ABSTRACT
Ike's Republican strategists and advisers had already written off the South as unwinnable for the Republicans, but Ike ignored their predictions. He was not a traditional politician, and thus far, there was little to indicate where he stood on civil rights. Ike's landslide victory gave him relatively free rein to shape the course of domestic policy in any way he saw fit. Black leaders nervously kept a close watch on his appointments, particularly at the Justice Department, for possible signs as to which direction he was going. He immediately moved to scotch the perennial rumors that Hoover would be ousted when a new president came into office. James Mclnerney, who had directed the criminal division of the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Civil Rights Section under Truman, confirmed that when he told the sub-committee the attorney general virtually prohibited the DOJ from introducing a remote federal authority to prosecute local racial violence cases.
