Adlai Stevenson

This page is about the Illinois governor and unsuccessful presidential contender from the 1950s; for Grover Cleveland's vice president, see Adlai E. Stevenson; for the U.S. senator from Illinois during the 1970s, see Adlai Stevenson III.

Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (February 5, 1900 – July 14, 1965) was an American politician, noted for his skill in debate and oratory. He was twice an unsuccessful candidate for President of the United States (1952 and 1956).

Childhood, education, and early career

Stevenson was born in Los Angeles into a political family. His grandfather Adlai E. Stevenson I had been Vice President of the United States. His father, Lewis Green Stevenson, never held an elected office, but served as Secretary of State of Illinois and was considered a strong contender for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination in 1928. His mother was Helen Davis Stevenson.

Adlai was raised in Bloomington, Illinois. When Stevenson was a child, there was a tragic incident that haunted him for the rest of his life. While showing off with his brother's hunting rifle, he accidentally shot and killed a young playmate named Ruth Merwin. Stevenson rarely discussed the incident but many have theorized that his dedication to causes may have been due to the terrible burden of guilt he carried.

Stevenson left Bloomington after his junior year in high school and received his diploma from University High School in Normal, Illinois, Bloomington's "twin city" just to the north. After high school, he attended preparatory school at The Choate School, where he participated in sports, acting and journalism, the last as business manager of the school paper The News, where he was elected editor-in-chief. In 1918, he enlisted into the Navy and served at the rank of Seamen Apprentice.

He attended Princeton University, becoming managing editor of The Daily Princetonian and a member of the Quadrangle Club, and receiving a A.B. degree in 1922. He was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity there. He then went to Harvard Law School under prodding from his father. He was not passionate about the law; in his second year at Harvard he failed several classes and withdrew. (The school offered him a chance to return in a year but he never seriously considered this.) He returned to Bloomington where he wrote for the family newspaper, The Daily Pantagraph, which was founded by his maternal great grandfather Jesse Fell.

Stevenson became interested in law again a year or so after leaving Harvard after attending a friend’s wedding in Washington DC, when he spent an afternoon talking to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. When he returned home to Bloomington he decided to finish his law degree at Northwestern University School of Law, attending classes during the week and returning to Bloomington on the weekends to write for the Pantagraph.

Stevenson received his law degree (J.D.) from Northwestern in 1926 and passed the Illinois State Bar examination that year. He obtained a position at Cutting, Moore & Sidley, an old and conservative Chicago law firm, and became a popular member of Chicago's social scene.

Marriage and children

Stevenson married Ellen Borden, a wealthy socialite, in 1928. The couple had three sons, Borden (1930), Adlai III (1932), and John Fell (1936). In September 1949, Stevenson announced that the two were separating, and that he would not contest a divorce, which occurred later that year.

Stevenson's sister, Buffy, served as "first lady" in the Illinois governor's mansion after the divorce.

Stevenson dated various women during the rest of his life, including the Washington Post's Katharine Graham following her husband's death in 1963. He was also romantically linked with Marietta Tree, who was then the wife of multimillionaire Ronald Tree and mother of Penelope Tree and Frances FitzGerald. Stevenson and actress Lauren Bacall mutually admired each other, having met during his 1952 presidential campaign. Stevenson, however, never remarried.

1933 to 1948

In July 1933, Stevenson took a position as special attorney and assistant to Jerome Frank, the general counsel of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) a part of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Following the repeal of Prohibition in 1934, Stevenson changed jobs, becoming chief attorney for the Federal Alcohol Control Administration (FACA), a subsidiary of the AAA which regulated the activities of the alcohol industry.

In 1935, Stevenson returned to Chicago and the practice of law. He became involved in civic activities, particularly as chairman of the Chicago branch of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies (known often as the White Committee, in honor of its founder, William Allen White). The Stevensons purchased a seventy-acre tract of land on the Des Plaines River near Libertyville, Illinois where they built a house. Although he spent comparatively little time at Libertyville, Stevenson considered the farm home.

In 1940 Colonel Frank Knox, newly appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as Secretary of the Navy, offered Stevenson a position as Principal Attorney and special assistant. In this capacity, Stevenson wrote speeches, represented Secretary Knox and the Navy on committees, toured the various theaters of war, and handled many administrative duties. From December 1943 to January 1944, he participated in a special mission to Sicily and Italy for the Foreign Economic Administration to report on the country's economy. A report he wrote following that mission was very well regarded, and was offered several jobs as a result.

After Knox died in April 1944, Stevenson resigned and returned to Chicago where he attempted to purchase Knox's controlling interest in the Chicago Daily News, but his syndicate was outbid by another party.

In 1945 Stevenson accepted what he called a "temporary" position in the State Department, as special assistant to the Secretary of State to work with Assistant Secretary of State Archibald MacLeish on a proposed world organization. Later that year, he went to London as Deputy United States Delegate to the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations Organization, a position he held until February 1946. When the head of the delegation fell ill, Stevenson assumed his role. His work at the Commission, and in particular his dealings with the representatives of the Soviet Union, resulted in appointments to the US delegations to the UN in 1946 and 1947.

1948 election as Illinois governor

In 1947, Louis A. Kohn, a Chicago attorney, suggested to Stevenson that he consider running for political office. Stevenson, who had toyed with the idea of running for a political office for several years, entered the Illinois gubernatorial race and in November 1948 defeated incumbent Republican Dwight H. Green in a landslide. (The Pantagraph, which he partly owned, did not endorse his candidacy.) Principal among his achievements as Illinois governor were reorganizing the state police, cracking down on illegal gambling, and improving the state highways. He put in long hours in his basement office in the Governor's Mansion, even answering the telephone himself after hours. He was a popular public speaker, gaining a reputation as an intellectual, with a self-deprecating sense of humor to match.

In 1949 Stevenson appeared as a character witness in the first trial of Alger Hiss.

1952 presidential bid

Early in 1952, while Stevenson was still governor of Illinois, President Harry S. Truman proposed that he seek the Democratic nomination for president. In a fashion that was to become his trademark, Stevenson at first hesitated, arguing that he was committed to running for a second gubernatorial term. Despite his protestations, the delegates drafted him, and he accepted the nomination at the 1952 Democratic National Convention in Chicago with a speech that according to contemporaries, "electrified the nation." Stevenson's distinctive speaking style quickly earned him the reputation of an intellectual and endeared him to many Americans, while simultaneously alienating him from others. Stevenson's intelligence was the subject of much ridicule among anti-intellectuals; it was during the 1952 campaign that Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. Richard M. Nixon of California labelled Stevenson an "egghead." In the 1952 presidential election against Dwight D. Eisenhower, Stevenson secured only nine states and lost the Electoral College vote 442 to 89.

During the campaign, a photograph revealed that there was a hole in the sole of his shoe. This became a well-known symbol of his frugality and earthiness. Following his defeat, prior to returning to law practice, Stevenson traveled throughout Asia, the Middle East and Europe, writing about his travels for Look magazine. Although he was not sent as an official emissary of the U.S. government, Stevenson's international reputation gave him access to many foreign officials.

1956 presidential bid

Many Democratic leaders considered Stevenson the only natural choice for the presidential nomination in 1956, and his chances for victory seemed greater after Eisenhower's heart attack late in 1955. Although his candidacy was challenged by Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver and New York Governor W. Averell Harriman, Stevenson campaigned more aggressively to secure the nomination, and Kefauver conceded after losing several key primaries. To Stevenson's dismay, former president Harry S. Truman endorsed Harriman, but the blow was softened by former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt's continued support. Stevenson again won the nomination at the 1956 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, aided by strong support from younger delegates, who were said to form the core of the "New Politics" movement. He permitted the convention delegates to choose Estes Kefauver as his running mate, despite stiff competition from John F. Kennedy. Following his nomination, Stevenson waged a vigorous presidential campaign, delivering 300 speeches and traveling 55,000 miles. He called on the electorate to join him in a march to a "new America," based on a liberal agenda that anticipated the programs of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. His call for an end to aboveground nuclear weapons tests created a storm, but was ultimately enshrined in the Test Ban Treaty of 1963.

While President Eisenhower suffered heart problems, the economy enjoyed robust health. Stevenson's hopes for victory were dashed when, in October, President Eisenhower's doctors gave him a clean bill of health and the Suez and Hungary crises erupted simultaneously. The public was not convinced that a change in leadership was needed, and Stevenson lost his second bid for the presidency, winning only 73 electoral votes in the 1956 presidential election.

Despite his two defeats, Stevenson remained enormously popular with the American people. Early in 1957, Stevenson resumed law practice with associates W. Willard Wirtz, William McC. Blair Jr. and Newton N. Minow. He also accepted an appointment on the new Democratic Advisory Council, with other prominent Democrats, including Harry S. Truman, David L. Lawrence and John F. Kennedy. He also served on the board of trustees of the Encyclopædia Britannica and acted as their legal counsel.

1960-1965

Prior to the 1960 Democratic National Convention, Stevenson announced that he was not seeking the Democratic nomination for president, but would accept another draft. Because he still hoped to be a candidate, Stevenson refused to give the nominating address for relative newcomer John F. Kennedy, a cause for future strained relations between the two politicians. Once Kennedy won the nomination, Stevenson, always an enormously popular public speaker, campaigned actively for him. Due to his two presidential nominations and previous United Nations experience, Stevenson perceived himself an elder statesman and a natural choice for Secretary of State, an opinion shared by many.

Following Kennedy's victory, Stevenson was appointed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, where he worked hard to support U.S. foreign policy, even when he personally disagreed with some of Kennedy's actions. His most famous moment came on October 25, 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis, when he gave a presentation at an emergency session of the Security Council. He forcefully asked the Soviet representative, Valerian Zorin, if his country was installing missiles in Cuba, punctuated with the famous demand "Don't wait for the translation!" in demanding an immediate answer. Following Zorin's refusal to answer the abrupt question, Stevenson retorted, "I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over." In a diplomatic coup, Stevenson then showed photographs that proved the existence of missiles in Cuba, just after the Soviet ambassador had said they did not exist.

Stevenson was assaulted by an anti-United Nations protester in Dallas, Texas, one month before the assassination of John F. Kennedy in that same city on November 22, 1963. That assault contributed to the viewpoint that Dallas was hostile to JFK.

Stevenson died suddenly of heart failure on the afternoon of July 14, 1965, during a short stay in London, while on a walk with Marietta Tree. Following memorial services in Washington, D.C; Springfield, Illinois; and Bloomington, Illinois, Stevenson was interred in the family plot in Evergreen Cemetery, Bloomington, Illinois. The funeral in Bloomington's Unitarian Church ^* was attended by many national figures, including President Lyndon Johnson, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Other facts of note

Stevenson's father, Lewis G. Stevenson, was Illinois secretary of state (1914–1917). Stevenson's eldest son, Adlai E. Stevenson III, was a U.S. Senator from Illinois (1970–1981). Actor McLean Stevenson was a second cousin once removed.

The Central Illinois Regional Airport near Bloomington has a whimsical statue of Stevenson, sitting on a bench with his feet propped on his briefcase and his head in one hand, as if waiting for his flight. He is wearing the shoes that he famously displayed to reporters during one of his campaigns, a hole worn in the sole from all the miles he had walked in an effort to win the election.

It was alleged that during one of Stevenson's presidential campaigns, a supporter told him that he was sure to "get the vote of every thinking man" in America, to which Stevenson is said to have replied, "Thank you, but I need a majority to win."

Peter Sellers claimed that his portrayal of President Merkin Muffley in How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was modelled on Stevenson.

Stevenson's legendary "Don't wait for the translation" speech to the Soviet ambassador Valerian Zorin on the 25 October 1962 in front of the Security Council of the United Nations during the Cuban Missile Crisis was in part replicated for dramatic effect in the sixth Star Trek film, The Undiscovered Country.

Sufjan Stevens released a song titled Adlai Stevenson on his 2006 LP, The Avalanche.

Stevenson also features in a somewhat bizarre conspiracy theory which has circulated on the internet for some years; the theory suggests that Stevenson provided the inspiration for, makes a cameo appearance as, or is in fact the same person as Gogo, a character from the 1993 videogame classic Final Fantasy 6. The theory was supported by five alleged Adlai Stevenson quotes, very reminiscent of descriptions of Gogo's situation in the game - the quotes have since nearly all been proven to be hoaxes. Stevenson became very influential on Presidents John F. Kennedy , Richard M. Nixon , Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The proposals he introduced during the 1956 Presidential campaign were adopted as policy during their administrations.

References

External links

Adapted parts from: Adlai E. Stevenson: A Voice of Conscience, part of a series on notable American Unitarians
Early Influences: "A Bad Case of Hereditary Politics", biography, Mudd Library, Princeton University
Stevensons put stamp on history, www.pantagraph.com
NNDB biographical facts
A brief biography, United Nations Association - McLean County Chapter.
Booknotes, April 7, 1996
University of California, Santa Cruz: - Adlai E. Stevenson College
Site of Stevenson's Funeral: - Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington-Normal

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