Washington, D.C.

January 23, 1952

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At a press junket held in the atrium of the Senate Office Building at the corner of Constitution and Delaware Avenues, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver called together the press for an important announcement.

Standing before a podium, the bespectacled Democratic Senator, joined on the dais by his wife Nancy, spoke with his distinct drawl: "I have invited you here today because I am announcing that I intend to seek the Democratic nomination for President of the United States."

The Presidential election thus began. Senator Kefauver had established a reputation in Washington and, indeed, a national profile as a campaigner against organized crime and corruption. His Senate committee implicated several Democratic Party leaders and their machines, a move that has reportedly made him none too popular in Washington. Reportedly, former President Harry S. Truman referred to him as a "son of a bitch."

Other politicians began to declare their candidacy shortly thereafter: Senator Richard Russell of Georgia would be among the most notable, but joining him were Mr. W. Averell Harriman of New York, Senator Robert S. Kerr of Oklahoma, and Governor Paul Dever of Massachusetts. Endorsements immediately rang out as well, none quite so loud as former President Truman's endorsement of Mr. Harriman.

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Conventional wisdom would dictate that the sitting President would glide to an easy re-nomination, but it seemed that President Dewey would receive at least one influential challenger: Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio.

Senator Taft is well-known to be an antagonist of President Dewey's, a status retained since the fractious 1948 Republican primary and his defeat in Philadelphia at the Convention. Senator Taft has, however, polled surprisingly strongly relative to the President. In a Gallup poll released in December of 1951, Senator Taft polled 32% to the President's 35%, with the remainder of the vote distributed among numerous proposed candidates-- General Dwight D. Eisenhower chief among them, but former Governor Harold Stassen, Governor Alfred E. Driscoll of New Jersey, and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts shaved off more of the vote.

President Dewey refrained from comment on this primary challenge, his campaign instead issuing a canned statement expressing "firm belief that no election in the United States should be run unopposed."