Governor Harold E. Stassen, circa 1940. (Harris & Ewing, photographer; Library of Congress)
There are few figures in the American political firmament whose long career began so early and so auspiciously and then faded gradually but steadily into obscurity. Bursting into fame toward the end of the Great Depression, Harold Stassen, Minnesota’s “boy governor”—elected at age thirty-one in 1938 and reelected in 1940 and 1942—excited a new generation of Republicans to support him enthusiastically for president. After failing to win the nomination in 1948, a goal he believed his early successes merited, he chased after the nomination over the next generation. It made him a figure of mockery as a perennial also-ran on the margins of the history of the twentieth century. He sought the nomination of the Republican Party for president of the United States twelve times between 1944 and 1992.
Arguably, his persistent quest for high office devolved from his early successes as district attorney of his native Dakota County in his twenties, his spectacular popularity as governor of Minnesota in his early thirties, and his prominence as a US delegate to the San Francisco Conference on the United Nations Charter in 1945. His sense of entitlement was enhanced by the reactions he aroused in young Republicans, who saw in him a liberal internationalist who would return the party to the White House. Stassen was keynote speaker at the 1940 Republican National Convention before he was old enough to be a presidential candidate. He redeemed a promise to his constituents in 1942 that he would leave the governor’s office the following year. He joined the US Navy in 1943, serving as a lieutenant commander in the Pacific on Admiral William H. (Bull) Halsey’s staff.
Small wonder, then, that he believed he would achieve the presidency after leaving the navy in 1945. Stassen’s path to distinction seemed destined from the time he graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1929. As an undergraduate, he had been a masterful intercollegiate debater and captain of the university’s rifle team. It was a logical step from a law office in South St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1929 to election as district attorney of Dakota County in 1934 and 1936 and then to the governor’s office two years later.
Governor Harold E. Stassen, circa 1940. (Harris & Ewing, photographer; Library of Congress)
At the cusp of what was anticipated to be a brilliant career, his trajectory began to fall with missteps in a debate with Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York in the Oregon presidential primary campaign in 1948 and spiraled downward from there. He did not win the nomination that year, despite impressive grassroots support from young Republicans in the face of opposition from party leaders. His 1948 campaign was the closest he would come to realizing his dream in politics. Thereafter, he campaigned for governor of Pennsylvania in 1958 and 1966 and mayor of Philadelphia in 1969, seeking to capitalize on his prestige as president of the University of Pennsylvania from 1948 to 1952. After moving back to Minnesota in 1982, he ran for a congressional seat in 1985, failing once again. In the midst of these activities he continued to seek the presidency without success. His was a tale of continual rejection, yet continual perseverance, in politics at every level.
The objective of this study is not to revise Stassen’s record as a politician. Rather, it is to look closely at his activities as an administrator and a diplomatist, to which he brought the same energy and talent that had been so conspicuous in his service as governor of Minnesota, as administrative aide to Halsey, as delegate at the San Francisco Conference on the United Nations Charter, and as a leading contributor to the framing of President Eisenhower’s foreign policies.
Inevitably, he made enemies along the way. Notwithstanding serial failures in the political arena, his overweening self-confidence led to efforts to dominate whatever gathering he attended. He gladly entered combat with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, even though Dulles’s experience and connections outmatched the younger man’s resources. Stassen’s reputation, however, was distinguished enough to pose a threat to Dulles’s management of foreign affairs in the Eisenhower administration. His performance at the San Francisco Conference in 1945 in expressing and defending American objectives in the UN Charter won him sufficient recognition in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) circles to be cited as a potential secretary-general of that organization.
Consequently, Stassen met resistance from members of any team he joined. His early successes in politics aroused envy, and his sense of entitlement led to resentment. His goal as a young reformer was to infuse the Republican Party with liberal programs that could lure partisans of the New Deal away from the Democrats. Most importantly, he embodied a new vision of American leadership in the world that emerged after World War II.
Given his youth and enthusiasm, it was not surprising that he attracted supporters of college age and younger. He broke with Republican Party leadership to engage in grassroots campaigning, bringing a corps of youthful admirers into his fold. He was a vigorous and articulate spokesman for a new generation ready to take over a demoralized party in the wake of Roosevelt’s election to an unprecedented third term in the White House. His keynote address to the Republican National Convention in 1940 affirmed candidate Wendell Willkie’s rejection of isolationism at a time when Europe was coming under the control of Nazi Germany. As temporary chairman of the 1940 convention, Stassen’s voice on Willkie’s behalf was a factor in the latter’s winning the nomination.
It was his appointment five years later as one of three Republican delegates to the San Francisco Conference that solidified his attachment to the objectives of the United Nations. President Roosevelt chose wisely in making a conscious effort to ensure that the United Nations would avoid the fate of Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations. The presence of two influential Republican enthusiasts—Lieutenant Commander Stassen and Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg—was a critical factor in winning the Senate’s support for the UN Charter.
Like Vandenberg’s, Stassen’s voice was audible in the deliberations at San Francisco. He was no callow discussant; rather, he was a persuasive figure in framing the American conception of the United Nations. His identification in the minutes of the conference proceedings as “Governor” and more often as “Commander” implied respect for his credentials as a former governor of Minnesota and for his military experience, which added weight to his presence in San Francisco. He left the navy as a captain in November 1945. The head of Canada’s delegation, Lester B. Pearson, judged that the young Stassen and Vandenberg were the most influential members of the US delegation.
World War II convinced Stassen which direction the United States should take in the postwar world. Perhaps more importantly, it confirmed his belief that he could be the one to lead the nation in that world. Even though this did not happen, as one failed political effort followed another, his important role in the Eisenhower administration has often been overlooked. Recognizing that he would not win the nomination in 1952, Stassen felt it was imperative that Eisenhower, as spokesman for the new Republican internationalism, defeat the most powerful conservative contender—Ohio senator Robert A. Taft. Stassen used his waning political authority to set up a scenario in which he would throw his votes to Eisenhower on the floor of the convention. The plan succeeded, even as his enemies were never fully convinced that the Minnesotan had given up hope of ultimately being the party’s choice.
President Eisenhower probably appreciated Stassen’s empathy with his own internationalist predilections more than his political alignment. To Stassen’s disappointment, the president did not name him secretary of state. John Foster Dulles, with his long and distinguished career in international law and diplomacy, was Eisenhower’s choice. Nevertheless, Stassen’s positions in the administration enabled him to establish the parameters of Eisenhower’s foreign policies. As director of the Mutual Security Agency (MSA) in 1953, Stassen was not only in charge of military and economic aid to the European allies but also a member of the cabinet and the National Security Council with direct access to the president. In addition, he was appointed special assistant to the president for disarmament in 1955. In both these positions, Stassen would expand his authority as far as he could manage. Not incidentally, this guaranteed friction between Dulles and Stassen as competitors for leadership in framing US foreign policy. Dulles was especially annoyed with a New York Times editorial dubbing Stassen the “Secretary of Peace.”
Stassen lost the leadership contest in part because he stretched his mandate too far, but not before his persistent efforts to limit nuclear armaments became the hallmark of the Eisenhower administration’s national security policy. Even though his most ambitious project, the nuclear test ban treaty of 1957, failed, he left a legacy that his successors in both the Eisenhower and subsequent administrations pursued.
He represented a strain in the Republican Party that the president valued and advanced. Stassen remained optimistic that the nuclear demon could be tamed, and his ultimate goal was the Wilsonian dream of global disarmament. Even if this could not be realized, he urged lesser measures, such as the abandonment of nuclear testing and transparent reciprocal exposure of armaments. He feared that the Cold War—unchecked—could lead to a nuclear holocaust. If nuclear weapons could not be eliminated, Stassen, like Eisenhower, hoped that at least they could be controlled. His political convictions were undergirded by a religious faith that impelled him to leadership in the American Baptist Convention and in such organizations as the International Council on Religious Education and the US Inter-Religious Committee on Peace. Overall, Stassen was not unaware that success in such activities would promote his longstanding ambition to become president of the United States.
Given the Minnesotan’s prominence in the generation following World War II, the absence of any serious academic consideration of his contributions to American history deserves an explanation. The one offered most often is the folly of his increasingly futile pursuit of the presidency. This perception may have distorted the reality of his role. His positions on foreign policy in the 1940s, which repudiated the Republican Party’s isolationism of the 1930s; his incisive commentaries on the importance of the American stake in the United Nations in the 1940s; and his impact on the foreign policies of the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s all paled in light of his diminished presence in the later years of the twentieth century.
As a consequence, Stassen is virtually absent from the historical scholarship of the Truman and Eisenhower years. Occasional references appear in many books on that era, but these are marginal to the more significant figures of the time. Recently, three scholars collaborated to produce a Stassen biography: Alec Kirby, David G. Dalin, and John F. Rothmann, Harold Stassen: The Life and Perennial Candidacy of the Liberal Progressive Republican (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2013). The principal author met with and interviewed the governor and was starstruck along with his coauthors. They succeeded in crafting a credible study of his long life, emphasizing his progressive background without excessive deference to his persona. Less objective is the reverent monograph by Robert E. Matteson: Harold Stassen: His Career, the Man, and the 1957 Arms Control Negotiations (Inver Grove Heights, MN: Desk Top, 1991). A devoted aide to Stassen in his many positions, Matteson concentrated on the one key issue in his career.
Stassen’s campaign biography prepared for the 1948 presidential race—Where I Stand (New York: Doubleday, 1947)—set out his political objectives in conventional fashion. Written late in life, his biography of Eisenhower coauthored with Marshall Houts—Eisenhower: Turning the World toward Peace (St. Paul, MN: Merrill/Magnus, 1990)—was essentially a justification of Stassen’s role in the Eisenhower administration. All told, the list of publications is thin, with major publishing houses notably absent.
For further insights into Stassen’s contributions to arms control in the Eisenhower administration, scholars have to rely on biographies of Eisenhower and Dulles that touch on Stassen’s positions. Additionally, major monographs such as David Tal’s The American Nuclear Disarmament Dilemma, 1945–1963 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2008) focus on the differing approaches of Stassen and Dulles. Arguably, Tal’s perceptive “The Secretary of State vs. the Secretary of Peace: The Dulles-Stassen-Dulles Controversy and US Disarmament Policy, 1955–1958,” Journal of Contemporary History 41, no. 4 (2006): 721–82, does not take into sufficient account the responsibilities of the secretary of state in the management of foreign affairs in a global arena.
This study examines the sources of Stassen’s ideas about international affairs and how they manifested in his meteoric rise to national attention. Its emphasis is on his roles in the Eisenhower administration as director of the MSA and as the president’s special assistant for disarmament. Among the questions raised is the effect of his seminal experience at the San Francisco Conference in 1945 on refining and expanding his judgments on foreign relations. Did his insatiable appetite for high political office affect his positions on foreign policy goals? Did his constant intrusion into the spaces of cognate offices, reflected in his voluminous commentaries on every issue connected with foreign policy, impair his effectiveness as a diplomatist? These are the issues discussed in this book.
In striking contrast to the paucity of academic studies of Stassen’s career are the rich resources available in archives and libraries that illuminate the most significant facts of his life. Primary among them are the Stassen Papers at the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul—214 boxes relating to his career before 1958. Given the importance of Eisenhower and Dulles in Stassen’s life, the Eisenhower Papers at the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas, and the Dulles Papers at Princeton, New Jersey, are the most significant supplementary sources. Photocopies of the Dulles collections are located in the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress. Useful supplementary material can also be found among the papers and memoirs of Dewey, Taft, and Vandenberg and of the European statesmen Harold Macmillan and Jules Moch.
Robert E. Matteson, Stassen’s most influential colleague, also deposited his papers at the Minnesota Historical Society. They are particularly significant in revealing Stassen’s role as director of the White House disarmament staff in the Eisenhower administration. Because Stassen figured prominently at NATO meetings in the 1950s, the NATO archives in Brussels are useful to researchers. The National Archives in College Park, Maryland, contain State Department correspondence in Record Group 59 and Defense Department documents in Record Group 330, which frequently involved Stassen. The New York Times is particularly valuable as a newspaper of record. Secondary accounts in articles and newspapers are available in abundance.
In summary, this project seeks to explain Stassen’s role in the foreign policies of the Eisenhower administration and to judge whether it merits a more important place in American history than it is usually given.