Im happy to welcome back. We had him here a year and a half or so ago. We will talk about the new book the 1948 election and you will be amazed of exactly how similar it sounds in other ways different. Whats different is the politicians were all younger so that is one big difference but take it away and tell us about the overview of the book. Thank you for having me. The Commonwealth Club is a great place to be. Here we are i know for myself books im streamlining books can transport you to another time and place and during all of this its been a blessing. Regarding the last time i was with you i had already started the book to talk about the accidental president and i planned the book to come out during the cycle. It would be relevant and it would give me an opportunity to talk about things that matter. I found a whole bunch of material i didnt expect to find and elements in our life conspired in such a way that it begins to feel everything i was writing about was no longer taking place in 1948. So i want to show a few pictures to give you an idea. I hope this startles you. There was a massive surge in the United States. This is charlottesville. 1948 there was a wave against africanamericans and this particular picture that you are looking at for hours after he was released and honorably discharged from the United States army and served in world war ii he had an altercation with a white Police Officer and he was blinded. Here you see him being escorted by joe louis the heavyweight fighter speaking out for isaac and the whole story became politicized in the way that we are feeling now with george floyd. It breaks during the election and theres so much talk in washington and people all over the country are trying to figure out is there a conspiracy infiltrating washington what is the fact, what is the conspiracy theory. These are the conversations that they were having and all over the country among the electorate. Certainly that feels relevant today. To relevant. The fbi on the trail of the major president ial candidates with regards to a possible russian conspiracy, such a fascinating picture by the way. I find i can look at this forever. There itheres so much to see. But was he a stooge for the kremlin in moscow, now we know he wasnt again this is the conversation tha the certainly s relevant today. Now during the 1948 cycle, truman launches the berlin airlift. This isnt an apples to apples comparison. But we were on the brink of world war iii fear and anxiety. That is the reason im talking to you from my Basement Office and not on stage. A couple of more to go. This is one more picture that shouldnt feel relevant today and we should all cross our fingers and toes that it remains that way. During the 1948 election cycle, Nuclear Bombs are going off as we are testing larger weapons in the pacifics. And ultimately we get to harry truman. Before i Start Talking about the candidates and 48, i want to give you a quote from the most surprising document i found through all of my years of research, this is a Republican NationalCommittee Memorandum written november 15th, 1947 so just about exactly a year before the 48 election i will give you 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 the year 1948 would be the year in which the soviet russia would do everything in its power to influence the election here. I want to follow all of the candidates in real time. What they were seeing all leading up to this climactic moment november 2nd, 1948. So, heres henry wallace. Now, wallace was an extraordinary candidate. Wallace was the one candidate that breaks away from the democrats and says we have this new cold war and its not the soviets fault. Its Harry Trumans fault and he says theres only one man in the country that can stop world war iii and thats me. So he becomes a candidate of protest. To me, hes really the beginning of an antiestablishment movement through the 1950s and 60s. You can see on the left and we certainly heard a lot from him in the future. The politics were so controversial when he goes to campaign in the south he says i will not speak in any hall where an africanamerican or caucasian american can sit next to each other. I will not stay at a hotel where an africanamerican is not permitted. So when he gets to the south, there are riots, hes routinely pelted with tomatoes. Hes got a great campaign. Even the Vice President going through the entrance to a church he got in a physical altercation which the police tried to stop him and he was a u. S. Senator. That was an amazing detail. Its amazing to think there were times he would stand in front of crowds and to say i want some evidence that im in the United States of america. So Strom Thurmond, during the election, truman was the first candidate to go after the africanamerican vote. He becomes the first president to address the naacp not everybody is happy about this. So the war hero, governor of South Carolina heads up this new dixiecrat ex parte. This is their National Convention which hes nominated to run and im going to give you a brief quote on this night he says i want to tell you ladies and gentlemen theres not enough troops to force the people to break down segregation and admit the race into the theaters and swimming pools and homes and into our churches. He wins four states on that platform. And finally everybody believes hes about to become the first republican president in 16 years. Im going to not say much now except for this this is the one time the candidates made during the cycle and harry truman leans over and says when you move into the white house, do something about the plummet, will you. There were issues with the white house. There were. Back to truman. We are going to talk a lot about him. Why dont we start the conversation, and i hope that that was useful. We can put up the pictures and so, the new york governor in his mid40s he had already been governor before. He did what giuliani did. He took the road giuliani tried to do which is be the attorney general, attacked the mafia, when the cases and then go on either to new york prominence in this case new york governor for a while. I know he played the card because when he was attorney general he came to speak at a place and he made it very clear he was going to play the same political thing. Hes only got the back room in the white house now but he does get to go there. In any case, hes quite a character and he had been an attack dog but he ran a different campaigns to talk a little bit about that. I was fascinated at how fascinating i found him. The way that he came up into prominence was so extraordinary. From a small town, comes out of nowhere, michigan, comes down and becomes a prosecutor in the city and finds himself on the trail, brilliant prosecutor, brilliant lawyer and takes down the mafia. This was his third president ial candidate because he was the guy everybody said all the way back in 1940 the year that you are the future of the Republican Party by the time 1948 comes, he decides hes not going to run because he ran in 1944 and he lost. But he felt in his heart he didnt want to suffer through losing another election twice and he had to be convinced to run so his story becomes very much. Everyone thought, all the newspapers predicted he was going to win. Not a single newspaper predicted he was going to win so the media was all on his side and spent the time afterwards wondering why they got it wrong. They became much more influential. At that time the fact that radio was becoming ubiquitous and was ramping up, so the posters were extraordinarily powerful. One of them actually he said its pointless why spend the money when hes going to win and i can tell you that there were two scenes for me that were so touching. The one is where on Election Night the night he holds his final rally in Madison Square garden he gets on a train and hes so sure hes going to win and he tells them whos going to be in this cabinet. He was sure he was going to win. The others that were so touching to me hes on his suite at the hotel and at some point he locks himself in the room by himself and listens to the returns on the radio all night long and realizes what is about to happen to him. Solitary man on that edge. He definitely left his mark on the party. Very influential. He was a progressive republican. I think another element that was a very machiavellian move is that the republicans right up to the convention, they picked dewey but it was a tight race and he was a progressive Teddy Roosevelt type republican and then he was the leader of the conservatives and a lot of people thought he should be the nominee so it was close but the republicans were in control of the congress, so what he did is the platforms between dewey and truman were almost identical. They tried to enact the platform. We are going to talk about the democratic National Convention and show a piece of video. I think that you raised a wonderful and interesting point. Coming out of world war ii everybody understood that it was going to be between the past and the future. The postworld war i was shaping up and which Political Party was going to be in charge to imprint their vision on america and both parties coming out of world war ii had to figure out who they were and what they stood for and they had in interesting situation between the party. There was the conservative fashion headed up in capitol hill and a liberal because he had been raised to think that this was the definition with the Republican Party. All of a sudden neck and neck they have the firstever broadcast radio president ial debate. Theres only one question should communism be outlawed. A lot of them were uncomfortable with his platform because a lot of it agreed with. Truman. We will come back to the maneuver against that. But they both did the same thing. They were crossing each others paths and although truman had a very good joke about that that dewey was following him everywhere but wouldnt be able to follow at the end of the campaign it came down to this amazing onetwo punch. Chicago, cleveland, boston, new york. But during one of those, do we followed truman throughout the country. They do it on National Radio totally off the cuff. He makes up a story like theres this guy following me everywhere i go and he tells the story how theres one place hes not going to follow me and the crowd goes crazy. The Library Website is an amazing resource because you can go there and listen to these speeches. They are all up on the website. It brings them alive when the voices are there. Its interesting to see the old pictures but its kind of strange because they dont look the same as politicians. They dont seem like they act the same. They look so young relatively speaking right now. Anyway one little personal note at the end of the book when you bring everybody uptodate on the epilogue you mentioned when he lost he returned to the Governors Mansion and was there for another six years and went into private life and didnt do any more Public Service stuff and what he did his wen is wentw York Law Firm as the main partner. There was an old law firm from valentine bush v palm and he got put on the head of that and became a very famous. That is where i started my legal career is 1984 and i worked for a partner who was in his early 50s, and he had done some work when he was running the place and he died and 71 i think as you mentioned. So this is about 13 years later. We were chatting about something after we worked for six months and the partner said he really scared the hell out of me. I was in my ninth year, he should have been made a partner right around them so hes up for partner and he asked me to do a special tax memo on an issue i didnt know anything about. Im not a tax lawyer, im a corporate lawyer. So i did this quickly and it was like a 20 page thing. So hes walking out the door to go to florida for the weekend and that weekend he died of a heart attack and ive always wondered if it was so bad that it gave him a heart attack. [laughter] he was getting ready to go to the airport to fly to washington so he could go to the Engagement Party of Richard Nixons nixons daughter in the white house on that day. There were all kinds of other stories i wont bring up but about the way that he ran the firm. He clearly took it out on the law firm. That is the way that everybody saw it. So, truman, the last time we talked, you had a book the accident president and you talked about how he got into the position to become the president as a Vice President or fdr and its an unusual story but may be a little bit of background so people have an idea where he came from and why. As a person it was interesting he had the highest popularity rating of any president ever and also had the lowest. So it was like 91 right after world war ii. Truman was down to 22 so that gives people an idea how unpopular he got at certain points. This is one of the most dramatic pictures ive seen. It was a mistake that he was the Vice President in the first place. He takes a lot of time in the book to explain that so here he is he realizes when he becomes Vice President that president roosevelt is very sick and most people understand what is happening and truman is the Vice President and he has never been the mayor of the city, never the governor of the state, never had the money to own own home, no College Degree and he has no idea what is going on in the white house. Eightytwo days into this new regime, fdr dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in georgia and truman finds out about this and is rushed to the white house. Very much by accident those are his words. Right after this picture is taken, hes ushered into a room. He goes hom on to his tiny litte apartment and hes exhausted and terrified. He has ham sandwich and goes to bed. He was remarkably confident being able to sleep in the moments of pressure and theres this moment he wakes up in the middle of the night that night and now the first lady of the United States never wanted to be, he wakes up in the middle of the night and shes sitting on the bed sobbing hysterically. So the next four months, he unites the nation, we win the war and everything is going great. This man comes out of nowhere and then all of a sudden he has to be present at the time the country is moving into peacetime and nothing goes right but nothing would have gone right no matter who is president given the amount of turmoil that had to happen with the migration of america. All this stuff just wasnt going to work and americans are immediately like we want him out, they are tired of the Democratic Party and the new deal but we are going to bring it to the left and people freak out so by the time it approaches, everybody thinks that his presidency is toast. Its interesting that in 46, he already lost and the republicans took over both the congress and the senate. One of the details i dont know if this was commonly known but i never heard of it, senator fulbright, another famous character, went to truman, fulbright was a democrat, went to truman and said i want you to appoint a republican Vice President and then resign so we have a republican president that can work. What an outstandingly interesting idea to hand to somebody. Could you imagine today if somebody came to donald trump and said the house of representatives you should resign that is kind of what happened so truman comes up and says im not going to do that but americans took them so seriously he had to put a press release out saying i am not doing that and he called senator fulbright senator half bright. [laughter] if he was told to make Hillary Clinton the president so she could become president exactly what kind of day we would have. So, that is how now hes president. Take us through. He met so many it wasnt just the Economic Issues at home with the international issues, how to deal with the russians, how to deal with the allies and recent allies are they going to be our allies that some of the other extraordinary proposals that were being made at the time. People really were not settled into the cold war mentality. But it felt like a wartime washington. But the situation was about to be born and he had to figure out what to do. They were clamoring for support but the statthe state departmene Defense Department were saying no way. They were demanding support. Truman happened to be in the white house and he took the brunt. George marshall i think was in charge of the state department and he was influential against supporting israel we would do civil rights and support israel but it was certainly not the framework in the context which he made his decisions. After world war ii i believe 6 million died in the camps and they were being liberated while truman was president. People wanted to support the jewish homeland. Truman was in the situation where there were a lot of powerful wealthy democratic donors. The state department and Defense Department were saying we will have a war with the soviets and we have this relationship if we send the american troops to help the country to be formed otherwise they wouldnt survive. So he was in a difficult situation. He makes the decision and the buck stops here but it became an issue we can talk about. This is one of my favorite moments truman comes in. The night before becaus the thea whole debacle they say we are going to form our own Political Party. The situation is a disaster and he gets an amazing speech. [inaudible] the way you write that in the book is great you capture the excitement and its 2 00 in the morning. Some people are gone and dont realize what happened and he turns around and gets people on his side obviously because he was down by 30 points or something. These conventions. It was so late because things were so delayed theres an amazing moment it takes a little bit of explaining and i will do this very clearly and concisely. He recognizes that the platform is tricky. They adopt a liberal platform saying we want to do this and this, but the congress is controlled by the conservative republicans who are not going to enact any of that so he walks up on the stage and says i demand in emergency session of congress where you should enact all the stuff he wants to do because those are the things he wanted and so the republicans are like what are we going to do and they figure out what hes done and basically drives a stake into that crisis that plagued the party and after he gives the speech, theres a moment where this woman comes out and does this thing nobody expected her to do. She releases 50 loaves into the hall because she thinks that its going to be a dramatic moment but the airconditioners were whirling above and all these birds everybodys freaking out that they are going to get killed. You can hear sam rayburn the former speaker of the house yelling get those bleeps out of here. What a great machiavellian move. People probably dont realize it is in your book of course, but the congress is already stopped its sessions and wont meet again until after the election. This is july or so but they were not planning on meeting again until november. But he calls back. And they didnt do anything. He predicted it accurately. Nothing got done. He called it the turn of day session and in missouri there was a certain time that turnips were harvested and he later said the only thing the special session of congress did was up the sale of turnips. We have pictures of this and can pay and if i just talk a bit sure, talk about the campaign. He realizes he cannot win so he devises this plan. He does something totally unexpected and creates a president ial campaign unlike anything that had ever been done and plans to break every rule he possibly can. What it comes down to is he creates this situation where he goes around and visits hundreds and hundreds of towns where no president had ever campaigned. Small towns all over the country. His idea is if we can expose Everyday Americans to the magic of the presidency, and if i can talk to people facetoface, they will understand what im saying, they will believe in me and vote for me so he creates a secret Research Department in washington, d. C. , sets up a team of writers in the white house. Everything else these Research People are going to write this stuff down on note cards and in the airplane is going to fly in wherever the train is coming in, hand over the briefcases so when truman shows up in a town he can say okay i know you have a new factory or theres a war hero thats passed away or a new mayor said he would have information to use to start an offthecuff speech to connect with people and then he would just speak offthecuff about the patriotism and honor so thats basically how it worked and in the process he became more than a president ial candidate. He becomes an american full hero. I thought it was interesting how he began by giving speeches that were all written for him and adjust to do it in the normal way then it ended up throwing more and more of that out talking off the top of his head about what was on his mind and that is what was effective. He didnt have the skills fdr had so when he began his presidency he would have the speechwriters, the same one judge sam rosenman who wrote the speeches would write these for truman. Truman was terrible at delivering them and that is one of the reasons the presidency went but he spoke offthecuff and acted like an everyday american which is exactly what he was. He could connect with people. Keep going through the slides. While we go to the next slide, the first question came in on the topic from john and he asked truman only met with fdr a couple of times but were there others in the administration that were close within the first 80 days of the presidency in other words, did truman get a lot of help from the fdr administration . Needed, he did, james burns. He appointed his secretary of state. He was very pivotal, helped him write his speeches but one of the things i think historians have said while he picked up where roosevelt left and he didnt do much during the war, he did a lot and replaced the entire cabinet very quickly so essentially he did create it himself but at the beginning, yes there was james burns, sam rosenman but after the war the particulars that came up were young people, mostly lawyers that he handpicked. A lot of them didnt have a tremendous amount of political experience so by the time o the 1948 election comes around, his main go to wrote a lot of the speeches on the campaign trail until truman came out and had no political experience whatsoever. I thought it was interesting when you go back into the political history and seek someone come on stage and what the role is. And richard nixon. Here we have a chair during the campaign and who is on the hors horse . And he is giving a speech on the back of the train and i guy had cost him on top of course. He comes out and for most of his life he says this is not a good is the guy gets mad and rides away the day of the campaign was a comedy of errors but at the same time it wasnt. It was very Serious Business because there was a feeling the future that the weather that state. Labor day weekend. So to have this amazing rally and of the first weekend of the campaign is shot because 100,000 people turn out and the streets then they drive north from these little towns in michigan. Everywhere they go there are tens of thousands of people in the street saying this doesnt make sense and who are these people . So now we talk to henry wallace. The person who brings us back to russian interference in the election. [laughter] tell us who he is had you line on another platform and what was it . Henry wallace is the Vice President right after 1944 pushed off particular very unexpectedly to make way for truman because a lot of people thought wallace was a little weird email a lot of people uncomfortable and he was a mistake so in 1944 he was pushed aside to make room for truman and not happy about it he knows he is he will among liberal americans and after the war and sits down with truman and other people and they watch footage of the atomic bomb going off the test and while this is completely hundred and said this is wrong we shouldnt be doing this to set off the atomic test and soviets dont have a bomb we refuse to share the secret with them is causing a cold war. So he launches his own campaign they name him gideons army a very biblical term there are plenty of moments he could connect with people on the coast and he can rallies in new york, los angeles, chicago with these bastions the top stadium is the biggest political rallies he has ever seen. And wep the police and the intellectuals led wallace but then he goes to the rear compartment and there were riot riots. And the same to you paul ironically and geography as wel well. It is amazing how much to shift the terms. One of the things i found interesting about your story to cover the triumph in new york reminding me of the inauguration in 2017. Wallace was still part of the left to draw together a Grassroots Campaign and shockingly was aligned with the Congress Party of the United States. So that extraordinary contribution and that everybody knew the platform near the communist party. One of the things i want to say about wallace that is fascinating the idea after all of this happened she was so sure truman would lose that years later and then to say i was wrong and supports truman sending troops into korea. I was on the soviets are the bad guys. An interesting time to change your opinion because he did during the mccarthy era. That moscow is not operating on on a basis we can do with. This is Strom Thurmond as a democrat just like harry truman but not exactly not only to explain Strom Thurmond but from the democrats to publicans and that is still with us. Fascinating on so many levels to nonamerican history. So what they did because the Democratic Party the left is wallace the conservative part goes with the Strom Thurmond there is truman so he lost voters right there. They launch the dixiecrat party. With White Supremacy in the south this is something you cannot make up. And we shot and killed the man. The pitchfork and tillman with the Democratic Party in the south and racism and White Supremacy. And disenfranchisement of can american and voters. And then to say i will fight so to become the head of the dixiecrat party. And the federal government should not be able to tell states the rules are interstate. In our state there is White Supremacy and black people are not allowed to vote. That is his theory. And of course he has secrets of his own. They came out in public in 2005. And with a particular witness in the early sixties. He was an influential figure and the increasingly old senator and start the age of 100 and in addition but an interesting character all around. Even against lbj was president at the time. And that he ran on this platform and 48 he was known as a racist but not that far. So to start their im very careful in the book the people understand what they are reading the decision they are making and the ideas of people embrace and we as americans a family the book today you will see a very careful about understanding what he was coming from those a reason why he won for states. And with the macro point of view and through the early 20th century and that issue is part around race 1877 in a very complicated situation. Because in the states can make the rules. And the Democratic Party because they were the anti party of lincoln. And the civilrights program and that is how they ended up. But they were aligned with the Democratic Party in one simple issue. So thats a solid set of the Republican Party and that could be changing. And the conclusion from 1876 election because and the falcons made the deal even though they are giving up just 12 years earlier. So to take the short of time frame to be more important to do you did. And generations of political parties. When everybody creates a cyclone. And and very strange ways. So that is Strom Thurmond and you tell the story near the and of his daughter he has a daughter from when he was a teenager and was africanamerican. Maybe tell that story does seem to be paternal and with that circumstance. And he was campaigning was a publicist issue he has a daughter he father was an africanamerican woman and it is a secret. Nobody knows that he takes care of financially. And then she writes a member of what happened in such a moving moment he loses election but she follows the selection and here is the things he says negroes have no right to be unassuming poor churches they shouldnt be voting in these kinds of things. Her name is essie mae she just married another man africanamerican man in a serious and listen to this on the radio and it is a woman is married to an africanamerican man who has no idea that Strom Thurmond is her father and listening to these Campaign Speeches sure its a very thing will marvel at the end of the 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 for where he comes from these are american traditions and the way america is supposed to be. Nobody loves and cares for the negro race more than me. That is his word and it is a poignant moment. But inexplicable. But it gives us some of the certain amount of hatred and the animosity is performative or for show. And mark twain talks about the lynching mob and they can be tossed out so easily because very few people want to do the lynching you can see the same thing what is going on now most poster on protesters when they were doing a crowd doing one thing which is the idea of having some type of order helps. It gives hope about whatever progress we can make 95 percent of the people dont believe that they are shouting. I agree. When one persons is something and stops the other from doing something stupid. It doesnt see my truman has any chance there only two people who believe so tell that story. It is the last line. So sure after so many years in the white house they vote in a new plan to up the budget of the inauguration at 80000. So truman is in the middle to his Vice President by the American Flag and having quite a good time. But on Election Night there is a woman named India Edwards who is this wonderful and charismatic and powerful woman highranking women and the democratic National Committee at the time. Its a wonder trumans wife didnt think they could win. It is harry and his wife and says theres only two that i can win the election and my wife is not one of them. [laughter] so the media are protected every single newspaper the poster such human would lose a not just by a little bit they all had to eat crow and the Washington Post invited truman to a dinner. I know people still know that expression to eat crow. So truman wins and a huge to do is very exciting a lot of people that generation can say they knew where they were on two occasions in their life when they found out about pearl harbor and learned election of 1948. Its a big deal so in trumans hometown is a huge celebration and he stops in st. Louis he holds it up do we need dates truman so he pulled up which is the famous picture then he goes back to washington David Mccullough turned biographer said this is the Biggest Party that washington had ever seen and those to see trumans train come in and the Washington Post had a sign that said you are invited to a cruel banquet. To his is something wrong you a. So we are seeing there is no way that trump can win. I believe in pools go out and vote. Vote to you think should win but the other reason why this is interesting because truman made claims at the time so he made a big speech in cleveland , i forget but he said listen all of these newspaper reporters and they all say we cant win their control but you dont want me to win so go out and vote and they did. We have a couple of questions was truman surprised he won or did he believe in the Campaign Strategy . He was one of the only ones. You load on the train with these people it wasnt present there was no laundry or showers maybe one shower it was a grueling and very difficult thing only one person system with complete confidence he went and that was truman because it confidence and the strategy and the campaign. He told the story he always believed he would win. He was a surprise but there was a wonderful moment. So by the time he realized he had one, he shows up at Campaign Headquarters at 6 00 oclock in the morning and people are exhausted and he shuts himself in the room there is no email or texting and a reporter named robert nixon who was on the campaign trail the time and had gone to sleep ten minutes earlier shows up in his pajamas with an overcoat and he piques in and sees truman crying talking to his wife. Its a moving moment but it was still a shocker. Did the gop lose it . Great question. The answer is both. One of the reason to we lost is a critical strategic decision early in the campaign. The campaign for governor in 1940 but my point is he ran to attack campaigns and lost in want to campaigns for governor they were high level, not engaging, a lot of rhetoric so he decided to run this campaign wrapped around a term called unity so he never tax truman. He mentions his name because he believed he would get in the white house so he made commitments to issues he just gave speech after speech after speech. And then to payroll desperately. Outcome the most out of the red are the ones almost solidly progressive from previous generations . So right now solidly read republican areas but they were solidly progressive in previous generations. I that is accurate or not. Is that true . What areas . It doesnt say but the midwest and so on but the midwest is a time with progressive republicans like is part of the Republican Party that was a midwestern phenomenon and in favor of all kinds of advances in terms of civil rights but also Environmental Issues cleaning up the water of the great lakes. So i am not quite sure. So we will move on to another one. Is lack of a certain result on Election Night harmful to the process . So the fact that we dont know right away one is this good or bad . It means a different thing now. The the county votes is very difficult to say it is detrimental because its important they stay in the democratic process. We are coming up on a big election. And both sides obviously believe both sides believe they will win and if there is an election result that is not decisive it will not help us. Is also technology involved what i had hoped for in november this year is the democratic process in the voting process for whatever happens we can say this is the democratic process and result of an election that work works. After the 2004 election with george w. Bush here in San Francisco mr. Democratic , do you believe in democracy . Do you have a strong emotional reaction . So that someone who are not so happy. The person you voted for lost you happy with the democratic process and the majority came from. So those people who read history of the democratic process and not muddled like for the and most people know illinois in 1960 that are fairly clear this is a might the person ends up being president but the one who got the most elections. What taft have beaten truman . Thats a great question. I have no idea. But i can tell you there were a lot of monday morning quarterbacks in 1948. Nixon firmly believed taft was the candidate he would have one. A lot of people said the other would have one because it was the clinton a clear division. Was up for grabs by both parties and decided not to run but he did meet with dewey and eisenhower slid into that role and became the republican twoterm Vice President so Something Like that. The first thing he did everybody wanted eisenhower to run the democratic ticket because theres no way harry truman could when. He doesnt belong to any party lets get him to run as democrat and everybodys wondering soon after that it appears as a photo up with dewey and that is where he commits himself to the Republican Party. I will finish up with one comment from jones, a statement not a question. He thinks its because truman had an unshakable faith and integrity that couldnt have had to do anything with corruption and thats why even julie hes s considered a great president. To speak to that quickly, when truman left office he had a miserable approval rating. Why is it that republicans love truman. You dont hear this. Why do they all hold him to this standard and i think that for me the stories answer that question because here is a man thats such an absolute patriot and courageous man with honor and decency and fighting for what he believed to be the right thing for the country so that sums it up for me. The disconnect between what he said and what he did which is rare and a politician. Thanks for writing another book on truman and thanks to the audience. This ends another event at its 118th year. Thanks for joining us virtually once again. Im director of the john f. Kennedy president ial library and museum. On behalf of my library and colleagues im delighted to welcome all of you watching tonights program online. Thank you for joining us this evening. Id also like to acknowledge the support of our underwriters of the library, lead to sponsors, bank of america and our media sponsors the boston globe. We look forward to a robust question and answer period this evening and we will see full instructions on screen for submitting questions via email