I Like Ike: The Presidential Election of 1952

American Presidential Elections

by John Robert Greene

When the 1952 presidential election campaign began, many assumed it would be a race between Harry Truman, seeking his second full term, and Robert A. Taft, son of a former president and, to many of his fellow partisans, “Mr. Republican.” No one imagined the party standard bearers would be Illinois governor Adlai E. Stevenson II and Supreme Allied Commander in World War II, Dwight D. Eisenhower.. I Like Ike tells the story of a critical election fought between two avowedly reluctant warriors, including Truman’s efforts to recruit Eisenhower as the candidate of the Democrat Party—to a finish that, for all the partisan wrangling, had more to do with the extraordinary popularity of the former general, who, along with Stevenson, was seen to be somehow above politics.

In the first book to analyze the 1952 election in its entirety, political historian John Robert Greene looks in detail at how Stevenson and Eisenhower faced demands that they run for an office neither originally wanted. He examines the campaigns of their opponents—Harry Truman and Robert Taft, but also Estes Kefauver, Richard B. Russell, Averell Harriman and Earl Warren. Richard Nixon's famous “Checkers Speech,” Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist campaign, and television as a new medium for news and political commercials—each figured in the election in its own way; and drawing in depth on the Eisenhower, Stevenson, Taft and Nixon papers, Greene traces how.

I Like Ike is a compelling account of how an America fearful of a Communist threat elected a war hero and brought an end to twenty years of Democrat control of the White House. In an era of political ferment, it also makes a timely and persuasive case for the importance of the election of 1952 not only to the Eisenhower Administration, but also to the development of presidential politics well into the future.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Presidents, Politics

273 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 7, 2017

About the author

John Robert Greene is an American historian who is the Paul J. Schupf Professor, History and Humanities, the director of the Social Science Program, and the College Archivist, at Cazenovia College in Cazenovia, New York.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

The presidential election of 1952 is one that left a number of enduring impressions upon the American imagination. But while Americans today may remember it for Adlai Stevenson's high-toned campaign or Richard Nixon's famous "Checkers speech," one image stands out above all others: that of the genial, grinning face of Dwight D. Eisenhower. As the Republican nominee Eisenhower ended two decades of Democratic domination of the executive branch and began an eight-year presidency that has become indelibly associated with America in the 1950s.

While there are no shortage of books about Eisenhower or his years as president, nearly seven decades after his election there are only two histories about it. Indeed, John Robert Greene can rightfully be said to dominate the field, since he wrote both of them. As he explains in the introduction to his volume for the University Press of Kansas's American Presidential Elections series, however, this is no mere rehashing of his first book The Crusade: The Presidential Election of 1952 , but a thorough revision of his original arguments about Eisenhower's interest in becoming president based on a reexamination of the sources. It is not often that a scholar renounces his or her previous work and even rarer that they do so in a new monograph. That Greene does so warrants a greater degree of respect for the argument he makes here.

Greene begins the book by situating the campaign in the context of the politics of the early 1950s. With the nation mired in a stalemate in Korea and with headlines trumpeting Truman administration scandals and charges of Communist infiltration, there was a widespread sense that the nation was heading in the wrong direction. Republicans hoped to capitalize upon this in the upcoming election, with many viewing Robert Taft as the best standard-bearer. Yet while the Ohio senator was seen as the leading spokesman of the conservative wing of the party, his isolationist views concerned many in the moderate, internationalist branch of the party, who sought someone more representative of their views.

For them that candidate was Eisenhower. While Greene's previous study of the election saw Eisenhower as an active pursuant of the nomination from the start, here he stresses Eisenhower's reluctance to enter electoral politics. One of the strongest parts of Greene's book is his careful reconstruction of the efforts by Eisenhower's supporters to convince their hero to run, which he only agreed to do out of fear of Taft's desire to withdraw the United States from the recently created North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Eisenhower's nomination was far from a sure thing, however, as Greene stresses the dominant position enjoyed by Taft's supporters in the party hierarchy and the role the events in the convention played in winning it for the general.

As Greene demonstrates, though, the Republicans were not the only ones with a reluctant nominee. Having withdrawn from the contest after his defeat in the New Hampshire primary, Harry Truman encouraged Adlai Stevenson to enter the race, viewing the Illinois governor as the man best positioned to carry on the president's Fair Deal agenda. Yet Stevenson hesitated to run, and did not emerge as the Democratic nominee until the party's convention. While Stevenson went on to run a dignified campaign notable for his learned and polished speeches, Greene argues that in the end no Democrat could have triumphed that year against the twin factors of national dissatisfaction with the Truman administration and Eisenhower's enormous popularity with the American people, with the events of the campaign itself largely anticlimactic in terms of deciding its outcome.

Thanks to his willingness to revisit his earlier conclusions, Greene provides his readers with something far more than just an updating of his previous work on the 1952 election but a through and open-minded examination of the contest. In doing so, he benefits not only from the greater availability of archival materials but also the related scholarship that has emerged as a result. While there are a few surprising absences from his list of secondary sources employed, overall the book is a thorough work of scholarship that will likely be the standard by which future works on the subject are judged.

[Bob Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting take on a sometimes overlooked election. The author basically contends that the deck was stacked in favor of Ike once he fought off Taft for the nomination. The real value of this book is in reading about the lives of political actors, like Richard Nixon, who fundamentally change the arc of American History. For example, Greene offers some insights about Nixon's justification for future illegal behavior in Watergate (his euphemism was "hardball politics") when he discusses and analyzes his problems meshing with Ike in 1952.

Overall, I would recommend the book to those interested in presidential history and elections.

[Earl Ecklund III · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 1952 election is long remembered as Eisenhower's triumph but as John Robert Greene points out it wasn't always that simple. Eisenhower himself was a reluctant candidate who entered the race to prevent Senator Robert Taft of Ohio from prevent from winning the Republican nomination and returning America to an isolationist foreign policy.

While Eisenhower proved popular in the Republican primaries Taft still had the lead in delegates of the eve of the Republican National Convention. Taft's camp overplayed their hand in seating a pair of pro-Taft delegations after closed door hearings. The Eisenhower camp proposed an amendment to unseat these delegations as "Fair Play". As a result Eisenhower won over the support of the favorite son delegations and thus captured the nomination.

On the Democratic side Harry Truman chose not to run for another term. Senator Estes Kefauver, Avrill Harriman and Vice President Alben Barkley were among the announced candidates but the preferred choice was Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson. Truman tried to convince Stevenson to run but Stevenson refused until the Democratic National Convention when for reasons still unclear he changed his mind. Kefauver led Stevenson on the first two ballots before Truman's personal intervention secured the nomination for Stevenson.

In the general election Stevenson refused Truman's help and never seemed to gain any ground whereas Eisenhower became the first Republican candidate to tour the South and made inroads into the region. The only bump in the road was when Republican Vice Presidential nominee Richard Nixon was discovered to have a fund that was used to supplement his income for expenses. Only after a nationally televised speech, the first of its kind, was Nixon's place on the ticket secured.

At the beginning of the fall campaign Eisenhower was deemed "unbeatable" and the results bore that out in the end.

This is an exceptional book on an often overlooked election, a must read for all interested in American politics, history and Dwight Eisenhower.

[Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book with its presidential candidates seeking to lead honest and responsible lives is quite the contrast with the current poisonous political environment. The election of Eisenhower marked the first time in 20 years the Republicans held the White House. Eisenhower was able to do so by embracing the New Deal (which the current Republican old Guard still is troubled by, mainly for aesthetic reasons). Ike championed collective security, a position at odds with Robert Taft, the isolationist stalwart. It is a position also at odds with a TV pitchman from. Queens for that matter.

We have certainly slid down a slippery slope, most of it sadly the work of Ike’s VEEP. Things were certainly different in 1952. Here a president won election due to his perceived decency and competence. A refusal to tolerate any whiff of corruption led to the near replacement of Richard Nixon. Knowing Eisenhower’s personal integrity and his vision for America, one does wish he had rid the country of Nixon in 1952 or 1956. While he could not have known it his VEEP harbored a vision was much at odds with Eisenhower’s centrist decency and later would seek to retard progress in civil rights.

How did Eisenhower win, simply by being Eisenhower, the figure that beat Hitler in WWII. How did his opponent, Adlai Stevenson lose? By being a lousy candidate, whose speeches read better than they were delivered. Such was a time when the good guys still won and the Republic was not threatened by a demagogue in the White House.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

1952 isn't one of the U.S. presidential elections that it generally within the top tier of works devoted to it. The one imminently preceding it - 1948 - is just one example of an election that has a vaster array of books written about it.

Greene's book is a good study of the 1952 campaign. His prologue is worth reading to begin with - he notes that his views and conclusions on this election have changed over the years, and he points out how his previously held views caused some awkwardness at a gathering on the subject in 1992.

What might surprise many readers is that the sections on the nomination processes make for a much more compelling read than the general election itself. Certain gaffes on the part of major players in both the Democratic and Republican parties appear to be the main things that propelled both Stevenson and Eisenhower to their respective nominations.

[J. Michael Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book on the election of 1952, an often overlooked election in American history. The author explains how much Harry Truman, for better or worse, tried to control everything about the election--but in the end was unsuccessful. We get better acquainted with the political process that led to Eisenhower and Stevenson being nominated, the disarray of the Democratic Party, and the tension in the Republican party between the moderate Republicans (Eisenhower) and the conservative wing of the party (Robert Taft.)

The books provides some helpful background explaining the politics of the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

[Bryan Ericson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read a lot on this election, but this was a concise, easy to read account. I have always enjoyed reading about Ike.