Dewey Defeats Truman: The 1948 Election and the Battle for America's Soul

by A. J. Baime

  After the 1948 election the southern states that Thurmond represented—the Solid South of the Democratic Party going back to the 1870s—began to migrate to the Republican Party. Today, this region has been solidly for the GOP for half a century. Going back to 1964, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama have tipped Democrat only once, for Jimmy Carter in 1976. In 2016 South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana all cast their electoral votes for Donald J. Trump.

  Four days after the 1948 election, Truman and an official party that included Bess, Margaret, vice president–elect Alben Barkley, and over a dozen others ventured aboard the USS Williamsburg, bound for the naval base at Key West, Florida. There would be volleyball and fishing trips, poker, and plenty of bourbon. The president’s party numbered thirty people, in addition to more than forty reporters and fifteen members of the Secret Service. When they got to the island, according to the president’s official log, “the largest crowd ever assembled at Key West” came out into the streets to welcome them.

  In Key West, however, the business of running the federal government continued to press firmly on Truman’s shoulders. Urgent cables came through the communications room set up at the Key West Naval Station—from Israeli president Chaim Weizmann, with an “urgent appeal” for help as Arab armies were launching a new offensive; from Chiang Kai-shek, who reported that the US-backed Chinese government was about to fall and that “the communist forces in central China are now within striking distance of Shanghai and Nanking.”

  Soon after Truman’s return to the White House from Florida, former State Department official Alger Hiss was indicted on two counts of perjury relating to his denials of accusations that he had been a Communist spy. Cold War paranoia spread across Washington and beyond like a contagion.

  But at the same time, the American people wanted to party, too. In a twist of fate that no fiction writer could have dared to write, the Republican Eightieth Congress—expecting to take control of the White House in 1948—had voted to up the ante on the Inauguration Day festivities, with an unprecedented $80,000 budget. That money was now at Truman’s disposal. A million people filled the streets for the 1949 inaugural fete, the first to be televised. One hundred million more listened via radio. There were jet-propelled bombers roaring overhead, thirty bands playing, more than forty floats motoring by in a parade, and an inauguration dinner featuring “Salad Margaret” and “Sandwiches Independence.” The man who administered the thirty-five-word presidential oath to Truman was none other than Fred Vinson, the chief justice of the Supreme Court and the focal figure of the Vinson-mission fiasco during the campaign.

  That afternoon, Truman stood on a platform watching dignitaries roll by in cars in the traditional inaugural parade, smiling and waving at each of them. When Strom Thurmond’s car cruised by, Truman suddenly stopped waving and turned his back on the South Carolina governor. Thurmond would later recall that Truman’s voice was picked up by a microphone. According to Thurmond, Truman told the new VP, Alben Barkley, “Don’t you wave to the S.O.B.”

  Truman’s first major appearance after the election was his first speech as an elected president: the 1949 State of the Union address. In speechwriting meetings before the event, Truman explained that he was going to double down on the same liberal policies that had turned the country against him when he released his 21-Point Program to Congress in September of 1945. He would fight for universal military training, a higher minimum wage, investment in education programs, wider Social Security coverage, and a healthcare system that would “enable every American to afford good medical care.” He would also begin his fight to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act. Advisers asked him if he was going too far, too fast. This was what the people had voted for, Truman said, and this was what they were going to get.

  In his speech on January 5, 1949, Truman packaged his policies—echoes of the New Deal era—as the “Fair Deal.” The reaction was mixed, running from outright approval to stiff dissension. And so began the tug-of-war of the Democratic process, all over again.

  Truman had won four more years, but they promised to be years that would put decisions on the president’s desk of incalculable risk, with stakes that could not be measured. Dangers lurked in all directions, and the existence of the human race was at stake. Americans could only hope that they had made the right choice on November 2. The CBS radio man Edward R. Murrow finished his election-result broadcast in 1948 by saying: “He [the president] . . . is beset by massive problems. I do not know whether the next four years will reveal him to be a great President. But they had better.”

  Acknowledgments

  On any number of nights during the writing and editing of this book, I awoke at 2 a.m. in a cold sweat, wondering how I was going to finish this thing, what critics might think of it, what minute fact I might get wrong, or which of the thousands of sentences was not perfectly constructed. And finally: how I could ever thank all the people who helped me, in ways maybe they don’t even know.

  This is my fourth book with the same publisher and agent. Thank you to all the team at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, particularly my editors Bruce Nichols, Ivy Givens, and Jennifer Freilach. My agent Scott Waxman of the Waxman Literary Agency has been my teammate now for over ten years and I am so blessed to call him my friend. Megan Wilson at HMH is a superstar and so too is Melissa Dobson, who copyedited this book. Endless thank-yous to all of you!

  I would like to thank the archivists at the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum in Independence, Missouri; at the University of Rochester library’s Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation division; and at Columbia University’s Oral History Archives. The work that archivists do is imperative to preserving and understanding our nation’s history, and the fact that all these archives exist and that people can have access to them is a testament to the freedom that is at the root of our democracy.

  A special thank-you goes to Lisa Sullivan and all of the team at the Truman Library Institute, from which I received a research grant. (At no time did anyone from the institute ask to see any part of my manuscript before it was published.) Particular gratitude goes to Professor Jon Taylor at the University of Central Missouri for his careful read of this manuscript.

  The Baime family is a true team. We tackle the challenges of life together. Thank you to my wife, Michelle. Since the day I met you on July 19, 2000, my every day has been better, brighter, and more fulfilling. My kids, Clay and Audrey, I am proud to say, are now Truman experts. I love you both more than I ever thought possible. Keep playing guitars, clarinets, and pianos; keep skiing moguls; keep earning As; and most importantly, keep being you. Thank you to my parents, David and Denise, for so many things, not least of all reading drafts of various chapters of this book. You would have made great editors.

  I would also like to thank the rest of my family, for whom I can never repay for all their love and kindness through the years: Abby Baime, Susan Baime, my Aunt Karen and Uncle Ken Segal, the late Bill Green and the late Mildred Leventhal, my “outlaws” Connie and the late Bill Burdick, Jack and Margo Ezell, my many wonderful cousins of the Crystal/Sabel/Segal clan, Peter and the late Ellen Segal, and the late Ken and Edna Wheeldon.

  To paraphrase Geoffrey Chaucer, go little book!

  Notes

  Harry Truman once wrote, “It is my opinion that the only accurate source of information on which to make a proper historical assessment of the performances of past Presidents is in the presidential files.” For this reason, for this book (and for my previous book, The Accidental President), I spent four weeks collecting material at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum in Independence, Missouri. I also spent a week at the University of Rochester, researching the Thomas Dewey papers, and some time at Columbia University’s library archives, researching the oral histories of members of the 1948 Progressive Party.

  During the last ten-plus years, the process of historical research has changed, for the better. Today, vast amounts of importa
nt and original documentation can be found online. The Truman library has done a marvelous job of making material available. Transcripts of almost every one of Truman’s whistle-stop speeches can be accessed on the library’s website, along with original documents having to do with the Berlin Airlift, Truman’s civil rights fight, the founding of Israel, the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, the 1948 election, and more. Many of Truman’s diaries and letters, as well as numerous oral histories, were instantly available to me in my office in California as I was writing this book. A number of Henry Wallace’s papers are available online, through the University of Iowa. So too is a vast database of newspaper articles via ProQuest, which enabled me to see firsthand the impressions of innumerable reporters who covered the 1948 campaign.

  Still, much of the effort required traditional research and old-fashioned gumshoe reporting, including filing Freedom of Information Act requests for FBI files and hunting through dozens of boxes of documents in library archives. The original papers of Clark Clifford, George Elsey, Margaret Truman, Howard McGrath, William Boyle, and so many others; intelligence files from the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency; State Department files; these documents provided the critical elements of detail and color necessary to put a book like this together.

  Additionally, I used the memoirs and diaries of people who lived these experiences as firsthand accounts. The diaries of Defense Secretary James Forrestal, Senator Arthur Vandenberg, Henry Wallace, and David Lilienthal . . . the published papers of Robert Taft and General Lucius Clay . . . the memoirs of Clark Clifford, Joe Martin, Thomas Dewey, Richard Nixon, Margaret Truman, and Harry Truman . . . all of these sources proved crucial in my attempt to make the reader feel like he or she was in the room during these historic events and historic days.

  The following books also proved vital: American Dreamer: A Life of Henry A. Wallace, by John C. Culver and John Hyde; Thomas E. Dewey and His Times, by Richard Norton Smith; Strom: The Complicated Personal and Political Life of Strom Thurmond, by Jack Bass and Marilyn W. Thompson; and Truman, by David McCullough. Additionally, Inside the Democratic Party, by Jack Redding; Out of the Jaws of Victory, by Jules Abels; and Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948, by Robert J. Donovan, were helpful in laying the groundwork.

  Introduction

  “the most colorful and astonishing”: Robert J. Donovan, Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996), p. 395.

  “a gigantic comedy”: Jules Abels, Out of the Jaws of Victory: The Astounding Election of 1948 (New York: Henry Holt, 1959), p. viii.

  “the wildest campaign”: Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman (New York: Morrow, 1973), p. 1.

  “the Kremlin will sponsor”: Memorandum to Thomas Dewey dated November 15, 1947, Thomas E. Dewey Papers, Series 2, Box 28, Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester.

  “The fate of the nation and”: “Where Politics Should End,” New York Times, August 20, 1948.

  “The history of the”: Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 1, 1945: Year of Decisions (New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1955), p. 120.

  1. “Whither Harry S. Truman?”

  “All in”: “Truman Is at Conference,” Hartford Courant, August 15, 1945.

  “I have received this afternoon”: President’s News Conference, August 14, 1945, Public Papers, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/100/presidents-news-conference.

  “That is all”: Ibid.

  “We want Harry!”: “Truman Replies to Shouts of Crowd,” Christian Science Monitor, August 15, 1945.

  “That was Harry”: David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 462.

  “I told her”: Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 1, Year of Decisions, p. 438.

  “[Truman] was on the White House”: “Truman Leads Cheering Throngs in Capitol’s Wildest Celebration,” Atlanta Constitution, August 15, 1945.

  “This is a great day”: “Peace at Last: Truman Accepts Jap Unconditional Surrender,” Boston Daily Globe, August 15, 1945.

  “We are faced with the greatest”: “Peace Victory: Japs Accept Allied Terms,” Los Angeles Times, August 15, 1945.

  “Everyone seemed to feel”: Diary entry of Henry A. Wallace, August 7, 1945, in Wallace, The Price of Vision: The Diary of Henry Wallace, 1942–1946, edited by John M. Blum (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), p. 471.

  “we appear to be treating”: Harry S. Truman to General Dwight Eisenhower (memorandum enclosing the Harrison Report), September 29, 1945, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://www.ushmm.org/exhibition/displaced-persons/resourc2.htm.

  “Secular history offers few”: Edward R. Murrow, In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, 1938–1961 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), p. 102.

  “Whither Harry S. Truman?”: “Right, Left? Truman Still Not Labeled,” Washington Post, September 9, 1945.

  “The President’s task was”: Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969), p. 730.

  “the foundation of my administration”: Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 482.

  “Sam, one of the things”: Ibid., pp. 482–83.

  “a combination of a first”: Ibid., p. 482.

  “The Congress reconvenes”: “Special Message to the Congress Presenting a 21-Point Program for the Reconversion Period,” September 6, 1945, Public Papers, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/128/special-message-congress-presenting-21-point-program-reconversion-period.

  “The development of atomic energy”: Ibid.

  “The President has to look”: Steve Neal, ed., HST: Memories of the Truman Years (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003), p. 2.

  “Not even President Roosevelt”: Cabell Phillips, The Truman Presidency: The History of a Triumphant Succession (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1966), p. 105.

  “the most far-reaching collection”: Ibid.

  “This begins the campaign of 1946”: Ibid.

  2. “The Buck Stops Here!”

  “[Truman] said . . . he was liable”: Diary entry of Eben Ayers, September 21, 1945, in Eben A. Ayers, Truman in the White House: The Diary of Eben A. Ayers (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991), p. 83.

  “a declaration of war against”: Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 487.

  “Everybody wants something”: Harry S. Truman to Martha Ellen and Mary Jane Truman, September 22, 1945, Papers of Harry S. Truman Pertaining to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs, Box 19, Truman archives.

  “a future war with Soviet”: Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (New York: Vintage, 1995), p. 139.

  “The atomic bomb, and the”: “Cabinet Meeting Minutes, September 21, 1945,” Personal Papers, Matthew J. Connelly Papers, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/personal-papers/notes-cabinet-meetings-i-1945-1946/september-21-1945.

  “We do not have a secret”: Ibid.

  “If we fail to approach them now”: Henry Stimson to Harry S. Truman, September 11, 1945, NuclearFiles.org, http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/correspondence/stimson-henry/corr_stimson_1945-09-11.htm.

  “saving civilization not for”: Ibid.

  “put an end to the world”: Diary entry of Henry Wallace, September 21, 1945, Wallace, The Price of Vision, p. 482.

  “should continue to carry”: Minutes of Cabinet Meeting, September 21, 1945.

  “Science . . . cannot be restrained”: Ibid.

  “Their attitude will make for”: Diary entry of Henry A. Wallace, August 10, 1954, in Wallace, The Price of Vision, p. 475.

  “The pressure here is becoming”: Harry Truman to Martha Ellen Truman, October 13, 1945, Papers of Harry S. Truman Pertaining to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs, Box 19, Truman archives.

  I’M FROM MISSOURI: “The Buck Stops Her
e!” desk sign, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/trivia/buck-stops-here-sign.

  “boldest, most vigorous”: “Truman Makes Strong Plea for Year’s Universal Training,” Christian Science Monitor, October 23, 1945.

  “to maintain the power with”: “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on Universal Military Training,” October 23, 1945, Public Papers, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/174/address-joint-session-congress-universal-military-training.

  “who work for a living”: “Special Message to Congress Recommending a Comprehensive Health Program,” November 19, 1945, Public Papers, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/192/special-message-congress-recommending-comprehensive-health-program.

  “socialized medicine”: Robert Taft, “Speech to the Wayne County Medical Society,” October 7, 1946, Detroit, Michigan, in The Papers of Robert A. Taft, edited by Clarence E. Wunderlin Jr., vol. 3, 1945–1948 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2003), pp. 202–12.

  “the extraordinarily dangerous situation”: Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, p. 128.

  “going to do something with”: Diary entry of Eben Ayers, September 18, 1945, in Ayers, Truman in the White House, p. 81.

  “My mind is not made up”: “Powell Says He Won’t Vote for Truman in ’48,” Chicago Defender, March 2, 1946.

  “the biggest press conference in”: “Ickes Blowup Rocks Capital like an Atom Bomb,” Los Angeles Times, February 14, 1946.

  “un-American . . . enemy of”: Alfred Steinberg, The Man from Missouri: The Life and Times of Harry S. Truman (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1962), p. 298.

  “If I live and have my”: Ibid.

  “I’m just mild about Harry”: William John Bennett, America: The Last Best Hope (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007), p. 286.