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“Operation Polecat”: Thomas E. Dewey, the 1948 Election, and the Origins of McCarthyism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2010
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NOTES
1. William Loeb to Charles D. Breitel, 24 September 1948, Series 5, Box 112, Thomas E. Dewey Papers, Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester [hereafter Dewey Papers].
2. Not only Truman but also spokesmen for the Progressive (John Abt) and Communist parties (Eugene Dennis) used the phrase. New York Times, 4 August 1948, 1; 6 August 1948, 1, 3.
3. Latham, Earl, The Communist Controversy in Washington from the New Deal to McCarthy (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), 395–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 398.
4. The risk here is to assume that the “McCarthy era” would have been much different without the senator’s personal stamp. Historians have long discounted what we might call the “exceptionalism” and indeed originality of McCarthy’s contributions to red-baiting. See Griffith, Robert, The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate (Lexington, Ky., 1970)Google Scholar for pre-McCarthy “McCarthyites.” For a tiny sample of works that decenter McCarthy in studying American anti-Communism (while yet in thrall to the noun he created), see Schrecker, Ellen, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (Boston, 1998)Google Scholar; Fried, Richard M., Nightmare in Red: McCarthyism in Perspective (New York, 1990)Google Scholar.
5. Moscow, Warren, Politics in the Empire State (New York, 1948), 46, 102ff.Google Scholar; New York Times, 5 November 1938, 5; 6 November 1938, 8; Nation, 147 (19 November 1938): 525.
6. Unsigned memorandum, n.d. [1948], “1937,” Box 41, Harold E. Stassen Papers, Minnesota Historical Society [hereafter Stassen Papers]. The memo noted Daily Worker coverage of Dewey’s 1937 campaign for DA “praising him to the skies” and claimed that he “never attacked the Communists” in the 1938 race.
7. Memorandum, Robert J. Rosthal to Stassen, 15 May 1948, “Communist Activities in New York City,” with photos, Stassen Papers, Box 41.
8. New York Times, 26 September 1944, 15; 8 October 1944, 1; 26 October 1944, 15; Norton Smith, Richard, Thomas E. Dewey and His Times (New York, 1982), 410.Google Scholar
9. Busbey franked postcard [1944], Scott M. Lucas MSS, Box 96, Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield; Bruce Barton to Elliott Bell, 9 October 1944, Barton MSS, Box 57, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.
10. Roper unsigned note, n.d. [October, 1944], attached to “Bill [Hassett] to “Grace” [Tully], filed 27 October 1944, President’s Secretary’s File: Public Opinion Polls, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library; Bruce Barton to Russell Sprague, 6 October 1944, Box 57, Barton MSS; Barton to Dewey, 26 September 1944, Dewey Papers, Series 10, Box 3.
11. Kenneth White, John, Still Seeing Red: How the Cold War Shapes the New American Politics (Boulder, 1997), 40–46.Google Scholar
12. George H. Gallup, comp., The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1935–1971, vol. 1, 756; Washington Post, 5 September 1948, II, 1; Washington Evening Star, 17 August 1948, in Box 68, George M. Elsey Papers, Harry S. Truman Library [hereafter HSTL]; Adams Dalstrom, Harl, “Kenneth S. Wherry” (Ph.D. diss., University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 1965), 782.Google Scholar
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14. James A. Farley to Robert Humphreys, 9 September 1948, Humphreys Papers, Box 1, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library.
15. Unsigned memo [George M. Elsey], “Random Thoughts 26 August” (1948), Subject File, “Int. Secy.-Cong. Loyalty Investigations” #2, Elsey Papers, HSTL.
16. Notes on Cabinet Meetings, 13 August and 10 September 1948, Box 2, Matthew J. Connelly Papers, HSTL; Clifford, Clark, with Holbrooke, Richard, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (New York, 1991), 231.Google Scholar
17. Nixon to Bert Andrews, 7 September 1948, Box 344, Nixon Pre-Presidential Files, NARA, Laguna Niguel (now at Nixon Library, Yorba Linda); McCullough, David, Truman (New York, 1992), 673–74Google Scholar; William Loeb to Dewey, 26 August 1948, Robert Humphreys Papers, Box 1.
18. Humphreys later worked for the Republican National Committee. Alfred Kohlberg to Levine et al., 16 September 1948, Humphreys Papers, Box 1. For Chambers, see Kohlberg to Dewey, 26 August 1948, Humphreys Papers, Box 1. On some of these figures, see Gid Powers, Richard, Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism (New York, 1995), 99–100, 145–50, 228–29Google Scholar, and passim.
19. Abels, , Out of the Jaws of Victory (New York, 1959), 160–61Google Scholar; Smith, , Dewey, 508Google Scholar; Loeb, , “Thomas E. Dewey–Almost President,” Vermont Sunday News, 11 July 1971Google Scholar. See also Schuyler, , Black and Conservative (New Rochelle, N.Y., 1966), 311–12Google Scholar. Humphreys’s posthumous memoir omits the episode. Lavine, Harold, ed., Smoke Filled Rooms: The Confidential Papers of Robert Humphreys (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1970).Google Scholar
20. Telegrams, Loeb to Dewey, 26 August 1948, 31 August 1948, 2 September 1948, Lilian G. Rosse to Loeb, 1 September 1948; Loeb to Rosse, 30 August 1948, Dewey Papers, Series 5, Box 112.
21. William Loeb to Charles D. Breitel, 24 September 1948, Box 112, Dewey Papers.
22. Loeb to Breitel, 24 September 1948; attached undated memoranda [September 1948], “Operation Penetration” and “Memo on China,” Box 112, Dewey Papers.
23. Loeb to Dewey, 23 August 1948; Loeb to Charles D. Breitel, 24 September 1948, Box 112, Dewey Papers. The “polecat” quote is in Humphreys et al., memorandum, n.d. [September 1948], “Operation Polecat,” in ibid. For (limited) information on Humphreys, see Lavine, , ed., Smoke Filled RoomsGoogle Scholar; de Toledano, Ralph, Lament for a Generation (New York, 1960), 105.Google Scholar
24. Humphreys et al., “Operation Polecat.”
25. Memorandum, George M. Elsey to Clark M. Clifford, 16 August 1948; attached written summary, “Meeting 16 August 48, both in Subject File, “Int. Sec.-Cong. Loyalty Investigations” #2, Elsey Papers, HSTL. First, perhaps, to suggest a commission on internal security was an editorial in the Washington Daily News, 6 August 1948. Truman’s failed initiative was the Nimitz Commission. See Fried, Richard M., Men Against McCarthy (New York, 1976), 160–66.Google Scholar
26. Humphreys et al., “Operation Polecat.”
27. Loeb to Dewey, 26 August 1948, Humphreys Papers, Box 1. As the date of this letter shows, from its very inception the committee had cottoned to the idea of a commission.
28. Alfred Kohlberg to Levine et al., 16 September 1948, Humphreys Papers, Box 1; Dewey to Loeb, 1 October 1948, Dewey Papers, Series 5, Box 112.
29. Smith, , Dewey, 508Google Scholar; Schuyler, George S., Black and Conservative, 312.Google Scholar
30. Ross, Irwin, The Loneliest Campaign: The Truman Victory of 1948 (New York, 1968), 197–99Google Scholar; Abels, , Out of the Jaws of Victory, 190Google Scholar; New York Times, 11 April 1948, 37; Los Angeles Times, 21 September 1948, 1; 23 September 1948, 11. Cf. McCullough, David, Truman (New York, 1992), 674.Google Scholar
31. Oklahoma City speech, 28 September 1948, Public Papers and Addresses of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1948 (Washington, D.C., 1964), 600–614; Berelson, Bernard R., Lazarsfeld, Paul F., and William N., McPhee, Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign (Chicago, 1966 [1954]), 217Google Scholar. “Truman used the issue rarely, but at strategic points.” Hamby, Alonzo L., Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman (New York, 1995), 454.Google Scholar
32. Bruce Barton to W. H. Lawrence, 4 November 1959, Barton MSS, Box 17; Barton to Charles H. Brower, 24 August 1948, Barton MSS, Box 58; Raymond P. Brandt oral history interview, 45, HSTL; Lawrence, Bill, Six Presidents, Too Many Wars (New York, 1972), 166Google Scholar; Loeb to Breitel, 24 September 1948, Dewey Papers, Series 5, Box 112.
33. Bruce Barton to Dewey, 20 February 1948, Dewey Papers, Series 10, Box 3; Clarence Budington Kelland to Barton, 5 November 1948, Barton MSS, Box 58; Smith, , Dewey, 507, 515.Google Scholar
34. Phillips, Cabell, “With Stassen on the Hustings,” New York Times Magazine, 4 April 1948, 12Google Scholar; Victor Johnston phone message, 18 May 1946, Stassen Papers, Box 17; Thomas E. Coleman memorandum to Victor Johnston, 21 September 1946, Joseph R. McCarthy MSS, Series 1, Box 7, Marquette University; McCarthy to John Wyngaard, 16 April 1945, McCarthy MSS, Series 1, Box 9.
35. Minneapolis Star and Journal, 1 August 1946, 14; 14 August 1946, 1; 15 August 1946, 18 (cartoon); Milwaukee Journal, 1 August 1946, 18; 5 August 1946, 8, 9; 6 August 1946, 13; 12 August 1946, 12; 16 August 1946, 12.
36. Wisconsin State Journal, 4 November 1946, 7; Larry Jolin to Victor Johnston, 14 July 1947, and Stassen to Jolin, 5 September 1947, Stassen Papers, Box 34; Washington Post, 19 December 1946, 11.
37. Kofsky, Frank, Harry S. Truman and the War Scare of 1948: A Successful Campaign to Deceive the Nation (New York, 1993), 104 and passimGoogle Scholar. Kofsky sees a financial crisis in the airplane industry as a crucial factor underlying the scare.
38. Baldwin quoted in ibid., 195.
39. Warren E. Burger memorandum, 5 April 1948; draft, McCarthy to “Dear Folks,” “April” 1948, Stassen Papers, both Box 34; New York Times, 29 March 29 1948, 1; 2 April 1948, 3; 4 April 1948, 1; Time (5 April 1948). On the primary, see Schonberger, Howard B., “The General and the Presidency: Douglas MacArthur and the Election of 1948,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 57, no. 3 (Spring 1974): 201–19.Google Scholar
40. Earl Haynes, John, Dubious Alliance: The Making of Minnesota’s Democratic Farmer Labor Party (Minneapolis, 1984), 35Google Scholar; New York Times, 25 June 1940, 17.
41. Press release, Philip F. La Follette to Stassen, 26 March 1948, Stassen Papers, Box 34.
42. New York Times, 2 May 1948, 9 and 119; 16 May, E10; Time, 17 May 1948.
43. New York Times, 25 September 1947, 24; 20 February 1948, 3; 13 March 1948, 8; 3 April 1948, 13; 11 April 1948, 37; Stassen press release quoting Nixon, 20 May 1948, Stassen Papers, Box 31.
44. Keech, William R. and Matthews, Donald R., The Party’s Choice (Washington, D.C., 1976), 126–30Google Scholar; New York Times, 11 April 1948, 37; 25 April 1948, 49 and E3; press release, Harold Stassen Address, Portland Ice Arena, 12 May 1948, Dewey Papers, Series 2, Box 18.
45. These conditions also obviated what may have been one of Stassen’s goals—to show off his impressive height next to the shorter Dewey. Abels, Out of the Jaws of Victory, 57
46. Cards from the debate are in Stassen Papers, Box 41. New York Times, 11 May 1948, 50; 15 May 1948, 7; telegram, Donald E. Kennedy to Stassen, 14 May 1948; telegram, “Warren” [Burger] to Stassen, 17 May 1948, Stassen Papers, Box 41; Ross, , Loneliest Campaign, 51Google Scholar; Smith, , Dewey, 492.Google Scholar
47. “Should the Communist Party in the United States Be Outlawed?” Vital Speeches of the Day 14, no. 16 (1 June 1948), 482–84; New York Times, 18 May 1948, 1.
48. Vital Speeches, 484–89.
49. New York Times, 19 May 1948, 23; Gallup, Gallup Poll, vol. 1: 728, 730, 733, 736, 740.
50. Smith, , Dewey, 492–94Google Scholar; Keech, and Matthews, , The Party’s Choice, 130Google Scholar; Bruce Barton to Eugene Pulliam, 21 May 1948, and Pulliam to Barton, 24 May 1948, Barton MSS, Box 55; Carr to James F. Lockhart, 22 May 1948, Carr Papers, Coll. #2575, Folder 13, Colorado Historical Society, Denver; Scott W. Lucas speech, 9 September 1950, Lucas MSS, Box 34. Lucas lost his reelection bid to Everett M. Dirksen, but not primarily because of his role in blocking the measure.
51. Reply, Orville R. Clarke to Stassen, n.d., on form letter of 2 April 1948, Box 34; Charles E. Parker to Warren Burger, 30 April 1948, Box 14; memorandum, Amos Peaslee to Harold Stassen, 20 November 1951, Box 83, all in Stassen Papers.
52. Henry Pollak to Stassen, 14 May 1948, Box 14; Barbara Hartwell to Mr. Livingston, 22 May 1948, Box 14; telegram, Warren Burger to Stassen, 17 May 1948, Box 31, all in Stassen Papers. Burger noted that his informants were unaware that Dewey had maneuvered to limit the debate to this one question.
53. Adolph Toigo to Burger, 21 May 1948, Box 14; Toigo to Stassen, 24 May 1948, Box 31, both in Stassen Papers. Toigo worked for William Esty advertising agency in New York, the company that produced Stassen’s radio ads.
54. Hatch, “The Men Around Dewey,” 41; Toigo to Burger, 21 May 1948, Stassen Papers, Box 14.
55. Domestic Communism had slipped in the Gallup poll since March, when 7 percent described it as the primary issue. Gallup, , Gallup Poll, vol. 1: 726, 744Google Scholar; International Journal of Opinion and Attitude Research 2, no. 3 (Fall 1948): 442.
56. Fortune poll (18 October 1948), International Journal of Opinion and Attitude Research, 439. Running a poor third at 17 percent were responses mentioning strikes, union power, and labor-management issues; “war talk, threat of war” elicited 11 percent.
57. The authors note in passing that in 1952 Adlai E. Stevenson did not campaign “strongly on economic issues,” that these may have run their course while “new Style issues (e.g., Communism in government)” emerged. Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee, Voting, 10, 272.
58. Ross, Loneliest Campaign, 197–98.
59. Abels, Out of the Jaws of Victory, 275; Gallup, untitled memorandum, n.d. [c. 1970], Dewey Papers, Series 13, Box 1.
60. Centers, Richard, The Psychology of Social Classes: A Study of Class Consciousness (Princeton, 1949), 77Google Scholar. Other options were lower, middle, and upper class. As prosperity spread in the 1950s, many commentators regaled Americans with findings that class boundaries in U.S. society were blurring, if not disappearing.
61. Alford, Robert R., “The Role of Social Class in American Voting Behavior,” Western Political Quarterly 16, no. 1 (March 1963): 183–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Polsby, Nelson W. and Wildavsky, Aaron, Presidential Elections: Strategies of American Electoral Politics, 5th ed. (New York, 1980), 188Google Scholar; New York Times, 7 November 1948, E10.
62. Roper, Elmo, “The Opinion Polls and the 1948 U.S. Presidential Election,” International Journal of Opinion and Attitude Research 3, no. 1 (Spring 1949): 2Google Scholar; Cantril, Hadley, “Polls and the 1948 Election,” International Journal of Opinion and Attitude Research 2, no. 3 (Fall 1948): 315Google Scholar; see also Abels, , Out of the Jaws of Victory, 300–301.Google Scholar
63. Abels, , Out of the Jaws of Victory, 302Google Scholar; pamphlet, National Precinct Workers, Inc., “So, We Lost the Election,” n.d. [1948–49], Ralph L. Carr Papers, Coll. #1208, Folder 371. This group was largely the creation of John Leonard East, a ward committeeman and then Cook County Republican chairman. On East, see Chicago Daily Tribune, 29 February 1944, 2; 21 January 1947, 5.
64. Schlafly, Phyllis, A Choice Not an Echo (Alton, Ill., 1964), 49Google Scholar. In fact, neither candidate was silent on the issue, and some news accounts emphasized the two’s anticommunist oratory in their coverage.
65. Memorandum, Bob Matteson to Stassen, 15 November 1948, Stassen Papers, Box 88. Stassenites seem to have expected Dewey to be elected.
66. Dewey to Loeb, 6 December 1948; telegram, Loeb to Dewey, 28 November 1948, Series 5, Box 112, Dewey Papers; Alf M. Landon to Robert Humphreys, 12 November 1948, Humphreys Papers, Box 3; Abels, Jules, The Degeneration of Our Presidential Election: An American Institution in Trouble (New York, 1968), 147.Google Scholar
67. Fried, Men Against McCarthy, 189–91; Newman, Robert P., Owen Lattimore and the “Loss” of China (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992), 344–45Google Scholar; New York Times, 8 April 1952, 23.
68. Washington Post, 29 March 1953, 1; 31 March 1953, 1; 3 April 1953, 1; 10 April 1953, 55.
69. New York Times, 14 November 1947, 19; 21 May 1948, 16.
70. Fried, , “Voting Against the Hammer and Sickle: Communism as an Issue in American Politics,” in The Achievement of American Liberalism: The New Deal and Its Legacies, ed. Chafe, William H. (New York, 2003), 109Google Scholar; New York Times, 4 October 1949, 23.
71. Phone conversations with Dewey, 31 March 1954, and with Herbert Brownell, 1 April 1954, both in Telephone Call Subseries, Box 2, Dulles Papers, Eisenhower Library; Robert, Shogan, No Sense of Decency: The Army-McCarthy Hearings: A Demagogue Falls and Television Takes Charge of American Politics (Chicago, 2009), 168–69Google Scholar; Oshinsky, David M., A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy (New York, 1983), 410Google Scholar. Welch “family legend” also credited Dewey with recruiting the Boston attorney. Author phone interview with Lyndon Welch, 4 September 1975.
72. Karabell, Zachary, The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election (New York, 2000), 262Google Scholar; Donaldson, Gary A., Truman Defeats Dewey (Lexington, Ky., 1999), 218Google Scholar; Yarnell, Allen, Democrats and Progressives: The 1948 Presidential Election as a Test of Postwar Liberalism (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1974), 114.Google Scholar
73. Lasky to Elmer Davis, 10 October 1953, Davis MSS, Box 3, Library of Congress.