Everything about Adlai Stevenson totally explained
» This is about the mid-20th-century politician and diplomat; for other American politicians so named, see Adlai Stevenson (disambiguation).
Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (
February 5,
1900 –
July 14,
1965) was an
American politician, noted for his intellectual demeanor and advocacy of liberal causes in the
Democratic Party. He served one term as governor of
Illinois and ran, unsuccessfully, for president against
Dwight D. Eisenhower in
1952 and
1956. He served as
Ambassador to the United Nations from 1961 to 1965.
Childhood, education, and early career
Although Stevenson was born in
Los Angeles, he was a member of a famous
Illinois 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.
Stevenson was raised in the small city of
Bloomington, Illinois; his family was a member of Bloomington's upper class and lived in one of the city's well-to-do neighborhoods. In December 1912, Stevenson accidentally killed a 16-year-old friend while demonstrating
drill technique with a rifle, accidentally left loaded, during a party at the Stevenson home.
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
United States Navy and served at the rank of
Seaman 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 but failed several classes and withdrew. He returned to Bloomington where he wrote for the family newspaper,
The Daily Pantagraph, which was founded by his maternal great grandfather
Jesse Fell, who had also served as
Abraham Lincoln's campaign manager in his 1858 race for the US Senate.
Stevenson became interested in the law again a year or so after leaving Harvard after talking to
Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.. 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 LL.B. law degree 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. In 1928 Stevenson married Ellen Borden, a well-to-do
socialite. The young couple soon became popular and familiar figures on the Chicago social scene.
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 to practice 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, after 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 D. 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 he was offered several jobs as a result.
After Knox died in April 1944, Stevenson 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 1948, Stevenson entered the Illinois gubernatorial race as a Democrat and, in an upset victory, defeated incumbent Republican
Dwight H. Green in a landslide. Principal among his achievements as Illinois governor were reorganizing the
state police, cracking down on illegal gambling, and improving the
state highways. He was a popular
public speaker, gaining a reputation as an intellectual, with a
self-deprecating sense of humor to match.
In 1949, Governor Stevenson appeared as a
character witness in the first trial of
Alger Hiss.
In 1949, Adlai Stevenson was divorced by his wife, Ellen Borden Stevenson. They had been married for 21 years and had three sons.
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. However, a number of his friends and associates (such as
George Wildman Ball) quietly began organizing a "draft Stevenson" movement for President; they persisted in their activity even when Stevenson (both publicly and privately) told them to stop. As governor of the host state, Stevenson delivered a welcoming address to the delegates to the
1952 Democratic National Convention in Chicago so stirring that it may have helped stampede his nomination. Despite his protestations, the delegates drafted him, and he accepted the nomination with a speech that according to contemporaries, "electrified the nation:"
"When the tumult and the shouting die, when the bands are gone and the lights are dimmed, there's the stark reality of responsibility in an hour of history haunted with those gaunt, grim specters of strife, dissension, and materialism at home, and ruthless, inscrutable, and hostile power abroad. The ordeal of the twentieth century — the bloodiest, most turbulent age of the Christian era — is far from over. Sacrifice, patience, understanding, and implacable purpose may be our lot for years to come. … Let’s talk sense to the American people! Let’s tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that we're now on the eve of great decisions."
Although Stevenson's eloquent oratory and thoughtful, stylish demeanor thrilled many intellectuals and members of the nation's academic community, the Republicans and some working-class Democrats ridiculed what they perceived as his indecisive, aristocratic air. During the 1952 campaign
Stewart Alsop, a powerful Connecticut Republican and the brother of newspaper columnist
Joseph Alsop, labeled Stevenson an "egghead", based on his baldness and intellectual air. Alsop used the word in a column describing Stevenson's problems in wooing working-class voters and the nickname stuck. His running mate was Senator
John Sparkman of
Alabama. In the
1952 presidential election against
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Stevenson lost heavily outside
the Solid South; he won only nine states and lost the
Electoral College vote 442 to 89.
During the campaign, a photograph revealed a hole in the sole of Adlai's right shoe. This became a well-known symbol of Adlai's frugality and earthiness. Photographer
Bill Gallagher of the
Flint Journal won the
1953 Pulitzer prize on the strength of the image.
Following his defeat, Stevenson traveled throughout Asia,
the Middle East and Europe, writing about his travels for
Look magazine. Although he wasn't sent as an official emissary of the
U.S. government, Stevenson's international reputation gave him access to many foreign officials.
1956 presidential bid
With Eisenhower headed for another landslide, few Democrats wanted the 1956 nomination. Although 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
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, 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 Senator Kefauver as his
running mate, despite stiff competition from Senator
John F. Kennedy. Following his nomination, Stevenson waged a vigorous
presidential campaign, delivering 300 speeches and traveling . 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 a
Partial Test Ban Treaty to aboveground nuclear weapons tests proved premature and lost him support.
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 wasn't 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 considered a third nomination. Early in 1957, he 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. He was employed
part-time by the
Encyclopædia Britannica.
1960-1965
Prior to the
1960 Democratic National Convention, Stevenson announced that he wasn't seeking the Democratic nomination for president, but would accept a draft. Because he still hoped to be a candidate, Stevenson refused to give the nominating address for relative newcomer
John F. Kennedy, which 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
United States Secretary of State, an opinion shared by few in the Kennedy camp. The prestigious post went to the (then) little-known
Dean Rusk and Stevenson was appointed
U.S. ambassador to the
United Nations. There, he worked hard to support
U.S. foreign policy, even when he personally disagreed with some of Kennedy's actions.
In April 1961, Stevenson suffered the greatest humiliation of his career. After an attack against Fidel Castro's Communist forces at the Bay of Pigs, Stevenson unwittingly disputed allegations that the attack was financed and supported by the Central Intelligence Agency, claiming instead that the anti-Communist forces were supported by wealthy Cuban emigres. When Stevenson learned that he'd been misled by the White House, and even supplied with CIA-forged photographs, he considered resigning the ambassadorship, but was convinced not to do so.
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, answer 'yes' or 'no'!" 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 implied they didn't exist.
Stevenson was assaulted by an anti-United Nations protester in
Dallas, Texas on
October 24,
1963, one month before the
assassination of Kennedy in that same city. A woman carrying an anti-United Nations sign hit Stevenson in the head with the sign; afterwards Stevenson told police to not arrest her, stating that "I don't want her to go to jail, I want her to go to school." Disturbed by the incident, Stevenson advised President Kennedy to not visit the city.
While walking in
London with
Marietta Tree through
Grosvenor Square, Stevenson suffered a
heart attack on the afternoon of
July 14,
1965, and died later that day of
heart failure at
St George's Hospital.
Marietta Tree recounts: [Afterleaving the Embassy]
"We walked around the neighborhood a little bit and where his house had been where he'd lived with his family at the end of the War, there was now an apartment house and he said that makes me feel so old. Indeed, the whole walk made him feel very not so much nostalgic but so much older. As we were walking along the street he said don't walk quite so fast and do hold your head up Marietta. I was burrowing ahead trying to get to the park as quickly as possible and then the next thing I knew, I turned around and I saw he'd gone white, gray really, and he fell and his hand brushed me as he fell and he hit the pavement with the most terrible crack and I thought he'd fractured his skull."
That night in her diary, Marietta wrote, "Adlai is dead. We were together." 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.
Additional facts of note
Stevenson's wit was legendary. During one of Stevenson's presidential campaigns, allegedly, a supporter told him that he was sure to "get the vote of every thinking man" in the
U.S., to which Stevenson is said to have replied, "Thank you, but I need a majority to win."
On another campaign occasion, he was somewhat rudely introduced at a Houston Baptist convention in the following way: "Gov. Stevenson, we want to make it clear you're here as a courtesy because Dr.
Norman Vincent Peale has instructed us to vote for your opponent." Stevenson stepped to the podium and quipped, "Speaking as a Christian, I find the Apostle
Paul appealing and the Apostle Peale appalling."
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'd walked in an effort to win the election.
Stevenson smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, before quitting in the mid-1950s. Friends say he resumed smoking at some point in the early 1960s, during his years at the United Nations.
Stevenson once showed in a World Series game between the
New York Yankees and the
Brooklyn Dodgers that he was neutral by wearing a hat from both teams.
Stevenson in popular culture
Peter Sellers claimed that his portrayal of President Merkin Muffley in was modeled on Stevenson.
Stevenson's legendary "Don't wait for the translation" speech to the Soviet ambassador Valerian Zorin on 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 speech is also a central part of the 2000 film Thirteen Days, where he's portrayed by Michael Fairman.
In the movie Wayne's World 2, the rock festival 'Waynestock' was supposedly held in Adlai Stevenson Memorial Park, in Aurora, Illinois.
In episode 424 "Manos: The Hands of Fate", of the series Mystery Science Theater 3000, a character remarks, "Adlai Stevenson buys a car!" over a shot of a similar looking man in an auto dealership.
The Avalanche by acclaimed folk artist Sufjan Stevens contains a song about Adlai Stevenson, similarly named.
He was quoted in a closing by Alan Shore (James Spader) on Boston Legal
Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) in 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's mentions Adlai Stevenson as an ideal man. ("If I were free to choose from anybody alive, just snap my fingers and say come here you, I wouldn't choose Jose. Nehru, maybe, or Adlai Stevenson or Sidney Poitier....")
In the movie Annie Hall, character Alvie, played by Woody Allen, wears an 'Adlai' political button.
The movie Plain Clothes was set in a high school named after Adlai Stevenson: their teams were the Pagans.
Schools and other entities named after Stevenson
Adlai E. Stevenson II Elementary School in Bloomington, Illinois
Adlai E. Stevenson High School located in Lincolnshire, Illinois
Adlai Stevenson High School in Sterling Heights, Michigan
Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Livonia, Michigan
Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Bronx, New York
Adlai E. Stevenson Elementary School in Elk Grove Village, Illinois
Adlai Stevenson Elementary School in the Plum Borough School District in Plum, Pennsylvania
Stevenson College, a division of the University of California, Santa Cruz colleges system
Stevenson Hall, a lecture building on the Illinois State University campus in Normal, Illinois
Adlai E. Stevenson Hall, Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, California
Interstate 55 - known as the Adlai E. Stevenson Expressway in Chicagoland
Stevenson Drive, a major thoroughfare in Springfield, IllinoisFurther Information
Get more info on 'Adlai Stevenson'.
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