What was the effect on Trumans presidency of the Korean War?
RD: Heavy, heavy. Truman had to face the opposition to the war all the way through. It became an issue for the Republicans. It was very hard for Truman and it’s an example of Truman’s toughness that he lived through it, you know. I will tell you, one of the typical or the absurdities of some of this criticism, the New York general American, the Hurst… the Hurst general American in New York came out with a front page story, after the firing of MacArthur, saying that the President had acted under a [inaudible] oh my God… under a sort of neural anodyne when he fired MacArthur and Senator Joe McArthy said that Truman did it while he was under the influence of Bourbon and Benedictine and there’s no-one today who… yet who can imagine Truman drinking Benedictine. INT: That was the strength of the opposition? RD: [Laughs] INT: But in the presidential election of 1952, how effective was Eisenhower in making use of Truman’s unpopularity over the Korean War? RD: Whether there had been… it
