Editing Adlai Stevenson II (section)

==1956 presidential bid==
{{See also|1956 United States presidential election|Electoral history of Adlai Stevenson}}
[[File:Adlai Stevenson 1956 US Presidential campaign.JPG|thumb|Stevenson and supporter Joe Smith leave Chicago's O'Hare Airport for four days of campaigning in the Pacific Northwest and California]]
Unlike 1952, Stevenson was an announced, active candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1956.<ref>(McKeever, pp. 340–341)</ref> Initially, with polls showing Eisenhower headed for a landslide re-election, few Democrats wanted the 1956 nomination, and Stevenson hoped that he could win the nomination without a serious contest, and without entering any presidential primaries.<ref>(McKeever, pp. 354–356)</ref> However, on September 24, 1955, Eisenhower suffered a serious heart attack. Although he recovered and eventually decided to run for a second term, concerns about his health led two prominent Democrats, Tennessee Senator [[Estes Kefauver]] and New York Governor [[W. Averell Harriman|Averell Harriman]], to decide to challenge Stevenson for the Democratic nomination.<ref>(McKeever, p. 356)</ref> After being told by his aides that he needed to enter and win several presidential primaries to defeat Kefauver and Harriman, Stevenson officially entered the race on November 16, 1955, and campaigned in the Minnesota, Florida, and California primaries.<ref name="White, p. 58">(White, p. 58)</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Stevenson Reveals Plan to Run for Presidency |work=The Daily Collegian |date=16 November 1955}}</ref> Stevenson was upset in the Minnesota primary by Kefauver, who successfully portrayed him as a "captive" of corrupt Chicago political bosses and "a corporation lawyer out of step with regular Democrats".<ref>(Baker, pp. 355–356)</ref> Stevenson next battled Kefauver in the Florida primary, where he agreed to debate Kefauver on radio and television.<ref name="McKeever, p. 374">(McKeever, p. 374)</ref> Stevenson later joked that in Florida he had appealed to the state's citrus farmers by "bitterly denouncing the Japanese beetle and fearlessly attacking the Mediterranean fruit fly".<ref name="McKeever, p. 374"/> He narrowly defeated Kefauver in Florida by 12,000 votes, and then won the California primary over Kefauver with 63% of the vote, effectively ending Kefauver's presidential bid.<ref name="McKeever, p. 374"/>

At the [[1956 Democratic National Convention]] in Chicago, former President [[Harry S. Truman|Truman]] endorsed Governor Harriman, to Stevenson's dismay, but the blow was softened by former [[First Lady|first lady]] [[Eleanor Roosevelt]]'s continued enthusiastic support.<ref>{{cite book|last=Caro|first=Robert|title=Master of the Senate|year=2002|publisher=Knopf|isbn=978-0-394-52836-6}}</ref> Stevenson easily defeated Harriman on the first ballot, winning his second Democratic presidential nomination.<ref name="McKeever, p. 376">(McKeever, p. 376)</ref> He was aided by strong support from younger delegates, who were said to form the core of the "[[New Politics (1950s)|New Politics]]" movement. In a bid to raise enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket, Stevenson made the unusual decision to leave the selection of his running mate up to the convention delegates.<ref name="McKeever, p. 376"/> This set off a frantic scramble among several prominent Democrats to win the vice-presidential nomination, including Kefauver, Senator [[Hubert Humphrey]], and Senator [[John F. Kennedy]]. After fending off a surprisingly strong challenge from Kennedy, Kefauver narrowly won the vice-presidential nomination on the second ballot.<ref name="McKeever, p. 377">(McKeever, p. 377)</ref> In his acceptance speech, Stevenson spoke of his plan for a "New America", which included extending New Deal programs to "areas of education, health, and poverty".<ref>(Baker, p. 362)</ref> He also criticized Republicans for trying to "merchandise candidates like breakfast cereal".<ref name="McKeever, p. 377"/>

Following his nomination, Stevenson waged a vigorous [[Political campaign|presidential campaign]], delivering 300 speeches and traveling {{convert|55000|mi|km}}; he crisscrossed the nation three times before the election in November.<ref name="Baker, p. 364">(Baker, p. 364)</ref> [[Robert F. Kennedy]] traveled with the Stevenson campaign, hoping to "take home some lessons on how to manage a presidential campaign".<ref name="Baker, p. 364"/> Kennedy was deeply disillusioned by Stevenson's campaign, later saying that "I thought it was ghastly. It was poorly organized...my feeling was that he had no rapport with his audience – no comprehension of what campaigning required, no ability to make decisions...In 1952 I had been crazy about him...Then I spent six weeks with him on the campaign and he destroyed it all." Kennedy voted for Eisenhower in November.<ref>(Baker, pp. 364–365)</ref> For their part, Stevenson and many of his aides resented Kennedy's attitude during his stay with the campaign; Stevenson friend and aide [[George W. Ball]] recalled "My impression was that Bobby was a very surly and arrogant young man...he wasn't doing any good for Adlai. I don't know why we had him along."<ref>(Strober, p. 93)</ref> The tension that developed between Stevenson and Robert Kennedy would have significant consequences for the 1960 presidential campaign, and for Stevenson's relationships with both John and Robert Kennedy during President Kennedy's administration.<ref>(Baker, p. 365)</ref>

Against the advice of many of his political advisers, Stevenson insisted on calling for an international ban to aboveground nuclear weapons tests, and for an end to the military draft.<ref>(McKeever, p. 380)</ref> Despite strong criticism from President Eisenhower and other leading Republicans, such as Vice President Nixon and former New York Governor Thomas Dewey, that his proposals were naïve and would benefit the Soviet Union in the [[Cold War]], Stevenson held his ground and said in various speeches that "Earth's atmosphere is contaminated from week to week by exploding hydrogen bombs...We don't want to live forever in the shadow of a radioactive mushroom cloud... [and] growing children are the principal potential sufferers" of increased [[strontium 90]] in the atmosphere.<ref>(Baker, p. 373)</ref> In the end, Stevenson's push to ban atmospheric nuclear bomb tests "cost him dearly in votes," but "Adlai finally won the verdict," as Eisenhower suspended above-ground nuclear tests in 1958, President Kennedy would sign the [[Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty]] into law in 1963, and President Nixon would end the military draft in 1973.<ref>(McKeever, pp. 380–383)</ref>

Civil rights was emerging rapidly as a major political issue. Stevenson urged caution and warned against aggressive enforcement of the Supreme Court's decision in ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' in order to gain Southern white support. Kotlowski writes:
{{blockquote|Liberal Democrats, too, flinched before Brown. Adlai E. Stevenson, front-runner for the party's presidential nomination in 1956, urged the government to "proceed gradually" on school desegregation in deference to the South's long-held "traditions". Stevenson backed integration but opposed using armed personnel to enforce Brown.... It certainly helped. Stevenson carried most of Dixie in the fall campaign but received just 61 percent of the black vote, low for a Democrat, and lost the election to Eisenhower by a landslide.<ref>
Dean Kotlowski, "With All Deliberate Delay: Kennedy, Johnson, and School Desegregation," ''Journal of Policy History'' (2005) 17#2 pp 155–192 quote at p.&nbsp;159 [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_policy_history/v017/17.2kotlowski.html online at Project MUSE]</ref>}}

Stevenson's views on racial progress were described after his death by his long-time companion [[Marietta Tree]] as: "He thought of all Negroes as being loveable old family retainers and not as individuals like you and me who were longing to get educated and who had aspirations and dreams just like the rest of us. I think this took him a long time to get over--the fact that they really indeed not only were created equal; they wanted equality of opportunity and wanted it now. It was hard for him to understand the urgency."<ref>Adlai E. Stevenson Project, "Marietta Tree," Oral History Research Office, Columbia University, 1968, 92-93.</ref>

While President Eisenhower suffered heart problems, the economy enjoyed robust health. Stevenson's hopes for victory were dashed when, in October, Eisenhower's doctors gave him a clean bill of health and the [[Suez crisis|Suez]] and [[Revolution in Hungary (1956)|Hungary]] crises erupted simultaneously. The public was not convinced that a change in leadership was needed. Stevenson lost his second bid for the presidency by a landslide, winning only 42% of the popular vote and 73 [[United States Electoral College|electoral votes]] from just seven states, all except [[Missouri]] in the solid Democratic South.

Early in 1957, Stevenson resumed [[practice of law|law practice]] and allied himself with Judge [[Simon H. Rifkind]] to create a law firm based in Washington, DC. (Stevenson, Paul, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison), and a second firm in Chicago (Stevenson, Rifkind & Wirtz). Both law firms were related to New York City's [[Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison]]. Stevenson's associates in the new law firm included [[Willard Wirtz]], [[William McCormick Blair Jr.]], and [[Newton N. Minow]]; each of these men later served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He also accepted an appointment, along with other prominent Democrats, to the new Democratic Advisory Council, which "pursued an aggressive line in attacking the [Republican] Eisenhower administration and in developing new Democratic policies".<ref>(Schlesinger, pp. 9–10)</ref> He was also employed [[Part-time job|part-time]] by the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' as a legal consultant.