Adlai Stevenson II
A Man Ahead of His Time

Megan Looney
DeKalb High School, DeKalb

Adlai Stevenson II had been interested in politics from the time he was thirty years old. He held political offices from 1933, when he served on the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, until his death in 1965, when he was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Throughout his life and political career Stevenson always tried to make foreign policy a major focal point in U.S. politics. However, the public was seemingly not so interested in hearing Stevenson's foreign policy views. Stevenson was a man ahead of his time politically, especially when it came to foreign policy matters.

Adlai Stevenson II was born on February 5, 1900, in California, but he grew up in Bloomington, Illinois. He was influenced early in his life by his grandfather, Adlai Stevenson I, who had been a vice-president to President Grover Cleveland. Whenever Adlai visited with his grandfather, he talked with other politicians who were friends and neighbors of his grandfather about politics and foreign policy matters.

Stevenson attended Princeton University in 1918 and after his graduation in 1922, he went on, at his father's request, to Harvard Law School. After two years, he left Harvard because of failing grades. When he returned to Bloomington,

Adlai Stevenson II was born into a family of politicians. A presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956, Stevenson ended his career as the country's ambassador to the United Nations.

he began to work for the local newspaper, The Pantograph. His interests in politics began to surface when he became involved in local and state political campaigns. Stevenson's friends wanted him to run for office, but he declined and did not hold office until 1930 when he was elected to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. He held that office until 1941. The next political office that he would hold was that of governor of Illinois, when he was elected in 1948. Stevenson was approached in 1948 by Lou Kohn, a political friend. Kohn wanted Stevenson to run for a seat in the Illinois Senate. Stevenson, not wanting to run for any political office at that time, asked Herman Smith, a friend, to help "get Kohn off his back." Smith agreed but stated, "I am afraid I was not entirely helpful to Adlai, because within a month or so I agreed to head a Stevenson-for-Senate Committee." His campaign began, but the goal to which it was originally headed changed from a seat in the Senate to that of Illinois governor. Stevenson reluctantly agreed to run for governor. He was considered the underdog in the campaign race, but he overcame the odds and was elected.

During Adlai Stevenson's four-year term as governor (1949-1953), he naturally focused mainly on domestic issues. Stevenson, however, had always believed that foreign policy issues were very important, but his friends and advisors told him not to discuss them while he was in state office. Stevenson did anyway. He gave his most praised speech on foreign affairs while he was governor. In 1951 Stevenson addressed Northwestern University's convocation. In his speech, he talked about the fact that the main foreign problems regarded militarism. With World War II fresh in mind, Stevenson called for international cooperation:

Fortunately the great debate about foreign policy, which was mostly a debate about military strategy and foreign policy, appears to be about over. And, none too soon, it appears that we have about made up our mind to stop fighting each other, gather all the like-minded allies we can find and settle down seriously to the very serious business of getting stronger than the brigands that are preying on the world.

Stevenson frequently charged presidents and other politicians that their foreign policy seemed so low on their list of priorities. Stevenson believed that the United States needed to focus not only on domestic issues, but to start thinking more globally. In 1952, when he was nominated by the Democratic Party for president, he wanted to express his views on foreign policy matters but was advised against it. Advisors

ILLINOIS HISTORY / APRIL 1994

69

told Stevenson that if he spoke about foreign policy, the people of the United States would not listen to him. Stevenson spoke about foreign policy anyway.

Even though Stevenson lost the election, he did not suspend his foreign policy interest. Supporters soon started to back him again for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1956. In fact, they started the day after the 1952 election was over and once again, Stevenson was nominated by the Democratic Party. Again, he wanted to talk about foreign policy matters, and again he was advised not to do so because of the public's general lack of interest in foreign affairs. Stevenson continued to criticize President Eisenhower's views and his slow reactions on foreign policy.

After the election of 1956, Adlai Stevenson made his way out of the newspaper headlines and patiently waited until the presidential election campaign of 1960. During that period, Stevenson wrote, "Putting First Things First," for Foreign Affairs. Stevenson began his article by asserting that the world's weapons have forced the world farther apart:

All our talk .... in all the intricacies of our worldwide relations—has been to a depressing degree purely defensive. We have offered aid not to help others but to shield ourselves. We have reacted to countless Soviet initiatives; acted on our own initiative barely at all ....

I doubt if any society in history has faced so great a moral challenge as ours, or needed in history more desperately to draw on the deepest sources of courage and responsibility. Ours is the first human community in which resources are so abundant that almost no policies lie beyond our capacity for purely physical reasons. What we decide to do, we can do. Thus, perhaps for the first time in the world, choice, not means, ends, not instruments, are decisive.

At first, Stevenson was excited by the chance to be nominated for a third time, but the Democratic Party did not believe that Stevenson could win. Adlai Stevenson reluctantly let John F. Kennedy become the party's choice. He and Kennedy became close political friends. Kennedy frequently invited Stevenson to Washington, D.C., to consult him on foreign policy. After Kennedy was elected, he wanted Stevenson to be part of his administration. He offered Stevenson the post as ambassador to the United Nations. Stevenson at first did not want the assignment.

Stevenson, however, changed his mind and accepted the job. During President Kennedy's term, Stevenson advised Kennedy on foreign policy, and he constantly made recommendations about the United Nations' plans. Stevenson was the U.N. ambassador when he died unexpectedly in 1965.

Adlai Stevenson had tried, throughout his political career, to emphasize the importance of foreign policy to the United States. It was a matter of principle with him. It also seems Stevenson was ahead of his times.—[From Edward P. Doyle, As We Knew Adlai; Walter Johnson, The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson; John B. Martin, Adiai Stevenson and the World; John B. Martin, Adlai Stevenson of Illinois; Porter McKeever, Adlai Stevenson.]

70	ILLINOIS HISTORY / APRIL 1994