[EL] General Eisenhower's party affiliation and voter registration

Mon Oct 1 12:45:58 PDT 2012

Once this year’s election is over, I will make time to check the New York State archives.

Jerry H. Goldfeder
Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
212-806-5857   (office)
917-680-3132   (cell)
212-806-7857   (fax)
jgoldfeder at stroock.com
www.stroock.com/goldfeder

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Stebenne, David
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2012 3:30 PM
To: <richardwinger at yahoo.com>
Cc: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] General Eisenhower's party affiliation and voter registration

What we do know is that Ike thought of himself as a Republican by 1948 and voted for Dewey that year.

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 1, 2012, at 1:12 PM, "Richard Winger" <richardwinger at yahoo.com<mailto:richardwinger at yahoo.com>> wrote:
The archivists at the Eisenhower library are unable to determine if Dwight David Eisenhower was a registered independent voter when he was nominated for president in July 1952.  This question came up recently because of a Jerry Goldfeder trivia question of the day.  Professor Michael McDonald suggested I ask the Eisenhower library, and they tried.

Richard Winger
415-922-9779
PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147

--- On Mon, 10/1/12, Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com<mailto:richardwinger at yahoo.com>> wrote:

From: Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com<mailto:richardwinger at yahoo.com>>
Subject: Re: General Eisenhower's party affiliation and voter registration
To: "KevinM Bailey" <KevinM.Bailey at nara.gov<mailto:KevinM.Bailey at nara.gov>>
Cc: "Timothy Rives" <Timothy.Rives at nara.gov<mailto:Timothy.Rives at nara.gov>>
Date: Monday, October 1, 2012, 10:06 AM
Thank you very much for trying to find this.

In 20 states, there is no such thing as registering into a party.  The voter registration form doesn't ask that.  Of course in both New York and Kansas, the voter registration form does ask voters to choose a party.

So the fact that Eisenhower's name was on the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary ballot in 1952 is not evidence that he was a registered voter, or that he was a registered Republican voter.  States never inquire about how a presidential candidate is registered, when such presidential candidates file to be on a presidential primary ballot.  It wouldn't make sense, because the individual might be from a state like Texas in which the candidate is not registered into any party.

Richard Winger
415-922-9779
PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147

--- On Mon, 10/1/12, KevinM Bailey <KevinM.Bailey at nara.gov<mailto:KevinM.Bailey at nara.gov>> wrote:

From: KevinM Bailey <KevinM.Bailey at nara.gov<mailto:KevinM.Bailey at nara.gov>>
Subject: General Eisenhower's party affiliation and voter registration
To: richardwinger at yahoo.com<mailto:richardwinger at yahoo.com>
Cc: "Timothy Rives" <Timothy.Rives at nara.gov<mailto:Timothy.Rives at nara.gov>>
Date: Monday, October 1, 2012, 9:59 AM
Dear Mr. Winger,

I checked in the files we have on questions regarding General Eisenhower's voting record prior to 1952 and party affiliation and discovered that similar questions have surfaced before and the paper trail is often confusing and sometimes contradictory.

A previous search by one of our archivists in 1989 was unable to locate any concrete evidence that Eisenhower had voted at all in 1948 but Eisenhower, himself, told an oral history interviewer in 1967 that he " . . . started voting in 1948."

In the interview conducted by Ed Edwin for Columbia University, Eisenhower said that he was entered in the New Hampshire Primary of 1952 as a Republican due to pressure from Henry Cabot Lodge who had placed his name on the  ballot.   In short, he was apparently drafted.  In Eisenhower's words, ". . . So it wasn't until January 8, my hand was forced by Lodge, and I either had to repudiate him or I had to admit that I was a Republican, because he made his affidavit for entering my name in New Hampshire (primary).  So I was up against it.  So I said, "Well, it's true that I've always voted Republican and I'm a Republican"  --since I started voting in 1948."  [no further details on his voting record are described]

We have a copy of a 1952 document from the State of New York regarding Eisenhower's eligibility to vote in the 1952 election.  It deals with the years 1949-52.   It is addressed to New York State Republican Committee chairman William L. Pfeiffer from Louis J. Lefkowitz, an attorney and judge, (later New York State Attorney General for many years).  This document shows that Eisenhower did not declare any party affiliation in either 1949 or 1950 and did not register in 1951 when he was in Europe as NATO commander.  The Eisenhowers returned in the summer of 1952  to their home at 60 Morningside Drive, New York City, the address they gave when they had first registered to vote in 1949.

The document continues:  "Under the provisions of Section 150 of the Election Law of the State of New York, hereinafter quoted, applicant is a qualified voter and eligible to register and vote in the year 1952 from his residence at 60 Morningside Drive, New York City."   [nothing is said about party affiliation]

Eisenhower had first registered to vote in New York on October 15, 1949 and the records showed that he was a ". . . first voter.  Last registration, Kansas - by absentee ballot".  The document states, "The applicant voted in person at the general election in 1949."  The entry in the voter registration file in 1949 indicates that Eisenhower had previously been a registered voter in the State of Kansas.  However, a copy of a 1951 letter from C. F. Moore, the County Clerk for Dickinson County, Kansas (Ike's hometown of Abilene is the county seat) states that he had no recollection of Eisenhower having ever voted from 1928 up to 1951 and the Dickinson County voter registration records have not survived.

How and when he becomes identified as a bona fide registered Republican is not altogether clear nor easy to sort out.

In his recent biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Eisenhower In War and Peace", author Jean Edward Smith describes, on page 509, the emergence of the General's identity as a Republican in 1952.  Smith writes a couple of pages earlier (p. 507) that Eisenhower had voted for Thomas Dewey in 1948 but I did not find a footnote indicating his source for that statement.  The oral history interview referred to above quotes Eisenhower as saying only that he voted in 1948 and "I've always voted Republican".  So voting for Gov. Dewey may be assumed but it is only that with no evident substantiation that we can locate or provide.

A footnote on pg 800 of NATO And The Campaign Of 1952,  Vol XII, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower describes how Gov. Thomas Dewey, Henry Cabot Lodge and Gen. Lucius Clay planned to orchestrate getting Eisenhower
on the New Hampshire primary ballot as a Republican.   [see the previous quote from Eisenhower's oral history interview by Ed Edwin]

All we have that we can verify is that he is listed as a Republican for the New Hampshire primary in 1952 with information from assorted background sources on how that came to be and we have no documentation nor date in our files on the actual written declaration of his party affiliation and registration in the State of New York as of July 10, 1952 other than he is eligible to vote in the 1952 election according to the Lefkowitz-Pfeiffer document.

Sincerely,

Kevin M. Bailey
Archivist
Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
200 SE 4th St.
Abilene, KS  67410
(785) 263-6735

KevinM.Bailey at nara.gov

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