Harold Stassen

Eisenhower, the Cold War, and the Pursuit of Nuclear Disarmament

Lawrence S. Kaplan

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780813174860
• eBook ISBN:
  9780813174891
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

1

The Preparatory Years, 1938–1945

Young Stassen had many of the qualifications that aspiring American politicians find so valuable in the nation’s presidential tradition. Prominent among them was a “log cabin” origin, which William Henry Harrison used successfully in the presidential campaign of 1840. It did not matter that Harrison was a member of Virginia’s gentry or that his father was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. What it signified was an individual’s ability to rise from obscurity through the image of an imagined past.

Stassen capitalized on his rural background, which included managing a forty-two-acre farm at age fifteen when his father was ill. Immigrant origins in northern Europe, widely shared in Minnesota and enhanced by his mother’s Norwegian ancestry, served him especially well. His paternal grandfather had emigrated from Austria.¹ Stassen’s home was hardly a log cabin. Nor did the Dakota County farmstead, not many miles from the state capital of St. Paul, qualify as a frontier. His father served several terms as mayor of West St. Paul. These deviations mattered no more than the myth of Harrison’s humble origins.

Stassen’s spectacular rise derived from his intelligence, ambitions, good looks—and good luck. The fourth of five children, he was born on April 13, 1907, and was identified as a golden boy early in his youth. Though not quite a boy wonder in his teens, he was a visible presence at the University of Minnesota. Tall and burly, he was aware of his gifts at a young age. There was little doubt in most people’s minds, least of all his, that he was destined for great things in life.

Success came early. He graduated from St. Paul’s Humboldt High School at age fifteen and from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1929. Everything he encountered as an undergraduate pointed in the same direction—early success and fame. Journalist John Gunther was impressed by the range of Stassen’s undergraduate activities and noted that his record—“he practically ran the campus—is unmatched to this day.”² He was not only a sharpshooter and captain of the university’s rifle team but also a star on the debating team. While spreading his name around campus, he worked his way through college with jobs ranging from bakery flunky to Pullman car conductor. A lifelong Baptist, he also immersed himself in religious affairs during his college years. He was later elected president of the American Baptist Convention and was active in the World Council of Churches.³

At the University of Minnesota Law School, the gregarious Stassen made friends who would become loyal supporters in his campaigns for the presidency. He and classmate Elmer J. Ryan opened a law firm in South St. Paul upon their graduation in 1929. Both were young men in a hurry. The law practice was barely under way when Stassen announced his candidacy for district attorney of Dakota County. Ryan, though a Democrat, campaigned for him. Stassen subsequently reciprocated, stumping for Ryan in his successful run for Congress in 1934.⁴ As district attorney, Stassen worked to root out corruption in his state, much like his future rival Thomas E. Dewey did in New York. Edward Thye, Stassen’s friend and successor as governor of Minnesota, liked to recall how the youthful district attorney faced down a crowd of angry dairy farmers threatening to dump their milk and block highways in an effort to raise milk prices. Stassen told them he would prosecute anyone who broke the law but went on to suggest that they appoint a committee to negotiate for higher prices. He displayed the kind of courage and resourcefulness that Franklin D. Roosevelt admired.⁵

Given the attention his activities as district attorney gave him, it is hardly surprising that Stassen eyed the governor’s office as his next goal. His timing was fortunate. For a generation, the Farmer-Labor Party, founded in 1920 as a populist movement to promote the interests of farmers and urban laborers, had dominated politics in Minnesota. Led by popular governor Floyd B. Olsen in the 1930s, it suffered from his premature death as well as from Roosevelt’s New Deal, which co-opted many of the party’s issues. Olsen’s immediate successor, Elmer A. Benson, lacked charisma and was plagued by the recession of 1937 and the strikes that followed. These circumstances provided an opportunity for the Young Republican League, organized by Stassen, to restore a Republican to the governor’s office. As president of the County District Attorney Association in 1935 and delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1936, Stassen had positioned himself to become the Republican favorite son.⁶

Stassen had only the Republican Old Guard, veterans of continual defeat, to contend with in his own party. He managed this with ease and was, in fact, his own campaign manager. Business leaders, discouraged by past failures, rallied to him after eight years of Farmer-Labor dominance, providing the necessary financial backing for his campaign. But it was the enthusiasm of young volunteers that assured him victory in the primary.

The election itself proved to be no more difficult than the primary. Governor Benson was an inept campaigner. When stung by the charge that the Farmer-Labor administration was a corrupt city-slicker machine, Benson’s only riposte was to label his strapping young opponent “a drugstore cowboy.” Furthermore, Benson was not helped by divisions within his party.⁷

The Boy Governor

The young governor faced more than his share of problems in a Depression year, but his youthful team (the lieutenant governor was only twenty-eight years old)—patronizingly dubbed the “Diaper Brigade”—was equal to the challenge. His immediate problem was how to deal with labor strikes sponsored by the Teamsters Union. A rural-dominated legislature demanded punitive action from its Republican governor. Instead, Stassen crafted a labor conciliation law, a successful initiative that provided for a thirty-day waiting period before the start of any strike involving a public interest. The governor appointed a three-man board representing the interests of business, labor, and the public to reconcile differences. If the board failed to find a solution, a strike was still an option. But once tempers cooled, strikes were reduced. This brought the governor national attention in his first few months in office. His moderation not only led to some labor support but also opened a popular new approach for Republicans.⁸

Less dramatic yet equally impressive was his success in taming the budget. Responsibility for controlling Minnesota’s finances was placed with a commissioner charged with reducing costs and eliminating graft. The commissioner was legally obliged to cut costs if tax receipts declined—a substantial boost to fiscal health. Stassen’s reforms continued with the introduction of Minnesota’s first civil service law. That accomplishment was important enough for him to consider it first among his attainments as governor.⁹

Reward for this success came quickly, enhanced by the political environment of 1938. Republican victories at the polls reflected the seeming failure of the New Deal and particularly the negative public reaction to President Roosevelt’s attack against the Supreme Court. In this context, Minnesota’s ambitious young governor was hailed as the face of a rejuvenated Republican Party, and he made the most of the acclaim. Stassen was twice elected chairman of the National Governors’ Conference, first in 1938 and again in 1940. As keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention in 1940, he anticipated further political advancement, but not yet the presidency. He was still two years away from meeting the constitutionally mandated age requirement for the White House.

Stassen’s ambitions were widely recognized and usually appreciated. “Every move he made, every speech was news. He was the youngest state governor in United States history, he was bold and unpredictable and courageous and marvelous newspaper copy,” one journalist gushed.¹⁰ Still, there was an occasional touch of uneasiness about how he would use his influence in the Republican Party. Looking at the array of young Republican politicians in 1938, veteran journalist Erwin Canham praised Stassen as “a very pleasant young man, definitely a mid-westerner, tall and broad of frame, a big head, a first-class platform presence, and [an] unassuming, friendly manner.” But Canham cautioned that Stassen “so far is an unproved quantity, mightily promising but still problematical.”¹¹ Although his eye was on the main chance, he could still jump to the side of the Old Guard.

When Stassen entered the presidential campaign five years later, the New Republic called him “the product of a successful nation-wide publicity build-up. His press agents have done their work well, aided by the Governor’s own acute sense of what will make the front pages.” Time perceived a whiff of arrogance in his visit to Washington in May 1939. Fresh from his middle-of-the-road reform program as governor of Minnesota, he proceeded to tell John Hamilton, chairman of the Republican National Committee, how to defeat the Roosevelt administration in 1940.¹²

The Election of 1940

Stassen’s record as governor generally reflected the liberal Republicanism of Senators George W. Norris of Nebraska, William J. Borah of Idaho, and Hiram Johnson of California, but with a critical difference. He looked at the world from an internationalist perspective, fully supportive of the European democracies’ confrontation with fascism. His potential to lead the Republican Party was recognized in December 1939 when he was designated the Republican speaker at Washington’s famed Gridiron Club. Its membership comprised representatives of the national press who gathered annually for a ribbing of politicians. This was essentially Stassen’s introduction to the national stage, and it was made all the more significant by the presence of President Roosevelt. Although speeches at the club were supposedly off the record, journalist Harold Brayman recorded the event.¹³ Referring to his age, Stassen captured the spirit of the occasion by noting, “I am perhaps the only man at this head table who is willing to say ‘unequivocally,’ I will not run for President in 1940.” In keeping with this theme, the Gridiron Cub put on a skit in which President Roosevelt used his authority to change Stassen’s birthday (as he had done to alter the date of Thanksgiving), thus making him eligible for the presidency next year.¹⁴

This playful press attention was enough to turn anyone’s head, and Stassen was hardly immune to the praise showered on him. But it was the speech itself that impressed the audience, including Roosevelt. In essence, the young governor outlined a platform that he wanted his party to run on: appreciation for the New Deal’s advances in social justice, fair dealing with labor without concomitant attacks against business. He did not miss the opportunity to tout his own success in introducing a mandatory cooling-off period before a strike or a lockout. It was a middle-of-the-road program that incorporated the benefits of the New Deal while correcting its mistakes. He opposed the domination of government by business and, equally, the domination of business by government: “in the separation of the two we see the safeguarding of individual rights and a defense against special privilege, either economic or political.”¹⁵

Governor Harold E. Stassen, circa 1940. (Harris & Ewing, photographer; Library of Congress)

Stassen spoke as a midwesterner, but he became a valued partner of the eastern Republican establishment. It was no coincidence that presidential aspirants would use Minnesota as a launching pad for their campaigns. And the governor was not hesitant about taking advantage of their eagerness to see Minnesota as an appropriate starting point for their presidential ambitions.

Initially, Stassen treated Wendell Willkie much as he treated the other candidates, or perhaps slightly worse, given the candidate’s very recent conversion from Democrat to Republican. Senators Arthur H. Vandenberg and Robert A. Taft were old political hands, but Stassen’s early inclination was to support the young governor of New York, Thomas E. Dewey, who, at age thirty-seven, was almost as youthful as himself. Stassen showed his hand in December 1939 when he made a point of noting that western states looked positively on the New Yorker’s candidacy. Speaking at La Guardia airfield en route to a visit with Rhode Island governor William Vanderbilt, Stassen observed, “There has been a very favorable and friendly reaction since Mr. Dewey spoke out our way” and “a deep interest in what Mr. Dewey’s policies will be, and the people of the West are eagerly awaiting their disclosure.” The two young governors appeared to be in sync, as Dewey flaunted their youth. A New York Times editorial suggested that Dewey had chosen Minnesota to make his debut as a salute to its thirty-two-year-old governor. The emphasis was on Dewey’s youth and vigor, in contrast to the other tired old candidates. Dewey would emphasize his maturity by noting that Stassen was five years his junior.¹⁶

This youthful harmony evaporated in the face of the Willkie phenomenon. “We want Willkie” was the slogan of wildly enthusiastic delegates at the Republican convention in June 1940 for a man who had been a relatively unknown Democrat just six months earlier. He was also a leading spokesman against the New Deal’s economic policies as president of Commonwealth and Southern, a powerful utilities company. But Willkie was not a spiritual brother of the Old Guard. Rather, he inclined toward a liberal labor policy and was emotionally supportive of Britain in World War II. Given his internationalist leanings, he attracted the attention of brothers John and Gardner Cowles, the liberal Republican publishers of Minnesota’s Star Journal...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. The Preparatory Years, 1938–1945
• 2. Toward the 1948 Debacle
• 3. The Eisenhower Solution, 1948–1952
• 4. The Mutual Security Agency and Foreign Operations Administration, 1953–1955
• 5. Special Assistant for Disarmament, 1955–1958
• 6. The Illusion of Progress, 1956
• 7. 1957—Stassen’s Gaffe?
• 8. The Long Anticlimax, June 1957–February 1958
• Conclusions and Reflections
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index