Stuart Symington: A Life

by James C. Olson

Stuart Symington is the first full-length biography of one of Missouri’s most influential and effective twentieth-century political leaders. It tells the story of a remarkable man whose adult life was spent at or near the center of power in America, a man who was talented and ambitious, yet maintained a realistic touch that enabled him to connect with ordinary people.
Symington was the first secretary of the air force and a four-term senator from Missouri. Prior to his long governmental career, he was a successful businessman in New York and St. Louis, developing a national reputation as a genius who could convert failing businesses to profitability. His most notable success was with Emerson Electric Company of St. Louis, which during World War II he turned into a large manufacturer of movable gun turrets for bombers.
Known as “Harry Truman’s Trouble Shooter,” Symington was unanimously confirmed by the Senate for six major presidential appointments—a record. As assistant secretary of war for air, he represented the War Department in negotiations leading to the National Security Act of 1947, which unified the armed services into a single national military establishment under the secretary of defense. During his tenure as secretary of the air force, he steered that organization through a series of crises, including racial integration, as it developed into an independent entity within the Defense Department. Among his other administrative positions, he served as surplus property administrator, breaking up the aluminum monopoly; director of the National Security Resources Board, where he helped develop mobilization strategy for the Korean War; and director of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, where he reformed a badly managed operation.
Highlights of his long Senate career include his confrontation with Joseph McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954; his conflict with President Eisenhower over the defense budget; his long, agonizing struggle over Vietnam as he changed from a leading hawk to a leading dove; and his role in uncovering information leading to congressional articles of impeachment against President Nixon. He was a serious candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 1960, and for a time appeared to be Kennedy’s choice for vice president.
Well written and exhaustively researched, Stuart A Life provides a comprehensive portrait of Symington and his exceptional career, shedding new light on presidential administrations from Truman to Nixon, the Department of Defense, the Korean War, and Vietnam. The book also contributes to an understanding of the U. S. Senate, the political history of Missouri, and the relationship between business and government during and immediately after World War II.

568 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2003

About the author

James C. Olson was an American historian, educator and school administrator who served as president of the University of Missouri System from 1976 until 1984. He had been a vice chancellor at the University of Nebraska and chancellor at University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Reviews

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been reading a lot about US Senators recently especially the ones that served in my lifetime. A
man who always seemed to be at the levers of power in the Senate was Stuart Symington of Missouri
who served from 1953 to 1977. He was a Senate insider by his political skill and his background in
both government and business service.

The US Senate is a curious place certainly at the time of my youth. So many of its members came from such varied backgrounds, some from academia, some from labor, some from law and some from
party politics or a combination thereof. Symington was an upper crust WASP who was born in Massachusetts, grew up in Maryland and and went to the Yale School of Business for a career in same.
A Democrat by inclination he married Emily Wadsworth of a most Republican family from New York
State, her dad was a US Senator himself. Gave Symington some bipartisan connections he never
hesitated to use.

Accepting the presidency of Emerson Electric in the 30s was what brought him to Missouri where
he settled in the rich suburb of Crevecour near St.Louis. Symington when we entered World War 2
he was one of those many dollar a year men who served in various wartime agencies. He made
the most important contact he would ever have in his life, one Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri
who appointed Symington to several administrative posts when Truman became president.

The most important of which was becoming the first Secretary Of The Air Force when we finally
created a separate air branch. He was forever the Air Force's best friend in Congress after he went
to the Senate. The structure of the civilian part of the agency is what Symington created. In his
tenure plans were made for the Air Force Academy that we have today.

Symington even as Eisenhower carried Missouri, he defeated an isolationist Republican one term
Senator James P. Kem who left little mark on the Senate. A liberal on domestic issues he was a
Cold Warrior as you would expect from someone who ran a branch of the Armed Services. During
the 50s he was a Democrat on the Government Operations Committee and was noted for some
verbal battles with Joe McCarthy there. McCarthy was one to give childish nicknames to opponents
and he called Symington 'sanctimonious Stu'. Sound like someone on today's scene.

In 1960 he was an available candidate for president hoping that others running harder would kill
each other off and he would be in the wings. He had Harry Truman's support in that campaign and
strategy. But John F. Kennedy won all the primaries he entered and had the nomination. Symington was friendly with both Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

During the 60s Symington gradually changed from a Cold Warrior hawk to an advocate of disarmament. Vietnam did that for him. It made things difficult in his relationship with LBJ
though he supported his War On Poverty initiatives. When Richard Nixon became president it was
much easier as he never like Nixon from the start. I think he was reflecting his mentor Harry
Truman's attitude there as well as his own.

Being a former armed service civilian head he had one unusual friendship, that of Bob Hope. I
suspect a Symington White House might have seen a lot of Hope visits,, maybe even a special from
the Oval Office.

Symington had a tough re-election in 1970 for a fourth term, running against John Danforth who
was Missouri's Republican Attorney General and the heir to the Ralston-Purina fortune. When
Danforth indicated he would go again, Symington seeing Missouri was trending Republican decided
to call it a career. He died in 1988.

Stuart Symington was a key Washington insider and he led a life of honor and accomplishment.
That will be what you take when you James C. Olson's life about him.