Originally Posted by
Indoor66
I'll take issue with your last three.
1. Kennedy had been a Lt. in the navy in WWII, a congressman and a junior Senator from Mass prior to his run. No executive or foreign relations experience.
2. Eisenhower had been one of about 5 ever Generals of the Army (5 Stars) and had been Supreme Allied Commander for the European Theater in WWII and had interacted with all the Political leaders of the era. That seems to me to be extensive administrative, executive and foreign policy experience.
3. Truman had been a back bench Senator from Missouri prior to being selected as Roosevelt's VP running mate for 1944 when the Dem party became disenchanted with Henry Wallace and decided to replace him. He had no executive or relevant foreign policy experience.
IMHO, where the H got lost in Hawaii after WW II, Kennedy had a lot of international experience -- not only his wartime service overseas, but his international travels as a young congressman, where he would request to meet with independence groups on his visits to colonies, and his service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
You are right that Henry Wallace lost support among many in the Democratic Party during his time as VP. Truman was best known for the "Truman Committee" to investigate corruption and inefficiency among contractors. From the US Senate web site:
No senator ever gained greater political benefits from chairing a special investigating committee than did Missouri's Harry S. Truman.
In 1940, as World War II tightened its grip on Europe, Congress prepared for eventual U.S. involvement by appropriating $10 billion in defense contracts. Early in 1941, stories of widespread contractor mismanagement reached Senator Truman. In typical fashion, he decided to go take a look. During his 10,000-mile tour of military bases, he discovered that contractors were being paid a fixed profit no matter how inefficient their operations proved to be. He also found that a handful of corporations headquartered in the East were receiving a disproportionately greater share of the contracts.
Convinced that waste and corruption were strangling the nation's efforts to mobilize itself for the war in Europe, Truman conceived the idea for a special Senate Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program.
Sage Grouse
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