrote, “perhaps you ought to consider coming out for him.” Schlesinger advised this course “reluctantly” but pointed out the prize it might bring: “If you do it early enough to bring a large number of delegates over, you will be the logical candidate for Secretary of State.”27

  At the convention, Schlesinger became the obvious go-between for Harriman and Stevenson. “You’re the only contact I have,” Harriman told him. As the convention began, Schlesinger found Harriman “calm, resolute, hopeful, not too bitter about Adlai.” Early on the morning of July 22, Harriman phoned to ask Schlesinger to visit Stevenson and extract a promise of public support. Schlesinger finally saw the governor that afternoon. In a “long, meandering conversation,” Stevenson eventually revealed his hopes. “I’ve done everything I could for Averell,” he said, adding without apparent irony, “short of coming out for him.” But Harriman’s political strength was “very discouraging.” If he were nominated, Averell would be a “disunity candidate” and “the party would take a terrible beating.” Finally, Schlesinger was able to bring Stevenson around to revealing his plan, even if a level of rhetorical hypocrisy remained. “He sketched very clearly his own design as to how he hoped things would work out,” Schlesinger recorded in his journal. “He did not want the nomination, he said, and if he had to take it, he hoped it would come only because the available candidates all recognized that none of them could win. Having mutually exhausted each other he hoped they would all come to him and ask him to run.”

  “My overall impression was that Adlai would reluctantly run,” Schlesinger concluded, keeping a straight face. He promised to do his best to prevent the relationship with Harriman hardening into “a permanent grudge,” urging Stevenson to phone Averell in person.28

  Over a “tête-à-tête dinner” with Harriman, Schlesinger delivered the bad news. “Win or lose,” he consoled him, “you have done a fine job and it was all worth the effort.” The stoic Harriman refrained from shooting the messenger. “He seemed, on the whole, to be in excellent condition, if weary,” Schlesinger recorded, “though his prospects . . . seem fairly hopeless.” The following day, after taking various soundings, Harriman asked Schlesinger to set up a meeting with Stevenson as quickly as possible.29

  Harriman took Schlesinger along for the meeting, so he saw close-up the painful traversal of hurt feelings and bruised egos. Stevenson began with the disingenuous claim that “he definitely did not countenance any of the pressure moves on his behalf.” He had “little use” for those who had done so. Harriman had to understand that “he had not sought the nomination; he did not want it; if he had to take it, he wanted a genuine draft.” Harriman in turn made it clear that he was not withdrawing, that if he could find a way to make a deal with any of the other candidates he would, but that “he preferred Adlai to any other candidate next to himself and would, if necessary, use his strength to support Adlai against Barkley or Kefauver.”30

  When Harriman was comprehensively beaten in the second round, with Stevenson placed second behind Kefauver, Schlesinger’s advice about becoming the kingmaker came into operation. “I withdraw as a candidate and urge my supporters to cast their votes for my old friend, Governor Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois,” Harriman declared, although with bad timing, because the press got hold of the statement shortly after President Truman’s arrival at the convention, making it look as if he had ordered Harriman to withdraw. Either way, Harriman’s endorsement, now coupled with that of the president, was enough to push Stevenson across the line.31

  Watching Stevenson’s acceptance speech in the hall, and having seen him close-up during the convention, Schlesinger anticip
ated the upcoming campaign with foreboding. Yes, Stevenson was a “complicated, sensitive and distinguished personality.” Certainly the speech had “great polish and dignity,” with “wonderful passages of political polemic [and it] was suffused throughout with a sense of the immensity and impenetrability of the crisis of our time.” And yet, Schlesinger noted, it was like watching an acrobat and waiting for the fall. Stevenson hesitated too much to command confidence, with “too much business . . . about how he had not wanted the job and was not up to it.” Ominously, Schlesinger recalled a comment made to him during the convention that a Stevenson presidency would be like having “Hamlet in the White House.” The contrast with Ike, the man who defeated Hitler, could hardly have been more pronounced.32

  Harriman had emerged from the wreckage of a failed presidential campaign with the grudging respect of many observers. “Of all men, the good Lord gave Averell Harriman nearly the least of the natural equipment of a campaigner,” New York Post columnist Murray Kempton pointed out, and yet the candidate had persevered with the “rising at six; the press of strangers; the business of learning every step of the way.” Certainly Schlesinger’s regard for Harriman had grown steadily throughout the process. “He played a gallant and selfless role,” he wrote to Ursula and Reinhold Niebuhr, “made a clearcut stand on the issues; and gave the liberal position a dignity and a strength it might otherwise have lacked. I saw a good deal of him in his most intimate and troubled moments; and he behaved with a dignity, a decency and a clear-sightedness which were most impressive.” The respect was mutual. There was little denying that the campaign had been poorly run: in the words of Harriman’s official biographer, Rudy Abramson, “He had been a late starter; he had begun without an organization; he had been poorly advised.” Still, no blame attached to Schlesinger, whose delicate liaison with Stevenson, in particular, had been well disguised. A few days after the convention, Harriman phoned Schlesinger to say that he had recommended him to Stevenson for the campaign.33