1943. "Harvest of Death"

War Correspondents Return to Ukraine

Newsweek cover from September 20, 1943: "Little Man, What Now?"

From Newsweek, September 20, 1943, pp. 35-36, 38:

Harvest of Death: Behind the Lines in Russia's Reconquered Villages

The almost incredible grimness of the war in Russia was never better illustrated than in this notable dispatch from Bill Downs, Newsweek and CBS correspondent in Moscow, telling of his second trip to the front.

The big twin-engined Douglas transport took off from the Moscow airdrome with thirteen British and American correspondents and four escorting Russian officials. We were flying back into the summer toward the Ukraine—welcome enough after the first chilly fall breezes now turning the leaves of Moscow's trees. We stopped for a brief landing in the ruined city of Voronezh, where Russian and German troops had sat and looked at each other for more than a year until the Nazis were finally kicked out last January. Then we picked up four Yaks as an escort for the rest of the journey. These four fighters, piloted by Russian women, didn't make the men in the party feel any more masculine.

We landed on what had once been a wheatfield at the town of Valuiki. This had been one of the main bases for Italian troops in Russia until they were completely surrounded by the Red Army last winter. Valuiki was hardly damaged at all, as the Fascists had had very little if any chance.

Jeeps

While we were sitting in the hot sun waiting for our transportation, there was an ominous roar. Eight jeeps stormed over a hill, running in line like baby partridges. Bringing up the rear was a ¾-ton Dodge ammunition carrier that followed us thereafter.

In the late afternoon we headed into the setting sun. Each jeep had a driver with a Tommy gun at his side. Dave Nichol of The Chicago Daily News shared my car. We called our driver Junior because when we pronounced his real name, it didn't come out so good. We soon found out that Junior was a frustrated fighter pilot. That would have been all right if only he hadn't tried to loop the damn thing.

Driving along a dusty Ukrainian road over the rolling steppe past white-washed, thatch-roofed Ukrainian villages was one of the most beautifully peaceful experiences I have ever had. The war was a million miles away as we went through mile after mile of wheat and rye plantings and fields of sunflowers as yellow as butter. We stopped and picked the ripened heads of these flowers and for the rest of the trip everyone ate sunflower seeds in the best Ukrainian manner.

But as we drove into the sun, we also drove back into the war. By nightfall the villages had become more and more damaged, with army traffic heavier and army control points more frequent. As night fell, we turned on the convoy lights—dull slits visible only a dozen feet away. We had been warned we were driving through mined fields—that the roads had been de-mined but that the fields had not. Once in a while Junior, wandering off the road, would turn on the driving lights. Twice when this happened sentries fired warning shots into the air.

At a farm near a crossroads where the railroad cut the highway, the cars stopped for butter and eggs. Mikhail Vasseff, assistant chief of the foreign-press department, walked down the line and warned the drivers of danger. Meanwhile, there was a roar of German bombers overhead, but they couldn't be seen against the starry sky.

Death

The jeeps started out again. Vasseff was in the second jeep, and the United Press correspondent Henry Shapiro was in the third accompanied by two British correspondents. Nichol and I were in the fourth. Just as the cars went over the railroad right-of-way, there was a muffled explosion. On the road ahead a deep orange and red flash bloomed like a giant poppy and shot about 20 feet into the air. The concussion flattened the brim of my hat. The cars stopped, and everything was silent for a few seconds while parts of a jeep began falling to the ground.

Then there were a few groans—deep shuddering ones. Vasseff's jeep somehow had run over an anti-tank mine. The groans came from Maj. A. A. Volkoff, the representative of the Soviet General Staff, and Viktor Kozhemiako, the chief censor of the press department. Volkoff's legs had been blown off, and Kozhemiako's legs and back were lacerated. Vasseff's body was not found until the next morning because it had been blown 60 feet away. The major and the censor died shortly after being taken to a nearby base hospital.

The jeep was blown a dozen feet off the road, turned over, and was almost torn in two. The driver escaped miraculously with only a wound in the back of his head. It was a freak mine that somehow hadn't gone off although hundreds of cars had driven over the spot on the road throughout the day.

The next day at dawn there was some question as to whether or not to continue to the front—the explosions and deaths had shaken us all. Our surviving escort, Lt. Col. Studyonoff of Moscow, got in touch with headquarters in the capital, and it was decided that since the Steppe Front headquarters were expecting us, we would continue. All night long we tried to wrap ourselves around the jeeps in such a way as to get a few hours' sleep, but our efforts were mostly a failure because of the German and Russian planes flying overhead.

Harvest

On the approaches to Belgorod we came to a village in the region where the Red Army made its initial break-through. Every house in these villages was burned or blown up. The trees were shattered and blasted. In the fields and alongside the road were the hulks of tanks—both Russian and German—which were burned, blown up, and filled with holes.

The battlefield had been pretty well cleaned up, and the people were beginning to come back. Every peasant stove had a small group of women around it digging in the ruins for salvage. In some places there had been attempts at reconstruction, but for the most part the people were now sleeping in haystacks, dugouts, or on top of the ground.

Right now there was a big rush to get in as much of the crops as possible. The lack of labor, machinery, and sometimes even scythes made this a primitive job. The method mostly used was that of the old scythe and cradle, dating back to the times when women flailed the grain and gathered the wheat by winnowing the chaff in the wind, although some of the women were even picking the wheat by hand. This scene, with the kerchiefed and barefooted women using these ancient methods of harvest, made this part of the Ukraine appear almost biblical—except for those ruined villages and the blasted tanks of the new Philistines.

Belgorod, which had changed hands four times, looked much as could be expected. Not a single major building was intact. I have seen so much damage in so many ruined cities, towns, and villages here in Russia that only the strongest adjectives could be used to describe this ruin.

We drove to the town of Liptzy, 15 miles north of Kharkov, where Gen. Ivan Konneff's staff had established our headquarters in the peasant cottages. The first thing the army did was to take us to a portable shower tent in a field near a small stream. It was the army version of the famous Russian baths. The tent was about 50 feet square, and inside there were a dozen shower taps of steaming, running water, which was heated in a portable boiler on a truck. That hot shower was worth all the bumps I had suffered in the jeep.

Then we were taken to breakfast which included steak, vodka, tomatoes, sardines, potatoes, rice, and more vodka. There was not a single reference throughout the trip to the tragedy that befell the second jeep. It was strictly the army attitude toward death at the front. That evening Col. Ivan Vorobieff came to our headquarters and outlined the situation at the front.

The following day I still felt dead even after a night's sleep on a comfortable mattress stuffed with straw. However, no one can remain sleepy after a breakfast of sardines and tomatoes washed down with vodka followed by a hamburger steak and potatoes.

"Extremity: Here is what German propaganda has come to. This ghastly line-up is supposed to show the bodies of women killed in an Allied air raid on Cologne. It probably is not faked, but it demonstrates the lengths to which the Nazis have gone in building up the horror aspects of the Allied bombing offensive against the Reich" (p. 38)

Mines

A colonel from an engineers corps who had fought in the battle for Kharkov took us for a tour of the city's circular defenses. Their basis was a huge anti-tank ditch extending 30 kilometers around the vital sectors of the city. However, the Germans depended mostly on a system of trenches emanating like ganglions from deep pillboxes and shelters. Over them timber was laid and then the wood was covered with earth.

There was bitter fighting on the northern approaches to the city, where you could see that Russian mortars had covered every foot of the ground. As in the last war, mortars are still the best weapon against trench defenses. On the southern defense sector the Germans had built their defenses through a canning factory by barricading the basement windows.

Our colonel also turned out to be an expert on German mines. He said there were some ten different types of German anti-personnel mines and about five different anti-tank types. He showed us the newest type of each category.

The new German anti-personnel mine looks like an oversized potato masher and is made of concrete. Painted green and stuck upright in clumps of bushes or high grass, it is hard to detect. It is discharged by a trip wire.

The Nazi anti-tank mine must have been devised by someone with a personality as nasty as Hitler's. It is made of steel about a foot in diameter and 4 inches thick. Besides an ordinary detonator on top, it also includes one on the side and bottom. Thus the detecting sapper must handle it like a cracked egg; he can't shift it or lift it without having it go to pieces in his hands.

Next, we loaded up the jeeps again and headed southwest over the muddiest road in Russia. Ukrainian gumbo is a special kind of mud which looks like tar and glue. This was in the Udi River valley with low rolling hills on each side. It was typical of the Russian collective-farm country, but it was nearly all uncultivated.

There was a definite change in the atmosphere. We saw more soldiers, more transport, and greater alertness. The village ruins looked fresher, and we passed an occasional loaded ambulance. We drove between mine and bomb craters for 10 miles on this road, which was remarkably solid considering its condition.

Then we began to see an occasional wrecked tank. Alongside an orchard we could see dozens of them off to the left among the young apple trees. They looked like broken toys. But a gust of wind put reality into the scene. It was putrid with the smell of death, and from then on we breathed through our mouths. This tank battle had been fought three days before. Not all the bodies had been buried.

Garden

We turned off the road directly southward and came to what had once been a collective farm in the village of Korotich. There were only a dozen houses with fifteen or twenty outbuildings, but it was completely dead. The sole inhabitants were two women, two chickens, and one German who had died after crawling some 25 feet from his tank.

Korotich was surrounded by a large truck garden with several acres of fully grown cabbages, tomatoes, beets, and potatoes. Most of this garden had been ruined by a battle between more than 100 Russian tanks and a similar number of German ones. The Russians knocked out 60 Nazi machines in this engagement, and forced the Germans, who were concentrated for a large-scale assault aimed at recapturing Kharkov, into retreating.

There is not much use in trying to describe a tank battle unless one sees it personally, but this one must have been terrific. The Germans used Tigers as well as medium types. They also employed oversized Ferdinand mobile guns. Down in the cabbage patch there was on wrecked Ferdinand and one Tiger almost side by side. Their crews were buried among the cabbages. The smell of rotting bodies turned a few of us pale, but no one lost his breakfast—although there were a few bad moments when we had to chase away two chickens pecking at a German's body.

Kharkov

Until I started to examine details, Kharkov looked about the same as when I saw it five months ago. Last March sometimes at least one floor remained in some buildings, while there was occasionally even a building intact. When the Germans worked over it the second time, they missed nothing. The entire city will have to be rebuilt. Sixty per cent of the residences have been destroyed. There is an atrocity commission now investigating the Nazi war crimes of the second occupation. The civilians told us the usual stories: 300 wounded of the Red Army were burned to death in the local hospital and another 400 by the occupying SS troops.

That is what history looks like when you are shown it firsthand here in Russia. This war and this front will cover many chapters. Every paragraph will reflect the skill and courage of this 1943 Red Army and people who are defeating the 1939 Nazi Germans.

1956. The Democratic and Republican Party Platforms Compared

The 1956 Issues

"Adlai E. Stevenson and President Dwight Eisenhower shake hands at the White House in Washington, Feb. 17, 1953, when Stevenson lunched with Eisenhower and a group of congressmen. A few months before, Eisenhower had defeated Stevenson in the presidential election" (source)

Below is a summary of the Democratic and Republican party platforms from WATCH: The Television Guide to the 1956 Conventions, the Campaign and the Election, Columbia Broadcasting System (New York, 1956), pp. 66-76. See also the 1940 party platforms compared.

The 1956 Issues

Foreign observers often profess to be puzzled by American politics. They say they can't see any difference between the two parties. If that were true, there would be no campaign issues. But, as you'll see, the next 10 pages of WATCH contain as lively a political argument as you'll come across this year. It's a debate between the Republican and Democratic National Committees, who don't seem to have any doubt that issues of vital importance are at stake in this 1956 election. The eight issues of greatest importance were picked by mutual agreement, and then the two parties went to work to give you, as precisely as they could, their respective positions on each. No matter how strong your own opinion already is, you'll find fresh ammunition here.

Foreign Policy

REPUBLICANS: The Administration's leadership in bringing West Germany into NATO, the developing co-operation under the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, the mutual defense treaties with Free China and South Korea, and the support of the Baghdad Pact exemplify our aim of building collective security through mutual agreements to take joint action against aggression and to supplement each other's economic and military strength. In Asia: We favor help to nations struggling against the threat of Communist subversion. In Europe: We wish to see increased not only the military strength of NATO, but also its unity of purpose and political cohesion. In the Near East: We will work tirelessly for a just solution of the dispute between the Arab States and Israel. The sum of our international effort is: the waging of peace, with all the resourcefulness, dedication and urgency we have mustered in time of war.

DEMOCRATS: In four years of the Eisenhower-Dulles foreign policy, the U.S. has suffered important losses and communism has made important gains in every part of the world. Indochina fell to the Reds; pro-Western governments in Indonesia and Ceylon have been replaced by pro-Communist governments; the NATO alliance, our first line of military defense in Europe, has been weakened; the Communists have penetrated the Middle East, and nation after nation has resumed friendly contact with Moscow. Our foreign policy has continually offended our Allies and has not kept up with the new tactics of aggression pursued by Soviet Russia. We have suffered badly from a lack of firm leadership; a tendency to bluff our way through world affairs; a dangerous complacency and false optimism; and an abandonment of the bipartisan policy of past Democratic administrations.

Natural Resources

REPUBLICANS: We adhere to three fundamentals: (1) to develop, wisely use, and conserve mineral, fuel, land, forest and water resources from generation to generation; (2) to develop these resources primarily by private citizens under fair provisions of law including proper restraints for conservation; (3) to treat resource development as a partnership in which the participation of private citizens and state and local governments is as necessary as is Federal participation. Where local enterprise can shoulder the burden, it should be encouraged. And where local action cannot or should not fully meet the need, we should have Federal support. In this way our people can reserve themselves as many of the basic decisions affecting their lives as possible.

DEMOCRATS: The Eisenhower power policy is called "partnership" by the GOP. But the "local" partner is almost invariably one of the absentee-controlled power companies of America, with rural electric co-operatives and municipalities left out in the cold. For example, at Hells Canyon on Snake River, a "local" partner, the Idaho Power Company of Augusta, Maine, has been issued an FPC license to construct three dams which would mean only half the power, generated at three times the cost. TVA, characterized as "creeping socialism" by Eisenhower, has been under consistent Republican attack since 1953, as witness the illegal Dixon-Yates deal. Perhaps the best example of the Administration's attitude toward natural resources was the nomination of one of conservation's worst enemies, Wesley D'Ewart, as Assistant Secretary of the Interior in charge of the nation's public lands.

Farm Problem

REPUBLICANS: The Republican Party has accepted the challenge of developing a farm program that will help American agriculture adjust to the conditions of peace. The Administration's new farm law will attack the surpluses which overhang the market and depress prices. It is making $750,000,000 available to farmers agreeing to withdraw land from crop production. An additional $450,000,000 is earmarked for diverting land to soil-conserving uses on a longer-term basis. Another provision authorizes an annual appropriation up to $500,000,000 to supplement price-support operations for certain perishable commodities, and the previous limitation on the value of surplus commodities that may be distributed abroad under various assistance programs has been raised from $300,000,000 to $500,000,000. The result: Since the beginning of the year farm prices have responded and are now (June) up 9 per cent.

DEMOCRATS: Since the Eisenhower Administration took over the farm program, farm prices have fallen 22 per cent. Sliding-scale price supports have failed. Production actually increased, adding substantially to the so-called surpluses. The farmers' share of each consumer's dollar dropped from 47 cents in 1952 to 38 cents, the lowest point since 1941. Besides deliberately reducing farm price supports, when the prices of things farmers have to buy have stayed up or increased, the Administration has failed to step in quickly with help in emergencies. The GOP Administration also has hobbled the soil-conservation program, failed to develop low-cost electric power and made it much harder for farmers to get crop insurance.

Civil Rights

REPUBLICANS: The Republican Party has supported action to eliminate segregation in public schools. We fully concur in the decision of the Supreme Court and will work for and support its mandate. We have virtually eliminated discrimination and segregation in executive-branch operations throughout the nation. We have fully enforced Federal civil rights statutes. We have asked Congress to create a bipartisan civil rights commission with full authority to hold public hearings, to subpoena witnesses and to take testimony under oath. We have asked for the establishment of a civil rights division in the Justice Department. And we have asked Congress to give the Justice Department direct authority, subject to the Constitution, to bring civil rights actions against attempts to deprive citizens of the right to vote throughout the U.S.

DEMOCRATS: There have been loud partisan GOP claims that all advances in civil rights have been achieved since the Eisenhower Administration took office. Vice-President Nixon has falsely claimed, among other things, that this Administration brought about integration in the armed services. But an examination of the Eisenhower record on civil rights reveals that until this election year Eisenhower did not ask Congress to enact a single piece of civil rights legislation. Why didn't he support the Democratic program introduced last year on which hearings had already been held? Republican claims to the progress made under President Truman in civil rights do not take the place of a program.

National Economy

REPUBLICANS: Under the Republican Administration the American enterprise system has achieved unprecedented prosperity. This prosperity has been and will continue to be fostered by these Republican policies: removal of direct controls on prices and wages; assistance to small businesses to encourage competition; curtailment of governmental business that can be handled by tax-paying enterprises; restriction of public expenditures, while adding to the country's defensive strength and its public assets; lowering taxes when the fiscal situation permits; expansion of international trade; shielding the people against unemployment, old age, illness, and eliminating blighted neighborhoods, without impairing self-reliance; reinforcement of the workings of our fiscal system that offset income changes due to changes in economic activity; a forthright attack on fundamental weaknesses in the farm situation; and prompt action when either recessionary of inflationary influences are evident.

DEMOCRATS: In the first three years of the Eisenhower Administration, the increases in factory employment, industrial production, personal income and weekly factory earnings have been less than half what they were in the last three years of the Truman Administration. The average citizen is deeper in debt, has more bills and less savings than he had at the end of 1952. As a result of Republican favoritism, corporation profits have increased 34 per cent since 1952, while farm and small-business incomes have dropped sharply and the average person's take-home pay has increased only 8 per cent. It's the old Republican theory that if big business does well, the benefits will sooner or later trickle down to the rest of the people.

Labor

REPUBLICANS: The Republican Party favors improvements in the Labor-Management Relations (Taft-Hartley) Act, and will continue to make every effort to improve the wage-hour law. We have initiated legislation to assure adequate disclosure of financial affairs of each employee pension and welfare plan and to authorize the provision of Federal grants to states for industrial safety programs. In February, 1955, the American Federation of Labor published a statement that "wage increases in 1954 provided more of a gain in real wages than in any other postwar year." The record of labor peace and unparalleled prosperity during the past three years under the Republicans demonstrates our industrial maturity.

DEMOCRATS: The open hostility of the Administration to labor is symptomatic of its failure to serve the people in contrast to the privileged treatment of big business. A comparison between the corresponding periods in the Eisenhower and Truman Administration reveals that under the Truman Administration the wage earner received 50 per cent higher increases, plus invaluable fringe benefits—which means that under the Eisenhower Administration the worker has suffered a loss of more than $500 a year. In addition, the President has broken his pledge to bring about the 19-point amendment to the Taft-Hartley law, including eliminating the "union busting" provisions. The Administration has failed to fight unemployment, and it has opposed any improvement of social security.

Security Program

REPUBLICANS: The Republican Party believes that an effective defense requires continuance of our aggressive attack on subversion at home. FBI investigations have been reinforced by a new Internal Security Division in the Department of Justice. The security activities of the Immigration and Naturalization Service have been revitalized. The Department of Justice and the FBI have been armed with new legal weapons forged by the Republican 83rd Congress. Believing that employment in the Government is a privilege, not a right, we have established and will continue a security program which guarantees that all employees are loyal and trustworthy. While we guard against the threat of subversion, we are determined to protect the rights of every American citizen.

DEMOCRATS: The Eisenhower Administration has badly mismanaged the national security program, while failing to find a single Communist on the government payroll. The chairman of the Civil Service Commission has admitted that over 90 per cent of those people fired as "security risks" were not, in fact, fired under the security program. It has been estimated that up to 75 per cent of them actually were hired by the Eisenhower Administration itself, and many of them were later rehired by other agencies. In addition, the Republican security system has damaged the vital partnership between Government and private scientists. Contrary to the false charges of the Republicans, the Truman loyalty program rooted out bona-fide subversives and still protected the rights of loyal Government workers. The Eisenhower security program has done neither.

National Defense

REPUBLICANS: Under the Republican Administration the combat readiness of our forces has been improved by developing new weapons and by employing the latest scientific developments. We shall continue to push the production of the most modern military aircraft and the development of long-range missiles. We will keep moving as rapidly as practicable toward nuclear-powered aircraft and ships. Combat capability and mobility have been substantially increased. To strengthen our continental defenses the United States and Canada, in the closest co-operation, have substantially augmented early-warning radar networks. The Republican Party's defense policy emphasizes an effective, flexible type of power calculated to deter or repulse any aggression, retaliate against it and to preserve the peace.

DEMOCRATS: The Republican defense program has been developed not with just one eye on the budget, and the voters back home, but with both eyes there. One of the first acts of the new Administration in 1953 was to cut the Air Force budget by $5 billion. A Senate committee explored this question with Secretary of Defense Wilson and brought out the fact that it was the money men in the Treasury and Defense Departments who devised the cuts, not the military men. Now, three years later, we find that Russia has almost overtaken us in air strength and that some time between 1958 and 1960 the U.S. will have the world's second-best air force. We don't think the American people want to be penny-wise and pound-foolish on a matter of this vital importance.

1956. The Campaign Circus

Organizing Political Mayhem

"Caricaturist George Wachsteter takes this view of the CBS-TV political commentators at work" (1956). Featured are Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Robert Trout, Bill Downs, Eric Sevareid, Charles Collingwood, and others.

Bill Downs

CBS Washington

1956

Organizing Political Mayhem

The highlight of the hullabaloo that characterizes the political campaign for Middletown, USA is the night that the presidential candidate makes a major speech in the municipal auditorium.

The local politicians sweat blood. The last minute emergencies seem to spring out of the floor. At least one lady in the "Women for Runninghard" organization gives up in a faint. The competition among the local bigwigs to be on the reception committee sometimes leaves scars that last for years. And usually someone always forgets to put a pitcher of water and a glass on the speaker's stand.

The big moment arrives. The dignitaries assemble on the station platform. The local brass band, which incidentally will also play the campaign song of the other candidate when he hits town—goes into its carefully planned list of tunes. The town's biggest Cadillacs are drawn up to receive the visiting politicians. And at the tail end of the procession there is a transit bus marked "Press, TV and Radio."

The train pulls in on schedule. Middletown policemen keep the small fry out from under its wheels. Local photographers and radio and TV broadcasters close in to record the event. The Candidate steps off the train wearing the same broad smile that he has worn in a score of towns.

Shakes hands. Shakes hands. Grins. Shakes hands.

Meanwhile behind him the campaign train disgorges several hundred people. Secretaries, speechwriters, economists, farm experts, and just plain politicians.

The reporters traveling with the candidate carry their typewriters, cameras, tape recorders, briefcases, and whatever other tools of the trade and immediately head for the bus. They already have the advance of the Middletown speech. Their job now is to check it, pick up local color, and try to assess in a very few hours just what is the political flavor of the town.

The Chief of Police signals to the motorcycle escort which roars into the lead, sirens whining. The Candidate is taken to the best local hotel, best suite, given the chance to wash up and meet some more dignitaries, and the time arrives to leave for the speech.

The party faithful give a big ovation. The introductions, to meet radio and television time commitments, happily are brief. There may be a dinner featuring creamed peas. Always creamed peas.

The Candidate makes his speech. He says his thanks. The Cadillacs and bus appear mysteriously from nowhere. The entire party of some 300 to 400 persons pile in, pile off again at the station, climb onto the train. The train pulls out, leaving behind the hand wavers and the same band playing the same tunes.

Half of Middletown has had its big day. The other half will celebrate when their own Candidate arrives and substantially repeats the same process.

The phenomenon that is the American political campaign has followed this general pattern since the days that highways and railroads permitted reasonable travel by men seeking votes and public office. In the past thirty years, radio and the airplane have facilitated and sped up the campaign and the number of people to which a candidate can personally make his appeal.

The impending 1956 campaign will see the use of television adapted to campaign techniques as it has never been before. Both the Republican and Democratic parties have already optioned time on all major networks to make their key appeals.

But at the base, no matter what the media, the organization of a presidential campaign in these United States remains substantially the same as it was in the days of Abraham Lincoln. The Candidate and his party must present his personality and the party principles to as many citizens as possible and hope to win their approval.

Over the years, the art of winning voters has developed into what amounts to a science. And this science under our political system receives its major test every four years when the American people choose a president.

At one time in our history it might have been that organizing a presidential campaign was something like putting a circus on tour. However, the concept of a campaign manager as a kind of combination of P.T. Barnum and a travel agent has changed. The modern campaign manager, characterized in the person of the present White House Press Secretary James Hagerty, must be able to read and assess the scores of charts and statistics of recording votes, opinions, and preferences supplied to him by his party's national committee.

Many times he must speak and act for his candidate on every conceivable subject in such a manner that will not embarrass the campaign or his man personally. He acts as the final arbiter on speeches, introductions, and endorsements. As the campaign progresses, the campaign manager acts as social secretary, alter ego, and sometimes father, mother, and brother to his man. And toward the end of the ordeal, the manager's main job is to get the candidate through election night alive, healthy, and able to make what he hopes will be an inspiring speech of acceptance.

The successful campaign manager must also know how to lose with grace and dignity.

Hagerty handled the two unsuccessful Dewey campaigns in 1944 and 1948 before organizing the Eisenhower victory. In this coming contest he does not like to be referred to as a "campaign manager," although you can be sure that the Hagerty touch will be evident in every move made by the Republicans to reelect the President. The GOP 1956 race will be unique in the Mr. Eisenhower believes that, as president, it would be undignified and debasing the office for him to appear before the citizens he governs as a politician seeking votes. He believes the the incumbent must run on his record in office and the principles for which he has employed in serving that office. Thus the citizens going to the polls in November will approve or reject him and his conduct of the nation's affairs, not just cast a vote for a man and his personality.

However, no one, and particularly the GOP politicians, is going to play down the Eisenhower grin or charm in this contest whether the President thinks it dignified or not.

The major political parties never stop organizing their campaigns from one election to the other. The Democratic and Republican national committees keep permanent staffs to keep records, collect data, and make surveys.

When Thomas E. Dewey was defeated badly by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, the GOP National Committee shook itself down again and started to work on the congressional elections. You remember Republicans controlled the 80th Congress in 1946, good evidence of the importance and value of continuity and continuing work in the national headquarters.

Certainly there are struggles within both national party organizations. In the Republican headquarters in 1952, it was between the Taft forces and the Eisenhower adherents. In the Democratic organization, it is a running battle between the Southern conservatives and the Northern liberals. The national committee is the so-called neutral battlefield where these internal forays are fought. The battles are settled at the national conventions.

While all this is happening between elections, the organizing for the next campaign goes on.

This spring, both the Republicans and Democrats began seriously collecting ammunition for their fall vote drives. Many people don't realize it, but the issues which the candidates will debate, the time and place where they appear, and even the words they are likely to say were all decided a year or six months before either man received his party's nomination. It's all part of organizing the campaign.

For example, in May of this year the Democratic National Committee sent out a questionnaire to every one of their party's senators, congressmen, state governors, National Committee members, state directors, and county chairmen asking a dozen questions which will vitally affect the type and extent of the campaign their candidate will pursue. The Democratic professionals do not know who the candidate will be, but the political vital statistics will be ready for him when the convention chooses the man this August.

This questionnaire asks these politicians to designate his area's four most important cities where the presidential or vice-presidential candidate might appear. It asks for the ethnic makeup of these areas as to race, religion, and background. The Democratic leader is asked to designate the three most important issues in his area from a list of some 25 subjects ranging over taxes, farm problems, civil rights, high interest rates, foreign policy, part-time presidency, and the polio vaccine.

The Democrats ask their people across the country searching questions on economic and farm conditions as well as labor and management problems, and are concentrating this year on the plight of small business.

The Republican National Committee employs its own professional public opinion poll-taking and research organization using the same techniques and often the same methods as the Gallup company and similar concerns.

The GOP organization had its women's division organize what it calls the "Poll Takers of America," a group of amateurs who last winter operated in 47 of the 48 states under the direction of Republican state and county leaders. The winter floods canceled the question drive in Connecticut.

Some 15,000 Republican women polled some 250,000 persons across the country on September 25. The answers were kept confidential. The instructions to the poll takers specified that they should "smile, be brief, and be friendly." The poll takers were told to identify the poll as a Republican party venture only if asked. If the one questioned then says "I'm not going to answer questions for the Republicans," the reply should be: "You'll be doing a real service for your country because our administration wants its policies to be what all the people want."

Democrats say that this poll was conducted with loaded questions such as the opening query that read, "Most Americans agree that the aim of our foreign policy is to work with other countries for a just and lasting peace. Do you think that the Eisenhower administration is doing a good, fair, or poor job in this field?"

The GOP National Committee did get some valuable information on a number of general attitudes from the questions. And the Republicans were able to put out a publicity release statement that the administration's efforts to secure peace met with "overwhelming approval" of the nation's voters.

At the same time that the Democratic and Republican politicians are researching the nation for problems and issues for the campaign, other experts study election results for the so-called "critical areas" which often determine just where the candidate will concentrate his campaigning.

These are 63 Republican "critical" or "marginal" districts across the country—that is, districts where the GOP candidate won by less than five percent of the vote. There are 31 "marginal" Democratic districts in which the Democrats won by less than five percent.

For both parties, the "critical areas" stretch across the country literally from Maine to California, and include areas of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, Kansas and New Jersey. Depending on last minute assessment of the party's chances of swinging a district by perhaps the personal appearance of a candidate, then it will be to that area that the campaign itinerary will lead.

Organizing a campaign is a complex, difficult, and often thankless business.

The organizer who gets the least thanks of all is the "advance man" who precedes the candidate and tries to make certain that all possible arrangements are completed. It's a delicate and diplomatic job. Not only must he expedite the final arrangements, he must also see that the presidential candidate does not unwittingly become involved in a local political scrap of which the number is myriad.

Consequently, leaders of all party factions must get an even break. The wives must not be neglected and the major campaign contributor must—repeat must—get the candidate's gladdest hand. If anything goes wrong with the advance man's arrangements even though he is not there, he usually gets the blame. Usually he's a jump ahead of the candidate hoping each day that "this time everything will work out."

The advance man's job is considered so important that the GOP National Committee has put out a whole manual on the job. Its secrets are so politically delicate that this book of instructions is kept under lock and key.

Each successive campaign is different, and this 1956 drive for both Republicans and Democrats will be no exception.

The national conventions are being held later this year—the Democrats in Chicago on August 13, the Republicans a week later in San Francisco. The result is that the campaign organizers will have less time to plan before the traditional Labor Day kickoff for their individual candidate. This will present difficulty, particularly for the Democrats.

On the other hand, the Republicans feel themselves doubly blessed in the upcoming campaign. Barring unforeseen difficulties, they have their candidate in the White House and their planning is ahead of schedule.

The Democrats know what they are up against in trying to beat the incumbent. The president running for reelection has, in effect, a built-in political organization around him. Since every move and statement by his administration is in a sense political, every cabinet member and every member of his staff act as his spokesmen. Every bill that he signs or vetoes becomes a political document. Every word that he utters ranks somewhere in the category of campaign oratory.

As one Democratic politician pointed out somewhat wistfully, "In this country, only twice has the incumbent in the White House been removed from office by an election." The two were, however, Republicans—William Howard Taft and Herbert Hoover.

In the last presidential campaign, General Dwight Eisenhower traveled 51,000 miles by train, plane, and automobile. Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson traveled 32,000 miles. At the end of the line, both men said they would never like to go through the ordeal again.

However, in the second volume of his memoirs Years of Trial and Hope, former President Harry Truman speaks of the 1948 whistle-stop campaign during which he virtually single-handedly snatched the election away from Governor Dewey. Mr. Truman says he traveled 31,700 miles in 35 days of campaigning and made 356 speeches—an average of ten a day. "I believed...that people still prefer to make up their own minds about candidates upon the basis of direct observation, despite all the claims of how society depends today upon newspapers, radio, and other media of communication."

The new medium of television was not developed eight years ago to the extent it is now. If the 1956 campaign proves anything, it may prove whether the era of the old-fashioned "whistle-stop" campaign is truly ended.

The Republicans have announced that they are going to depend on electronics and modern means of communication to put across their candidate—both his policies and his personality. Also, after his heart attack it is unlikely that Mr. Eisenhower would subject himself to a campaign ordeal such as the one he undertook four years ago.

The two frontrunners in the struggle for the Democratic nomination have both adopted the personal appearance, hand-shaking technique in the primary contests, and both are known to feel that "whistle-stopping" by train, plane, and automobile is an effective—if tiring—way to get votes.

Right now both the Democrats and Republicans are as organized as they can be. Come Labor Day, hold onto your hats.

1940. "Eyes of the World Turn to America's Election"

The Urgency of the 1940 Presidential Election

President Franklin Roosevelt in Kingston, New York on Election Day, November 5, 1940 (source)

From The New York Times, November 3, 1940:

EYES OF THE WORLD TURN TO AMERICA'S ELECTION

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Our Decisive Power in Both War and Peace Fully Recognized Abroad

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By ANNE O'HARE McCORMICK

Not since the wartime vote of 1916 has the choice of an American President interested the outside world so keenly as the present election. People everywhere, in the depths of Russia and China as well as in Britain and occupied Europe, will watch us anxiously as we cast our ballots next Tuesday. They will watch us because popular elections are becoming a rare sight on this planet. In most countries free choice is just a remembered luxury, like safety, coffee, planning ahead.

But the main reason for their intentness is selfish—the feeling that they, too, are involved in our choice. Sometimes vaguely, sometimes acutely, they feel that the man empowered to head this government for the next four years is destined to play a leading part in the widening drama of war and peace.

A Hope Disappointed

At home it was hoped that the candidates' agreement on such fundamentals as full aid to Britain, conscription, armament, to the limit of our speed and capacity, would expunge foreign policy from the political debate. Inevitably, however, the argument has tended to focus more and more on this issue. The earth revolves in a red fog of war, and as the campaign developed nothing could prevent the war from dominating all other questions in the mind of the American people.

The President recognized this when he changed his plan and went out to explain his attitude to the country. In the early days of his administration, scenes from his first campaign were thrown on a screen one evening in the upper hall of the White House. "How I miss the crowds!" was his comment as he looked. He is an extremely perceptive and observant man, and as he resumed the role of campaigner, in touch with the crowds, it is noteworthy that he laid increasing stress on his determination to keep the country out of the war.

Mr. Willkie also met the American crowd. In a few places they greeted him with eggs and "boos." Most of the time he was received with enthusiasm, louder, it seemed, as his own voice grew hoarser.

Thoughtful Americans

But what struck him in all the crowds was their seriousness. Hostile or friendly, the people were thoughtful and deeply in earnest, he told a friend after a cross-country tour. He, too, sensed the reason for this anxiety; his later speeches were almost entirely devoted to questions rising out of the war and the defense program.

The people, in short, raised the question the candidates at first wished to ignore. As the race neared the end, with Mr. Willkie demanding greater help to Britain and Mr. Roosevelt dispatching ships and planes and promising more, the main issues had narrowed down to two: Which contender will arm us fastest? Which is more likely to keep us out of the conflict?

Abroad, likewise, these questions overshadow more immediate concerns. For the past week or two, despite the thrust into Greece, the major struggle seems to have been held in suspense, almost as if the war were waiting for the result of the election. In the heat of the electoral battle it was charged that the British hope for the re-election of Mr. Roosevelt and the Axis Powers favor Mr. Willkie. If this is true, in each case the preference is based on the fact that both the Germans and the British know the President. Mr. Willkie is an unknown quantity; while he has given every assurance that his foreign policy will be identical with Mr. Roosevelt's, the Germans may figure that any change would be for the better and the British are quite satisfied with things as they are.

True or not, the preference does not affect many voters in this country. As between the two sides of the war, the American preference is solidly and almost unanimously "set." Few oppose helping the British or blocking the Axis. As between the two candidates, however, Americans were never so bent on deciding for themselves, according to their own conception of the national interests.

The injection of this red-herring issue is nevertheless significant. It proves that next Tuesday's balloting is an international event of far-reaching importance. The choice of Mr. Willkie may be taken in Germany as a sign of American unwillingness to enter the war. The choice of Mr. Roosevelt may be interpreted in England as an augury of more active participation. Europe inclines to echo our most contradictory campaign arguments—that the President will move more rapidly toward intervention than his opponent and that the Republican candidate will put more speed into the building of a war machine.

Fear of America Itself

The inner recesses of governmental minds are not likely to harbor these contradictions. If Hitler and Mussolini discussed this election at Florence, doubtless they agreed that we are already virtually in the war. Publicly they might cheer the defeat of Mr. Roosevelt; privately what they fear is America itself, the incalculable power of the people in a democracy. They are under no illusion that American policy in a crisis can be decided by any will but the will of the people.

The British know this even more certainly. Mr. Churchill is on close terms with the President and would regret to see him leave office. But the relations between the White House and Downing Street were just as intimate when Mr. Chamberlain was Prime Minister. Methods, persons, emphasis and conditions alter, but representative governments do not reverse their policies overnight, as dictators can. In the present case, moreover, a change of administration does not mean a change of policy, and this implies far more than a unity of view on the part of the candidates; it is striking proof of popular agreement on our primary interests.

Why, then, if the election supposes no drastic shift in policy, is it watched with such interest from Singapore to Narvik?

The answer lies in the nature of the world struggle now in process. It lies in the preponderant weight America throws into the balance as other powers are absorbed drained or by war. This conflict has a tidal quality; it ebbs and flows, roars and subsides. The spurts and lulls indicate that it is only partly military. From the beginning armies, navies and air fleets have merely supported other means of pressure. Between battles, behind the war front, all the manoeuvres have but one object—to anticipate and determine the shape of the peace.

Where Great Battles Lie

In this contest, in fact, military operations constitute only one phase. The great engagements are political, diplomatic and psychological. This is why the leader we select is of such importance in the international view.

People in Europe who are still able to think ahead look more and more to the White House as a lighthouse in the universal blackout. It is about the only normal seat of government to which they can look as a point of reference. This is true of the subjugated peoples and also of the British; engrossed wholly just now in the struggle to survive, they turn to us not for material support only but for visible reassurance that the life they are defending is still going on. Be sure, moreover, that the Germans and Italians regard this Federal union as the supreme standard of comparison, the challenging alternative to Hitler's "new order."

Even last Spring, before the Continent was "occupied," unofficial Europe was thinking of the United States as a factor in the war and as the arbiter of the peace that would eventually follow. Repeatedly, especially from government heads in small capitals, now no more, the writer heard remarks like these:

"The next Administration in your country will represent the new balance of power in the world." "In the next four years you will decide the fate of your country and ours." "The next President will have to be a greater statesman than your last Messiah, Wilson, presumed to be; he will have to make terms with a revolution."

With the world background in mind supporters of Mr. Roosevelt argue approximately thus: "The President is a great figure. He has played a conspicuous role in a world drama that has already destroyed most of the performers. His relations with foreign powers have been closer and more constant than those of any of his predecessors. This experience is invaluable; in foreign affairs he has knowledge, a sure touch, a horse trader's shrewdness, a useful confidence in the ability of this country to hold its own against any combination of brains or power. Above all he has imagination, a sense of American destiny as well as his own. He has been working for a long time on plans for peace, for a new order to oppose to Hitler's. If he ever fulfills his ambition to be a peacemaker, he will produce a blueprint that would inspire the world and reduce the Nazi organization to something like a prison code."

The Counter-Arguments

On the other hand, the arguments for Mr. Willkie might be these:

"Internationally, Mr. Willkie starts from scratch. If he lacks the advantages and renown of the President's experience he also lacks the disadvantages. Mr. Roosevelt has aroused great confidence abroad and sharpened deep antagonisms. The bitterness and disappointment of defeated peoples like the French are sometimes transferred to him. Some blame him for his part in Munich, others because his words encouraged the democracies to rely on American support we were not prepared to give. His name is associated, one way or another, with the tragic controversies that divide nations within themselves. Mr. Willkie has uncommon sense, the drive and energy needed to speed up our defenses, a fervent and contagious faith in the genius of this country and the benefit of being a new man with a fresh approach to problems the old hands have failed to solve."

Europe hangs on our choice—because Europe hangs on America. To the watching world, dictators and democrats, it is America and American power that count. The President may give a direction and emphasis to this power, but he cannot control it, and Hitler knows this as well as Churchill does.

As for Americans, they know that both candidates put American interests first. They are aware that this country will influence outside events in the degree in which it is strong, united, wise and faithful to itself. The President who will best mobilize that strength and express that unity and faith will be the best minister of our foreign policy and therefore the best hope of the world.