Dark Horse: A Biography of Wendell Willkie

by Steve Neal

Book Overview

Wendell Willkie never held a public office, yet he nearly became president of the United States. A registered Democrat until the fall of 1939, he captured the Republican party's nomination less than a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385184395
• ISBN13: 9780385184397
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 371 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Read this after The Forgotten Man

This is the third book I have read about Wendell Willkie since I read Amity Schlaes' history of the Great Depression, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. She describes the battle between Willkie and Roosevelt as the former tried to defend private enterprise from the New Dealers who were determined to nationalize the electric power industry. I highly recommend her book but it got me reading about Willkie. I remember my father telling me about the 1940 election. Most people who know anything about it, remember that Roosevelt won by a large majority (449 to 82) in the electoral college. What they do not realize is that it was much closer and a change of 600,000 votes could have shifted enough states to Willkie for him to win. The Republican Party of 1940 was not quite a bad as it is shown in a recent novel, The Plot Against America, suggesting that Charles Lindberg could have been the nominee. Still, it was adamantly isolationist. Willkie was a wealthy lawyer and CEO of an electric utility who decided to run for president in spite of never having held public office. This biography describes, not only his run for the presidency, but his life and, tragically, the promise of his future had he lived. After the 1940 election, Roosevelt asked him to embark on several exhaustive and dangerous world tours to gather information. He traveled around the world meeting Stalin, the Shah of Iran, General Montgomery in Egypt and even Chaing Kai Shek. His travels and the sessions he held with these leaders resemble the travels of Herman Wouk's hero of the The Winds of War novels. I wonder now if Wouk might have used Willkie's experiences and his book, One World , as his source. This biography is extremely well done and is part of a study of the history of the United States in The Great Depression and World War II. Willkie was rejected by the isolationists of the Republican Party in 1944 and, incredibly, Roosevelt even considered asking him to run with him as his Vice-Presidential nominee. Willkie declined and, as it happened, he died before the election. Had Willkie lived, there is no limit to what might have followed. Tragically, Willkie died before the 1944 election so the might-have-beens are idle to speculate about. If you are a student of American history and want to know more about the Depression and the Second World War, this book is almost indispensable. Willkie is almost unknown today but was a major figure and could have been a great president.

Masterful Biography of a Forgotten Political Hero

This was simply one of the finest political biographies I have ever read. 'Dark Horse' stands out for two reasons: 1) it has a fast-paced and lucid narrative that reads almost like a novel and 2) it brings Willkie and his times to vivid life. It is rare for a political biography to be fully engaging throughout. However, 'Dark Horse' is one of those rare biographies. This book is truly a tour de force of political biography. And, it a fitting testament to a true American hero who awakened a nation to the dangers of Hitler at one of history's most perilous hours. Highly recommended for all.

More than an Also-Ran

American history has produced a number of colorful and intriguing individuals who have lost the presidential election. Wendell Willkie, while possessing much of the intellectual gravity of a Stevenson and the charisma of a Goldwater or LaFollete, differs from them in at least one crucial respect: he was not a professional politician and in fact never held any elected office, only running for the same when he ran for President in 1940 and briefly again in 1944.Willkie's politics also do not fit the mold, as he was far from a traditional party standard bearer, but rather advocated "liberal" policies at odds with the conservative hidebounds views of the Republicans, particularly during the era preceding the Second World War, that great conflict being what propelled Willkie into his unique place in American history.Willkie came from modest roots in the midwest, his father being a small town lawyer in Elwood, Indiana to where he returned to officially kick off his presidential campaign in 1940 in a scene straight out of Norman Rockwell. Willkie's politics were those of a liberal Woodrow Wilson democrat without the racism of the former, but as a corporate lawyer, first in Akron and then in New York, he took on what he saw as the excesses of the New Deal in regulating business. This activity, particularly his attempts to reign in the Tennesee Valley Authority resulted in his being made president of the utilities giant, Commonwealth & Southern, resulting in his becoming a national public figure.The growing clouds of war caused great concern to Willkie who felt that America must not abandon Europe and Britain to Nazi Germany. It was in that context that he entered the 1940 Republican presidential nomination contest after switching parties the year before in which he remained a distant contender until a few weeks before the convention. The turn around in Willkie's prospects occurred as a result of the Fall of France in June 1940 on the eve of the convention which caused many people to be deeply concerned about the prospect of the nomination and possible election of one of the hidebound isolationists that were leading the pack at the time. As a result and with the help of a large grass roots organization and the support of Henry Luce and his publishing empire, Willkie was able to wrest the nomination from Taft and Dewey after the convention became deadlocked even though he had not run in any primaries.Willkie ran an aggressive and flamboyant campaign emphasizing the need to aid the besieged Allies and expressing concern over the prospect of FDR or any president being elected to a third term. The similarity in views with Roosevelt not only on the war but on much of the New Deal, caused a blurring of the differences between the two candidates to Willkie's detriment, nothwithstanding the impressively spirited nature of his campaign. After the campaign, he was tapped by Roosevelt to go on two factfinding trips, the first to Britain during the Blitz i