The Improbable Wendell Wilkie: The Businessman Who Saved the Republican Party and His Country, and Conceived a New World Order

by David Levering Lewis

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner comes this surprising portrait of Wendell Willkie, the businessman–turned–presidential candidate who (almost) saved America’s dysfunctional political system.

In the wake of one of the most tumultuous Republican conventions ever, the party of Lincoln nominated in 1940 a prominent businessman and former Democrat who could have saved America’s sclerotic political system. Although Wendell Lewis Willkie would lose to FDR, acclaimed biographer David Levering Lewis demonstrates that the corporate chairman–turned–presidential candidate must be regarded as one of the most exciting, intellectually able, and authentically transformational figures to stride the twentieth-century American political landscape.

Born in Elwood, Indiana, in 1892, Willkie was certainly one of the most unexpected, if not unlikely, candidates for the presidency, only somewhat less unlikely than Barack Hussein Obama. Although previously marginalized by journalists like Theodore H. White and David Halberstam as a political invention of rich newspaper publishers, the Willkie who emerges here is a man governed by principles who seldom allowed rigid categories to stand in his way. Even as a young man, he quickly distinguished himself as a reform-minded lawyer, whose farm-boy haircut, hayseed manners, and sartorial indifference bespoke common-man straightforwardness but concealed an ambition that propelled him at forty to chairman of Commonwealth and Southern, the country’s third-largest private utility holding company.

It was Willkie’s vehement opposition to government regulation of the free-market economy and his success in wrenching a fabulous monetary settlement from the Tennessee Valley Authority that attracted the attention of Republican leaders, who, like Willkie, felt that FDR was turning the office into an imperial presidency. Successful at outwitting the isolationist wing of his own party, Willkie took on Roosevelt during one of the nation’s darkest periods, creating an unlikely alliance of supporters, including anti-big-government business leaders and black voters, who rightly felt excluded from New Deal benefits.

Despite receiving the largest percentage of Republican votes in a generation, Willkie lost but, in the process, proposed sweeping civil rights reform a full generation before the civil rights era and a progressive “new conception of the world” that remains inspirational at a time when our own national belief system has become alarmingly immoral and rudderless. Rather than continue a political battle that could have weakened the nation during its darkest hour, a defeated Willkie reconciled with the president and embraced the war effort, while writing One World, a visionary credo that hoped to instigate an international movement for the betterment of the world’s people. In rejecting America’s penchant for exceptionalism, Willkie championed this internationalism more passionately than any American politician before him, creating a sovereign philosophy of liberalism that balanced free enterprise with social responsibility. His untimely death at fifty-two in 1944 left this prophetic vision tragically stillborn.

Genres: Biography, History, Politics, American History, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, World War II

233 pages, Hardcover

First published September 18, 2018

About the author

David Levering Lewis is the Julius Silver University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at New York University.

Reviews

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A New Biography Of Wendell Willkie

When I was young, I read Irving Stone's biography of unsuccessful presidential candidates,"They Also Ran". Stone's book made me an admirer of Wendell Willkie, and I have remained fascinated by Willkie for much of my life. Willkie (1892 -- 1944) had a brief, meteoric political career. In 1940, he was the Republican candidate against FDR who won an unprecedented third term with United States participation in WW II in the offing.

With the last major biography, "Dark Horse" written 35 years ago by Steven Neal and now out of print, it is more than time to take another look at Willkie. "The Improbable Wendell Willkie: The Businessman who Saved the Republican Party and his Country, and Conceived a New World Order" (2018) by David Levering Lewis offers a new, comprehensive look at Willkie as an American hero and icon.

Best-known for his Pulitzer Prize winning biographies of W.E.B. DuBois, Lewis writes passionately of his subject and of his continued importance. Lewis portrays Willkie "one of the most exciting, intellectually able, and authentically transformative figures to stride the twentieth-century American political landscape." Lewis approvingly quotes Walter Lippman's tribute rendered upon Willkie's untimely death: "Second only to the Battle of Britain, the sudden rise and nomination of Willkie was the decisive event, perhaps providential, which made it possible to rally the free world when it was almost conquered. Under any other leadership but his, the Republican party would in 1940 have turned its back on Great Britain, causing all who still resisted Hitler to feel that they were abandoned."

Lewis offers a moving picture of Willkie from his youth in Elwood, Indiana, the child of progressive, independent parents. In his young years, Willkie was a Democrat and an opponent of the KKK. At the age of 40, Willkie became a Wall Street Lawyer and executive. He came to national attention as an opponent of the TVA where some parts of the liberal Republican media saw him as an alternative to FDR. Changing his party affiliation to Republican, Willkie became the party's improbable 1940 presidential candidate on the strength of the enthusiasm he inspired and of his broadly internationalist program as opposed to the party's old-guard isolationists. Willkie was a fresh face at a time when a new look was necessary.

Willkie's greatest accomplishments occurred after his presidential defeat. Willkie became the leader of the "loyal opposition" and rose above partisanship. His work was essential in uniting the country behind Lend-Lease and the draft. Willkie became a spokesman for liberal internationalism, took a world-wide tour in 1942 with the support of FDR, and wrote an eloquent book "One World", which I read many years ago, about the need for international cooperation following the end of the War.

While Lewis discusses Wilkie's internationalism and his bipartisanship, his focus, as befitting a biographer of DuBois, is even more on civil rights. Lewis shows how Willkie worked with Walter White of the NAACP to secure rights to African Americans. Willkie was the first major presidential candidate to address the NAACP's annual convention. When he became chairman of the board of Twentieth Century Fox, Willkie worked to end the stereotypical portrayal of African Americans in film. I was unaware before reading Lewis' book of the scope of Willkie's work in Hollywood. Willkie also fought anti-Semitism and in 1943 received the American Hebrew Medal from American Hebrew Magazine for his efforts on behalf of the rights of minorities.

In his internationalism and his commitment to civil rights, Willkie was ahead of his time. His work led to a more bipartisan, internationalist approach to foreign policy in the Republican party even as it rejected him. Towards the end of his life, Willkie and FDR had preliminary discussions about a possible realignment of American political parties. These discussions were cut short by the deaths of both men. It is not necessary to agree with all of Willkie's positions to admire his integrity and his passion and to see him as a heroic, inspiring figure in the best traditions of American political life.

Lewis' book does Willkie justice. The book is marred in places by sloppy editing, typographical errors, repetitiveness, and awkward sentences which should have been corrected. These unfortunate mistakes do not take away from the value of a book about an American hero who still is too little known and who deserves to be remembered and taken to heart. I was moved to think about Wendell Willkie again through Lewis' book.

Robin Friedman

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wendell Willkie ran against FDR in the 1940 election and, of course, lost. Professor Lewis provides a new biography of Willkie. I think that what is going on in the country today pointed out some key items about Willkie that might have gone unnoticed in the prior biographies. Willkie is noted for putting the country before party. He also advocated what he called Responsible Bipartisanism.

The book is well written and researched. Lewis brings out the character of Willkie. Lewis is able to reveal Willkie’s life against the background of United States history. The author shows how Willkie was dedicated to Civil Rights and opposed racism. Lewis reveals Willkie’s work with the NAACP. The book appears to be balanced and reveals more about the man than prior biographies. I found this a most fascinating biography and learned a great deal from it.

Paul Levering Lewis is Professor of History at New York University. Lewis won two Pulitzer Prizes for vol. one and two of the biography of W. E. B. DuBois.

I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is twelve hours and forty-eight minutes. Mike Chamberlain does a good job narrating the book. Chamberlain is an actor and voiceover artist.

[Charles Haywood · Rating 2 out of 5]

If the word hagiography had not already been coined, it would need to be invented for this book. To David Levering Lewis, Wendell Willkie was a combination of Saint Michael and Saint Francis. He was a world-bestriding colossus, a credit to his country, and a wonderful exemplar of what a Republican can and should be. After reading this book, though, I pick a different progenitor: Judas Iscariot. Willkie was a pocket Judas, true, having more gross vices and less cold malice than the original, but a Judas nonetheless. For Willkie betrayed his wife, his party, and his country. And, like Judas, he accomplished nothing but the designs of his enemies, and left behind only his corpse.

I’ve long been dimly aware of Willkie, among other reasons because he appeared in Amity Shlaes’s outstanding history of the Depression, "The Forgotten Man," but never knew much about him. Of the unsuccessful politicians of his generation, however, he is by far the most prominent. Why does he live on in our consciousness, and why has he recently experienced a boomlet of attention? After all, his political career lasted less than five years. Before 1940 he was a modestly prominent businessman, and after 1944 he was dead, having lost the only election in which he ran, against Franklin Roosevelt in 1940, and then having badly lost the 1944 Republican primary.

The answer is obvious: the Left, who writes our history, loves Republican traitors. Any Republican is vilified when actually running for office, no matter how moderate or accommodating, though he is vilified less if he makes clear he is not serious about threatening Left hegemony. But if, after duly losing any election he enters, he converts himself into a tool of the Left, he can and will lap up praise and reward for stabbing his comrades in the back and reversing his supposed principles. The best recent example of this is John McCain, but examples are legion, and in these days of Donald Trump, splitter of the Republican Party, multiplying, spawning men such as Mitt Romney. And since being a traitor is the highest accolade the Left can bestow on a Republican, it is no wonder that Lewis, a man of the Left, sees Willkie in the most positive of lights—even if, to a discerning reader, the light has a reddish hue and is accompanied by the whiff of sulfur.

Let me get complaining about the author and his writing out of the way. Totally aside from its subject matter or its political angle, this is a very badly written book. It’s written flatly, and with lots of unnecessary and usually poorly handled five-dollar words. In the entire book we learn almost nothing about Willkie’s personal thoughts about anything but politics. Nothing about his relationship with his wife, other than his infidelity. Nothing about his relationship with siblings or children. We do get minute-by-minute descriptions of long-ago political conventions, though. Lewis’s political bias shines clearly, as well. Anybody who disagrees with Democrats and their allies, who sought “not political advancement or power, but to serve human needs,” is someone who “raves,” “warns darkly,” is filled with “pent-up malice,” and exhibits “feral hostility.” Editorially, the book is no better. The same anecdotes are told repeatedly. The pictures are chosen almost randomly and do not serve to illustrate the text. Elwood, Indiana, Willkie’s hometown, does not have a railroad station called the “Nikel Plate.” It is unlikely that “hoards” of Irish came to America. The hymn is not “Onward Christian Soldier,” unless, perhaps, it is a very small army. “Ozymandian” does not mean “very big.” The Egyptian mythical creature is a “sphinx”; the breed of cat is “sphynx.” The Luftwaffe unleashed a “rain” of fire, not a “reign” of fire. The reader, already annoyed at the hagiography, sighs in pain when slogging through page after page of bad writing.

OK, back to the substance. The history of the Willkie family is, in Lewis’s telling, one of liars and shirkers, though Lewis tries to spin it otherwise. Wendell Willkie’s grandfather, Joseph Willcke, moved from Germany to America in 1861 after a business deal went sour—but he later made up an vague, implausible claim about having left because of his involvement in the 1848 revolutions (a lie that Joseph Goebbels gleefully exposed in 1940 to embarrass Willkie). Joseph Willcke moved to northern Indiana, where he had several children, but “he was ill suited for farming, and the locals remembered him spending much of his time reading history and philosophy, or playing the accordion, while a son-in-law raised the crops and managed the livestock.” In other words, he was a man who neglected his duties to his family, a tradition his grandson Wendell embraced to the fullest.

One of Joseph’s sons, Herman, married a woman named Henrietta Trisch; and one of their sons was Wendell, born in 1892. Like her husband, Henrietta was a lawyer, unusual for the time (though it shows, contrary to myth, that it was not impossible for women of the time to practice a profession). Her family claimed she was Indiana’s first woman lawyer, which Lewis admits is also a myth. Like her father-in-law, Henrietta neglected her duties to the family (four sons and two daughters), ignoring the household and the raising of her children to gratify herself with amusements such as music and reading, leaving the raising of the children to her oldest daughter. “The result was that neighbors increasingly regarded the Willkie homestead as the site of some uncommon if not weird experiment in domestic living.” (The children repaid her neglect by putting the backhanded compliment on her gravestone, “She was driven by an indomitable will,” while Herman got “He dedicated his life to his children.”) The family were putative Methodists, but the parents’ real religion was progressivism with a leftist flair. Wendell himself left Methodism for Episcopalianism in high school as a tactical move in pursuit of a girl; Lewis casts this as “romantic impulsivity [that] set the stage for future decisions in which personal considerations trumped declared principles and institutional fidelity.” In other words, his hero started betraying for gain early.

Willkie went to Indiana University, first undergraduate, then law school, finishing the latter in 1916. At both places he pushed radical politics; Lewis notes “his notable coup bringing "Das Kapital" and socialist party founder John Spargo’s "History of Socialism" to Bloomington,” demanding and getting a class on socialism. In 1917, he volunteered for the war, and was commissioned as a lieutenant of the artillery, but the war ended before he was shipped to France, though he fit in marriage to his wife, Edith, a local librarian, before going briefly to France in 1918. Returning to Elwood, he wanted to be a politician, but he was a strong Democrat, and Elwood was heavily Republican. So he moved to Democratic Akron, taking a job as a lawyer for Firestone Tire, and then one at a prominent local law firm. He also rose in the Democratic party, going to the 1924 Democratic National Convention as a delegate.

At that convention, the big issue was the League of Nations and, more broadly, America’s presence on the global scene. Willkie was always a firm internationalist. The single quote of Willkie’s that Lewis loves the most, citing it repeatedly without inquiring into whether it makes any sense, is “Whatever we do at home constitutes foreign policy. And whatever we do abroad constitutes domestic policy.” The Democratic Party, however, refused to endorse internationalism, so Willkie was in the minority. To his credit, Willkie also fought the Ku Klux Klan, at that point among the most important constituents of the Democratic Party. Despite his efforts, the convention refused to pass any resolution criticizing the Klan, which Lewis says was “to be known in history as the ‘Klanbake,’ ” although apparently there is some dispute about whether that term was actually used much at the time.

Willkie quickly became a fixture in the business scene in Akron, acquiring various business interests, in banks and mortgage companies. In 1929, however, he accepted a job offer to be general counsel, in New York, for Commonwealth & Southern Corporation, the largest holding company for electric utilities in the country. By 1933, Willkie was president of C&SC. In the meantime, the economy had crashed, but that did not affect the electric business as it did some other businesses. He was also a delegate to the 1932 Democratic National Convention, where he was a floor manager for Newton Baker, the internationalist candidate. Franklin Roosevelt, less openly internationalist, won the nomination and the election, of course, whereupon like a good Democrat, Willkie aggressively backed Roosevelt.

Soon enough, though, Willkie’s business interests came into conflict with Roosevelt’s New Deal demands—namely, Roosevelt’s desire that the Tennessee Valley Authority replace private electricity generation in the area covered by the TVA. From 1933 to 1939, the C&SC fought the federal government in Congress and the courts, with Roosevelt threatening to break up the C&SC and Willkie trying to get out by selling for a high price. Roosevelt’s mastery of guile and Willkie’s vanity led to him being easily manipulated by Roosevelt and his “Brain Trust.” It was also during this time that Willkie began his long and extremely public affair with that famous woman of letters, Irita Van Doren, which was concealed by the press, who liked Willkie.

Still, Willkie, or political circumstances and the Supreme Court, ultimately managed to get a decent price for C&SC, and the entire episode placed Willkie often in the public eye for much of the 1930s. All this time, Willkie was an ardent Democrat, a “member in good standing of Tammany, New York City’s Democratic patronage trough.” Willkie’s only objection to Roosevelt, the New Deal, and Democrats generally was that sometimes private enterprise might do a better and faster job reaching the same progressive ends. Too much government coercion was bad, if the same ends of more power to the state could be accomplished by private means. In the 1936 election, which Roosevelt won easily against Alf Landon, who “gave the voters insufficient reason to elect a Republican Roosevelt,” Willkie did not participate—though, deep in the bitterest part of his TVA fight, he voted for Landon, but always maintained, until late 1939, that he was a Democrat.

So, in 1939, Willkie was an ex-businessman with no relevant political experience, no natural constituency, and no obvious future. How did he become the Republican nominee in 1940? There was no serious talk of him as a presidential candidate, much less a Republican one, until May, 1940. After all, the big question was whether Roosevelt himself would run again, breaking the cardinal, but unwritten, rule that a President could seek no more than two terms in office. The Republicans wanted to win, having waited a long time. One wing of the party, internationalist and progressive, the original “country club Republicans,” opposed to the isolationism and anti-New Deal posture of men like Robert Taft and Arthur Vandenberg, wanted “to find a surprise candidate unfettered by shopworn partisan dogma and politically ambidextrous enough to make the reforms of the left palatable to the right and the promised prosperity of the right credible to the left.” In other words, they wanted a political trimmer, a man of no fixed beliefs, but vaguely tending left, and impressionable and eager to be liked. They wanted a Dwight Eisenhower, before Eisenhower was prominent. Instead, their gaze gravitated to Willkie, who was being pushed by Frank Altschul, a wealthy businessman and high functionary in the Republican National Committee, whose main activity prior to that date had been spending his money to “urge a liberal platform for Republicans.”

A groundswell for Willkie was therefore manufactured by the rich and powerful. Critical to this effort was that Willkie was the overt choice of important newsmagazines, notably Time, Life, and Fortune. For example, in May 1940 Life featured a fawning, eleven-page profile of Willkie. This reminds me of how immediately before the 2012 election People magazine published a similarly fawning profile of Obama and his family, making me wonder how they would stomach doing a similar profile on Romney. I needn’t have worried—the next issue merely featured a second fawning profile of Obama and his family, and not a word about Romney. The only odd thing about the push for Willkie by some of the captains of media is that it reminds us that, not that long ago, the news-setting, and the entertainment, media was not the leftist monolith it is today. But it performed similar functions for politicians now as then.

At the Republican convention in Philadelphia (which, unlike the Democrat Klanbake, featured aggressive formal demands for equal rights for African Americans on all fronts), there was the usual maneuvering. This included the sudden death of the man in charge of procedure, and his replacement by a Willkie man, which death Lewis obliquely says was rumored to have been murder by the British, desperate to ensure that the Republican presidential nominee not be an isolationist. (Apparently the British archives on covert intelligence activities in the United States during the World War II period are sealed until 2041.) After many ballots, Willkie carried the day, whereupon he gave a speech, addressing the crowd as “you Republicans.”

In 1940, Willkie, according to Lewis, had a golden opportunity to coordinate and direct opposition to the New Deal. “The GOP’s stunning congressional gains in 1938 off-year elections had revealed a large swath of the electorate grown weary of New Deal regulation and experimentation.” But Willkie was much more interested in endorsing the New Deal and hectoring his party, parroting FDR, with demands that Republicans stop opposing entering the European war. He ran a disorganized, chaotic, lazy campaign, in which he made no real attempt to distinguish himself from Roosevelt. Mostly, to the extent he had a theme, he tried to portray himself as a stronger man than Roosevelt, but he refused to attack Roosevelt at any weak point, and was easily manipulated by Roosevelt into publicly agreeing with the President’s policies, making Roosevelt look strong and Willkie look weak. Most of all, Willkie insisted that his principles demanded internationalism and intervention in Europe; the “Wilsonian imperative” trumped party. From a strong lead, Willkie steadily lost ground, and then lost the election handily, though in the last two weeks he abandoned his supposed principles and tried to cast himself as the man who could prevent American boys from going to war (which Lewis bizarrely calls “warmongering”). That got him a bump in the polls, but not enough.

[Review completes as first comment.]

[Aaron Million · Rating 1 out of 5]

Based on the track record of the author, I had high hopes for this book. A look at a forgotten figure. He was only on the national scene for a few short years, and had just a cup of coffee on the world stage. But unfortunately, David Levering Lewis has turned in an effort that is repetitious, impersonal, and dense. Wendell Willkie seemed to have a somewhat larger-than-life personality, but we really only get glimpses of it here.

The text is littered with typos and misstatements. On page 51, he describes Akron, OH as being in “northwest Ohio.” No, it isn't. I've been to Akron and it is not in the northwest part of that state. On page 114, while the story is in 1937, he references Henry Wallace as being the Vice President. Wallace wasn't elected VP until 1940, when he and FDR ran against Willkie. He references Congressman John McCormack on page 173, but he misspells it, replacing the “a” with an “i”.On page 158, the Broadmoor Hotel is mentioned. So is the Broadmore Hotel. These are errors that should not have been made, and definitely should have been edited out prior to publishing. When I read these types of silly mistakes, especially multiple examples, it lowers my opinion of the work as a whole. Nobody is perfect; I certainly am not. But when someone is a professional and is writing for publication, the expectation is higher. Not perfection, but things such as the geographical error should not be occurring.

Lewis sometimes repeats the same story over, and each chapter has no dividers or sections in it so the narrative just tends to take off. The writing style reminds me of some presidential biographies written in the early 20th century: sort of stilted, long-winded and dry. Willkie's personality frequently gets lost amidst the clutter. And his personal life, while mentioned here and there, is surprisingly thinly covered here. Before we know it, he already has a son. There is virtually nothing about Willkie as a father, how that affected him, if it affected him, what he thought of the responsibility. How can a biography be complete without that part of the subject's life being examined?

The strongest part of the book comes after Willkie's defeat in 1940. He then becomes something akin to a global ambassador for FDR, flying around the world and meeting with allies. Lewis does a good job of examining the complex and devious relationship that Willkie and FDR had, and showing that despite the mutual distrust, the two did respect one another: Willkie for FDR's political cunning, and FDR for Willkie's penchant to put his country ahead of politics. Willkie made many enemies in his newly adopted party, making it virtually impossible that he would gain the Republican nomination again in 1944. Indeed he was quickly knocked out of the running by a disastrous Wisconsin primary result.

Then, suddenly, Willkie is dead. Lewis almost casually mentions it, with no build-up about any health issues or anecdotes of people close to Willkie who would have been in the best position to view any physical deterioration. He does not even explicitly say what Willkie died of, only saying that he was admitted to the hospital due to acute arrhythmia. Did he die from this? Lewis fails to tell us. An unsatisfactory ending to a disappointing biography.

Grade: D-

[David Bird · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wendell Willkie is an interesting figure, worth revisiting. I started this book with high hopes, but while there’s much of value, it’s ultimately a disappointment.

Other than his fight against the TVA, there’s not much on Willkie the executive. While his anti-isolationism is given prominence, the substance of his internationalist thought is reduced to the repeated quotation “Whatever we do at home constitutes foreign policy. And whatever we do abroad constitutes domestic policy.”

Repetition of quotations is one of the many errors of editing in this book. Others include sentences that show half-implemented edits. As a final indignity, on p. 305, Willkie is dead at age 54; two pages later, he’s dead at 52.

[John Newton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before picking up this book, I recognized the name Wendell Wilkie and knew he was once the Republican candidate for president, but couldn't have told you much more about him. David Levering Lewis's biography convinced me that he was one of the most fascinating and unusual political figures of his time. A lifelong Democrat, albeit one who had been involved in legal battles with FDR's Tennessee Valley Authority for years, emerged suddenly to become the GOP candidate to face FDR in 1940. This despite never having been elected to any office and having an internationalist focus that was out of step with the generally isolationist attitudes of the party that he came to lead.

He lost, of course, to FDR but then he went on to become a close ally of the president. FDR relied on him as one of the most effective advocates for American support of Britain before the US entered the war and later as a steady supporter for the war effort. He emerges in Lewis's book as a man of principle, successfully representing a leader of the US Communist Party who was threatened with deportation before the Supreme Court and describing the attitudes of white Americans to black ones as near imperialist. (He was also a critic of British imperialism before many American politicians were courageous enough to take that stance.)

His internationalist manifesto One World was one of the bestsellers of its time, but despite his emergence as a respected public figure, it was all too much for the GOP and party leaders settled on NY governor Thomas Dewey as their candidate in 1944. A hard drinker and regular smoker, Wilkie died soon after that defeat, at age 52.

Lewis's book is engrossing, thanks to his improbable subject's fascinating life. It's also interesting to read today considering the shifts in the two parties' ideologies that took place after Wilkie. That an advocate of multinational alliances and outspoken critic of racial inequality could have once been the leader of the GOP (even if he was to the left of many Republicans) is almost hard to imagine.

While I loved the book, it could have been edited and copy edited better than it was. I think this is perhaps more a criticism of the publisher than the author, but I expect more from Norton. There are small things like sentences with missing prepositions; Santa Ana, California spelled as "Santa Anna;" and sloppy repetitions. The same quote by GOP national committee member Kenneth Simpson about Wilkie appears at least three times, for example, and in one paragraph we are told twice that Beijing and Shanghai were occupied by the Japanese when Wilkie visited the country on a world tour. These are quibbles, but I noticed them as a general reader not a trained historian. If there are more serious errors or questionable conclusions in Lewis's account, I could easily miss them.

Still, despite all that, it's definitely an engrossing biography and a must for anyone interested in American history during the New Deal and World War II.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Energetic attempt at rehabilitating Wendell Willkie, the Indiana businessman-turned-Republican presidential candidate in 1940. Lewis (previously author of a two-volume work on W.E.B. DuBois) makes no effort to hide his admiration for Willkie, who's portrayed as the standard bearer of a long-dead breed of Republican: socially liberal, fiscally conservative, an internationalist in foreign affairs. In other words, what used to be called a Rockefeller Republican might as easily be dubbed a Willkie Republican. Willkie's opposition to the Tennessee Valley Authority and ensuing clash with Roosevelt made him a Republican hero in the late '30s, even though he remained nominally a Democrat. His charisma (one observer dubbed him "a Republican with sex appeal") and connections among political and media circles - including his long-running affair with Irita van Doren, influential book review editor for The New York Herald Tribune, and friendship with Henry and Clare Booth Luce of Time - catapulted him to a "dark horse" nomination over Bob Taft, Thomas Dewey and other Republicans in 1940. Nonetheless, Willkie's campaign, while energetic, struggled to articulate a vision distinct from Roosevelt. Ultimately, in a familiar story, he abandoned high-minded principle for mudslinging in the campaign's final days, courting isolationists who despised him while dismaying his allies.

Regardless, Lewis views Willkie's nomination as rescuing the GOP from its chronic isolationism, and playing a major role in mobilizing support for American entry into WWII. It's hard to argue with that: Franklin Roosevelt, who made Willkie an ambassador-at-large, viewed his assistance in rallying the "loyal opposition" towards intervention and his wartime trips abroad as invaluable. Certainly Lewis convinces that Willkie was a man of consequence and integrity (being, among other things, an ally of the NAACP, an early backer of the Equal Rights Amendment and a staunch advocate for what became the United Nations), who probably would have made a strong president. But he struggles to show that Willkie "saved" the Republican Party, as the title asserts. After all, the GOP's split between intervention and isolation lasted until Eisenhower and Bob Taft's showdown in 1952; certainly the split between conservative and moderate Republicans raged for decades, and Willkie's side ultimately lost. At the very least, Willkie was the right man at a crucial historical moment - if not for his party, then certainly his country. And for that, if nothing else, he's worth remembering.

[Alec · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first heard of Wendell Willkie while reading the Oxford History of the United States. The limited portion of that extensive history was intriguing enough that I was anxious to learn more. Having now finished the biography by David Levering Lewis, I am so glad I did.

Very briefly, Wendell Willkie was the losing presidential candidate in 1940, losing to FDR for his unprecedented third term. Rather than skulking off to become a footnote in history, Mr. Willkie took it upon himself to form a "loyal opposition" government in the model of the British Parliamentary system. By taking this position, he also took it upon himself to support and progress the President's agenda while also pressuring his own party to work progressively rather than hindering. What did this mean practically? FDR was pushing the limits of his executive power by trying to assist the British while dealing with the legislative realities (there were a handful of Neutrality Acts on the books). Willkie, as an ardent internationalist, took it upon himself to roadshow and promote an expanding US involvement. He did this despite the rank and file of his party being very much opposed to this policy. Willkie's actions didn't change his party en masse, but he affected enough of them to get votes through Congress for things like Lend-Lease Act, approving increased military spending, and authorizing a peacetime draft. Given that both Mr. Lewis and the author of the Oxford History volume effectively said these things wouldn't have been possible without Mr. Willkie, I finished this book even more impressed with him.

It was so refreshing to read a book about someone who used their platform to try to promote the greater good rather than their personal wealth or portfolio. It was almost shocking to read about the leader of the opposition political party effectively doing roadshows to help promote the opposition's agenda because it was the right thing to do. Mr. Willkie was progressive on a number of things, including race relations (one of his campaign pledges was to include a minority in his Cabinet). He found himself the chairman of a Hollywood production company and collaborated with the NAACP to publish and produce updated guidelines for depicting and casting Blacks (until it was demolished the NAACP's Manhattan headquarters was called the Wendell Willkie Memorial Building).

I could go on, but I would be both less articulate and less informative than Mr. Lewis. Not only was Wendell Willkie's rise and career as a politician "improbable" but it was also remarkably impressive. I highly recommend taking the time to get to know him yourself.

Read as part of the 52 Book Club 2025 Challenge, prompt 21, "character's name in the title"

[Robert]

Ask anyone about Wendell Willkie and you can see in their eyes the wheels turning in their brain. Me too, until a book review piqued my interest. He lost to FDR in the 1940 presidential election. An also-ran, but oh, so much more! This man deserves to be more than an obscure footnote in American history. A lifelong Democrat, who switched parties and became the Republican candidate for President. He was a businessman/Capitalist, progressive/liberal champion of unionism and an ally of the NAACP and the Civil Rights movement, and an internationalist in the Republican Party when there were hardly any. An altruist if there ever were one in politics. He became the nominee without ever holding elective office. An adversary of FDR, yet an ally also. His efforts to help successfully pass Lend-Lease were incalculable. He was well known in many of the world's capitals. His foreign policy positions were well ahead of the times. I could not help but think that Willkie would have been of great use to America in other capacities if his life had not been cut short at an early age, and America was the worse for it.
I was intrigued by the description of the power brokers of the time. Magazine publishers, newspaper publishers, editorialists Drew Pearson and Water Lippmann to name a few.

In many ways he reminded me of Nelson Rockefeller

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wilkie is a fascinating figure - Wall Street tycoon, a Democrat who converted to Republican in time to be nominated for the 1940 campaign and lose to FDR who won a third time, man who had an affair with Madame Kai-Shek, and one of the many people FDR considered for a VP nod.
There is a very worthy subject of a biography here. Sometimes Lewis rises to the task of delivering a first rate biography - his discussion of the politics that led to Wilkie's 1940 presidential nomination and Wilkie's global tour during WW2 are good examples - but there are other times where the results are not as strong. Describing the battle between Wilkie's utility company and FDR's New Deal Tennessee Valley Authority is not an easy one, but in my view, Lewis version is muddled and not clear. Wilkie headed off to France for WWI - even though he did not see combat, going to France had to expose the future internationalist to a world of ideas and culture - it warrants one sentence in this biography. Finally, in my view, Lewis does not always have the clearest syntax, sometimes making thoughts less clear.
A fascinating figure with echoes to today - Lewis works hard to show the broader impact of Wilkie on the US, Republican party, and US theory on how to approach foreign policy.

[T.B. Caine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to read this for a class so I’m very biased against this book. It was obviously heavily researched so if you REALLY care about the guy, you’ll find tons of info on him in this book.

However, for all intents and purposes I felt like it was too long. Like double what it should be. So often we’d get long tangents of random people’s life stories, and tangents involving Willkie that just felt out of place. But also I never felt like I had a good grasp on “how” he changed the Republican Party or how he “conceived a new world order”. And he randomly does a policy flip during his run for president that just... never gets talked about or acknowledged. Or at least not enough for me to notice/mark it. He was anti-isolationism and then during his Presidential debates switched hard into isolationism and it’s just not acknowledged.

It was obviously well-researched and the author cared a lot, so 2 stars instead of the 1 I feel in my chest.


Also this book made me even angrier at how the rich can just get away with anything and how they’re ALL interconnected silver spoon-fed bastards. Let’s bring back the guillotines.

[Andrea Engle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This biography of interventionist Wendell Wilkie focuses on his capture of the Republican nomination in the 1940 Presidential election … His post-election global tour of the war zones for FDR is also featured, as is his support for “One World” … The work sheds light on a relatively unknown American … insightful …

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story about someone I knew almost nothing about. I read it when I found out that, six months before being nominated as the Republican candidate for President of the United States in 1940, he was a registered Democrat. Times sure were different then.

[Ginny · Rating 1 out of 5]

The writing is so bad, I should get five stars just for finishing this book! The author, who apparently won a Pulitzer before, is a terrible writer, and also had a terrible editor. I never knew one 300 page book could come up with so many catch-phrases and euphemisms to substitute for the proper name of “Willkie.” Some examples: erstwhile head of the GOP, titular leader of the Republican Party, the party leader, the big man from Indiana, the larger-than-life Hoosier, the rustic hero, the masterful campaigner, the distinguished visitor, the honorable guest, the great American emissary, the distinguished guest, the distinguished visitor, the lapsed Democrat, the titular leader, the GOP’s improbable standard-bearer. And there are many many more. Seriously! These descriptions appeared in almost every paragraph and were used 4:1 in place of “Willkie”, which was inexplicably substituted for “Windell” and once “WENDELL”. This made reading this already ponderous book even more distracting. I don’t think I’ve ever read a biography that did this. Why would anyone think this was a good idea?

This writer also failed to understand how storylines should be composed. Quite frequently he began a paragraph by making a conclusion about an event and then proceeding in the next paragraphs to describe things that have nothing to do with what he has just described. It’s an odd literary style and it doesn’t work here. A typical example would be: “The larger than life Hoosier was sorely disappointed by his treatment in California as it unfolded.” This sort of sentence would lead the reader to expect that she will now hear about Willkie’s treatment in California. But, that would be logical and sensible you silly reader! You will have to read through a paragraph or two of other unrelated events to finally read about California.

Good writing is marked by the use of words that propel the reader forward and making reading effortless. This writer came up with ways to make the reader slow down - and sometimes stop to reread. Also, the book is generally poorly edited as evidenced by a three different statements of Willkie’s age when he died. Twice it says 52 and once it says 54. Twice within one paragraph, and once on the same page.

How this got a good review from the NYT is beyond me. As for the story itself, I admit I learned something. This wasn’t hard given I knew nothing of Willkie before. But, as far as biography goes this one fails. I have no greater understanding of the man, his family, his relationships with his wife, children or anything beyond surface information than I had before. There must be better books on this man, because I doubt there are any that are worse.

[Charles Castel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was looking forward to reading this book about the only person, prior to Donald Trump, to win a major party nomination without being a politician or military leader. And Willkie was the polar opposite of Trump in terms of engagement with issues and being an internationalist and outspoken opponent of the prejudices and racism of his era. Unfortunately this book didn't hit the mark for me. The prose was laborious and repetitive at times. I learned a lot, but I also noticed a lot of minor errors on matters I knew about and that made me skeptical about the information that was new to me. I hope it was largely accurate. The book really needed the attentions of a copy editor and a fact checker. For instance, near the end of the book, the author says Willkie was 54 when he died, then two sentences later he states Willkie was 52 at time of death. This was published by a subsidiary of WW Norton--where were the fact checkers and copy editors? To say nothing of the author. A shame as a man like Willkie is very much needed in the USA at this time as he was a man who put country and principle over partisian label and group identify.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely held my interest, but I don't finish this book convinced that Wendell Willkie was as important as the author asserts. It feels like there's something a little off about the pacing--maybe too much time devoted to pre-1940, while the 1940 campaign and Willkie's post '40 career, which is maybe the time where he is most notable, is relatively short. There's so much coverage of Republican operatives and their schemes to nominate or stop Willkie that you sometimes lose a sense of the larger American climate. There are also a few editing issues--3 instances I can remember where a quote is repeated at different points in the book.

[Will · Rating 2 out of 5]

This felt like it should have been an interesting topic, but the writing style and seemingly lack of editing made this book a struggle to read. Some of the author's prose is difficult to follow and strangely worded. The narrative too was confusing at times, yet the broad strokes were fine and interesting. And many errors ! On one page, it says Willkie was 54 when he died, on the next page he was 52!? Overall, poorly written and desperately needed to be edited.

[David Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t know much about Willke other than having some dealings with the law firm (Willkie Farr) he was associated with on a few cases and his challenge to FDR. Ran across this bio while browsing the NYPL catalog.

Both his parents were lawyers, his mother being the first woman member of the Indiana Bar. He attended Indiana Law School graduating top of his class. At the commencement ceremony, he gave a provocative speech criticizing the school. The faculty withheld his degree but granted it after two days of intense debate. Willkie joined his parents' law firm but volunteered for the United States Army on April 2, 1917, the day President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany. An army clerk transposed his first two names; with Willkie unwilling to invest the time to have the bureaucracy correct it, he kept his name as Wendell Lewis Willkie.

In 1940, Roosevelt was deciding whether to run for a third term, the war in Europe was raging, and the country was hotly debating whether the U.S. should join the war effort. At the same time, the Republican Party was desperately looking for a candidate who could take back the presidency. Wendell Willkie was a lawyer and wealthy businessman with no political experience. He had a magnetic personality and was a registered Democrat for most of his life. Having recently changed party affiliation he was courted by the national republican party leaders. The outspoken Willkie dominated the republican dialogue from 1940 until his death four years later. Time magazine founder Henry Luce called Willkie “a force of nature”.

Willkie was forthright in his criticism of FDR, who Willkie claimed curtailed the Bill of Rights, fomented class conflict, undermined business. He had been president of a major utility company and opposed the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority and other New Deal programs. Willkie was a hawk, much more so that FDR and was anxious to involve America WWII. Willkie had little party loyalty. He embraced a “creed of liberalism” that “opposed equally unregulated wealth and unlimited government power.” He drew large and enthusiastic crowds as he campaigned across the country, and polls showed the election too close to call. Willkie lost to FDR by only 5 million votes.

During his 1940 campaign, Willkie had pledged to integrate the civil service and armed forces, and proudly pointed to what he deemed the strongest civil rights plank in history in the Republican platform. After the election, Willkie promised to keep fighting for civil rights. Willkie warned Republicans that only a full commitment to equal rights for minorities would woo African Americans back to the party, and he criticized Roosevelt for yielding to Southern racists among the Democrats. Willkie addressed a convention of the NAACP in 1942, one of the most prominent politicians to do so up to that point.

FDR recruited to be an emissary to travel the world as his representative. He established and strengthened diplomatic ties across the world. Oh, that we had political leaders today that would see the strengths even in rivals that could be put to use for the common good.

In 1942 Willkie argued the case of Schneiderman v. United States before the Supreme Court. William Schneiderman, secretary of the California Communist Party, was a naturalized American until the government revoked his citizenship, stating that he had concealed his membership on his application for naturalization in 1927. Two lower federal courts upheld the denaturalization. Representing a communist, even in wartime, did nothing to shore up Willkie's diminishing support in the Republican Party, but he wrote to a friend saying, "I am sure I am right in representing Schneiderman. Of all the times when civil liberties should be defended, it is now." In his argument, Willkie quoted Lincoln and Jefferson by saying that the people could, if they deemed it necessary, remake the government, and he stated that Marx's view of the revolution was mild by comparison. In 1943, the Supreme Court ruled for Schneiderman, 5–3, restoring his citizenship. Although Willkie refrained from criticizing Roosevelt's internment of Japanese Americans, he stated in a speech that war was no excuse for depriving groups of people of their rights. He spoke out against those who blamed the Jews for the war, warning against "witch-hanging and mob-baiting".

Despite his moral strengths, he had some serious failings. He had a long time fairly open affair with a NY newspaper reporter and while on an official visit to China he had an affair with Madam Chiang Kai-shek, the wife of the nationalist Chinese leader. Who said to a Willkie aid “If Wendell could be elected (1944), then he and I would rule the world. I would rule the Orient and Wendell would rule the Western world.”

Like most human beings and many men of prominence Willkie was a complicated figure with strengths and weaknesses.

[Jim Gallen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As readers of my reviews are aware, I often read biographies, many of presidents. Recently I have shifted to search for other figures who, without achieving the presidency, were influential. One such is Wendell Willkie.

Previously a trivia footnote as the only major party presidential candidate not to have previously held a political position or served as a general, this tome reveals a life far beyond the trivial. A native of Elwood, Indiana, Willkie pursued a career in law and business, taking him to Wall Street and the presidency of Commonwealth & Southern, a power utility holding company. This position would bring Willkie into continued corporate competition and personal contact with President Franklin D. Roosevelt over C & S Holding and the development of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

In 1940 this competition would migrate to the political realm as Willkie switched his registration from Democratic to Republican and captured the Republican nomination for president. Willkie may have been the first challenger to the Republican isolationist tradition since Theodore Roosevelt. While Socialist candidate Norman Thomas alleged Willkie “agreed with Mr. Roosevelt’s entire program of social reform and said it was leading to disaster”, Willkie shared Roosevelt’s belief that victory for Britain in World War II was essential. Though attacks on the Selective Service Act and the Destroyers for Bases deal may have been politically expedient, Willkie withheld criticism and intervened to rally Republican congressional votes for what he believed were necessary measures. In the words of columnist Walter Lippmann, “Under any other leadership but his, the Republican party would have turned its back upon Great Britain causing all who still resisted Hitler to feel that they were abandoned.”

Immediately after his reelection, FDR turned to his vanquished rival for collaboration as the nation moved toward involvement in the World War, sending Willkie on an around the world tour in both a personal capacity and as a representative of the President, featuring personal meetings with Churchill, King George VI, de Gaulle, Stalin, Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek.

Though widely predicted as the likely successor to FDR in 1944, mainstream isolationist Republicans denied him nomination, turning to Governor Thomas Dewey. Willkie would not survive until election day, dying on October 8, 1940, a fifty-two-year-old visionary “who ate too much, drank too much, smoked too much and loved too much.”

Author David Levering Lewis has crafted a very readable biography replete with high ideals and human frailties, noble bipartisanship and political intrigue. He presents a patriot who rose out of Indiana to the heights of business and politics and profoundly impacted our country through his advocacy of international involvement, acceptance of many New Deal programs and pricking of a nation’s conscience on racial issues. A transformational leader rather than a transactional politician, he became one of “those who cannot exercise power (but) come thereby to exercise greater influence.” It may fairly be said that, where Willkie failed, Eisenhower succeeded. “The Improbable Wendell Willkie” is an excellent biography of a significant, but often overlooked life in the American pageant.

[Andy Oram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading the evolution of this unique politician and thinker is inspiring and depressing. Lewis's book is also a history of a major transformation within the Republican party in the 1940s--a transformation possibly as large as its debasement over the past couple decades--and as an added bonus, a collective biography of the Eastern establishment, that awesome force not quite tossed aside by Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

I was impressed with Lewis's layout of various American forces of the mid-century (isolationists versus interventionists, financiers versus farmers, and so on). In that era, although disagreements were certainly strong and rhetoric could be both demographic and nasty on both sides (not to mention racist), there was an atmosphere of discussion and pragmatism that many of us are nostalgic for. Save some of your wistfulness for consideration of a Republican party that, in 1940, actively courted women and African-Americans through strong planks in favor of their rights.

The Republican Party after 1940 remained rife with ideologues (as do all parties), but Willkie temporarily brought the party into the mainstream. Fighting the party's isolationism, anti-Semitism, and KKK racism, he succeeded with just a few allies (often among progressive Democrats) in temporarily establishing upright values in his party--and all without ever holding an elected position. Given his brilliance, righteousness, and incredible popularity, it's a foregone conclusion that the Republican leadership jettisoned him within four years.

The author succumbs to what seems an inevitable indulgence among biographers for pumping up the length of his book by throwing innumerable details you don't really need to know in, simply because he has discovered those details. His writing style is also a bit ornate and sometimes teasing. For instance, although I found the book enlightening, I was frustrated by never quite understanding what Willkie liked and didn't like in the New Deal. I don't know whether this crucial lacuna can be blamed on Willkie's ambiguousness or the author's. Finally, I don't agree with the author that the New Deal was a burden on business or a bureaucratic failure. (I admit, though, that I sometimes have trouble determining when Lewis is expressing his opinion versus summarizing the opinion of vaguely identified participants.)

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author presents a fascinating story which historians have mostly skipped over. Consider a life long Democrat changes parties in 1939 and captures the Republican nomination for President in 1940. On top of that he opposes Republican isolation policy, largely supports the new deal and the strength of labor unions and took a stronger position on civil rights than FDR. Wilkie promised to appoint Blacks to his cabinet and supreme court if elected in 1940. And this is what he had to say about the middle east: "These newly awakened people will be followers of some extremist generation if their new hunger for education and opportunity goes unanswered... If we had left the olive groces and the cotton fields and the oil wells on this region alone we might not have to worry... But we have not left them alone. We have sent them our ideas and our ideals... our engineers and our businessmen, and our pilots and our soldies to the middle east and we cannot escape the result."

[Daniel Farabaugh · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book suffered from the author being too in love with his subject. Large portions of this is a very good biography but he paints a picture that is so glowing that he loses touch with believability. Willkie is always presented as a man of principle, even when the author states he does not live up to them but Roosevelt is demonized as always being awful. Roosevelt wants to "destroy private industry" but Willkie shows principle by refusing corporate donations, except for the fact that he takes them. The author all but gives Willkie credit for the Atlantic Charter because he gave a speech previously about justice. Wilkie is a man whose major accomplishment was fighting the TVA at the head of a private utility and then going on goodwill tours. His accomplishments do not warrant the treatment the author gives.

The man had some accomplishments and there is a good biography that gives a balanced history of Willkie unfortunately this is not it.

[Patrick Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of a political meteor that roared across the Republican Party in 1940. In an isolationist, nationalist party rose am international interventionalist that took the 1940 Republican by surprise and by storm. His story is not unlike the 2016 candidate, however, his traits are much different: curious, well-read, empathetic, young and intelligent. His politics open the way for Roosevelt to push through Lend Lease and otherwise prepare the country for the coming war. An interesting read to see how different and how similar the politics of then and today are.

[Todd Kruse · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author’s use of the phrase “titular leader of the Republican Party” was overdone since “Willkie” would have sufficed.

Additionally, I was dismayed to see his use of the offensive “frat boy” term. Enough!

I was most intrigued by the role of Mr. Root who organized the “Willkie Clubs” via his network of Ivy League graduates- this project was worthy of a book itself focused on campaign techniques.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had known that Willkie was the 1940 Republican candidate but almost nothing else about him. This book tells the story of a man who partially succeeded in moving a party almost as reactionary as it is now into a world-aware mindset for the post-war future. He was far to progressive and sensible to succeed as a republican.

[Michael Canham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much to learn about politics during WWII, and the Republican Presidential Candidate vs. FDR in 1940. Clearly a man 20+ years ahead of his time, and his ideas and ideals remain in evolution. His public announcement that he was a candidate for the 1940 Republican nomination was only 12 days before the convention. A remarkable story and a major American loss.

[Jim Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book had good content, but the writing left a lot to be desired. The author tries to be erudite to the point of confusion. All along the book the subject's early death was detailed, however, the ending was sudden with little conclusion. read it for historical content only.

[Jacqueline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did not know anything about Wendell Wilkie except for the name This is a well-researched book on the life of a man whose life was cut short with a heart attack during the peak of his service to this country. I enjoyed this book a lot.

[Bruce Cline · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating politician about whom I knew virtually nothing prior to reading this biography.

[Troy Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hagiographic — though totally justified.