Chicago, July 11, 1952
Robert A. Taft, presidential scion, Harvard/Yale man, and Ohio boy with roots so deep in his native soil he could have sprouted buckeyes, was wearing his Cheshire grin. Keeping a keen eye on the camera, he adjusted the vest on his best gray suit, its muted pinstripes underscoring a sophisticated taste. Taft brought a studied determination to the task of looking confident, calm, and presidential.
“One minute,” the producer called, shooting his index finger into the air.
Taft took his handkerchief out and patted the naked and powdered reach of his head, hoping not to shine like a Westinghouse bulb.
“Five, four, three, two, one…you’re on.”
Dan Seymour looked straight into the camera, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the CBS television show We the People. Tonight, on the eve of the Republican Convention, presidential candidate Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio is joining us. Welcome, Senator Taft.”
Taft gave a short nod, his smile never changing, his hands still on his lap.
“Senator Taft, I understand you’re very confident of the outcome of the nomination.”
“Yes, Dan.” Taft reached inside his suit coat without taking his eyes off the host, and pulled out the squat square urine-colored paper that viewers could easily recognize as a wad of Western Union telegrams. “There are a lot more telegrams back in my suite, Dan. I have more than 607 votes promised to me. That’s three more than I need to win.”
“But people do seem to like Ike, as all those buttons say.” Seymour sounded genial, but for a brief second Taft looked grim. He’d been denied the nomination in 1948. That wasn’t going to happen again.
“Have you seen our buttons, Dan?” Taft reached in his pocket and held up a small pin. “‘But What Does Ike Like?’” Taft read, pointing to the words. “You see?” The smile snapped back into place. “General Eisenhower must take some stands on issues, Dan,” Taft said in his most reasonable voice. “He must stand for something after all, not just be a symbol without substance. Our delegates are very smart people, Dan. They see through the platitudes spoken without purpose. Yes, I’m confident that I’ll win this week, and I’ll go on to the White House.”
“But aren’t the Eisenhower people challenging the seating of your delegates from Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia? They claim you’re running the convention and only allowing delegates who are loyal to you to be seated. They say you’re keeping out other delegate slates from those three states that would support Ike.” Seymour smiled as he finished, as if he’d just asked Taft to talk about his grandchildren.
“I’ll have two hundred more votes than General Eisenhower on the first ballot, Dan. The whole delegate thing, that’s about Eisenhower’s people wanting to let Democrats come into our Republican primaries back in Texas. I guess the general’s just not experienced enough to know that in America politics doesn’t work like that.” Taft’s smile got lost in the struggle to control his temper. As he fought to reclaim it, he looked as if he was grimacing.
The next morning, a crowd of reporters stood outside the International Amphitheatre in Chicago waiting for Ike’s man to appear. Rodeos and livestock shows had filled the amphitheater’s twelve thousand seats before it became a convention hall. Even with the brand new air-conditioning system that had been installed that year, there were back rooms and hallways where the smell of manure stamped into sawdust still lingered. Outside, the stink of the nearby stockyards coated the hot July air.
As they jostled toward the entrance, delegates sporting “Taft’s Our Man” straw hats and “I Like Ike” sandwich signs bumped up against each other and traded barbs. The smells of boiling coffee, hot dogs, and pretzels from the jumble of street vendors mixed in an unappetizing stench. The rising chorus of delegates trying to talk over the crowd and hail seldom-seen political friends competed with the street sellers’ shouts: “Get your Polish sausage here,” “Buttons, buttons, every button and pin on sale,” “Hot coffee, hot, hot coffee,” “Pop for sale, get your Squirt here.” Only the slightest breeze worked its way in from the lake, but it wasn’t enough to flutter the army of pint-sized American flags that every delegate seemed to be carrying into the vast convention hall.
Tom Dewey pushed his way through the carnival-like scene. The failed Republican presidential nominee, and Taft nemesis from 1948, had turned political mastermind for Ike. He was armed with an answer for Taft’s glib defense of the delegate fight. With the pugnacious swagger of the mob prosecutor he’d once been, Dewey asked, “Why is Senator Taft trying to bolt the doors to our party to keep out disillusioned Democrats who we have converted to Ike supporters? We Republicans need a political revival that will result in a lot of Democratic conversions. The Texas slate Taft wants to exclude does represent Democratic converts, and thousands of Republicans, too!”
Several journalists shouted at once, “What does the general think, Tom? Where is he?”
“He’ll be right here tomorrow, ready to answer your questions.”
Ike was in Denver. He had been waiting out the brawl, thinking it looked unseemly to comment. Then Dewey called and told him he might as well get out of the race if he didn’t get himself to Chicago, pronto. As Ike boarded the plane for Chicago, he felt bullied and unsure. What did he know about slates and delegates and convention rules? He wished he had one person he really trusted on his campaign crew. He missed being the unquestioned commander in charge of the troops.
Ike got to the Blackstone Hotel by early evening. The Beaux-Arts masterpiece on Lake Shore Drive sat next door to Conrad Hilton’s massive hotel, which served as convention central, pulsing with campaign staff, television crews, and delegates.
Ike had just lit a cigarette and was looking out from his suite at the great, placid expanse of Lake Michigan when Henry Cabot Lodge arrived. The Massachusetts senator was Ike’s official convention manager. He came into the suite looking a lot more chipper than his candidate.
“You know why this is a famous place, Ike?” Lodge asked, trying to create a lighter mood.
“Not really,” Ike replied, pacing to the window.
“In 1920, a reporter wrote that the compromise that gave our party Warren G. Harding happened in a smoke-filled room of the Blackstone.”
“So that’s where the expression comes from, ‘smoke-filled room’?”
“Yep, so keep that cigarette burning,” Lodge said as he lit a cigar, “because we’re going to make history again, right here.”
Ike didn’t look impressed as Dewey walked in waving some newspapers.
“Look at these stories. Taft’s people made a major misstep yesterday by not letting the TV crews into the Credentials Committee meeting. It made them look like they’re hiding something.”
“Aren’t they?” asked Ike. “Isn’t that our argument? That they’re being unfair?”
“Look,” Dewey said, “Southern Republicans have been choosing their slates the same way for eighty-four years. That’s what Taft’s claiming, and he’s right. Our delegations from those states aren’t any more legitimate than theirs, but you know what, General? It doesn’t matter.”
Ike looked perplexed, so Dewey went on. “When the hero of the free world,” he pointed at Ike, “calls for fair play, the other side looks like cheaters, whether they are or not.”
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that,” Ike said, stubbing his cigarette hard into an ashtray.
“Look Ike, we tried to run slates of legal delegates in these states,” Lodge said. “Taft’s people refused to let us in the room. All we’re saying here is, don’t let a Credentials Rules Committee controlled by the opposition decide who gets to cast a vote for the Republican nominee. Let’s make a motion that none of the contested delegates from either slate be seated until their qualifications are approved by a majority of all the delegates.”
“Okay…” Ike hesitated. “That seems fair,” but he couldn’t shake a nagging sense of doubt.
“All right then,” Dewey said, brushing quick fingers over his thick black mustache and looking thoughtful. “I’ve got the line. You said it, Ike: ‘fair play,’ that’s it. We’re demanding ‘fair play.’ Got it, General?”
The next day, as Dewey had promised, Ike stood in front of the convention hall and spoke to reporters.
“General, do you believe that Taft’s people are unfairly blocking your delegates from being seated?”
“I do believe that,” Ike replied. “In fact, I’m shocked by the smoke-filled rooms and Star Chamber methods of Taft’s people. I demand fair play.”
The next day, the Chicago Tribune headline screamed, “Eisenhower Calls for Fair Play,” and Dewey made sure a flyer echoing the front page was on every delegate’s chair.
Like mosquitoes hatching on a fetid pond, Taft watched “Fair Play” placards multiply and fly into the hall as the proceedings began. Tempers rose and fistfights broke out on the convention floor between Taft and Eisenhower supporters. Shouts echoed from far corners of the room and were taken up like a chorus: “Taft’s a thief,” “We demand fair play,” “Eisenhower’s a liar.”
Walking outside to meet his wife, Taft saw the actor John Wayne launch himself from a cab as if he was going to attack an Eisenhower sound truck. “Why don’t you get a red Commie flag?” Wayne was shaking his fist and shouting. Meanwhile, inside the hall, John Roosevelt, Eleanor’s youngest son, had just stood to second the nomination of General Eisenhower.
Away from the convention floor, in the Boulevard Room at the Hilton, the Rules Committee was meeting behind locked doors to determine which delegates, Ike’s or Taft’s, would be seated from the states of Texas, Georgia, and Louisiana. Outside, the television news cameras and reporters were desperate to find out what was being said.
Suddenly, Ted Church from CBS grabbed his colleague, Bill Downs, by the arm.
“I’ve got it. Come on.” He pulled Downs out of the crowded hallway and raced for an elevator.
“Where are we going?” Downs said. “I heard NBC may have sneaked a mike in that room. Maybe we should wait and see if they get anything.”
“Forget that. They got caught by Hilton security. But I just realized that CBS has a radio wire in that room to broadcast dance band concerts. We just have to get it turned on.”
Ten minutes later, CBS and the nation were listening to the screaming match going on in the Republican Rules Committee meeting.
“When did you start to believe in majority rule?” came the sonorous voice of Ike’s man from Texas, Roger Peterson, speaking with calm authority.
“All my life,” Henry Zweifel, a Taft man and national committeeman from Texas responded with some heat.
“You mean when you came to this convention, and not a single moment before,” Peterson replied sharply. He had been at the nominating caucus in Zweifel’s garden in Texas when Zweifel had forced a hundred Ike delegates to leave because they outnumbered the Taft delegates.
“The Ike delegates at the caucuses and state convention in Texas were a bunch of stragglers,” Zweifel spit back.
“Mr. Zweifel is absolutely not telling the facts,” Peterson announced to the committee. “There wasn’t a straggler in our state convention. Every single man was certified by the secretary of state.” Peterson’s voice began to rise. “Every single man was certified by a county convention, by a county in Texas. There was not a straggler there. Not one.” He began shouting, “And when you say there were, Mr. Zweifel, you and the other Taft men are not telling the facts. General Eisenhower demands fair play!” Peterson screamed the last words.
From a suite at the Hilton on the fifth day of the convention, Herb Brownell was orchestrating the floor action for Ike. He was a master strategist and vote counter. A shy man with a swaybacked walk, he gravitated to back rooms and backhanded plays. As he had done for several days, he slipped out of his suite on the eleventh floor and took the elevator to another man’s room on the fourth floor. Then, when he was sure no reporters were hanging around, he took the stairs to Ike’s suite.
Ike was watching the proceedings on television. He couldn’t hear the maneuvering on the convention floor, but Brownell brought news.
“Taft had it in his hands and threw it away with his secret meetings and compromises that smelled like deals. We still need to shoot low, Ike, but I think it’s moving our way. We’re hearing about Taft delegates finding our floor managers and pledging their support on the q.t.”
“We’ll see,” Ike said, as he reached for Mamie’s hand.
At that moment, National Chairman Guy Gabrielson stood in front of the twelve-foot-high Civil War portrait of Lincoln that hung above the speakers’ platform, craning his neck over his potbelly and shouting into the microphone as he hammered the gavel.
“Quiet please, quiet. We have the results of the first ballot…. Quiet in the hall.”
Ike, watching on television, turned a Salvation Army coin over and over in his fingers and held a Boy Scout souvenir in his other hand for luck.
“The official ballot count is…” the chairman paused, as if he’d lost his place, “five hundred and ninety-five votes cast for General Dwight David Eisenhower.” Cheers and screams erupted with such force that the chairman was drowned out. He went on gamely, moving his mouth closer to the microphone. “And five hundred votes for Senator Robert A. Taft.” At that moment, Senator Edward J. Thye of Minnesota began screaming for the chairman’s attention as he waved the standard for the state of Minnesota. “Minnesota wishes to change its vote to Eisenhower,” he repeated, as others in the delegation took up the cry. Once Minnesota threw itself into Ike’s corner, Taft’s support collapsed. On the second vote, Ike swept the delegates and the nomination was his.
Ike turned to Mamie, his eyes filled with tears. She reached up and gently wiped his cheek, and he hugged her, unable to speak. Amid the toasts and congratulations, a jubilant Dewey threw his arm around Ike.
“These delegates believe you’re a winner, Ike. And they’re right. You are going all the way to the White House!”
“I think I should go see Taft,” Ike said. “Don’t you?”
“Yes, yes, of course. Good idea. We’ll need to keep that isolationist crowd in the fold of the big Republican tent you’re going to build, General.”
Lodge had walked up while Dewey was talking. “After you pay your visit to Taft, we have another matter to discuss. I’m afraid you don’t get a break here, General. You have to announce your running mate.”
“I didn’t realize that was up to me.”
“Yes, it is up to you, although Tom and I have some ideas. I’ve asked the senior team to come up in an hour to discuss it with you.”
In the chaos of Ike’s upset victory, it took several hours before Tom Dewey, Herb Brownell, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Sherman Adams rejoined the nominee in his suite.
“Someone told me I need a vice president,” Ike said, smiling as he interrupted the excited conversations between the men. “I want a man with special talent. And I want a man who’s good at flushing out subversive influences.”
“What about Taft?” Brownell offered, although he knew who Dewey had in mind. Brownell had run Dewey’s campaign in 1948. Experience told him that it was better to give Ike some names to reject, so he could feel better about the name Brownell already knew would be chosen.
Dewey gave a sardonic smile. “He’ll need some time to get over himself.”
“I had a good talk with him,” Ike said, proud that it had been his idea to go see Taft. “He was very cordial. I think he’ll be supportive. I really do.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Dewey replied quickly. “But we need to pick someone who is acceptable to him and the rest of the old guard.”
“Anyway, Taft’s too old, and we need a westerner,” added Lodge.
“Well, Earl Warren’s a westerner, but he’s sixty-one,” said Brownell, referring to the popular governor of California who had made a long-shot bid for the nomination.
“Right,” said Lodge, “that’s only a year younger than Ike. We have to do better than that. Bringing a youthful look to the campaign is important.”
“Nixon’s only thirty-nine, conservatives love him, and he campaigns hard.”
“Right,” Lodge said, “and no one ever accused him of being a security risk. He’s Mister Protect-America-from-Communism, right behind his pal McCarthy.”
“Fine, gentlemen, but you know he’s got a difficult personality. He’s actually antisocial, I’d say. Very brooding and inflexible.” Sherman Adams offered his first comment. The taciturn governor of New Hampshire had agreed to be Ike’s official campaign manager.
“That’s all right. Ike’s the extrovert and the compromiser. Nixon can be tough and nasty—won’t matter. We need Ike to appeal to independent voters. Nixon will be sure we don’t lose Republicans along the way,” Dewey replied. “By the way, Ike. Henry and I felt him out, and he’s hungry for it.”
Ike looked surprised, wondering why he hadn’t been told before.
Lodge jumped in. “Nixon will collect a lot of money in California. He’s the first native son to run for national office since Hoover.”
“Let’s just be sure he raises the money without raising any bets,” Dewey said, as he and the others shared a laugh.
“Is that story true?” Ike asked. “Did he bankroll his first race off poker winnings from his gambling when he was overseas?”
“That’s the story. He played every night and made about six thousand bucks. Hey, he was a reserve officer. He handled cargo. I guess he had time on his hands.”
Ike laughed. “That could be. Kind of strange to be a Quaker and a gambler, isn’t it?”
“I’ve thought of him as a Quaker with a mean streak ever since he won his first congressional race by accusing his opponent, Voorhis, of taking contributions from Communist-controlled labor unions. That got him on the House Un-American Activities Committee and into that whole Hiss affair,” Lodge said.
“That caused some ripples at Columbia,” Ike said. “You know, Whittaker Chambers was a Columbia dropout.”
“The Hiss case made Nixon. We wouldn’t even be talking about him if it weren’t for that. He’d be just another senator,” Brownell added.
Ike had watched the televised hearings and remembered the case well. It began when Whittaker Chambers testified before HUAC that Alger Hiss was a Communist and spy for the USSR. Hiss, a Harvard-trained lawyer with square-jawed good looks, had clerked for Oliver Wendell Holmes, run the State Department policy office, and traveled to Yalta with FDR. By the time Chambers accused him, Hiss was a respected, retired statesman running the Carnegie Endowment. Chambers was short, pudgy, and pasty looking. He had fled a family with little means and many problems. He confessed to being a Communist and he insisted that Hiss was a traitor.
Alger Hiss had a simple response. He told the committee with perfect poise, “I am not and never have been a member of the Communist Party.” He claimed that he “never laid eyes on” Chambers.
It was hard to forget the way Nixon stared at Hiss. Unlike his colleagues, Nixon didn’t buy the story that Hiss didn’t know Chambers.
“Didn’t the end come for Hiss because of some strange bird?” Dewey asked.
“Right,” Ike smiled. “It was the prothonotary warbler. It’s got this little sharp beak and bright yellow head. Chambers told the committee that Hiss and his wife were amateur ornithologists and had seen a prothonotary warbler near Glen Echo, Maryland. Then, when Hiss testified, Nixon asked very innocently, ‘What hobby do you have, Mr. Hiss?’ When Hiss said ‘ornithology,’ this other congressman sort of gulps and says, ‘Have you seen a prothonotary warbler?’” Ike laughed like he was about to deliver a punch line.
“And guess what Hiss says? ‘I have!’ he says, ‘I have!’ Nixon got him dead to rights, all right.”
“That was a hell of a way for a fresh-faced congressman to bust into the national press,” Dewey said with admiration.
“I guess he’s a pretty good choice,” Ike said, as Mamie walked into the room.
Adams looked at her. “You two couples will look good together,” he said. “He’s painted himself as the hardworking family man, and Pat’s the perfect political wife, just like Mamie.” He smiled at her.
“What are you talking about?” Mamie asked.
“What do you think of Dick Nixon for my running mate?” Ike replied.
“Well, I’m not sure…” Mamie hesitated, surprised that Ike had asked her opinion. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this.”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to hear what you have to say,” Ike said irritably. He had his doubts about Nixon, but he didn’t want to seem indecisive in front of his advisers.
“All right, Ike. I just don’t like the man. There’s something dishonest about him, I think. I just had the feeling, watching him talk about Hiss, that he would do anything to get ahead. He’s not like you. Are you sure you can trust him?”
Ike turned away, as if he hadn’t heard her, and Dewey tried to clear the air.
“Well, you remember what Cactus Jack Garner said about being veep: ‘it’s not worth a bucket of warm spit.’ Uh, sorry, Mamie. Nixon can definitely help, and I don’t see where he can do much harm.”
“I trust your judgment, Tom,” Ike said. “And, you’re right, I’m the one who’s supposed to be in charge. Can’t see where he’ll be much of a problem. But tell him to be sure to keep his nose clean.”
“Right, we’ll have a chat with him, then send him up here,” Lodge said.
A short while later, Nixon was ushered into the suite. Ike stood ramrod straight waiting for him, his face a serious mask. Nixon had been working to calm the tremors that had seized him ever since Dewey gave him the news that the general wanted to see him. He understood what was about to happen. He rushed toward Eisenhower too eagerly, embarrassed by his own lack of decorum.
Ike offered his hand at the end of a straight arm, keeping Nixon at a distance as he approached. In a formal voice, he said, “Dick, I expect this campaign to be a crusade for what Republicans believe in. I am in it for the rights and values that America stands for. Will you join me in such a campaign?”
Nixon looked startled. He had expected the offer, but not the pretension.
“I would be proud and happy to,” he said, feeling like he had stammered, even as his mind raced: Is he rebuking me for some reason? He’s taking me, but he doesn’t really want me, Nixon fretted to himself, as his cheeks flared with the force of his smile. They just need California and a young face. He thinks he’s better than me, damned puffed-out pigeon-faced old man. Nixon’s mind careened on into the potholes of his insecurities, even as he squeezed Eisenhower’s hand and shook it with vigor.
“I’m glad you are going to be on the team, Dick. I think we can win, and I know that we can do the right things for the country,” Eisenhower finished stiffly. He had been trying to take the measure of the man, but looking straight into Nixon’s eyes, Ike’s mind was filled with the echo of Mamie’s words, “are you sure you can trust him?”