ABSTRACT
In March, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., a vice-chairman of the Americans for Democratic Action, and the policy committee of New York’s Liberal party both announced for Ike, thereby abandoning Truman. Most interesting were the reasons for wanting Ike. Of the 9 percent who said he should not run, 74 percent explained that doing so would, as the report explained, “mar his otherwise unimpeachable position in the eyes of the American people.” Perhaps even more significantly they saw Ike as a healer or a symbol of national unity. About one-third of the writers expressed a strong desire for internal national unity, showing strong distaste for conflict and disagreement or a “bickering atmosphere,” and wanted to improve the political climate. When, as with Roosevelt, the report noted, “mass support and a political machine are behind the same man, the political machinery does not stand out in bold relief–its workings are not regarded as ‘undemocratic.’.
