Dewey Defeats Truman: The 1948 Election and the Battle for America's Soul
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Yalta Conference, 13
Yastrzemski, Carl, 351
Yeager, Chuck, 170
About the Author
© DEREK JOSEPH GIOVANNI
A. J. Baime is the New York Times best-selling author of The Accidental President, The Arsenal of Democracy, and Go Like Hell. A longtime regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, he has also written for the New York Times, Popular Science, and Men’s Journal. He lives in California.
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Footnotes
* This occurred before the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, which placed the Speaker of the House next in line for the presidency after the president and vice president. At the time, the secretary of state would have been next in line.
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* Madison Square Garden later moved to its current location between Seventh and Eighth Avenues and Thirty-First and Thirty-Third Streets.
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* The investigator is likely referring to the Logan Act of 1799.
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* This estimate was overly optimistic. The Soviets would detonate their first atomic bomb roughly fourteen months from the time this memo was written, on August 29, 1949. The United States’ long-range detection system provided verification of the explosion, and the story broke around the world the following month.
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* Idlewild is now John F. Kennedy International Airport, the largest airport servicing New York City.
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* This is why Truman’s hundreds of whistle-stop speeches are available today in the Truman archives.
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* This building is now the Truman Memorial Building.
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* The NBC microphone that H. V. Kaltenborn was speaking into that night is now in the museum collection at the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum in Independence, Missouri.
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* The numbers vary by small amounts depending on the source. The ones listed are from the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
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Contents
Title Page
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
The Disintegration of the Democratic Party “Whither Harry S. Truman?”
“The Buck Stops Here!”
“Can He Swing the Job?”
“I Was Amazed at How Calm He Seemed in the Face of Political Disaster”
The Surging GOP “You Are Getting as Much Publicity as Hitler”
“It Is a Total ‘War of Nerves’”
“The Defeat Seemed like the End of the World”
“Dewey’s Hat Is Tossed into Ring”
“Wall Street and the Military Have Taken Over”
“There’ll Be No Compromise”
“I Will Not Accept the Political Support of Henry Wallace and His Communists”
“For Better or Worse, the 1948 Fight Has Started”
The Conventions “We Have a Dreamboat of a Ticket”
“With God’s Help, You Will Win”
“What Is at Stake Here Is the Very Survival of Western Civilization”
Photos
The Campaigns “A Profound Sense of What’s Right and What’s Wrong”
“What Exciting Times You Are Having!”
“As for Me, I Intend to Fight!”
“They Are Simply a ‘Red Herring’”
“There Is Great Danger Ahead”
“The All-Time Georgia Champion of ‘White Supremacy’”
“We’re Going to Give ’Em Hell”
“The Presidency of the United States Is Not for Sale!”
“You Will Be Choosing a Way of Life for Years to Come”
“The Democratic Party Was Down to Its Last Cent”
Election Climax “This Was the Worst Mistake of the Truman Campaign”
“Could We Be Wrong?”
“The Campaign Special Train Stopped with a Jerk”
“We Are Engaged in a Great Crusade”
“I Stand by My Prediction. Dewey Is In.”
“Tens of Thousands, and Hundreds of Thousands! How Can He Lose?”
“Under No Circumstance Will I Congratulate That Son of a Bitch”
“Dewey Defeats Truman”
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
About the Author
Connect with HMH
Footnotes
Landmarks
Cover