Conclusions and Reflections

Given the consistent failures in Harold Stassen’s long pursuit of the presidency, it is difficult to focus on his positive contributions to American policy during his four years in the Eisenhower administration. The ultimate objective of his diplomacy was to de-escalate and end the Cold War with the Soviet Union. He believed he knew how to achieve this goal, which was one that Eisenhower shared. Stassen‘s vision of a world free from the fear of a nuclear holocaust has not been realized, but the optimism he personified has not yet been extinguished.

The Illusion of Progress, 1956

Eisenhower’s reservations in December 1955 did not keep his special assistant from unveiling a new package of proposals in January 1956. As always, Stassen’s work was fast and thorough. He characterized the results as a compromise, although Dulles and the Joint Chiefs groused that they failed to find any evidence of it. His plan contained elements of both the incremental approach to disarmament that he and the president had advocated in the past and other, more extravagant ideas encompassing a wide range of steps toward disarmament. He believed that the UN General Assembly substantially endorsed his views. Stassen also justified his haste, noting that a delay “would cause a serious loss of US initiative.” Not surprisingly, he encountered the continuing hostility of Dulles, who “believed that adoption by the U.S. of the position which you recommend would not be sufficient to maintain for us our leadership in the free world coalition and to secure the essential support of world public opinion.”

The Eisenhower Solution, 1948–1952

Stassen’s failure to win the Republican nomination for president in June 1948 did not quench his thirst for high office. Robert T. McCracken, chairman of the University of Pennsylvania’s Board of Trustees, offered Stassen the university presidency in July, and the board elected him on September 17, 1948. The enthusiasm he aroused among college students as a Republican candidate convinced him that higher education had always been in the forefront of his ambitions. Stassen saw himself in the same light as Eisenhower, who had accepted the presidency of Columbia University. As the president of a prestigious Ivy League university, he could ensure his prominence in national affairs. For four years, Stassen walked a delicate line between his university obligations and his political ambitions. Inevitably, he had to confront criticism over his extracurricular activities. However, the possibility of a cabinet appointment in a Dewey administration became irrelevant when President Truman won the election in November.

Introduction

Bursting into fame toward the end of the Great Depression, Harold Stassen—elected governor of Minnesota at age thirty-one in 1938--excited a new generation of Republicans who enthusiastically supported his run for the presidency. After failing to win the nomination in 1948—a goal he believed his early successes merited—he repeatedly chased the nomination over the next generation. He became a figure of mockery as a perennial also-ran on the margins of the history of the twentieth century. He sought the Republican nomination for president of the United States twelve times between 1944 and 1992. Given his youth and enthusiasm, it was not surprising that he attracted supporters who were college age and younger. He broke with Republican Party leadership to engage in grassroots campaigning, bringing a corps of youthful admirers into his fold. He was a vigorous and articulate spokesman for a new generation ready to take over a demoralized party in the wake of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election to an unprecedented third term in the White House.

The Long Anticlimax, June 1957–February 1958

If Dulles was waiting for Stassen “to step over the line he has drawn so that he can lower the boom,” he had a long wait ahead. Not until February 14, 1958, did Stassen step down and leave the Eisenhower administration. Rumors had been circulating about the president’s dissatisfaction with Stassen’s conduct in London, but Stassen behaved as if the warnings and rebukes had never been issued. The US proposal on disarmament, overseen by Dulles, was a repudiation of many of Stassen’s first-step initiatives. If Stassen recognized that the Soviets’ indictment against the West characterized him as the primary antagonist, his reactions did not reflect it. He dismissed the Soviet criticism, just as he had the criticisms from his colleagues.

The Mutual Security Agency and Foreign Operations Administration, 1953–1955

Stassen’s immediate reaction when President Eisenhower offered him the post of director of mutual security was to be thrilled. His reaction was in keeping with the exuberance he had displayed after Eisenhower’s nomination as the Republican candidate for president. He predicted that Eisenhower would be a great president and even praised Senator Taft as a “great man and a great American.” He also cited his former rival, California governor Earl Warren, as worthy of his admiration. During Stassen’s confirmation hearings, Wayne Morse (I-OR) was only senator to sound a sour note. He accused Stassen of taking distinctly contradictory positions on whether US foreign aid would be used to put political pressure on the beneficiaries. At one time, Stassen had stated that aid should be withheld from “socialistic” countries. Morse was referring to the British Labour Party’s nationalization of the steel industry. Stassen responded by asserting that he would be faithful to Eisenhower’s statement in his inaugural address that the United States would never use its “strength to impress upon another people our own cherished political and social institutions.” Morse was not impressed, but he eventually joined his colleagues in approving Stassen’s appointment.

Special Assistant for Disarmament, 1955–1958

It was apparent from the beginning that the Foreign Operations Administration would have a short life. Arms control and disarmament played a larger role in Eisenhower’s thinking than did the management of foreign aid. After appointing Stassen his special assistant for disarmament, the president appeared to be unnerved by the complicated program he proposed. Eisenhower was particularly put off by the numbers—the 20,000 to 30,000 non-Russian inspectors on Russian soil that Stassen recommended. Dulles, too, derided those figures as unrealistic. Ultimately, according to historian H. W. Brands, Stassen failed to win the president’s support for his plan. Political scientist David Tal phrased Eisenhower’s disapproval more starkly, claiming that he “excoriated the plan” and that the only thing it achieved was to unite. the Atomic Energy Commission, the CIA, the Defense Department, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff against Stassen’s ambitious program.

1957—Stassen’s Gaffe?

In March 1957 a second round of talks of the UN Subcommittee on Disarmament began in London. Stassen remained the chief US delegate and exhibited his usual exuberant optimism. However, it would have been impossible for him to miss the signal sent from the White House when his disarmament duties were shifted to the State Department on March 1. The experience could not have been more humiliating. Although Stassen understood that he had many enemies in the administration who were pleased with the downgrading of his office, as always, he looked on the positive side of his situation. The inveterate optimist saw glimpses of light in Premier Bulganin’s correspondence with President Eisenhower. Stassen had originally believed that a test ban should be embedded in a complete disarmament package. But if this objective was unattainable, Bulganin presented the alternative of aerial inspections of preselected areas. Could this compromise lead to a more ambitious program?

Toward the 1948 Debacle

Commander Stassen returned to his naval duties after the San Francisco Conference adjourned. The war in Europe had ended. The United Nations was a major preoccupation in this period, and he used the momentum of the conference to publicize his convictions about the relationship between US foreign policy and the United Nations. He addressed his message to young Republicans, encouraging them to bring “an expanded vision of the realities of world conditions. The continuing clash with Russia at the UN makes it imperative that our Republican party proposes a positive far-reaching foreign policy in 1948 and seek Democratic agreement upon it as a bipartisan policy and enlist general public approval for it as an American policy.” Stassen’s passion for restructuring the United Nations to make it a fit vehicle for association with US foreign policy never dimmed. Confident of his ability to achieve higher office, Stassen decided not to run for the US Senate in 1946. This was a race he could have won against isolationist representative Henrik Shipstead, a paragon of Minnesota’s Farmer-Labor Party.

The Preparatory Years, 1938–1945

Young Stassen had many of the qualifications that aspiring politicians find so valuable in America’s presidential tradition. Prominent among them was a “log cabin” origin, which William Henry Harrison had used successfully in the 1840 presidential campaign. At the University of Minnesota Law School, the gregarious Stassen made friends who became loyal supporters in his campaigns for the presidency. But first, Stassen would pursue the governorship of his home state. Success came quickly, enhanced by the political environment of 1938. Republican victories at the polls reflected the seeming failures of the New Deal and, in particular, the negative public reaction to President Roosevelt’s attack against the Supreme Court. In this context, the ambitious young Minnesota governor was hailed as the face of a rejuvenated Republican Party, and he made the most of the acclaim.