Judge Carl McGowan Oral History Interview

Notice
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened January, 1972
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

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HESS: To begin would you give me a little of your background, where were you born, where were you educated, and what are a few of the positions that you have held?

MCGOWAN: I was born in Indiana and grew up in a small town in Illinois. I went to public schools in Paris, Illinois, which is my hometown, and then I went to Dartmouth College and after one year out between college and law school, I went to Columbia Law School in New York City. After graduation from law school I worked for three years with a law firm in New York City, and then I came back to Illinois, and to Chicago, really for the first time, where I was a member of the law faculty at Northwestern University Law School. I continued in that position until Pearl Harbor and then I went into the Navy. I was in the naval service the

[2]

rest of the war, and for some time thereafter. I practiced law in Washington briefly, but then returned in 1948 to the Northwestern University Law School, again as a full-time member of the law faculty.

I had been there one year when Governor [Adlai] Stevenson prevailed upon me to come down to Springfield and work with him. I was with the Governor during the rest of the administration until he left the Governorship in January 1953. I then practiced law in Chicago for ten years and was appointed by President [John F.] Kennedy to this court in 1962 and was sworn in in 1963.

HESS: All right, sir, when did you first become aware that President Truman did not intend to run for re-election in 1952?

MCGOWAN: I first knew it for certain like everybody else, I guess, on the occasion of his speech at the dinner down at Washington.

HESS: At the National Guard Armory.

MCGOWAN: I became aware of it as a possibility, perhaps as a very strong possibility, at the time that Governor Stevenson made his first trip down to Washington to talk to President Truman, when President Truman asked

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him to come down to see him. I think that must have been -- well, you know the dates probably, it must have been January or February '52.

HESS: Did you accompany him on that trip?

MCGOWAN: No. My recollection is that nobody accompanied him on the first trip. Now, I might be wrong about that, Mr. [William McCormick] Blair might have gone along, but one thing that was unique about the first trip, I think, was that the Governor came entirely by himself. He came down again a few weeks later, and I'm not sure whether Bill came with him that time or not. And I may be wrong about them both, but I remember that the first trip was carried out under highly secret circumstances as I recall it. And my recollection; although I might be wrong about it, is that nobody came with him. As I recall, he went down to St. Louis and took the plane from there to Washington, met with President Truman that night at the Blair House, and then came right back. That's the first trip, I believe.

HESS: Do you recall what he said about why he was making that trip at that time?

MCGOWAN: Well, he told me that he had been, that President Truman had asked him to come down and see him and I

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think he -- either the President had told him over the phone or in this communication that -- gave him some intimation of what he wanted to talk to him about, but in any event when he got back he told me about the meeting. So, out of that I of course got a pretty clear impression that there was a strong possibility that the President was not going to run again, although he had not, of course, decided finally.

HESS: What did he say about the meeting? What did he say that the President had asked him or had said? What impressions did he come away with?

MCGOWAN: Well, the impressions that I have of what I was told was that the President did raise the possibility that he might not run again and that, therefore, the question of who should be the Democratic nominee was something that ought to be being thought about, that he, the President, had certainly considered Adlai to be one of those possibilities and perhaps a very strong possibility.

HESS: Did he mention if there were others? Did he mention any names

MCGOWAN: I can't remember that -- I don't recall the Governor telling me that any other names were mentioned

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although he may have and I have forgotten them -- but I don't recall that.

It was a, I gathered, a fairly wide ranging discussion about the future of the Democratic Party and its prospects, and what really would have to be done in the event that President Truman pursued his fairly strong purpose not to run again.

HESS: To go back just a moment, what were the duties that you had with Governor Stevenson when you first joined him, and between that time and the campaign?

MCGOWAN: I worked as a kind of a personal staff assistant. I think eventually the Governor dreamed up the title of Counsel to the Governor as my title. For payroll purposes I was listed as Administrative Assistant.

In Springfield, as you may or may not know, the Governor spent a lot of time in his office at the Executive Mansion. And at the Executive Mansion, in addition to the secretaries, there were simply the Governor, Bill Blair and myself, and I did any and everything, really. During the first few months of the Governorship, Walter Schaefer and Ed [J. Edward] Day filled these roles. I came in September, 1949, when Schaefer returned to Northwestern; and Blair came

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a few months later when the Governor appointed Day to the Director of the Insurance Department.

HESS: Whatever needed to be done.

MCGOWAN: That's right, whatever needed to be done.

HESS: Before moving on, how would you characterize Governor Stevenson? Just what kind of a man was he?

MCGOWAN: Well, I found him a very engaging man and one who was a great delight to work for. He was a very hard worker but he was not a driver of the staff. He was full of fun, and in addition to having underneath all that quite serious purposes. He was the kind of man that I used to look forward to getting up in the morning and going over to the office because the day would always prove to be an interesting and pleasant one there even though we worked hard. We worked quite hard in Springfield, but it was because we wanted to and not because we were driven to.

He was not a hard man in terms of staff, indeed his weakness was that he would tend to go ahead and do things himself too much rather than to try to get the -- rather than to try to put another load on somebody that he thought was already working hard, but I always

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enjoyed his company very greatly, both in times of stress, and in good times. He was always, he was basically very, very good company, as we used to say in the Middle West.

HESS: Do you think that Governor Stevenson enjoyed politics?

MCGOWAN: Very much, and this I have said -- stressed myself a number of times now. I think one of the great myths of that era is that he disliked politics, that he disliked politicians, and that he was uncomfortable around politicians and had no flair for it. I think the evidence is all to the contrary. Nobody could have done as well as he did in the Governorship, particularly in his success at the legislature in 1951, who had no political flair and certainly no liking for it.

I think this was a myth that was created by the newsmen in large part. They somehow liked the image of the aristocrat, you know, who was uncomfortable with the ward leaders. That gave it a little different twist. And they played that up.

I remember after the Governor died -- after the funeral services at the cathedral -- I rode out to

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Andrews Air Force Base to take the plane to Springfield, and Jack [Jacob M.] Arvey was in the car and I said, "Jack, you know better than anybody else," and this is prompted by the fact that Scotty [James B.] Reston had written one of those pieces on the front page of the New York Times that morning. Here was the unhappy aristocrat you know, who...

HESS: Who had been pushed into politics.

MCGOWAN: Always ill at ease, pushed into politics, and I said, "You know better than anybody else, that there is absolutely nothing to this."

And he said, "Of course there isn't anything to it."

And I said, "Well, you, before you die you ought publicly to explode this once and for all because it isn't true."

Adlai grew up in a political family, they were all interested in politics. He was a strong Democrat, a very partisan Democrat really. And he knew the realities and the virtues of strong political organization and never had any purpose to get at odds with political organizations.

He enjoyed the company of the politicians whether

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they were rural downstate county chairmen or the ward leaders in Chicago, and they liked him, I could see that at firsthand. He and Dick [Richard.J.] Daley were very close, and Adlai liked -- he liked the -- that intensely personal, political side of Mr. Truman. It was one of the things that he admired in him. So, as I say, this is something that I suppose will never be completely scotched, but it seems to me it was completely at odds with the facts.

HESS: In your opinion, were there others that Mr. Truman might have preferred to see as Democratic standard bearer in 1952, other than Governor Stevenson?

MCGOWAN: I don't know that. I think maybe by the time the convention came, and the President was obviously uncomfortable about the reluctance of the Governor to be an active candidate -- by that time, and during those spring months when he was unable to get from him a flat commitment, I'm sure that then he probably turned his attention to other candidates and might well have, by the time the convention arrived, personally preferred somebody else. But I would suspect that as of the time he asked him first to come down to Washington, that first interview in January, I would suspect that at that

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point Adlai was the number one man on his list by all odds.

HESS: In an article on Governor Stevenson by George Ball in the Atlantic Monthly, of May 1966, entitled "Flaming Arrows To The Sky," Mr. Ball states that David Lloyd and Charles Murphy of the White House staff talked to the President in January of '52 about the possible candidacy of Adlai Stevenson for the Presidency, and Ball states:

The President had not yet decided whether he would run himself. He had not commissioned them to sound out Stevenson but had indicated that he would interpose no objection if they cared to do so on their own initiative.

Were you aware that there were efforts under way among the White House staff in behalf of Governor Stevenson at this time?

MCGOWAN: I can't say that I was. I do remember something about David Lloyd. He may have come out to Springfield to talk with the Governor. I kind of think maybe he did. I attributed that all to the fact that David had gone with Adlai on that mission to Italy when I was with Adlai in the Navy Department, and I knew that David had been a staff man for the Governor on that mission and that he had a high admiration for him, and

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that if there was any sympathetic interest on the part of the White House staff members, David would be it. But I was not -- I never knew that they had actually -- I didn't assume that if David did come out to Springfield he was being disloyal to Mr. Truman, and that he must have -- because he's not that kind of fellow, that he must have -- if he came out there to talk about presidential politics, it must have been with Mr. Truman's knowledge. But I just assumed that it was just a personal interest on the part of Dave Lloyd and I never knew that, at that time at least, Charlie Murphy or anybody else was interested in this. There was a whole procession of people, you know, that came to Springfield, all of them talking Presidency and that sort of thing.

HESS: Who came?

MCGOWAN: Well, friends, and newsmen, and everybody. A lot of them I think shrewdly suspected that there was just a -- there was a possibility that Mr. Truman would not run again and that therefore the succession was an open and current question. But he never paid any attention to this, much, and sort of laughed it off when anybody would mention it. I think the first time he

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really -- as far as I know, the first time he really realized that he was in the arena was when President Truman asked him to come down to Washington.

HESS: Just what do you recall about the deliberations on Governor Stevenson's part as to whether or not he would accept the nomination, from the time that it was first broached to him until the time of the convention?

MCGOWAN: Well, he thought an awful lot about it and I think his reluctance was compounded of a number of separate elements. It would be hard to weigh them with anything like arithmetical precision. One, he was terribly interested in the Governorship, he'd been through a lot of misery trying to get the state straightened out and the foundations laid for a good state administration. That had just begun to pay off and fall in line, and he was very much wrapped up in the planning and the prospects for the second term, which at least at that point it appeared that he would certainly have. Even if there had been a Republican sweep naturally, I thought that he would still have been re-elected Governor. And there was the disappointment of giving up a job that you had put a lot into and was just beginning to pay off and so -- and this was very

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real. People in those days used to laugh about it. They'd say, "Oh, well, nobody would take seriously being Governor of Illinois as against the chance to be President."

I always said, "Well, I'm not so sure about that."

I think Adlai was really quite emotionally attached to the Governorship. Because of his deep roots in Illinois he got a tremendous -- he had a tremendous feeling of a sentimental character for the job. He also had, as I say, put an awful lot of sweat and blood into changing things, and the results were just beginning to appear, so that there was a serious moral question of whether he should walk out. He had had a lot of bipartisan support, you know, for Governor; there were people who had helped him the first time around, that expected him to pull the state up and get it into shape, and he felt some obligation to them. And then of course, if the presidential race should be unavailing, there he would be with nothing and he would have given up a job which he really was interested in, the work of which was very important to him, and this was all -- this was one of the factors.

Another factor, I think, was the family situation which was really not at all the kind that a presidential

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candidate or a man that is going to be President should have. The divorce was a great personal blow, and he had three growing boys to raise, to whom he was devoted and who, like all boys, needed his time and attention. I think he was very conscious of that. He didn't say much about it, but I think it was -- I think it loomed larger in his mind than many people give him credit for. You know how it is, sometimes the things you don't talk about the most...

HESS: To you seem the most important.

MCGOWAN: Now I used to have a feeling that when he was talking about a lot of these other things, that behind it all the time was something that he really wasn't talking very much about and which had a lot to do with it in his own thinking. Weighed against those things, of course, was the question as to, well, the need, the public need, for him to be the candidate.

He was, of course, mainly interested in foreign policy. That was the one thing that he really knew the most about and felt the most deeply about and he strongly supported Mr. Truman's foreign policy, and the Democratic foreign policy over the years. I think that if he had felt that there was any serious chance of that being

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destroyed or dismantled, this would weigh very heavily against the personal sacrifices involved in giving up the Governorship and also the family thing.

That, however, was always complicated by the [Dwight David] Eisenhower candidacy, and I remember he used to say, "Look, if it was [Robert A.] Taft, nothing could hold me back, because I would really feel that not only would I give it all I had, I wouldn't care if I won or lost. I would feel it was my duty because of the things that I believe in most strongly. And if the Democratic Party really needed me to beat Taft, and to preserve the Democratic foreign policy, I would do it in a minute." But he said, "Eisenhower complicates the whole thing. As far as I can see from the foreign policy positions he's taken over the years, he fairly believes in the same things that we do, and therefore, what's the need for me to give up what I'm doing, and also with the family complications, to save a foreign policy which as far as you can see is going to be safe in the hands of this man."

I think he believed that very strongly. And I think it had a lot to do with the seeming indecisiveness which appeared to characterize those spring months.

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And, as you remember, nobody could tell at that point whether it was going to be Eisenhower or Taft. As a matter of fact, it was a close thing right up to the end, so that -- I think weighing his personal problems against the national need, that that decision was always obscured by the Eisenhower candidacy and the inability to tell whether it was going to be Eisenhower or Taft.

Then, being a believer in the two-party system, I think he felt that the tides for change were running very strongly, and he couldn't quarrel with that too much as a matter of sound governmental principle, independent of personalities. Just as a philosophical proposition, that if we're going to have a two-party system, it may not be a completely healthy thing for one party to stay in forever. This was not perhaps a major factor in his decision, but in terms of this question of -- and particularly if you assume that Eisenhower was going to be the candidate -- then maybe there was a lot to be said for a change in the parties which were dominant, provided always that the important thing of foreign policy was in good hands. So I think this was a factor -- sort of a background of political principle or what's good for the country -- against which

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these others, these other factors, were always weighed.

He worried a lot about it, he didn't want to seem to be ungrateful to the party, ungrateful to Mr. Truman, but my own feeling is that the family situation, plus his great feeling for the Governorship when weighed against the possibility that Eisenhower was going to be the candidate, and the assurance that that seemed to give that the Taft wing of the Republican Party would not be dominant, was what really created the reluctance to go all out and say he was an active candidate. Because, in terms of being an active candidate, against that background, he wasn't, you see, he wasn't in truth an active candidate. If he had said he was an active candidate, he wouldn't have been saying what his true feelings were.

HESS: What finally tipped the scales towards his acceptance? Was it a true draft?

MCGOWAN: Well, I think it was a true draft in the sense that if the party had wanted somebody else, they were free to name him without any feeling that they were turning down a bid from Adlai; and it was not a true draft in the sense that he had ever said, "No. I will

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not accept it under any circumstances."

HESS: No [General William T] Sherman statement.

MCGOWAN: That's right, no Sherman statement. And I don't really believe that there is ever a true draft. I just don't believe that you can make a man run for President who simply will not run for President. So, in that sense it was not a true draft, of course it wasn't. But in the sense that, although he was not actively seeking it, that he -- that was a matter of party loyalty, if the convention named him, he was not going to embarrass the party by saying, "No." And I think they knew that long before the convention week started.

HESS: Going ahead just a bit, but his views on President Eisenhower's foreign policy changed just a bit in the next few years, did they not?

MCGOWAN: Well, when the nature of President Eisenhower's true views, either because Eisenhower changed his or whatever, then he realized, like many other Democrats, that Eisenhower did not provide the assurance of continuity that he had appeared to and Adlai was, I think, very disappointed.

Once in the race -- well, as you recall, Eisenhower

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began to look somewhat like a different figure from almost the time the campaign got under way. Apparently Eisenhower had a special distaste for Stevenson, never got over it.

HESS: What was the basis for that?

MCGOWAN: I suppose that he, Eisenhower, resented the comparisons with the egghead intellectual. Anybody resents, you know, people saying, "This is the intellectual candidate, and this one isn't."

HESS: And so, therefore, this one over here must not be.

MCGOWAN: That's right, but it's certainly true that it's quite evident that Eisenhower never really had any use for Stevenson and never changed in that regard as far as I know.

HESS: Did you accompany Governor Stevenson on any of the trips that he took down to Washington that spring -- before the convention?

MCGOWAN: I guess he came down more than once that spring, but the two that I remember were the two to see President Truman. No. I certainly did not come on those, and I can't recall that I was with him on any trip to Washington before the convention.

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I went with him to the Governors' conference in Houston in June just before the Republican convention, and of course, the Democrat came later. That's the only trip that I recall with him in the pre-convention period, except that we were in California early in the spring when he went to visit the Illinois National Guard Division before it went overseas to Korea. It may be relevant to the state of his thinking on that trip to point out that the other piece of business he had on that trip was to spend a day with Governor Warren in Sacramento getting some hints on how to run a state government effectively.

HESS: What seemed to be the general attitude of the other Governors at the Governors' conference? Did they try to persuade him that it was the thing for him to do?

MCGOWAN: Yes, and this was true both of Republicans and Democrats. They all told him, you know, that he had to do it because he was the best man the Democrats had. This came both from Republicans and Democrats, and that he ought to do it.

HESS: Do you recall what Republicans gave him that advice?

MCGOWAN: I can't remember them all now, but they included

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Republicans with national political experience and exposure. I remember my impression at the time was that, in terms of his duty to the country, this was stated to him not only by Democrats but also by Republicans.

In the case of perhaps some of the Republicans, I'm not sure that this wasn't -- these were Eisenhower Republicans, and I'm not sure that they didn't also see the advantage if they could get Stevenson committed to be the candidate, that this gave them a much bigger lever to urge on the Republican convention that Eisenhower had to be the candidate rather than Taft.

It was generally assumed by the Eisenhower Republicans that, for the presidential race itself, Stevenson was the most dangerous opponent and therefore it gave them a talking point against Taft that, "This fellow Stevenson will beat Taft and you had better nominate Eisenhower,," so that I think they had in mind not only Adlai's duty to the country, but their duty to their party, at least in the sense of keeping its leadership out of the hands of Taft, whose foreign policy views they thought were bad for the country.

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HESS: They were thinking about their own political party.

MCGOWAN: That's right, because these, as I say, the Republican Governor or Governors, that I'm sure were Eisenhower -- were the Eisenhower wing. I always thought that Adlai saw that right away, too.

HESS: He knew what was behind it.

What do you recall about the convention in Chicago that year?

MCGOWAN: Well, I never went to the convention except for the opening session, the night of the acceptance speech, and then to the closing session the next day.

We were staying in Bill Blair's house where the Governor was, and all I remember -- I remember the week of course, very vividly, but it mostly was being right there in the Blair house until we went down to the convention for the acceptance speech. The Governor was there virtually all the time. He went out once in awhile, and then of course a lot of people came to see him. But it was just sort of a sitting around.

He was working on the acceptance speech, particularly after the first day of the convention when the reception of his original -- his welcoming speech -- made it quite clear that the convention would probably -- was very friendly, to put it mildly.

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Actually, I always thought Adlai's welcoming speech was a masterpiece and really a better speech in many ways than the acceptance speech.

HESS: Let's discuss those two speeches just for a few moments as they are very well-known. How were those two speeches written, which brings up the general subject of just how were Governor Stevenson's speeches written, who helped prepare the speeches and how much did the Governor participate in the speechwriting?

MCGOWAN: Well...

HESS: Did he write his own speeches?

MCGOWAN: Yes, he wrote a lot of them.

This is a fairly complicated process, and let's go back a bit. Remember that Adlai was basically a journalist. I mean that's really what he -- he would have been a great journalist, you know, and he liked words, and he liked to write.

When I first went to work for him down at the Navy Department he was a speechwriter himself, among his other duties, for Frank Knox. He did that along with a lot of other important things, but he was kind of the -- when the Secretary had to make an important address, Adlai was the one that had to do

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it. So, he could write speeches.

HESS: He was good at it.

MCGOWAN: Yes. And in the Governorship he made a lot of speeches around the state and sometimes the nation. He worked on these himself and I think you could say, by and large, of most of the gubernatorial speeches, that he wrote them, including very often the first draft.

Even if he had a draft to begin with (this carried through all the way), even if he had a draft he just fussed with it and fiddled with it and fooled with it and sat up all night, you know, turning it around, writing new paragraphs, until the final product, in a sense, was really a Stevenson-written speech. Now that's not to say that when he got into the presidential campaign, the burdens were so heavy I mean, that he did not have to have a lot more speechwriting help. But that still...

HESS: Raw material type of thing.

MCGOWAN: Raw material and drafts. But that still didn't mean that when he -- and I remember one of the things that used to drive us wild on the campaign trip was he would be sitting up in the hotel about 3:30 a.m., you

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know, going over these things after a hard day and doing all this and that in the way of editing and rewriting, so I think -- no, it would be foolish to say that he wrote all of his own speeches. No man that runs for President at least could do that, but it would be fair to say, I think, that uniquely the speechwriting product that finally came out was his. Even though one or more people may have made a large contribution to it.

HESS: Who were the usual contributors?

MCGOWAN: Well, when the presidential campaign came on, we set up this stable of power over in the Elk's Club in Springfield. You listed them...

HESS: That's right, the Elk's Club group, as they are called.

MCGOWAN: ...in your memorandum. And a lot of them were highly professional writers.

Those fellows sort of lived over there all together in the Elk's Club and every once in awhile the Governor would meet with them. We'd all go out to somebody's house at Lake Springfield and sit around all afternoon talking about policies and what the candidate should be talking about, and he would give

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his thoughts about a particular policy matter, so that all of these fellows sitting around could -- and they could listen to it and talk with him and out of this they sort of -- it was for the purpose of enabling them to know what the candidate thought was important, and what he thought about the things that were important, and what kinds of speeches we should be thinking about for particular places on the campaign. And then they'd go back to the Elk's Club and they'd bat this stuff out, you know. I was still at the Executive Mansion so I was the go-between between the Elk's Club group and the candidate, and I used to go over there and see them and then they'd come over to me and deliver the products, and it was that kind of a process.

And I traveled with him all the time during the campaign. And then we'd always take along on the campaign a couple of these fellows to handle the whistle stop speeches, or shorter items, or give last minute help on that kind of a...

HESS: Did you usually take the same two or did they alternate:

MCGOWAN: Well, not, not the same two, we sort of – it

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depended on what the nature of the big speech or speeches might be. One who went frequently was John [Bartlow] Martin, who was a really professional writer and was very good at that kind of thing because he could knock it out fast at the last minute, particularly for short things, and a lot of these things came up you know at the last minute, unscheduled appearances here and there. So, John Martin was very important in that operation, as he was later for Kennedy and Johnson both.

But it's hard to describe the speechwriting situation. I'm sure these are public figures who literally take drafts and read them as written. And I don't say this critically, but that's because they are a different kind of people, they don't have the feel for words, they don't have the interest in words, they don't have the literary urge.

Adlai simply wasn't -- couldn't do that. And he didn't claim any great credit for this; it only made his life miserable in terms of later hours and fussing around and fuming and worrying about texts and that sort of thing, but I think he was -- he was somewhat unique in that regard. I think it was all due to the

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fact that he was essentially a writer at heart, and a journalist; and he simply couldn't -- he just didn't take somebody else's words without trying at least to give them his own personal flavor.

HESS: There was some criticism during the campaign that Mr. Stevenson's speeches were on too high an intellectual plane and weren't really aimed at the understanding of the average voter. Do you think there is any validity to that criticism?

MCGOWAN: No. I don't think so. I think this was one way the opposition had of fighting back. They knew these speeches were attracting an awful lot of attention, and one way to take the fire out of them, was to circulate the idea, well, you know, that's all a lot of high toned rhetoric, but for the average man this goes right over his head. I thought there was a lot of sour grapes -- and political sour grapes -- in that.

I think most people felt that the Stevenson campaign of 1952 hit a pretty high level with respect to speech quality, and this was really all he had going for him. And the campaign was successful in the sense that there were more people who voted for him on election day than would have voted for him on the day he was nominated.

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If you measure a campaign by whether you have more votes at the end than you had at the beginning, I think it was a successful campaign, and you can't say that the speeches weren't the major factor, because he was really hardly known to most people, except as they heard him speak over a fairly short space of time. To make that kind of an impact on the people, his speeches must have been effective.

HESS: What do you recall about the efforts made by two gentlemen who were actively seeking the nomination at the convention: Alben Barkley and Averell Harriman? Do you recall anything about their efforts?

MCGOWAN: No. I really don't. I remember the morning after nomination I got up early and came down to breakfast first; we had been up quite late. And Mr. Harriman was there. So I was sitting with him at a big breakfast table in Bill Blair's house. He was there ready to do any and everything he could to advance the nominee's candidacy, and he was quite helpful during the campaign. I don't remember anything about his own candidacy that came before. He and Adlai always got along very well because I think they

[30]

were both good loyal Democrats and shared the same views on foreign policy.

Then Barkley, of course, I think that was kind of painful to Adlai because Barkley and he always put on this cousin act, for which there was some remnant of foundation, but it was -- the blood connection -- it was pretty thin. Over and above this tie, Adlai was quite devoted to the Vice President.

I remember Barkley used to come to the Executive Mansion, as a matter of fact, the first week I was in Springfield, one of my jobs was to go down to St. Louis on the Governor's plane and meet the Vice President at the airport and bring him back. He was around the Mansion that time two or three days. He came up to speak at the State Fair once, and Stevenson threw a big party. They were close friends. And I think Steve was kind of saddened that the Chicago convention was a disappointment to the Vice President. He appears to have wanted that nomination badly.

HESS: What do you recall about Mr. Stevenson's first activities following the convention? And perhaps to lead off on that I'd like to read a statement from Cabell Phillips' book, The Truman Presidency, and get

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your reaction to it. This appears on page 425.

In August Stevenson paid a visit to the President in the White House in the hope of working out a modus vivendi by which the President would remain in the background until the last couple of weeks of the campaign, while Stevenson created a public image and program of his own. The conference was held in the Cabinet room with the President and key members of his staff lined up on one side of the vast coffin-shaped table, and on the other side, Stevenson and picked members of "the Springfield crowd" -- like representatives of sovereign powers at a treaty conference. It was stiff, painfully uncomfortable, and largely inconclusive.

Did you attend that meeting?

MCGOWAN: I was at a meeting, it was not that meeting. I doubt that that meeting existed.

We came down to Washington in August. All I know was that it seemed desirable for the candidate and the President to meet, and I think Mr. Truman invited him to come down. Our party consisted of, I think, the Governor, and Steve Mitchell, and Wilson Wyatt, myself, and Bill Blair, there may have been somebody else, but I don't recall. On our arrival at the White House my recollection is that in the Cabinet Room, Mr. Truman had there a number of the Cabinet officers who were in town, because I remember standing over by the fireplace talking to Dean Acheson. White House

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staff members were present also. This was just standing around.

HESS: Not lined up on both sides of the table?

MCGOWAN: Oh, no, just standing around. It is possible that we did sit down thereafter at the table for a couple of minutes, because I have an image of President Truman sitting at the Cabinet table, but that was only for the most -- he only made the most general remarks, sort of meeting each other, and then he took the Governor off to his own private office and we never saw them again until we left. And that's where any talking was done, I mean of a serious nature.

So, there was no -- and that little gathering was more of a social gathering than anything else in the Cabinet Room. It was entirely friendly and pleasant and unstrained, and nothing like that. As I say, it only lasted a very short time because I think the President felt that what he wanted to say to Governor Stevenson was something that was between the two of them.

HESS: Did you say there were some plans that were formulated at this time though?

MCGOWAN: Well, after the President took Adlai away, the

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White House staff people present and we visitors from Springfield talked a while about liaison -- how important it was and how it could best be maintained. Dave Bell, you know, came back right from that -- he had his bag all packed, he left with us right from the White House to go back to Springfield.

HESS: What about Clayton Fritchey?

MCGOWAN: No. Clayton didn't come at that time. As I recall it, Dave is the one fellow that was really -- went right back with us and went right into the Elk's Club -- moved right into the Elk's Club that night.

HESS: Why was he chosen?

MCGOWAN: I don't know except I assume that one of the things that the President told Adlai in their private meeting was that Dave would be the best man to be right with him on his staff because Dave not only had great abilities himself but knew how to communicate with Washington for liaison purpose. Dave turned out to be a tower of strength and was one of the hardest working, and most devoted people we had in the Elk's Club group.

HESS: What did he do, what were his duties in Springfield?

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MCGOWAN: He worked just like the rest of these fellows. He wrote drafts of speeches and he and they used to sit around over at the Elk's Club going over each other's drafts you see. This was really quite an operation, when you consider the high-powered character of the writing talent that was there. And one of the things that I worried about...

HESS: That would have been pretty expensive talent to go out on the market and purchase.

MCGOWAN: And one of the things that I worried about, was that after all these are high-powered writers, and here I am supposed to be a shepherd, and intermediary and confessor and everything else, and conduit, and I may run into a lot of temperamental problems. We never had them, as it turned out.

That was one of the great things about the '52 campaign; we had in general a minimum of personal jealousy or backbiting and things like that. Really a happy ship all the time, and particularly with these writers, which was quite amazing since they have all this pride of authorship that professionals have. They'd submerged all that, and if you'd say to them, "Well, this doesn't quite seem to hit, you know, what

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the Governor is thinking about, or he says," you know, and they'd cheerfully tear the whole thing up and start all over again. They were wonderful -- it was a wonderful performance.

Dave Bell was a very important part of that, because on questions of policy and information and things that they needed you know, or wanted, or would find useful, which could only be gotten in Washington, Dave was the fellow to handle all that. He was on that phone from the Elk's Club back to Washington, I think, a very great deal of the time.

HESS: He was in charge of liaison between the White House...

MCGOWAN: Well, I never met him before we came to Washington that day. And I didn't realize until we were leaving the White House, here was this fellow carrying his suitcase, you see, and I'm sure that one of the things that the President wanted to tell Adlai in that meeting was that he thought that Dave would be a fine fellow to have right in our campaign staff and he was making him available for us for that purpose, and that he was to come right back with us that night, which he did.

Now Clayton Fritchey, at that time wasn't he -- he

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was at the Defense Department, wasn't he? Wasn't he the information officer? I didn't have the impression he came off of the White House staff directly. I knew he was close, but my impression was that he was the information director for the Defense Department. He didn't arrive as soon as Dave, but he came along pretty fast, and it was some time later. And how that -- whether that was because Mr. Truman suggested Clayton or somebody else in Washington suggested Clayton, I don't know. The Bell thing was a direct White House contact and Dave was obviously designated by Mr. Truman, and suggested by Mr. Truman, to Adlai as the man that he ought to take with him from the White House staff and Dave was with us all through the campaign.

HESS: What were Mr. Fritchey's duties once he arrived?

MCGOWAN: Clayton, I know, worked in the campaign, but I don't recall him, Mr. Hess, as part of the Elk's Club group; I thought he was working maybe more with Wilson Wyatt, and that was a separate operation. I got to know Clayton really much better in later years than I did at that time, but I don't remember him as an actual Elk's Club staff man. I think he was

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more of a Wyatt staff man.

HESS: All right, now we've mentioned the campaign, and the campaign trips, but just what were your duties during the campaign?

MCGOWAN: Well, basically it was to keep an eye on the speech schedule and see to it that when the candidate, when the television went on, he had something that was all ready. That was the main thing. I did see and talk to people that he couldn't possibly have had time to see. I talked to him about policy, but that was all part of the speechwriting operation.

As I say, I suppose if you had to describe it briefly, my central obligation was to see to it that he never faced an audience without a speech available to him.

HESS: Were there ever any close moments on that, any times when he almost didn't have a speech?

MCGOWAN: Well, I remember vividly the Texas State Fair. He went to Ft. Worth first and then came back to Dallas, and I stayed on the airplane at the airport which was midway in between. I was going to get the speech to him in its final form, not that he hadn't seen it before and gone over it, but in its actual

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set up final form, to get it to him at the State Fair. Well, I had trouble in traffic (and this was a nationally televised speech, too), and I remember running through that State Fair grounds with my tongue hanging out, and I only made it by just a few minutes before he went on the air. That was essentially the responsibility to which I was assigned.

Of course there were a number of other matters that came up, if for no other reason than because he was still Governor, that had to be handled is they arose when we were on the campaign trips. They would come to me in the first instance.

HESS: I believe there was some trouble in the prison.

MCGOWAN: Yes.

HESS: In 1952. Do you recall that?

MCGOWAN: Oh yes, I sure do. Yes, and that came up while we were going west through Pennsylvania. When I learned about it I was just sure that -- because of the nature of the problem -- I was just sure that Adlai would want to go back and I thought he should go back. I think at that point we were beginning to feel, this was getting late in the campaign, we were beginning to feel very keenly the fact that things we had been so terribly

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interested in the Governorship were now sort of drifting away.

The state police were in danger out there, and the state police were something that Adlai had really made a major political commitment on and turned it into a really good force and they meant a lot to him. And I think it was a kind of -- I think in a sense it was kind of a nostalgic moment, suddenly a sort of a, "Well, after all running the country is not everything. There are still a lot of important things back home."

And so when these reports kept coming in, telephone calls at the various stations and I would be taking them, I finally told American Airlines to go ahead and set up the flight back that night and all arrangements were made and when I told Adlai who had been busy all day with his whistle stop speeches and meeting the local party people, I said, "I have set it up for you to go back to southern Illinois tonight, to the prison."

And he said, "That's exactly what I want to do."

HESS: Was there any fear that he might have been taken hostage by the prisoners?

MCGOWAN: No, not that, but I think it was just that -- I think the reason for being there was that as long as the

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Governor himself was not there the prisoners might have figured they had a little more latitude to operate, or to trade, than if he were there saying, "This is it." This was the only real contribution he might have been able to make, but it was one thing to know that the chips are down when the other man is there who has the power to make the final decisions. It's another thing when he's away off some place and you don't really know what he'd say.

And I think this is the way it worked out. The state police were going to force the cellblock at 8 o'clock in the morning and there were two or three guns among the prisoners; they really could have, you know, killed a few of the troopers. But I think Adlai's standing where they could see him, saying in effect no more fooling around, this is going to be done, caused them to give in largely without a struggle.

So, I think it meant a lot to them. I think this really reflected this deep feeling he had for the Governorship and for the people who had helped him in the Governorship.

I don't think it was simply a political gesture,

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it was because -- I remember the newsmen, you know were wild with anger when this happened that night. The way they jumped all over me when we said we were going out there, and we weren't going to take them along either, at least only the very limited number that we could handle. They were just beside themselves with rage so that, politically, the step did not look promising, especially since it cost a full day of campaigning. And I remember Senator [J. William] Fulbright was on the train, I think he thought this was all a great mistake and a sentimental gesture that was silly and all that kind of stuff. In the event, I think it was politically the most popular thing he did, but that wasn't the reason for it. I think it really represented -- I just knew that he still attached great store to that business of being Governor, and to the people back in Illinois, particularly the state policemen. They meant a lot to him.

HESS: Were you involved in the setting up the itinerary -- or where the trips were going to be taken?

MCGOWAN: Not very much. When the itinerary people would come over, I usually would sit in with the Governor when he talked about itinerary, but I didn't really,

[42]

you know, participate very actively in the planning of the itinerary.

HESS: Who were the main people that worked on the itinerary? Just how was it set up?

MCGOWAN: Well, I think Wilson Wyatt's people, in consultation with Steve...

HESS: With the national committee people.

MCGOWAN: Worked this out, yes.

HESS: Did you think there was adequate coordination between Governor Stevenson's staff and President Truman's staff on setting up the itinerary for the two separate campaign trips?

MCGOWAN: I don't remember. I don't remember that that problem -- I don't remember any discussion of that problem.

I always felt, you see, about that problem of coordination with President Truman's staff, that we had really his own man with us for that purpose.

HESS: In Dave Bell.

MCGOWAN: In Dave Bell, right there and that he had been really put there for that reason and we trusted Dave and liked him and respected his abilities enough that we just assumed that, you know, whatever liaison

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was desirable or necessary, that he was there just for that purpose and that he could handle it on his own.

The Governor liked -- was very fond of Dave. Dave had direct access to the Governor anytime he wanted to see him. So, I guess as I look back on it, I don't understand why at least the White House should have felt that they had no liaison access and it still mystifies me a little bit.

HESS: Why did Governor Stevenson decide to leave his principal headquarters in Springfield?

MCGOWAN: Again, I think this is partly sentimental, partly I think he felt that his identification really was with Springfield and he was a new face and that somehow it gave him more of a solidity to the people than if he had been working out of an office in New York or Washington. It may not have been a wise decision, but, on the other hand, it seems to me that it was a perfectly justifiable one. And in any event, I don't think that it was the kind of thing that wins or loses elections.

HESS: Do you think that his leaving the headquarters there was an attempt to disassociate himself from Mr. Truman in some way and from what was being referred to as the "mess in Washington"?

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MCGOWAN: I don't -- no, I don't think it had anything to do with that at all.

Adlai really was a great admirer of Mr. Truman, particularly in the area of his conduct of foreign policy. I think he was such an admirer that one of the things that troubled him about accepting the designation from Mr. Truman as heir apparent, would be inevitably a certain amount of strain between the generation that's stepping out and the new generation stepping in.

This is a problem that is not peculiar to politics. It happens in businesses, it happens in families, and I think there was a certain amount of this in prospect for any new young man who ran in 1952, particularly with Mr. Truman's blessing. He would inevitably have had problems of trying to establish his own identity, separate and apart from the great man that was stepping down.

And I think a lot of this Truman sense of strain, this feeling by Mr. Truman that he was ignored or that his advice was not taken, is perfectly understandable and reflects no discredit on him or anybody else. He had pulled off a miracle in 1948, and

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like all people who make miracles, he thinks it can be done again if you just do it...

HESS: My way.

MCGOWAN: Do it my way. And this was -- I mean he was entitled to think this because it was a magnificent accomplishment. The trouble is that '52 wasn't '48, for a number of reasons, a most important one being that four more years had gone by of Democratic ascendancy and the feeling for change was geometrically increased in those four years. It was now twenty years instead of only sixteen, but they seemed like a lot more. The Korean war, for all the wrong reasons, was very unpopular and in his preoccupation with foreign policy, which was the most important thing, I think that the country was a little unhappy with the kind of slipshoddiness of some of the personnel operations in Washington.

Myself, I think that that was largely due, again, to the tremendous difficulties which Mr. Truman faced in ’48. The fundraising problem in '48 was cruel and anybody who responded in '48 obviously was entitled to the consideration of the administration. I suspect that it was the very money difficulties of 1948 that

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directly or indirectly created a lot of the problems of what later became known as the "mess in Washington".

HESS: Who do you have in mind?

MCGOWAN: Well, I just think that in dealing with the Federal Government, the claims of those who did stand by loyally and contribute were given more time and attention than they should have been.

This is one of the things that used to worry Adlai very much. He always worried about the narrow financial base of the Democratic Party, because he knew enough about fundraising to know that the guy who really lays the money on the line is entitled to meet with you, and some favors will inevitably be sought. You've got to turn him down most of the time, but you can't just -- you just can't brush him off like that.

I really think that a lot of the problems here in Washington had to do with the critical fundraising difficulty that Mr. Truman had in '48, and I'm not saying that there was any corruption about it. It's just that you know as well as I do that fellows who make a big campaign contribution when the going's tough, can get in to see people that they can't otherwise. And

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I think that down the line it begins to fray out a lot and the guy down the line sort of feels, "Well, I'm supposed to do something for this fellow," whereas Mr. Truman himself, or someone higher up, would say, "Listen to them, but don't do anything that you wouldn't do for anybody else." But when it gets down in the lower echelons it unravels a bit, and that explains a lot of that slackness in Washington, which was not really serious, but a man who's impatient with the Korean war would seize upon something like that. It seemed to be worse than it was, and I think that, for all the wrong reasons, Mr. Truman was not terribly popular in the spring of 1952.

We saw this in 1950 when everybody was saying that Scott Lucas, you know, would win again easily, and we didn't think so. We were around the state quite a bit and it looked like [Everett] Dirksen was going to beat him; and he did, easily.

I think that Adlai always felt that it was important for any Democratic candidate in 1952, who was going to be facing a tremendous political force in terms of the feeling that it's time for change, would himself have to indicate that -- well, even if you get a new Democrat

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President there's going to be a change, there's going to be a change, there's going to be a new figure, a new face, a new style, a new -- and it's not going to be just the same thing, so you're going to get a change. It's not a Republican change, but it's a change.

This had a lot to do with his difficulties with Mr. Truman; he knew that he had to be his own man. The worst thing that could have happened politically to the Democratic Party, considering the temper of 1952, would have been for him to have walked out on the front porch of Blair House with Mr. Truman, and have Mr. Truman announce, "Now this is the man that I have selected to be the next President." Politically it would have been murder, and I think Adlai knew this and always tried to convey the impression that, "Look, I think Mr. Truman is a great man, but I'm different. I'm a different kind of fellow, but I think his basic policies have been absolutely outstanding, particularly in the foreign policy field."

Nobody can say that Adlai didn't go down the line for those foreign policy matters. Even the unpopular things. The Korean war -- we used to say every time

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he made a Korean war speech, "There go another three million votes." But he really went down the line on that.

I just think that it's always true that when -- just the way I watch my eighteen year old boy -- when an older generation is watching a new man coming along to do the things that they have done themselves quite well, that they always tend to think, "Well, he's not doing this quite right, and if he would only listen to me." And this was bound to be a problem for whoever was named the nominee in '52. And this is not disrespect for Mr. Truman at all, it's just the way life is.

HESS: You mentioned the Korean war. Did it cause any special problem at the time that General Eisenhower said, "I will go to Korea," during the campaign?

MCGOWAN: Obviously that was very popular -- he didn't need it to win, but it was certainly a clincher.

Adlai, I know, thought it was a cheap thing, and his attitude was that he didn't think the General would do anything like that -- it was a very misleading kind of thing. And remember he had been talking privately about going to Korea if he won, not that

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anybody thought he was going to win, but if he had won he intended to go there, but he never said anything about it. He talked about this long before this Eisenhower statement was made. But his whole attitude was to just sort of throw up his hands, "If Ike wants to say that, that's his business. I'm not going to..."

HESS: Stephen Mitchell was selected by Governor Stevenson to replace Frank E. McKinney as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Just why was Mr. Mitchell selected?

MCGOWAN: Well, I think this is a classic illustration of what I've been talking about in terms of strain with Mr. Truman.

Mr. Truman wanted very much for Adlai to continue Frank McKinney. I don't know, I don't think Adlai had anything particular against Frank McKinney, but to Adlai it seemed very bad politics simply in terms of what I've been talking about here -- everything would seem to go on just the same.

The tradition has always been that the new candidate can name his own national chairman and the people would be saying, "Why, this guy Stevenson can't even name his

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own national chairman. Truman has called all the shots, this isn't going to be any change, Stevenson is a Truman stooge and, if you really want change in Washington, you're only going to get it by voting Republican." That was a primary reason and Adlai did feel that he was entitled, according to tradition, to name his own man.

Now, in looking around to find his own man it was hard to do because all the pros were telling Adlai, "Well, you know the tradition, it has to be a Catholic." I mean, it appeared just unthinkable that the Democratic National Chairman could not be a Catholic. Adlai didn't really believe that, but again he sort of thought, "Well, I can't seem to throw over the judgment of all of the politicians and I can't say that I know a lot more about this than they do." So, he was trying to think of some friends of his with political experience who was also a Catholic.

I remember he brooded about this for two or three days and I remember he was very unhappy because I think -- I think the Truman coolness really started with that. The President called him the day after the

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nomination to urge Frank McKinney on him and I remember hearing part of that conversation. I was in the room when he called. And Adlai was having a tough time saying, "Well, no, he didn't think so." I really think from that point on President Truman was beginning to wonder whether this fellow was really going to perform the way that Mr. Truman thought he ought to. Mr. Truman was entitled to have his ideas about the way he performed because he had done this marvelous thing in '48. But I think it all started then.

And it really seemed to me that Adlai was very cooperative with Mr. Truman. After all, Mr. Truman really selected the Vice President and Adlai took that without any quarrel, although in the event it was not exactly an inspired choice. But then to have him the next day come along and say, "Now I want you to keep Frank McKinney on as national chairman," this was a little too much.

So Adlai was under great pressure particularly because he was turning down the President's request to continue McKinney, he was under great pressure to find somebody and it was a terrible problem for him the first few days after he came back to Springfield

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from the convention.

I remember he came down to breakfast one morning and said, "I've got it. I was laying awake last night thinking about this. Steve Mitchell, he's a Catholic, and he's got some political experience, and he's the guy I think I should have." And so that's how it happened to be Steve.

Steve did a lot for the national committee in many ways, although he has a somewhat difficult personality and he rubs a lot of people the wrong way, but he's also a very hard worker and I've known a number of people, particularly after the campaign, who thought that Steve had done well under difficult circumstances. I think that Steve was hurt by the Wyatt setup. I think Steve was the real victim of the Wyatt setup in that it sort of reduced his influence.

HESS: Why was it decided to have a split directorship, more or less, with Wilson Wyatt and Steven Mitchell?

MCGOWAN: I don't really know. I think it was part of Adlai's -- I think Adlai regarded Wilson as a bright and up and coming and intelligent young Democrat that he would like to have working for him.

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HESS: If he thought that he was that bright, why didn't he make him chairman of the Democratic National Committee?

MCGOWAN: He wasn't a Catholic.

HESS: He wasn't a Catholic. Was he under consideration, do you think that he would have considered him?

MCGOWAN: Oh. I'm sure he was considered, sure, because he was just looking for somebody like that.

I know Jim [James] Doyle, who was a young chairman, state chairman up in Wisconsin, who is now a Federal Judge up in Madison, was considered.

We were just racking our brains to thing about people that, particularly younger people, who would sort of be. in a sense a contrast to Frank McKinney, who rightly, or wrongly, gave the impression of an old-fashioned politician. We wanted one of these newer, younger Democrats.

Jim Doyle, and Jim was a Catholic, but Jim was -- I put in a call for him and Jim was way up in northern Canada and couldn't be reached for two weeks and we just couldn't wait for two weeks. So. I think this is one area where the politicians' advice wasn't as good as Adlai's own instincts, and that was not to make the Catholic thing so critical in the

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selection.

HESS: About the setting up of the dual directorship though, whose idea was that?

MCGOWAN: Well, this was Adlai's. I think he could see that if he was going to have his headquarters in Springfield, then some able fellow ought to be working on itinerary and campaign arrangements from there. Always in touch of course with the national committee, but he would need somebody on the ground; otherwise, he would. have to spend all the time himself on the telephone with Steve Mitchell working things out and that's the origin of it, I think.

HESS: Was there any ill feeling between the two men?

MCGOWAN: No, not that I could see. Of course, they really weren't --I never was aware of it. Although again, you know how campaigning is, there are times when...

HESS: There is too much going on to know what's taking place.

MCGOWAN: There's too much going on and people feel slighted, you know, and so I wouldn't want to say that there weren't times when Steve wasn't restless

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and vice versa. But, as I say, I think the real damage that was done was to Steve's prestige as national chairman, because it seemed to the outside world as if he were sort of a second-class national chairman.

HESS: Now, we've mentioned several of the people who were in Springfield, but let's just mention a few more and could you tell me just a little about what they did?

Mr. Bill Blair, William McCormick Blair, what was his job?

MCGOWAN: Well, Bill was usually referred to as appointments secretary. He sort of handled appointments and arrangements, and that kind of thing, very heavily. He did some other things too of a more substantive nature, but basically he was the man whom you called if you wanted to see the Governor, make an appointment with the Governor.

The Governor, of course, had to go back and forth to that Chicago office a lot, so Bill was always with him, because they -- he'd need somebody up there to handle the calls about appointments in the Chicago office and make appointments and doing this and

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doing that. So. Bill was very much, a very close, personal assistant of that -- primarily of that character and he was very good at it. He performed a very important function and the Governor had a high opinion of Bill's capacities and also his judgment because judgment about people was very important, you know, when you're sort of a shield or intermediary between...

HESS: When you're guarding the door.

MCGOWAN: That's right. You can make some mistakes that will be very costly and you can -- so that this is, as I say, this -- I don't mean this job to sound as if it weren't substantively important, because it was important, and Bill handled it very well. That was basically his area.

HESS: What about Bill [William I.] Flanagan.

MCGOWAN: Bill had been the -- he was in the state government as the Governor's press officer, or information officer, throughout the years in the state government. The trouble with -- I think Bill's problem was that Adlai was essentially a journalist himself, and he really didn't need or use or follow the advice of a press officer, the man that is dealing with the press all the time, the

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way somebody else would who didn't know that field. After all, Adlai you remember was sent out to San Francisco because the State Department's press relations were in such poor shape at the U.N. founding conference and his whole job was to try to get those back in hand.

He knew newsmen and newspapermen a long time because of his service with the Navy Department and his general interest in the press, so that he would tend to deal with them directly.

This always put Flanagan in a kind of box because he didn't -- he wanted everybody and he was entitled to expect every journalist that wanted an interview or a meeting with the Governor to come through him, and then he'd find out that one of Stevenson's old friends had come to him directly and Stevenson thoughtlessly would say, "Yeah, come on in." So, Bill had a lot of problems, mainly because his boss was his own press representative, but he was a very loyal -- and he worked hard and was one of the useful members of the staff.

HESS: Mr. Neale Roach.

MCGOWAN: Neale Roach was sent out by the national committee. He was an employee of the national committee and Neale

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was wonderful. He was in charge of all of the physical arrangements of the campaign trips and things like that. He was a very effective guy.

HESS: And Mr. Newton Minow.

MCGOWAN: Well, Newton was a boy that had been a student of mine in law school and in the last -- in the fall of the third year of the Stevenson administration in Springfield we talked a lot, the Governor and I, about trying to attract into the state government a lot of the bright young boys who, if they went into public service, always seemed to stop in Washington, seemed to go into the Federal service. I said to Adali, "Well, now I think if we have an aggressive campaign of going out and trying to locate these fellows, we might be able to interest some of them in coming down here." Our thought was that we would bring them in the Governor's office for awhile and then feed them out into the executive department so we'd have some young department heads coming along of a different stripe than you are usually able to recruit for a state government.

Newton at this time was a law clerk to Chief Justice Vinson so I said, "Now, there's the kind of a

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fellow who, if you turn your personality loose on him, you can persuade him to come down here to the state government rather than go back to a big law firm in Chicago or stay in Washington."

The Governor was going down to Washington on business, and I said, "Call him up."

I said, "You call him up, don't just have me call him up. If you want to get talent like this, you're the one to make the call." So Newton later told me about being surprised that he had a call late one night and this man says, "This is Governor Stevenson, and I wonder if you would have breakfast with me in the morning."

So, of course he was so bedazzled by all this that before he knew it he was signed up to come to Springfield.

We got three or four more like that. And this is also important to show that the Governor was really building for the second term and we had them all signed up, you see, long before the convention came along. And then Newton and these boys showed up for work, I think Newton showed up for work the day after we got back from the convention and the whole ballgame

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was changed. So, what he did was to go over to the State House office and work on state matters solely, and I remember the members of the national press used to say, "Who's running this state?" And then they'd say, "It seems like it's a young fellow named Minow over in the State House," and they always referred to him as "Governor Minow." But he never traveled, he was there, he was working on state stuff back at the ranch, while we were out wooing the electorate.

HESS: Are there any others who were particularly helpful?

MCGOWAN: Dick [Richard J.] Nelson, who had been president of the National Young Democrats, was brought into the state government a couple of years after we had been down there and Dick was one of the very good young men on the staff. He's now an executive of Inland Steel Company in Chicago.

[T.] Don Hyndman was Governor Green's press man, a veteran newspaperman who had gone into state service during the Republican years and when Adlai came down there he liked Don and kept him on and Don became a very loyal Stevenson man and worked all four years. He's now an executive director, or he's now assistant to the president of the American Bar

[62]

Association. He handled their public relations for several years.

Larry [Lawrence E.] Irvin was a state job personnel man for the Governor, a boy from Bloomington.

I'm sure there were others who were important in the state service, but I can't name them all. But these were on the personal staff of Governor Stevenson rather than out in the departments.

Ed Day, of course, had been in the Executive Mansion and was in the Executive Mansion office when I arrived there, as an assistant, but then he wanted to run a department, really, and so they eventually made him director of the Insurance Department. He was one of the close Stevenson staff people.

Walter Schaefer, who is now on the Illinois Supreme Court, was there for the first nine months of the administration. It was really his place that I took when I went down there in September of '49.

Adlai had a great talent for attracting good younger talent of that kind. One of the reasons was that they found him such an engaging and attractive fellow to work for. This was one of his great strengths,

[63]

I think, in terms of state government. He was able to bring into state government the kind of talent that you don't ordinarily attract to a state government. Here he had made -- he had really been working on aligning, you know, building a foundation for a second term and then all of a sudden there looms on the horizon this cloud.

So that I -- again I get back to my point, that his feeling about the Governorship, although by no means a decisive thing, was still something that too many people discounted as kind of artificial. It wasn't at all, it meant a lot to him. The whole Springfield experience meant a lot to him. It did to all of us who had any part in it.

HESS: I believe that George Ball was co-chairman of the National Citizen Volunteers for Stevenson. Did he assist in the campaign?

MCGOWAN: The Volunteers had their offices in Chicago and George, as I recall it, was not around Springfield very much. He was running that operation up there. He's an old friend of the Governor's and one of whom the Governor was very fond, but he just wasn't physically on the scene much because of his responsibilities at

[64]

the national office in Chicago of the Volunteers.

HESS: And Bertram Gross was director of research for the Democratic National Committee that year. Did you call upon him for any assistance at that time?

MCGOWAN: I think I've talked -- I talked to Bert on occasion. I'm sure Dave Bell was in touch with him a great deal.

The boys over at the Elk's Club were pretty knowledgeable guys. They knew the Washington scene very well and when they wanted something, you know, and which they thought they could find the answer to in Washington, they knew who to call and they did this all the time. I think they were in constant touch. They were free to operate on their own and they did. So, a lot of our getting or asking for help or assistance or information in Washington was done by these fellows.

HESS: Do you recall if Pierre Salinger served on any of the campaigns?

MCGOWAN: I have no recollection of this.

HESS: In reviewing the speeches and the statements of both Mr. Truman and Mr. Stevenson, it seems that Mr. Truman spoke out far more forcefully, and far more often, against General Eisenhower at that time. Now,

[65]

we have discussed this just a little bit, but do you think that is a fair assumption, did Mr. Truman seem to be speaking out against Eisenhower more than Governor Stevenson did in the campaign?

MCGOWAN: I don't recall personally. That may well be. I was not aware of it at the time. You know how a national campaign is. In the first place you are on a merry-go-round and you don't really have much of a chance to follow what other people are saying.

This was the one time in my life I really could hardly, literally couldn't read the newspaper, it was such a -- and I don't really remember too well, or I don't think I knew at the time, too much about exactly what themes President Truman was sounding in his speeches.

We always felt that the President should feel free to do things his own way, in the same way that we felt he ought to feel that Adlai should do things his own way. And I never heard any -- I never heard the Governor complain ever about the nature of Mr. Truman's speeches. I think he thought that Mr. Truman was -- he had enough confidence and respect for Mr. Truman that

[66]

he knew that Mr. Truman would say what he thought in the way he always had, and that's the way he should perform.

I think probably the reverse was not quite true. I would guess that Mr. Truman, again being of the older generation, like all of us who are older, think we know how to do it better. And, particularly after the '48 upset, I'm sure he felt Adlai was not saying the right things or saying them the right way. This again, however, is simply one of the problems Adlai knew would inevitably develop if he became the candidate.

HESS: Do you know if President Truman communicated that feeling to Governor Stevenson during the campaign, that he would like for him to take a somewhat different tack?

MCGOWAN: I never heard of it. I don't think there was much communication between them. This again is party because Adlai was terribly busy, you know, just trying to make the deadlines. I think it's more that than anything else. I'm sure that if Mr. Truman had wanted him to meet with him to discuss campaign strategy, Adlai would have managed somehow to do it. By the same token, I expect that President Truman felt that Adlai

[67]

should have sought him out instead of -- again, this seems to me just to be inevitable in a situation like that, and that the older man was bound to end up with a feeling that the younger had not, you know, listened to him as much as he should, or sought his advice as much as he should. It seems it was just inherent in the situation from the first, and I don't think it should be any occasion for surprise that it worked out that way.

I remember Adlai -- I remember specifically one night he was on the phone with Dean Acheson for a long time when we were trying to get a Boston speech on Korea into shape. So, he did consult with the members of the Truman administration, and he certainly defended the administration's foreign policy all the way.

I told you about having lunch with Mr. Acheson after you had been here that day and never having talked with him about all this before. We had an interesting lunch, and he certainly agreed that Adlai's defense of the Truman foreign policy was all out. But, you know, '48 in a way was such a marvelous upset and such a wonderful thing, that I remember

[68]

people used to come out to Springfield in 1952 to urge Adlai to run, people from Washington especially, who simply seemed to assume that the Democratic Party was never going to be beaten again. If they could pull that off in '48, why...

HESS: They could do it every time.

MCGOWAN: They could do it every time and, therefore, it wasn't a question of Adlai's thinking whether he might possibly be President if he said yes. It was rather that if you said yes you are President; and this again I thought was an illustration of this Washington myopia. I mean, a lot had been happening in the four years since 1948 and, rightly or wrongly, the Democrats were not looking so good politically in the spring of '52, particularly if a candidate like Eisenhower was going to emerge.

In the event, Mr. Hess, I concluded that Adlai would probably not have beaten Taft. The tides for change were running so strongly in '52 that even Taft could, I am inclined to believe, have brought it off against Stevenson. I think it might have been close, much closer, but I just think the people were -- that the forces for change in the National Government were so

[69]

strong that...

HESS: There was just nothing that the Democrats could have done then?

MCGOWAN: I don't believe so. I don't believe so.

So far as Mr. Truman's attacking Eisenhower more, I think there may have been a little bit of conscience in that, because after all Mr. Truman had done more than anybody to build Eisenhower up as a potential presidential candidate, and I think Mr. Truman always regretted that greatly. And this may account in some degree for his undoing a lot of what he himself had started when he used -- right after the war when he...

HESS: Perhaps when he was building him up he thought he was going to run on the Democratic ticket.

MCGOWAN: Was going to run on the Democratic ticket, that's right. But he did build him up and when Eisenhower disappointed him by saying that he was what he had always been, namely, a Republican, I think this -- Mr. Truman had a feeling of considerable letdown, and felt that he had gotten too far out on a limb in this praise of Eisenhower as a political figure.

[70]

HESS: Were there people who were assigned tasks of long range planning in event that Mr. Stevenson won the election, perhaps both on high-level staffing and on new programs that Mr. Stevenson would like to have implemented?

MCGOWAN: I can't really say that we had anybody doing that. I may be wrong about this. The Governor -- it may be my recollection is faulty, and it may be that the Governor had somebody thinking about this, but I can't -- I don't recall. I think his feeling about that pretty much was that he had around him, particularly in the Elk's Club group, a pretty knowledgeable bunch of people with ideas about -- of all kinds for the next administration and for people, and that the main business at hand was to try to do as well as he could in the election, and this raises, of course, the question of did he think he was going to win. I always answered that by saying that we never, he and I never discussed it, never discussed it.

I had assumed that no man could go through the strain of running for President and live with it unless he just assumes he is going to win. I think

[71]

if you're going to do it at all, you say to yourself, "I'm not going to pay any attention to the signs, I'm just going to win. I'm going to assume I'm going to win, and that's the only way I'm going to survive the campaign." And I think this is right. I think if you do it with one foot in the bucket or looking backwards or sitting around saying, "Gee, I'm not doing so well," it will be an intolerable situation. So that the candidate himself, for his own psychological security and health, simply has to make an arbitrary assumption at the beginning, and never let himself think anything else, or else he simply couldn't get through that awful task. And I think that that's what Adlai did.

I just assumed that he had done this and, therefore, I didn't see that any purpose would be served by my saying to him sometime late at night, "Gee, how do you think we're doing?" So, we never discussed it. I can't help but think that that assumption must have been sorely tried and it must have been a very difficult one to continue in his own secret thoughts, because of the cries of the kids standing along the street yelling, "We like Ike" almost from the

[72]

beginning. It just didn't have the feel of winning, it just didn't have it.

HESS: Where were you on election night?

MCGOWAN: In Springfield. He had invited some of his friends over for the evening. We lived just a few blocks away from the Executive Mansion and I was still tying my tie when the Connecticut returns came in and I said to my wife, "We don't need to go over there, we can go to bed." So that by the time, even by the time the friends had arrived, it was pretty clear that the thing was lost. The Connecticut vote was quite...

HESS: What was the Governor's attitude?

MCGOWAN: Well, he was very cheerful. He sat in his office most of the evening. People would come in and talk to him, or he got some telephone calls from around the country and that sort of thing, and he was amazingly, he was quite cheerful, really quite cheerful, and raised the spirits of everyone else. I didn't go with him when he went over to the television station later to make his concession. But then he came back after that and was in a very good mood. We opened the champagne and sat around awhile, but you can't make a good evening of any defeat like that. But I thought he handled it -- I

[73]

thought he handled it surprisingly well, and at least in my case, I didn't expect the result to be otherwise. I just never said so, but all the way back in the campaign, it just seemed to me that all we'd been thinking about, mainly the attractiveness of Ike as a candidate, plus the tremendously -- you know Americans, they like to change things every once in a while and there was a very strong tide running for a change.

HESS: Even though you mentioned that you did not think that the Democrats could have won that year, were there any errors that Mr. Stevenson or the Democratic Party committed that contributed to the defeat?

MCGOWAN: Well, I'm sure there were errors.

HESS: Always are in something like that.

MCGOWAN: There always are. I think, for example, that the Governor's coming out for a continuance of price control was probably misconceived. Events proved shortly thereafter that the time had come to liquidate it, and it was unpopular; and it seemed to me that that was one aspect of policy which he probably guessed wrong on, but I don't think that would have lost an election.

[74]

I think that his strong support of the Korean war hurt, but, on the other hand, I saw no alternative, I don't think he did, in terms of principle. He had been a strong believer in what was done over there. He knew that that idea of a war which you're not fighting to win, in the sense of military conquest, is pretty rich for the blood of most Americans, and it was proving so. But he -- and he had had the MacArthur problem in the state, you know. He defended Truman strongly on MacArthur's firing and the Tribune had really worked the Governor over for that, but these kinds of things were easy for him. He really -- foreign policy questions were really easy because he had a great interest in them. He had a lot of information about them, and he had strong feelings about them, so I think it was in areas like price control and agricultural policy, these were the areas that gave him headaches, mainly because he didn't really know, you know, whether what he was coming out for was the right thing. On the other hand, a domestic issue like tidelands oil was easy for him, and that undoubtedly hurt him.

I was with him when Governor [Allan] Shivers made that famous trip up to Springfield after the convention

[75]

to get him to come out for the state position, and the way that he stood up in that meeting was great. "That was kind of unpleasant," he said afterwards, "but easy in the sense of what did he really expect us to do?"

This idea of his being indecisive was another myth, I think. In governing the state of Illinois, we never had any trouble with him. As a matter of fact, sometimes we thought he decided things too fast; big matters involving state policy.

If he was trying to decide whether to go to Chicago for the weekend or not, he could drive you crazy, but if he was trying to decide whether to veto the Broyles Bills, which were politically pretty hot, no trouble about that at all.

And I think this is -- this is why I never believed that if he had been elected President -- to put it another way, he could have a hard time deciding whether to run for President, but, if he were President, he wouldn't have any trouble with that.

I think about the Bay of Pigs crisis, for example, I couldn't prove it, but Stevenson wouldn't have had a -- thirty seconds would have been all he needed to say

[76]

that this is all a lot of nonsense, let's stop it. And yet, if you read Schlesinger's book about President Kennedy, Kennedy worried and fretted and fumed and kept asking, "Can we just put this off another day, the final decision?" and finally got himself stuck in the glue. I just can't -- Adlai would never have had a problem with that one.

He had this curious capacity of being indecisive about a lot of things of small moment, and he also had a very bad habit of talking out loud too much in the presence of other people, sort of trying out ideas on them, you know, but these gave rise to the feeling that this fellow doesn't know what he wants to do. It was a very bad habit, he did it too much in the presence of a lot of people. With us, I mean, I used to laugh at him when he'd get into one of these indecisive phases, and walk out, knowing it didn't amount to anything. But newsmen, people like that, they'd go back and write the story, "Why, this man can't make up his mind whether to tie his shoes."

Well, in any event, the answer to it is that I don't think that the indecisiveness would have been a factor in the Presidency. I think he had great

[77]

capacity for promptly deciding big things, particularly in the areas where his convictions were strong, and his information was good.

He just hit the wrong time, and my own feeling is that the Truman-Stevenson relationship basically was a good one, although Mr. Truman, I think, became impatient with a lot of the surface aspects of Adlai's handling of things simply because I don't think Mr. Truman knew Adlai very well.

I regard that as not at all surprising. I think the same might well have been true of any Democrat that had been named, I'm sure Mr. Truman would have had a lot of ideas about the way he should have been doing things. And that's just inherent.

I know that Adlai -- I never heard him say a word critical of Mr. Truman, and indeed, always thought he was a tremendous man. He admired very greatly Truman's decisiveness and his personal security, you know. He made decisions by reference to principles he believed in, and didn't worry about them later. Adlai thought he was a very well adjusted human being.

I remember when Adlai came back after his first trip to Washington and I was, of course, dying to hear

[78]

what had happened. He spent the first ten minutes telling me, without ever mentioning the matter of the Presidency, what a great man Mr. Truman is.

He came from St. Louis by himself, I think on this airplane, into Washington National Airport and took a taxi cab to Blair House, just by himself. He said, "When I came in that night Mr. Truman was sitting in front of the fire. He put a book down. It was the Bible and Mr. Truman said he always reads the Bible a little while at night." And he said, "He talked about history and the other things he had read," and Adlai said he just had a great sense of a wonderfully organized, secure, man of great faith, who does what he thinks is right, and doesn't worry about the consequences.

I'll never forget this because I'm sure Mr. Truman never knew that this was Adlai's first report of his visit to him. I always thought it was very significant. He thought that Mr. Truman, as do I, he thought that Mr. Truman was one of our strong Presidents, and that the history books are going to deal very, very well with Mr. Truman in relation to all of our Presidents, much more so I think than any President of my generation,

[79]

except Roosevelt.

HESS: Were you associated with Governor Stevenson's efforts in 1956?

MCGOWAN: No, I wasn't. I was practicing law at this time in Chicago and I just -- I couldn't really. I couldn't do the job for him that I did before without really giving my law practice up for several months. Not just for the actual campaign, but to be of any use, I really had to be with him all the time, if he wanted me for the same purposes I served before. And I couldn't really afford to do that.

In addition, I didn't want to do it frankly, because I -- my estimate of the mood of the country was that there was absolutely no change. If anything, Eisenhower was much stronger and it seemed to me that in putting that same act on again four years later, it just couldn't be the happy kind of venture that it was before and just couldn't live up to the same high levels we had experienced in '52. I wanted to preserve my memories of campaigning with Adlai on the basis of what had been, although a losing experience, a very, very, happy and satisfying one. And I'm glad I did this. I think he understood this because he never really put the pressure on me to do it. If

[80]

he'd just said to me, "Now, look, I've got to have you, you've got to come," I would have done it, but I think he knew that -- I think he'd probably guessed that ’56 was going to be a frustrating experience, and that I had this special feeling about the relationship we had had in Springfield and in the '52 campaign and I didn't want to spoil it. So, he never really put the arm on me.

I talked to him perhaps two or three times during the campaign, but I never really had any part, and the boys later tell me that it wasn't the same, it was an anti-climax. Although, I'll say this: I think if you study the policy content of the '56 campaign, and I think of such things as the nuclear proliferation proposals, remember how this just got outrageous howls in the country -- but if you study the policy content of the '56 campaign, I think it compares very favorably with '52 in terms of significant policy proposals for the future. They were ahead of their times. It just was bound to be true that the second go around so soon with the same personalities, with the political temper of the country not having changed at all, was bound to be an enormously frustrating

[81]

and upsetting and disappointing experience. And I think it was.

I think the '56 campaign took a lot out of him. He came out of the '52 campaign bounding, I think, but '56 really was a frustrating and awful experience, and that's why I think that he simply wouldn't -- couldn't face the prospect of going through primary campaigns in '60. If he had to do that to get the nomination, he just wasn't going to do it.

No, I think his great value was educational. Both campaigns, especially '52, were valuable to the party in the sense that they interested a lot of new young people in the Democratic Party who might not have been interested in it otherwise, sort of kept aflame the principles of the party during eight difficult years. And that's his contribution to the party and to the country, and it is just too bad that, as far as getting the top job, he was just too soon, that's all. I think the timing was just bad. And I don't really think that anything he could have done or said could have changed that.

HESS: I have a few questions just on Mr. Truman. Just what in your opinion were Mr. Truman's major contributions

[82]

during his career?

MCGOWAN: Well, I think the major contribution, the one that will secure his place in history, is the handling of foreign policy in the very difficult years from '45 on. I think the story as it unfolds in Dean Acheson's book [Present at the Creation] is one that reflects tremendous credit on Mr. Truman and upon Mr. Acheson, too. I think Acheson's book shows Mr. Truman at his very strongest and very best, and I think he coped with the problems of foreign policy as they were then with great skill and force and did a lot to secure the peace of the world for quite a few years.

HESS: What do you see as Mr. Truman's most serious shortcomings?

MCGOWAN: I don't think there are any serious shortcomings in Mr. Truman. I think he shoots from the hip a little bit once in a while, you know, as even Mr. Acheson says in his book, but it seems to me that his faults or his shortcomings, so-called, are really very minor in relation to his strengths.

One thing that I admire greatly about him is, I admire his loyalty to his associates.

I think the success of his foreign policy is

[83]

due very largely to the fact that he sized Dean Acheson up, liked what he saw, and listened to his advice and stuck by him. And I think that that Acheson-Truman, Truman-Acheson combination was a wonderful combination of a great personality like Mr. Truman with great political experience, and a very informed and intelligent thinker about policy in the foreign field like Acheson, and with Mr. Truman supporting his Secretary of State the way he did, we were very lucky in this country that we had the direction of foreign policy that we did. I think in terms of strong Presidents, Mr. Truman will be one of the small number we have.

HESS: That answered my last question: What is your estimation of Mr. Truman's place in history?

MCGOWAN: No, I don't have any reservations about that and I'm -- I can tell you that I'm quite sure that Governor Stevenson didn't either.

HESS: Do you have anything else that you would like to add on Governor Stevenson and Mr. Truman?

MCGOWAN: I don't think so. I think I've -- I can't as I've tried to make clear at the beginning, I can't claim to be an expert on what went on between them. I really

[84]

think not very much went on, is the answer. I think that was due in part to the initial disappointment that Mr. Truman had with Adlai's failure to seem to seize upon the opportunity that was being presented to him. From that point on Mr. Truman, not understanding the problems that were causing that reluctance on Adlai's part, those reservations, couldn't really ever after regard him as -- you know, he always had question marks about him from that point on. And then everything that happened would only enlarge those question marks.

I suspect that there was really not much communication between them during the '52 campaign. And Mr. Truman will find this hard to believe perhaps, but that was certainly due to no disrespect on Adlai's part, and as I say, I know that if he had ever had any impatience with what Mr. Truman was doing or saying, or any reservations as to Mr. Truman's stature as President, I would have heard about it, and I never heard a word, never. Everything he always said about him -- he had a tremendous admiration for him.

HESS: One further question: The Truman-Acheson relationship has always been pointed out as a relationship

[85]

between Mr. Truman and a man who is an intellectual. Do you think that had President Truman got to know Mr. Stevenson better that they could have established somewhat of a relationship like that?

MCGOWAN: Oh, I think so.

In the first place Adlai is no intellectual in the Acheson sense. Indeed, I always thought that this intellectuality of Adlai was part of a myth, too. He was a well-informed, highly intelligent fellow, but he was not an intellectual in the sense that I think an intellectual like Gene [Senator Eugene J.] McCarthy for instance, who is a stereotype of intellectuals; I think he is what I would call the intellectual in politics. Adlai was not that. Adlai had a great capacity to absorb information of all kinds and he was at ease with intellectuals and they thought that -- they tended to think that he was an intellectual too. But he really wasn't.

He really was, as I have told Mr. Acheson, he was very much like Mr. Truman in a lot of ways. He was very political in the sense of being a partisan Democrat, he was -- he understood the need for, and

[86]

believed in, strong political organization and what goes with that in terms of patronage and favors to people, provided they are not improper favors. He got along well with county chairmen and precinct captains in Chicago.

He was an informal, friendly kind of a fellow. As a matter, he was a little naive about people, Adlai was. He always assumed the best of everybody that came along and sometimes he was disappointed. I used to think he let a lot of nondescript characters get in too close to him, just because he always had that kind of simple belief that well, you know, you assumed that everybody's all right.

HESS: Believe the best in everybody.

MCGOWAN: Believed the best in everybody. And this is one of his great strengths because, believing that, he had an enormous number of friends all around. I thought people presumed on him, both his Lake Forest friends and his political friends, I think they presumed on his good nature a lot. He never seemed to be conscious of it when I would have been furious. He was really kind of an uncomplicated character and I told Mr. Acheson I think he's much more like

[87]

Mr. Truman than Mr. Truman could ever possibly think he was. And if they had been thrown together a lot, I think they would have hit it off beautifully.

He was very loyal to his staff people for example, you know he gave -- he didn't like a very large staff, he didn't like many people around, but those that he had made up his mind were good, he backed them and let them take all kinds of decisions on their own and if they made a mistake on occasion, then he would back them up. Although obviously I'm not in the same ball park, I analogize the way Truman supported Mr. Acheson and the way Adlai handled me. I mean my work was not in the same league, but I had the feeling that I could go ahead and do things, and that I knew pretty much what he wanted to have done and that, if I made a mistake, he wouldn't cut my head off and this is about the way it worked out.

The "mess in Washington" thing, I don't know whether you've ever heard the true story of that. This editor out in Oregon wrote an editorial in which he referred to the "mess in Washington" and sent it to Adlai, and I prepared a letter going back. And our reference to the "mess in Washington" was simply an identification of what he had said. In other

[88]

words, "Dear Sir, I have your editorial in which you refer to the mess in Washington and ask me what I think about it." Well, I don't remember how now but I didn't pay enough attention to the way that was said, and to making it quite clear by putting it in quotations marks that this is your phrase, that you've asked me to comment on, not any phrase that we used or accept as valid. And in the rush of things, I think I made a mistake on that so that Mr. Truman hit the roof on this one, so we heard later. But Adlai didn't get mad at me about it. That instance I've heard later had much to do with the cooling off.

The fact was that Adlai never used that phrase as his own. And I think I'm responsible for drafting a letter in which I didn't make it sharply enough appear that Adlai was saying, "I have your letter referring to the "mess in Washington," as you call it, and asking what I think about it," which is really what that first sentence was intended to say.

But he could have -- I'm sure some candidates would have mopped up the floor with me. That doesn't mean that he would have anybody around that made too many mistakes, but he was like Mr. Truman in his loyalty

[89]

to the people that worked for him. And I always have had a feeling that it's kind of sad, really, that this feeling of strain on Mr. Truman's part grew up. The more I think about it as the years go by, it seems to me that it was probably inherent in the situation. It's one of those human problems that are bound to come about in that kind of a situation, and that really neither one of them is to blame.

HESS: All for one day? Thank you very much, Judge.

Acheson, Dean, 31, 67, 82-83, 85, 87
Arvey, Jacob M. (Jack), 8
Atlantic Monthly, and Stevenson, Adlai, article on, 10

Ball, George, 10, 63
Barkley, Alben W., 29-30
Bay of Pigs, 75, 76
Bell, David E., 33-36, 42-43
Blair, William McCormick, 3, 5, 22, 31, 56-57

Daley, Richard J. (Dick), 9
Day, J. Edward, 5-6, 62
Democratic National Convention (1952), 22, 29, 30
Dirksen, Everett M., 47
Doyle, James, 54

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 15-17, 69, 79

• • and Foreign Policy, views on, 18
    and Korean War, 49-50
    and Stevenson, Adlai, 19
• Elks Club Group, 25-28, 33, 34, 36, 64, 70

  Flanagan, William T., 57-58
  Fritchey, Clayton, 33, 35-36
  Fulbright, J. William, 41

  Governors Conferences (1952), 20, 21
  Gross, Bertram, 64

  Harriman, W. Averell, 29-30
  Hyndman, T. (Don), 61-62

  Irvin, Lawrence E., 62

  Kennedy, John F., 2, 76
  Know, Frank, 23
  Korean War, 45, 47, 48, 49, 74

  Lloyd, David J., 10-12
  Lucas, Scott, 47

  MacArthur Douglas, 74
  McCarthy, Eugene J., 85
  McGowan, Carl:

  • and Presidential campaign in 1952, duties during, 37-38
    • errors made during, opinion on, 73-76
    and Presidential Convention, 1952, Chicago, Illinois, 22
    and Stevenson, Adlai, characterization of, 6-7
    Truman-Acheson, relationship, opinion of, 84-89
    and Truman, Harry S., 9
    Truman, Harry S.:
    • place in history, opinion of, 83
      Presidency, major contributions, opinion on, 82-83
      Presidency, serious short comings, opinion on, 82-83
      Presidential Election of 1952, decision nor to seek, 2-5
    Truman-Stevenson., relationship, opinion on, 77-79, 83-89
  McKinney, Frank E., 50-53, 54
  Martin, John Bartlow, 27
  Minow, Newton, 59-61
  Mitchell, Stephen A., 31, 50, 53, 55-56
  Murphy, Charles S., 10, 11

  National Citizen Volunteers for Stevenson, 63
  Nelson, Richard J., 61
  Northwestern University Law School, 1, 2

  Presidential Election (1952), 24-29, 31-59, 63-74
  Presidential Election (1956), 79-81
  Presidential Nomination, Democratic (1952), 4, 9-14, 17-19

  Reston, James B. (Scotty), 8
  Roach, Neale, 58-59

  Salinger, Pierre, 64
  Schaefer, Walter, 5, 62
  Sherman, William T., 18
  Shivers, Allan, 74
  Stevenson, Adlai E., 2, 11, 17-18, 46-49, 50-55, 57, 59-60, 62, 67-68, 70-71, 73-79

  • and dual directorship, establishment of, 55
    and Eisenhower, Dwight D., 19, 49-50
    and Governors' Conference, of 1952, 20-22
    and Illinois State Prison, trouble at, 38-41
    and political headquarters, 43-44
    and politics, 7-8
    and Presidential Campaign, 1956, efforts in, 79-81
    and Presidential Convention, 1952, activities, 31-32
    and Presidential Election, 1952, attitude after, 72-73
    and Presidential nomination, 1952, deliberations on, 12-17
    and speeches, 23-24, 28-29
    and Truman administration, 67
    and Truman, Harry S., 44, 48-49, 77-79

  Taft, Robert A., 15-17, 21, 68
  Texas State Fair (1952), 37, 38
  Truman, Harry S., 2-12, 31, 44-47, 50, 69, 77, 78, 81-85, 87, 88, 89

  • and Eisenhower, Dwight D., 64-66
    and fundraising, 1948 election, 46-47
    and Stevenson, Adlai, 66

  Warren, Earl, 20
  Wyatt, Wilson W., 31, 36, 53-54