Transcripts For CSPAN2 A.J. Baime Dewey Defeats Truman 20240712

Public service and brought to you by your television provider. Welcome to the Commonwealth Club. Im george hammond, chair of the vanity form, i am happy to welcome back a. J. Baime. We had him here i urine to have a go for the accidental president , his last book and this time we have him here virtually from his home and we will talk about his new book about the 1948 election going back 72 years and you will be amazed how similar it sounds in some ways, in other ways very different. Politicians were all younger than they are today. Take it away, the overview of the book, a very good review. Guest thanks for having me. The Commonwealth Club is a wonderful place to be. A lot of people going to pain and suffering, i am reminded why i fell in love with reading, books can transport you to another time and place and it has been a blessing. Regarding my last time with you i started this book in 2017 to talk about the accidental president. This book came out in the 2020 election cycle. This is a book about the 1948 election, dewey defeats truman. It will give me an opportunity to talk about things that matter. Two things happened i didnt expect. During the research i found a bunch of material i didnt expect to find an element in our life inspired in such a way that began to feel everything i was writing about was no longer taking place in 1948 but taking place now. I want to show you a few pictures to gives you an idea. 1948 is the first election to play out on the television, the first election i broadcast on cbs. A new media will change the way elections take place. We have social media doing the same thing. Heres an image that will startle you. I hope it startles you. In 1948 a massive surge in White Nationalism in the United States. This is charlottesville. In 1948 there was violence against africanamericans, this particular picture you are looking at, this is a man named isaac, four hours after he was honorably discharged from the United States army, served in world war ii had an altercation with a white Police Officer and is blinded and being escorted by joe lewis, the heavyweight fighter, orson wells got fired from his radio show for speaking out for Isaac Whitaker and the whole story of what happened to him became politicized and part of the conversation in a way that we are feeling the same way with george floyd. The alger his story breaks in the 1948 election. Suddenly there is so much talk in washington, people trying to figure out is there a communist conspiracy infiltrating washington . What is the fact, the conspiracy theory, in washington all over the country among the electorate in 1948, that is as relevant today. Too relevant. Guest the fbi on the trail of a major president ial candidate with regard to a possible russian conspiracy. Henry wallace a fascinating picture. There is so much to see but was wallace a stooge for the kremlin . We know he wasnt but this was the conversation in 1948 and is relevant today. This is the berlin airlift. In the 1948 election cycle true and launches the berlin airlift, this is not apples to apples comparison but in the election cycle we went knows to nose with the soviets on the brink of world war iii, fear and anxiety gripped the country and that is happening in our election cycle now for a completely different reason and that is why i am talking to you from my Basement Office and not on stage. This is one picture that should not feel relevant today and we should cross our fingers it remains that we. In 1948 election cycle Nuclear Bombs are going off as we test larger weapons in the pacific. Ultimately we get to harry truman. A thing i want to make a last point before i talk about the candidates in 48. I want to give you one quote from the most surprising document i found, through my research, written november 15th, 1947, exactly a year before, one sentence. The United States of america is fair game for moscow and has been for years and as far as anyone is willing to see 1948 is the year soviet russia will do everything in its power to influence the election here. I will give you a brief introduction of the four candidates in the conversation will begin. What i want to do is follow all four candidates through their campaign odysseys in real time so the reader can experience what america was experience but also all leading up to a climactic moment on november 2nd, 1948. Here is Henry Wallace. Wallace was an extraordinary candidate who won now states that his story is one we can learn a lot from. Wallace was the one candidate who breaks from the democrats and says we have a new cold war and it is not the soviets fault, it is Harry Trumans fault and he says theres only one man in this country who can stop world war iii and that is me so he becomes a candidate of protest and to me, the beginning of an antiestablishment movement through the 1950s and 60s. You certainly heard a lot from him. Wallaces politics were so controversial he goes to campaign in the south and says i will not speak in every hall where an africanamerican and caucasian american cant sit next to each other. I will not stay in a hotel where an africanamerican is not allowed. When he gets in the south there are riots, a stabbing. He is routinely pelted with tomatoes. Host even as Vice President to go through the colored entrance to a church was caught in a physical altercation with the police to stop, he was a us senator. That was a detail. Glenn taylor, amazing to think there were times when wallace would stand in front of crowds that were tackling him and throwing eggs at him, i want some evidence im in the United States of america. Strom thurmond in the 1940 election truman was the first president ial candidate to go after the africanamerican vote. He becomes the first president to address the naacp and the first resident told a Campaign Rally in harlems spiritual home black america. Not everybodys happy about this. Strom thurmond, war hero, governor of South Carolina launches a new Dixiecrat Party. This is their National Convention hes nominated to run for president and i will give you a brief quote from what he is saying on this night. He says i want to tell you there is not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the negro race into our theaters and swimming pools coming into our homes and into our churches. He wins four states on the platform of process gradation and White Supremacy and finally thomas dewey, everybody believes is about to become the first republican president in 16 years we will talk about so i wont say much now, the one time the two candidates meet during the election cycle and harry truman leans over and says im moving to the white house, do something. There were real issues with the white house. There were. The white house was littered with them. Back to truman. We will talk about him. Why dont we start our conversation, hope that was useful. We can put up the pictures start with do we. Thomas dewey, new york governor, in his mid40s when he was running. He had been governor before. He did what Rudy Giuliani did, took the road Rudy Giuliani tried to do which was to be attorney general, when cases and go on to new york prominence, new york governor for a while and i know giuliani played the dewey card because when he was attorney general he came to speak and he was going to play the same political thing because giuliani had his eye on the white house. He only has the back room of the white house but doesnt get to go there. In any case thomas dewey quite a character and has been an attack dog, he ran a different campaign, talk about that and he was 30 points ahead at the beginning of the campaign. Guest i was fascinated how fascinating i found him. I thought he would be a byproduct, minor character, hes very much a major character in the story but i wrote because the way he came into prominence was so extraordinary. Is from a small town comes out of nowhere, michigan, becomes a young prosecutor in new york city and finds himself on this trail, brilliant prosecutor, brilliant lawyer and becomes this figure who takes down the mafia in the 1930s during the depression when there was a lot of mafia around and became famous as a prosecutor. In two movies he is portrayed by Humphrey Bogart on the big screen. Thomas dewey can successfully prosecute god, that is how he came by the time 1948 came he had been the third president ial candidate, he had been the guy everybody said back in 1940 the year that you are the future of the Republican Party and by the time 1948 comes he decides hes not going to run because iran in 1944 and lost, came closer to defeating fdr than anybody did. He felt in his heart he didnt want to suffer losing a president ial election twice. He had to be convinced to run so his story becomes very sympathetic. Host obviously everyone thought, your book is clear everyone thought, all the media, all the newspapers predicted he was going to win. Not a single newspaper predicted truman was going to win, none of the major one so the media was on his side and they spent time after words wondering why they got it wrong just like people in the media in 2016, how did we get that wrong . Polls are just starting, another element, their influence, i am sure they had polls before that but they became more influential. As more media feels big to is now at that time the fact that radio, communication industry was ramping up so pollsters were extraordinarily powerful and one of them actually wrote in his newspaper column i will not have this anymore, why spend the money on having a campaign, dewey is going to win. There are two scenes for me writing about dewey that were so touching and one is on Election Night i will go back. The night he holds his final Campaign Rally in Madison Square garden he gets on a train after words to take the train to albany to the governors mention it is so sure hes going to win, all these reporters covering his campaign for months, he tells them who is going to be in his cabinet, the secretary of state, secretary of treasury, he was sure he was going to win. The other scene that was so touching was on Election Night, the night is not going as planned and he locks himself in a room with a yellow legal pad and listens to the returns on the radio all night and realizes what is about to happen to him. Host a solitary man on that edge. He definitely left his mark anyway on the Republican Party, very influential and he was a progressive republican. And other relevant i thought was very machiavelli and move you talk about that truman does, the republicans after the convention picked dewey but it was a tight race that he was a progressive, Teddy Roosevelt type republican and taft who was the son of the president was the leader of the conservatives and a lot of people thought he should be the nominee. The conservative republicans were in control of the congress so what truman did, the platforms between dewey and trumans platform were almost identical. That is right. Host he put a pin in this by calling congress back to enact deweys platform. We talk about the democratic National Convention is showing a piece of video. You raised a wonderful interesting point coming out of world war ii. A line in the sand everybody understood this would be a line between the past and the future, the world was shaping up and which Political Party was going to be in charge and in print their vision on america and both Political Parties coming out of world war ii had to figure out who they were and what they stood for and republicans had an interesting situation, a rivalry, a conservative faction headed up by robert taft and dewey who was a liberal with the republican, raised to think Teddy Roosevelt was the definition of the Republican Party and even through the primaries the oregon primary, fascinating story. Dewey in the front runner, all of a sudden about to lose and comes up with dark horse and they are neck in the. The oregon primary will be decided in the first ever ever broadcast president ial debate. You can watch it and listen to it on youtube, should communism he outlawed and dewey being a prosecutor won the nomination. That is how it happened. A lot of republicans were very uncomfortable with his platform because a lot of it agreed with harry truman. Host back to harry truman, they did the same thing, whistle stop wars everywhere, truman had a good joke about that, dewey was following him everywhere did i tell that joke . Guest at the end of the campaign it came down to this amazing 12 punch for the same 5 cities, each of them after the other, chicago, cleveland, boston, new york. During one of those, do we followed truman throughout the country and it turned out to be the first daughters favorite speech of the campaign where truman is cracking these jokes on Live National radio, totally offthecuff, there is this guy following me everywhere i go and theres one place hes not going to follow me and the crowd goes crazy. The true Library Website is an amazing resource you can go there and listen to thesees. A lot of fun to listen to. Guest in the old pictures it is strange because they dont look the same as politicians do today, they look so young. One personal note about dewey at the end of it. And it was another 6 years. What he did was went to a new york law firm, from 1906 on he got put on the head of that, became a famous firm. Thats where i started my legal firm and worked for a partner in his early 50s. When dewey was running the place, 13 years later. We were chatting for 16 months and the partner said dewey really scared the hell out of me. To do a special memo on an issue i didnt know anything about. He asked me to do this, i had to. Going to florida, he died of a heart attack and i always wondered if my memo was so bad it gave him a heart attack. Guest the red sox slugger, to fly to washington so he could go to the engagement party, Richard Nixons daughter in the white house. So there were all kinds of stories inside the firm about the way he ran the firm. He took it out on the left that he wasnt so good which is the way everyone thought. Last time we talked you had a book, the accidental president , talked about how he became the president. A very unusual story, a little background, an idea where this guy came from and as a person, very interesting, the highest popularity rating and also the lowest. 91 after world war ii ended in august, as low as 22, not reached trump has never gone below 30. Truman was done in 22. Gives people an idea how unpopular he got. A little background on this. Guest start by looking at the picture, one of the most dramatic pictures i have ever seen. Harry truman, 33 words, the most powerful man, and this is what my book the accidental president is about. Very much a mistake, that he was Vice President in the first place. He was never supposed to be the Vice President. A very exciting story. He realizes when he becomes Vice President that president roosevelt is very sick. Most people understand what is happening and truman is the Vice President and never been the mayor of the city, never had the money to own his own home, no College Degree and has no idea what is going on in the white house and 82 days into the new regime fdr dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in warm springs, georgia and truman find out rushed to the white house, this is what you are looking at, standing to his left, margarets first daughter, his only child, he becomes the president of the United States by accident. Those are his words. After this picture is taken he is ushered into this room, the secretary of war says by the way we have a secret, climactic months of world war ii, the secret we have to tell you about. I cant tell you about, he goes home to his tiny apartment in connecticut avenue and it is terrifying, he has a ham sandwich with a glass of buttermilk and goes to bed. One thing about truman it is a markable, remarkably talented, to interpret moments of fresher. Truman, now the first lady of the United States never wanted to live in washington. Wakes up and looks over and sitting on separate beds and saw this and this is going to be tough. The next four months, united the nation, when the war and everything is going great. Amazing story of a man who comes out of nowhere and unites america. So all of a sudden, at a time the country is moving into peacetime nothing goes right but nothing would have gone right no matter who is president , the amount of turmoil that had to happen economically in terms of migration of americans, all this stuff it is not going to work and americans, those guys are losers, we want them out, they are tired of the Democratic Party, tired of the new deal and truman digs in and says we are going to continue, and bring it to the left and people freak out and by the time the 1948 election approaches, everybody thinks his presidency is toast. Host in the midterm election, the republicans took over the congress and the senate and one of the details, a commonly known detail, matt when fulbright went to truman, fulbright was a democrat, went to truman and said i want you to appoint a republican Vice President and resign so the we have a republican president , the country is in such chaos we cant do Everything Else. What an outstandingly interesting idea to hand to somebody. Host imagine today if somebody came to donald trump and said the house of representatives is democrats so you should resign so the democratic Vice President imagine that today, that happens, truman says im not going to do that but americans take it so seriously, a press release says im not doing that and senator fulbright to senator packer. Host sounds like Something Like that. I can imagine if donald was told me Hillary Clinton his Vice President so she could become president , what kind of day of tweeting you would have. He met so many, wasnt just the economic issues, the international issues, they were our allies or recent allies people argued about at that time. Are they going to be our allies, you tell the story of stimson who suggested that we share atomic secrets with the russians to develop trust because they are going to figure them out anyway. Some of the other extraordinary proposals being made at the time, people were not settled into the cold war mentality yet. It felt like a wartime washington. There was a situation in israel, about to be born as a country and had to figure out what to do. Was he going to support the jews, the jews were clamoring for support but the state department and Defense Department were saying no way. Africanamericans were demanding support from truman, very powerful senators and governors were saying no civil rights. The cold war, these were unsolvable situation i dont think any president could have handles, truman happened to be in the white house and took the brunt of it. Host George Marshall was in charge of the state department and being very influential was against supporting israel for political reasons. There were a lot of rational reasons for going against what we now consider get instinct, should i do civil rights and you would support israel. It was certainly not a framework, context in which he made his decision. Guest think of the israel situation by itself. 6 million jews died in the camps and liberated at the end of the war while truman was president , hitlers darkest secret came to the 4 while truman was president , people were shocked and wanted to support a jewish homeland. A lot of people in america, people didnt care. Truman was in a situation a lot of powerful wealthy democratic donors were not going to support your campaign if you dont support the founding of this jewish nation. The state department and Defense Department said no way, we will have a war with the soviets and we have this relationship, 1948 was the first year we imported more oil than we produced ourselves. If we offended these arab nations they were not going to sell is the oil at a decent price and we were going to need it because it was going to be a war. The other issue with regard to this was the economics of it all. People were sure that the only way to support israel was israel was going to be found, if we sent american troops to help this country be formed. Otherwise is real wouldnt survive a war with the arabs. Truman was in a difficult situation. He finally decides i am going to support this, 90 of it at least. He makes his decision and the buck stops here and that is the way it was going to be. It was very much an issue during the election to complicate what you are talking about. Host lets move to the election, the process of it. We have a video, right . Guest yes. This is the democratic National Convention. One of my favorite moments, truman comes in, there are people Walking Around with signs that say eisenhower for president because nobody thinks truman can win. The night before this whole debacle where all the southern white senators have a huge protest and walk out and abandon truman saying we will form our own Political Party. By the time truman comes in to make a speech at the democratic National Convention the situation is a disaster. He gives this amazing speech that ignites the hall. It we could hear piece of it. He race from the Democratic Party, there have been differences of opinion and that is the democratic way. Those differences have been settled as they should be. To get together and speak to the common enemy. Host the way you write that in the book is great. You capture the excitement. Some people dont realize what happened. He turns around and gets people on his side which is crucial because he was down by 30 points. Guest these conventions were happening 3 weeks before, these were the First National political president ial conventions that were televised but by the time truman comes on stage it was so late because things were so delayed all the Television People had gone home so it wasnt televised. Amazing moment where what truman did was remarkable. Take some explaining and i will do this clearly and concisely. He recognizes the republican platform is tricky. Republicans adopt a liberal republican platform, this is deweys plan but the Eightieth Congress is controlled by conservative republicans who would not enact any of that. Truman walks on stage saying i demand an emergency session of congress where you guys should enact all the stuff do we wants to do because those are the things he wanted. The republicans are suddenly what are we going to do and the crowds go wild, figure out what he has done, the identity crisis plaguing the Republican Party in 1948 and after he gives the speech there is this moment, this woman comes out and does this thing nobody expected her to do, releases 50 doves into the hall because she thinks it is a dramatic moment but the airconditioner is whirling above and all these birds, everybody is freaking out that these birds are going to get killed and you could hear the former speaker of the house yelling get those bleeps out of here. Host a great machiavellian move. You dont realize it in your book but congress was not going to meet again until after the election, they werent planning on meeting again until november but he called them back. They didnt do anything. He predicted it. He called it the turnip day session. In missouri there was a certain time of year when turnips were hardest and the only thing the special session of congress did was up the sale of term its turnips. If i could talk a little bit, truman devises this plan, he cant win, he does something unexpected, creates a president ial campaign, plans to break every rule he possibly can and what it comes down to is he creates a situation where he goes around and did this hundreds of towns where no president had ever campaigned, small towns all over the country, if we can expose every day americans to the magic of the presidency and if i can talk to people face to face, understand what i am saying they will believe in me and vote for me so he creates this secret Research Department in washington dc, set up a team of speechwriters who will write the big speeches for the huge rallies but Everything Else his Research People will write this stuff down on notecards and airplane will fly in, to wherever the train is coming in, handover these briefcases so when truman shows up in some little town, you just built a new sausage factory or a war hero passed away or you have a new mayor and you have in formation to start an offthecuff speech and just speak offthecuff about patriotism, decency and honor and that is how it works and in the process becomes an american folk hero. Guest he began by giving speeches that were written for him and do it in the normal way and throw more of that out what was on his mind. Doesnt have the oratory skills that fdr had. The same ones sam rosenman who wrote fdrs speech would write his speech for truman but truman was terrible at delivering them and that is why his presidency, he spoke off the cuff, acted like an everyday american which is what he was he can connect with people. Host the next question is a good one from john wren, truman only met with fdr a couple times. Others were close during the first 80 days of his presidency, did truman get a lot of help from the fdr administration . Guest he did. James burns, he appointed james burns his secretary of state, burns was pivotal, helped him write his speeches, one of the things historians have said, truman picked up where roosevelt left and didnt do much, as a matter of fact replace the entire cabinet, and essentially really did create it himself but at the beginning there was henry stimson, the figures were young people, handpicked, tremendous amount of political experience. After the war ended, the 1948 election comes around, his main go to was clark gifford, truman had no political experience. Guest going back in political history, you see someone come on stage, what the role is in the 60s, Henry Wallaces political campaign, something that was interesting, like watching a movie someone who becomes a big star later in their first role. Guest john f. Kennedy guest next in at the same time. During the campaign, who is on the horse . Guest there is this amazing giving a speech on the back of this train and the guy who heckles him on top of a horse and opens up, looks at the horses teeth. Literally this is when the campaign begins. Truman chose up and Labor Day Weekend because detroit home of the automobile factory and he has this amazing rally at cadillac square. Right at the first weekend of the campaign everybody in the Trump Campaign are shocked because theres 100,000 people turned out in the streets in detroit. They get in this car drive north up to pontiac, drive through the little towns in michigan and everywhere they go theres tens of thousands of people in the street to see it and hes thinking the whole campaign team, this doesnt make any sense. Everyone is saying with going to lose. Who are these people and that sets the tone for the campaign. Why does he have to hear i have no idea. Great picture. Its a great picture because it captures him. Now we can talk but Henry Wallace. So Henry Wallace is a person who brings us back to russian interference in an election. Tell us who he is he was fdrs Vice President. How did he end up running on another platform and what was that platform . Henry wallace is the Vice President from right up to 1944 and is pushed off the ticket unexpectedly during the 1944 election to make way for treatment because people thought wallace was just a little weird. He was very far to the left and make people uncomfortable. He was sort of a misfit. He gets pushed aside in 1944 to make way for treatment and hes really not happy about it picking those hes a a massive hero among liberal americans and after the war theres this one day where he comes to the white house and he sits down with treatment and a bunch of other people and they have lunch and they watch footage of an atomic test, atomic bomb going off. They can see it from different angles. Wallace is completely unnerved. Hes like this is wrong, we shouldnt be doing this. Just the fact were setting up his atomic tests and the soviets to have bomb and we refuse to share the secret with them, this is causing this new thing called the cold war. Wallace eventually breaks with truman and launches his own campaign called the Progressive Party and he gives it a nickname picking names it gideons army, a biblical term, a very christian man. I talked earlier about what his campaign stood for but there are these poignant moments where he was able to connect with people on the coast. Hes really indicative to something thats really important going on now. He would hold rallies in new york, los angeles, chicago, these liberal bastions and people would go wild. He would pack stadiums, the biggest political rallies anyone had ever seen and a lot of young people and a lot of celebrities, paul robeson and w. E. B. Du bois, black americans a Jewish Americans and intellectuals love wallace bithynia go into the american heartland and there would be riots. People wanted to murder the guy. We are seeing that same kind of division in america today. And the same groups of people ironically. In geography as well. Same geography as well. Its amazing how much we just kind of shift the terms, shift some of the things but the basic underlying emotional issues remain the same about what people are comfortable with and what they are not. One of the things i found interesting was your story about the moscow newspapers covering his triumph in new york and so on. It reminded me so much of inauguration in 2017. Its an important point. Wallace was so far to the left and he brought together this Grassroots Campaign and shockingly, the people who were running his campaign were very outlined with the communist party of the United States and they did oral histories and explained exactly what they were doing. It was extraordinary controversial during the early days of the cold war that you have very popular president ial candidate who everybody knew this platform mirrored the communist parties platform. People very upset. One of the things i want to say about wallace is it fascinated me is all i get that after all of this happen he was so sure to read was going to lead us to war, years later, he loses terribly, he humiliated in the election but he laid writes a book and says you know what, i was wrong. He actually supports treatment and treatment since troops into korea. The inset supporting truman and other things and is up realizing i was wrong, the soviets are the bad guys. An interesting time to change your opinion, because he did it right during the mccarthy era when this is such a big issue and he wasnt disavowed his past or anything like that. He was just saying no. That was an inaccurate thing that moscow is not operating on a basis that we can deal with. Thats henry was in the Progressive Party. And we have a fourth party, right . This is Strom Thurmond. Strom thurmond is a democrat just like every treatment but not exactly just like every truman is hes a southern democrat. Maybe its useful not only to its plain something about Strom Thurmond and what they did but also the switch from the democrats to the republicans to the southern strategy because that is still with us. Strom truman is fascinating to me on so many levels Strom Thurmond. What they did, okay, one of the reasons why nobody believed truman could wince because the Democratic Party is shattered. Here the left side that goes with her new wallace. You got the conservative part of the party that goes with Strom Thurmond and there is truman. Hes lost a whole bunch of voters right there. What thurmond was doing, they launched this Dixiecrat Party in opposition to trumans Civil Rights Program. Its pure and simple, White Supremacy in the south is a way its always been and thats the way the thurmond family always was. Strom thurmond father is supposed to be again this is something to get makeup, he was supposed to be a governor of South Carolina and his political career wasnt a rail over a political argument and shot and killed a man went thurmond was a young boy. Strom thurmond fathered becomes the lawyer father becomes a lawyer for a figure who really united the Democratic Party in the south as the party of racism and White Supremacy, and disenfranchisement of African American voters. Thurmond grew up with this. When truman launches a civil rights thing sermon is like the way, im going to fight. He becomes head of the Dixiecrat Party on the face of it they are called a states rights Democratic Party and their theory is the federal government should not be able to tell states what our rules are in our state. An interstate theres White Supremacy. An artist apelike people not allowed to vote. Thats his theory. It launches this Incredible Campaign but, of course, he has secrets of his own. Yes, he does. Those secrets come out in public and 2005 but it was interesting to me especially because sort of coming into a Political Awareness in the early 60s he was a very influential figure of racism at that time. He would always stand up for it. He had become a senator since and a powerful senator and he was increasingly old senator, you mention he was the only senator that was still a senator at the age of 100, right . In addition he had young wise, i dont member how many he had but he always had much younger whites wife and was making children for a while but hes just an interesting character all around. Even up against lbj get lbj was the president at the time, but it disappeared he had been at least in the popular notion, and just 15 or 20 it disappeared he had run on this platform in 1948. He was done as a racist but not that far. I found it fascinating to read his back story. A couple of thoughts. Im very careful in the book to make sure people understand when they are reading that the decisions people are making every campaigns and ideas people embraced came under context. We as americans if you read this book today you will see im very careful about understanding where he was coming from. He was coming for ideas and traditions that have been in the south for generations and generations. Theres a reason why he won four states. Americans believe what he was saying. But really i think from a macro point of view its important to point out that in all through the early part of the 20th century, the democrat, there was his idea of the solid south of Democratic Party and that each was built around race. It goes back to 1887 when it was a fight for the white house, a very public a situation but the reconstruction ended and the federal covert said hey, we can move this candidate over here and have this guy when and you states can make your own rules. All of the states became very segregated and White Supremacy was in place and thats the way it was. It was oddly democrat. Solid south of the Democratic Party because they were antiparty of lincoln. 1948 is important because thats when it all shifted to solid south campaign against the Civil Rights Program of treatment, launched their own party and thats how they ended up because they were conservatives politically. There were conservatives politically, theoretically but they were in line with the Democratic Party on the story one simple issue, and so thats where it all started. Thats why today is the solid south of the Republican Party. That may be changing. Very ironic, too, the conclusion that was reached in 1876 election because there was another new york governor killed at the time but he was a democrat and it was the republicans who make the deal in order to get republican president back in even though the republicans were giving up on wife had fought the civil war is 12 years earlier. You look at that and yuko wow. Its like, you take that short of time frame for the power to be more important than what you did what you did . Thats an important context to raise, very interesting to think that decisions we make in a Politics Today can affect on generations of our Political Parties and our voters. And they are all thats why whenever somebody comes in and creates the cycle finagling is what you were everything will fall out, right, because if you read history you know the cyclones make things fall out in very, very strange ways. So thats Strom Thurmond, and you tell the story near the end, we have a little more time can you tell the story of his daughter. He has a daughter from when he was a teenager, right . And his daughter was half africanamerican. Maybe tell that story because thats not public story but his ulcer interesting especially his relationship with her because it does seem to be paternal and caring and attentive for that kind of circumstance. I agree with you. Throughout this story where hes campaigning on this White Supremacy issue and he has a daughter that he fathered with an African American woman, and its a secret. Nobody knows it. He is very caring for her. He takes care of her financially, but after he dies she writes a memoir of what happened, and its such a moving moment where he ends up losing the election but she follows this election through and she hears the things that he is saying. Negroes have the right to be at a a swimming pools come in our churches. They shouldnt be voting. These kinds of things. Her name is essie mae and she had just married another africanamerican man and the interesting this listening to it on the radio and its fascinating, this poor woman, she is married to an africanamerican man who has no idea that Strom Thurmond is her father. Theyre listening to this Campaign Speeches on the radio and she writes a very moving memoir, but at the end of this story after he loses, they meet and she says how can you say those things . Why would you do that . He explains to her that from where he comes from these are american traditions. This is the way america supposed to be. He says nobody loves and cares for the negro nation more for me. Again and using that, his words. Its a very poignant moment but go speedy inexplicable is actually the reason i like that story and what it is is it gives us some hope that a certain amount of hatred and a certain amount of the animosity is really the formative informative or for show. Theres a great scene and Huckleberry Finn where he talks about lynching and a lynching mob and they can be taught out about it very easily because very few of them want to do the lynching but they do with the crowd is doing. You can see the same thing about whats going on now. Most of the protesters dont want to lose. Most protesters, when things start, a lot of people would do things were not plan on doing it in the crowd doing all one thing. Thats exactly point, there some other stories in history about one person says something, stops the whole crowd from doing something really stupid. So lets elect some leaders that will do that, which is interesting how you go through this Election Year because it doesnt seem like treatment has got any chance. As he said, what did he say, he said one person with wife was up there, there are only two people who i i love the story. Tell that truman story. I think you gave the last line. Okay great. Alltel this quick story and answer your question. Great. So sure is the age Youth Congress that Republican Party is about to take power for the first time in some years in the white house, that they vote in a new plan to up the budget of the inauguration to an unheard of 80,000. Theres this unprecedented huge budget on Inauguration Day party. Treatment is in the middle come to his left is Vice President Alben Barkley come to his right is the first daughter margaret and theyre having quite a good time. The republicans thought they were going to spend the money on dewey. Exactly. But he wins. Theres a woman in India Edwards who was at this wonderful very charismatic and powerful woman sort of i would sit high ranking woman in the Democratic National committee at the time. And so when he wins its wellknown that trumans wife didnt think he could win. They sit together and harry says, its harry come his wife in india and he says theres only two people who thought i could win this election and my wife is not one of them. Thats great. We have time for a couple of questions, and theres one, one that is being asked is about the media. The media predicted, as we were discussing earlier i think right before the show, the media predicted every single newspaper in the country predicted he would lose. They all had to eat crow. There was an eat crow story from one of the washington papers, Washington Post. He invited him to a dinner where they would serve crow and theyre going to eat it. Thats an old expression. I dont know if people still that expression to eat crow. Why dont you explain it . So when truman, he wins. He experiences an Election Night in kansas city, in kansas city and independence among his home crowd. Theres this huge to do. Its very exciting. A lot of people of the generation can say that they knew where they were on two occasions in their life. That is when they found out about pearl harbor and when the learned the news of election of 1948. It was a big deal. In trumans hometown theres this huge operation and he gets on the train and he goes and he stops in st. Louis, and there given a copy of the Chicago Tribune and holds it up because the Chicago Tribune had printed the headline dewey defeats truman. So hold it up in the famous picture and then he gets back and he goes to washington, and david mccullough, truman biographer, had said this was supposed to the Biggest Party in washington had ever thrown come had ever seen. Theres millions of people in the street to see trumans train coming, and the Washington Post hung a sign saying we eat crow. Or you are invited to a crow banquet. It was a saying at the time if you said something and you are wrong you ate crow. But a lot of meaty had a lot to answer for others couple of reasons why this is important to think about now. We are seeing a lot of polls now saying goes the way can win. I see that everyday. Dont believe the polls. People think the polls go out and vote. Vote for you think should win. Dont listen to the polls. But the other reason why this is interesting is because truman made claims at the time about, the resident advocates of whole issue of fake news. He made a big speech i think it was in cleveland, i forget, but where he said listen, all of these newspaper reporters, all of these newspapers, all of these pollsters are thing i cant win. They are controlled by the same people dont want be doing so dont necessarily believe in. The go out and vote and vote thy did. With a couple of questions. From john zipper come was trumans apprise the one in 1948 or did you believe in his Campaign Strategy . I i think the adjective vote iso and yes, right . But in detail. He believes in his Campaign Strategy. He was the only one, right . Throughout the campaign and this is one of the things that shocked people because you lived on this train with people so long. They lived on this train. It was not pleasant. There was no laundry, noshows. I think of one shall aboard. It was a very grueling and difficult thing. The people were very stuck and there was only one person who insisted with complete confidence that he is going to win and that was truman because he had confidence in a strategy and confidence in his campaign. That answer that question . Yeah. The other part of the was, come with use pricey one that you just told the story he always believed he was going to win. He wasnt surprised but theres this wonderful moment. It took a long time to get the polls. Not like today where they are all electronic and computerized. By the time he realized he had one, he shows up at his Campaign Headquarters at 6 00 in the morning and the people are exhausted. He shot himself in room to call his wife. They didnt have a cell phone, email or texting. Theres a reporter named robert nixon would been on the campaign to the whole time and found that truman was a very back at Campaign Headquarters picket codicil tamest earlier. He shows up in his pajamas with an overcoat over the top and the peaks in this store nbcs truman crying talking to his wife saying wow. Its a moving moment. He knew he would win but it was still a shocker. Still a shocker. Heres a good question for someone who is studied the whole election to make a decision. Kevin reese, did truman win it or did dewey and the gop lose it . Great question. The answer is both. It took both of them. One of you going down and one of you going up. Ive expressed a lot about why truman has one but one of the reasons why dewey lost is this very critical strategic decision that made early in the campaign. Dewey ran a campaign for the governor i think, governor in 1940, and my point is he ran his budget campaigns and they were two accpac cant think any lost and he had to campaigns for governor whether or not attack campaigns. They were high level, nonengaging, a lot of rhetoric and had one so he decided to run this very highend very poetic campaign wrapped around a term called unity. The whole campaign was based on unity. He never attacks truman, barely mentions trumans name. Spoke nothing on any of the issues because he believed that is going to get in the white house. So if you make commitments to issues he would be handtied when he got to the white house turkey nato commitments antigay speech after speech after speech about unity. That was his Campaign Strategy. It was not expected such think the answer to the question is both. All right. From david load jones, how come the most solid red republican areas are the ones that were most solidly progressive and at the highest votes than previous generations . Right now they are solid red republican areas but they were solidly progressive in previous generations. I dont know whether that is accurate or not. Is that true . Like what areas . It doesnt say. But i would say he must mean the midwest and so on, but the midwest at the time were progressive republicans. The ones like stassen and his party, his part of the Republican Party, that was a midwestern phenomenon, and they were in favor of all kinds of advances. They were all in favor just as dewey was in terms of civil rights but theyre also in terms of Environmental Issues come clean up the water of the great lakes, that kind of thing. So im not quite sure what that one can do, so move on to another one. Heres an interesting one from edward cashman. Its lack of a definite and certain result on Election Night harmful to Public Confidence in the democratic process or does it help . In other words, the fact we dont know right away who one, is this a good thing or a bad thing . Well, it needs a very different thing now and it would have been. Because back then the actual process of counting votes was very difficult wrested it you should be very clear and clearcut. But im going to court and say its detrimental because i think its really important that people have faith in the democratic process. And im hoping and praying, were coming up on a big election. Right. There is the story moment for our country. Both sides really obviously believe that they are right and both sides believe that they are going to win. And i think that if theres an election result thats not decisive, its not going to help us. Not going to help us. No. And theres all sorts of technology involved. If theres one thing hope for in november of this year its just that our democratic process and our voting process works so whatever happens we can accept it and say hey, its a democratic process, this is the result of an election that works, its lawful, and we can get down to business. After the 2004 election with george w. Bush, here in san frisco most People Democratic of the type of do we really believe in democracy, as people, that was an emotional election. Did everyone, do all of you have a strong emotional reaction to it . How many related . Like three little old ladies very happy about the election. So the rest of your not so happy . So how many of you had this experience, the person you voted for lost but you are very happy that the democratic process one again and the majority canticles everybody goes what are you talking about . Theres nobody with the reaction to emotionally to the democratic process which i think is another reason why it has to be clear and not modeled, not like florida with hanging chads, not where the uncertainty is did it get stolen. We have plenty most people know about illinois in 1960 and other things that are fairly clear that doesnt seem like the person ended up being president which is a crucial think is the one who got the most elections. Heres one last question. Kevin reese, with another gop candidate have beat truman . Do you think taft could have beaten trip . Thats a great question. I have no idea but i can tell you this. There were a lot of monday morning quarterbacks after 1948. Richard nixon firmly believe it stassen was the candidate he wouldve won. A lot of people said that it taft would been the candidate he wouldve won because the wouldve been a very Clear Division between the site and decide. Its a very interesting question obviously we dont know, but along those same lines is the question im often asked is what wouldve happened if dewey one . If the republicans have pulled out this election. I think i also think dewey wouldve been a terrific twoterm president. He wouldve a wonderful president. And things might not have been that different in many ways than they turned out. One thing that came up recently in conversation whether the whole mccarthy era wouldve happened if dewey were president and thats an interesting question. This came out and a talk i had a couple days ago because i was with the great biographer who just come out with a wonderful new biography of mccarthy. Thats the critical issue because truman had a hard time. Ive even had a hard time standing up to mccarthy but dewey was a prosecutor and a lawyer. He wouldve took them apart and putting in the two that quickly expert in the context eisenhower was up for grabs by both parties in 1948 decided not to run but he did meet with the dewey as you have the story in there and eisenhower slid into the role in 52 became the republican twoterm president that dewey you think could have been about the same. Something like that come right . Thats right. When dewey, the first aid kit to begin campaign, everybody wanted ice now to run on the democratic ticket because no way harry truman could win. Lets get eisenhower. He doesnt want any belong to any party. Lets get them to run as a and he refuses. Eisenhower has no Political Party and soon after that he appears in this very calculated photo op with dewey and thats when he commits himself to the Republican Party. Good timing. Ill finish up with one, from one of our listeners, john jones. Its a statement not a question. He said he thinks its because truman added unshakable faith and great integrity, he could have anything to with corruption and evident and thats why he eventually is considered a great president. Let me speak to that really quickly. When to left office he had a miserable approval rating. Why is it today that democrats love truman . Wise today republicans love truman . You will hear donald trump and nancy pelosi quote treatment. Why do they all hold into the standard was i think for me the story of the 1940 election really answers that question because here is a man who is so come such an absolute hatred, such a courageous man of honor, decency but most of all fighting for what he believed in to be the right thing for our country. That sums it up for me. A disconnect between what he said and what he did, which is a rare in a politician. So thanks for another great book on truman and thanks to her audience. The Commonwealth Club one of 18 years of its enlightened discussion. Thank you for joining us once again. The president s come available in paperback, hardcover in ebook from public affairs, presents biographies of the president. Inspired by conversation with noted historians about the leadership skills that make for a successful presidency. In this president ial Election Year as americans decide who should lead our country this collection offers perspectives into the lives and events that for each president s leadership style. To learn more about all our president s and the books featured historians visit cspan. Org thepresident s. Available in paperback, hardcover in ebook wherever books are sold. Booktv on cspan2 has top nonfiction books and authors argue weekend. Binge watch programs with the late author christopher hitchens. Watch booktv this weekend on cspan2