Dewey Defeats Truman: The 1948 Election and the Battle for America's Soul
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“If we’re going to have”: McCullough, Truman, p. 521.
“a lot of second-rate guys”: “New Faces of 1946,” Smithsonian, November 2006.
“If Truman wanted to elect”: Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, p. 230.
“The undertaker described him”: Walter Francis White, A Man Called White: The Autobiography of Walter White (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), p. 324.
“The facts discovered by our”: Ibid., p. 323.
“My God! . . . I had no idea”: Ibid., p. 331.
“I had as callers yesterday”: Letter, Harry S. Truman to Attorney General Tom Clark, with attached memo to David Niles, September 20, 1946, Research Files, President’s Committee on Civil Rights, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/letter-harry-s-truman-attorney-general-tom-clark-attached-memo-david-niles?documentid=NA&pagenumber=2
“I am very much in earnest”: Ibid.
“The main difficulty with the South”: Harry S. Truman to E. W. Roberts, August 18, 1948, Research Files, President’s Committee on Civil Rights, Correspondence Between Harry S. Truman and Ernie Roberts, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/correspondence-between-harry-s-truman-and-ernie-roberts?documentid=NA&pagenumber=3.
“Everything’s going to be”: Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, p. 33.
“loaded with political dynamite”: Diary entry of Henry Wallace, July 30, 1946, in Wallace, The Price of Vision, p. 606.
“You just don’t understand”: Ed Cray, General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman (New York: Cooper Square, 2000), p. 657.
“The Middle East could well fall”: “Memorandum by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the State–War–Navy Coordinating Committee,” June 21, 1946, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, the Near East and Africa, vol. 7, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1946v07/d489.
“After I set forth my reasons”: Oral History Interview with Loy W. Henderson (transcript), 1973, Oral History Interviews, Truman archives, p. 132.
“resist at all costs”: Nokrashy Pasha to Harry Truman, undated, Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 2, Years of Trial and Hope, 1946–1952 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956), pp. 134–35.
“in Hitler’s concentration and extermination”: Robert F. Wagner, with signatures of eight other senators, to Harry Truman, June 20, 1946, President’s Secretary’s Files, Recognition of the State of Israel, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/assorted-members-us-senate-harry-s-truman.
“I am in a tough spot”: Oral History Interview with Oscar R. Ewing (transcript), 1969, Oral History Interviews, Truman archives, p. 276.
“Those New York Jews!”: “President Calls Pearson ‘Liar’ over Jewish Story,” Los Angeles Times, March 12, 1948.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen”: Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, p. 322.
“It was a cruel time to put”: McCullough, Truman, p. 482.
“God damn you”: Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, p. 165.
3. “Can He Swing the Job?”
“Here was a man who came”: Oral History Interview with Robert G. Nixon (transcript), 1970, Oral History Interviews, Truman archives, p. 159.
“by accident”: Truman, speaking in At Home with Harry & Bess, introductory film at the Harry S. Truman National Historic Site visitor center, Independence, Missouri.
“When I was about six”: Longhand note, May 14, 1934, Longhand Notes File (“Pickwick Papers”), Harry S. Truman Papers, President’s Secretary’s Files, Truman archives.
“You don’t want to marry”: McCullough, Truman, pp. 91–92.
“He ended up being paralyzed”: Oral History Interview with Mary Jane Truman (transcript), 1975, Oral History Interviews, Truman archives, p. 3.
“You have to understand how”: Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman, p. 6.
“Democrats were not made”: Ibid., p. 50.
“You may invite the entire”: Elizabeth “Bess” Wallace to Harry Truman, March 16, 1919, Papers of Bess Truman, Box 86, Truman archives.
“my Jewish friend”: A. J. Baime, The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), p. 61.
SHIRTS, COLLARS, HOSIERY: Ibid., p. 62.
“I am still paying on those debts”: Longhand note, May 14, 1934, Longhand Notes File (“Pickwick Papers”), Harry S. Truman Papers, President’s Secretary’s Files, Truman archives.
“How’d you like to be a county judge?”: Jonathan Daniels, The Man of Independence (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1971), p. 109.
“Old Tom Pendergast wanted”: Oral History Interview with Harry H. Vaughan (transcript), 1963, Oral History Interviews, Truman archives, p. 12.
“Nobody knows him”: Oral History Interview with James P. Aylward (transcript), 1968, Oral History Interviews, Truman archives, pp. 62–64.
“Do you mean seriously to”: Ibid.
“Boss Pendergast’s Errand Boy”: Baime, The Accidental President, p. 74.
“Work hard, keep your mouth shut”: McCullough, Truman, p. 213.
“If you had seen Harry Truman”: “Uncompromising Freshman of 1934,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 11, 1942.
“not considered brilliant”: “New Faces in the Senate,” Washington Post, November 12, 1934.
“The terrible things done by the high”: Harry Truman to Bess Truman, October 1, 1935, Papers of Harry S. Truman Pertaining to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs, Box 8, Truman archives.
“We didn’t give him a chance”: Oral History Interview with A. J. Granoff (transcript), 1969, Oral History Interviews, Truman archives, p. 86.
“I am introducing a Resolution”: Harry S. Truman, speech on the Senate floor, Congressional Record, February 10, 1940.
“To thousands, the first question”: “Truman Report Wins Author Popularity,” Washington Post, March 8, 1942.
“Truman just dropped into the slot”: Jonathan Daniels, “How Truman Got to Be President,” Look, August 1, 1950.
“Bob . . . have you got that fellow”: Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 192.
“Good God! Truman will be President!”: Baime, The Accidental President, p. 35.
“The gravest question mark in”: Diary entry of Arthur H. Vandenberg, April 12, 1945, in Arthur H. Vandenberg Jr., ed., The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1952), p. 165.
4. “I Was Amazed at How Calm He Seemed in the Face of Political Disaster”
“blooming chrysanthemum”: Diary entry of Henry A. Wallace, July 9, 1946, in Wallace, The Price of Vision, p. 583.
“You will look toward Washington”: Ibid.
“was impossible under the present”: “Stalin Sets a Huge Output Near Ours in Five Year Plan,” New York Times, February 10, 1946.
“From Stettin in the Baltic to”: Winston Churchill, Iron Curtain Speech, March 5, 1946, YouTube video, AP archive, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2FM3_h33Tg.
“I have been increasingly disturbed”: Henry Wallace to Harry Truman, July 23, 1946, in Wallace, The Price of Vision, p. 589.
“It looks as though Henry”: Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, p. 221.
“That’s right . . . Yes, that is”: Diary entry of Henry Wallace, September 12, 1946, in Wallace, The Price of Vision, p. 612.
“The President apparently saw”: Ibid., p. 613.
“no time to read the speech”: “The Truman Memoirs: Part V,” Life, October 24, 1955.
“Mr. President . . . in a speech”: The President’s News Conference (transcript), September 12, 1946, Public Papers, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/216/presidents-news-conference.
“I am neither anti-British”: William E. Leuchtenburg, The American President: From Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 262.
“You and I spent 15 months”: James F. Byrnes, Speaking Frankly (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1
947), pp. 241–42.
“We can only cooperate with one”: Diary of Arthur H. Vandenberg, excerpted in Arthur H. Vandenberg Jr., ed., The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, p. 301.
“has been no change in the”: Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman, pp. 316–17.
“worse as we go along”: Harry S. Truman to Martha Ellen and Mary Jane Truman, September 18, 1946, Papers of Harry S. Truman Pertaining to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs, Box 19, Truman archives.
“The public is profoundly”: Diary entry of Henry Wallace, September 18, 1946, in Wallace, The Price of Vision, p. 618.
“there is a school of military thinking”: Ibid., Henry Wallace to Harry Truman, July 23, 1946, p. 589.
“You don’t want this thing out”: John C. Culver and John Hyde, American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), p. 426.
“I called him and told him”: Harry Truman to Bess Wallace, September 21, 1946, Papers of Harry S. Truman Pertaining to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs, Box 15, Truman archives.
“I believe he’s a real Commy”: Harry Truman to Bess Wallace, September 20, 1946, ibid.
“I have today asked Mr. Wallace”: Transcript of the President’s News Conference on Foreign Policy, September 20, 1946, Public Papers, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/219/presidents-news-conference-foreign-policy.
“There were audible gasps”: Diary entry of Eben Ayers, September 20, 1946, in Ayers, Truman in the White House, p. 158.
“Well, the die is cast”: Ibid., p. 159.
“The Wallace thing is getting”: Harry Truman to Bess Wallace, September 17, 1946, Papers of Harry S. Truman Pertaining to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs, Box 15, Truman archives.
“To be a good President”: Harry Truman to Margaret Truman, letter quoted in “HST Talked of Ethics, Scorned Snivelers,” Atlanta Constitution, December 3, 1972.
“Had enough?”: Numerous mentions in books and in the press, such as “Had Enough?,” Los Angeles Times, October 21, 1946.
“Well, the show’s over”: “Truman Votes at 9, Heads for Capital,” New York Times, November 6, 1946.
“I was amazed at how calm”: Clark Clifford, with Richard Holbrooke, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 1991), p. 83.
“I am only suggesting that”: “Fulbright Invites Truman to Resign,” New York Times, November 7, 1946.
“Senator Halfbright”: “New Faces of 1946,” Smithsonian, November 2006.
“the Great White Jail”: Numerous references in Truman’s letters and diaries, including Harry Truman to Bess Truman, September 28, 1947, Papers of Harry S. Truman Pertaining to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs, Box 16, Truman archives.
“The damn place is haunted”: Ibid., Harry Truman to Bess Truman, September 9, 1946.
5. “You Are Getting as Much Publicity as Hitler”
“confusion and chaos”: “Dewey Appeals for All to Vote,” New York Times, November 5, 1946.
“Dewey for President!”: Herbert Brownell, with John P. Burke, Advising Ike: The Memoirs of Attorney General Herbert Brownell (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1993), p. 44.
“What has happened today”: “Dewey Rides Crest of Wave Toward Nomination in 1948,” Christian Science Monitor, November 6, 1948.
“riding the very crest of the 1946”: Ibid.
“Governor . . . are you ready”: “Dewey Not in Race for ’48 Nomination Now,” New York Times, December 19, 1946.
“This didn’t make him popular”: Brownell, Advising Ike, p. 40.
“A good many people have”: Scott Farris, Almost President: The Men Who Lost the Race but Changed the Nation (Guilford, CT: Lyons, 2012), p. 138.
“The long tenure of the Democratic”: Joe Martin, My First Fifty Years in Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960), p. 163.
“The greatest advantage I had”: Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Touchstone, 1990), p. 36.
“Anyone seeking to unseat an”: Ibid., p. 41.
“The public’s reaction to last”: “Democratic Oblivion in 1948, Public’s Guess,” Los Angeles Times, December 16, 1946.
“The always efficient Gov. Thomas”: “Matter of Fact: The Dewey Jitters,” Washington Post, December 20, 1946.
“A ten-pound Republican voter”: Smith, Thomas E. Dewey, p. 60.
“it was one of those things”: Ibid., p. 61.
“To me it seems vitally important”: Henry L. Stimson, On Active Services in Peace and War (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), p. 22.
“a novel idea in those days”: Thomas E. Dewey, Twenty Against the Underworld (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974), p. 139.
“He gave you the impression”: Smith, Thomas E. Dewey, p. 121.
“Gentlemen . . . there will be a lot”: Ibid., p. 135.
“The mobs had a tremendous”: Dewey, Twenty Against the Underworld, p. 5.
“They did not look like cops”: Ibid., pp. 158–59.
“Gangsters Split Girls’ Tongues”: Headlines from ibid., p. 219.
“the meanest poultry racketeer”: Ibid. Quotes describing gangsters are from captions in photo insert.
“Hines Guilty”: Ibid.
“You made a glorious run”: Arthur Vandenberg to Thomas Dewey, November 11, 1938, Thomas E. Dewey Papers, Series 10, Box 44, Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester.
“I have confidence in the”: “Dewey Opens Drive for Presidency on Recovery Issue,” New York Times, December 2, 1939.
“thrown his diaper into”: “Harold L. Ickes,” Washington Post, March 8, 1948.
“You are getting as much publicity”: Smith, Thomas E. Dewey, p. 276.
“Dewey would always take on”: Brownell, Advising Ike, p. 47.
“How can the Republican Party”: “Thomas E. Dewey, 68, Dies,” Washington Post, March 17, 1971.
“one of the most vitriolic speeches”: “Dewey Calls F.D.R.’s Record ‘Desperately Bad,’” Boston Daily Globe, September 26, 1944.
“I still think he’s a son of a bitch”: Farris, Almost President, p. 11.
“The Truman administration is”: “Report of Herbert Brownell Jr., Chairman to the Republican National Committee,” April 1, 1946, Thomas E. Dewey Papers, Series 2, Box 38.
“It has been wickedly said”: “Matter of Fact: Governor Dewey Grows,” Washington Post, November 4, 1946.
“As long ago as Philadelphia”: “Hotel Confab Picks Dewey’s Veep,” Salt Lake City Tribune, April 6, 1952.
6. “It Is a Total ‘War of Nerves’”
“Our nation is faced today”: “Eisenhower, Spaatz, and Nimitz Call on the United States to Retain Strength,” New York Times, August 30, 1947.
“I think it’s one of the”: David McCullough interview with Clark Clifford, quoted in McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 554.
“the most disturbing statement ever”: Bruce Robellet Kuniholm, The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 407.
“They were shockers”: Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969), p. 217.
“very convinced . . . that there”: Robert J. Donovan, Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996), p. 278.
“The next eighteen months look”: James Forrestal to Charles Thomas, February 24, 1947, in Forrestal, The Forrestal Diaries, edited by Walter Millis (New York: Viking, 1951), p. 240.
“patient but deadly struggle”: George F. Kennan, “Telegraphic Message from Moscow of February 22, 1946,” excerpted in Kennan, Memoirs 1925–1950 (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1967), p. 550.
“Development of atomic weapons”: Clark Clifford and George Elsey, “American Relations with the Soviet Union” (“Clifford-Elsey Report”), September 24, 1946, Truman archives, http
s://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/report-american-relations-soviet-union-clark-clifford-clifford-elsey-report?documentid=NA&pagenumber=1.
“If it leaked it would blow”: Clark Clifford, with Richard Holbrooke, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 1991), p. 123.
“This was, I believe, the turning”: Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 2, Years of Trial and Hope (New York: Doubleday, 1956), p. 106.
“we prepare for war”: Harry Truman to Bess Truman, September 30, 1947, Papers of Harry S. Truman Pertaining to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs, Box 16, Truman archives.
“It is not alarmist to say”: George Marshall, “Statement to Congressional Leaders, Top Secret,” February 27, 1947, George C. Marshall Foundation, https://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/digital-archive/6-029-statement-congressional-leaders-february-27-1947/.
“The choice . . . is between acting”: Ibid.
“Mr. President, if you will say”: Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 219.
“All . . . were aware”: Ibid., p. 220.
“the opening gun in a campaign”: John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), p. 350.
“The gravity of the situation”: President Harry S. Truman’s Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, March 12, 1947, Public Papers, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/56/special-message-congress-greece-and-turkey-truman-doctrine.
“We may agree the next time”: Ed Cray, General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000), p. 605.
“Europe was recovering slowly”: Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Statesman 1945–1959 (New York: Viking, 1987), p. 196.
“Disintegrating forces are”: George C. Marshall radio address, April 28, 1947, excerpted at US Department of State, Office of the Historian, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1947v03/d133.
“without delay . . . Avoid trivia”: McCullough, Truman, p. 561.