Well, actually, because it was one of the main things that got me writing the book. To have someone in 1984 say to his wife, "Whatever happens to me,...

I've corresponded with him, but we haven't met.

Well I think he was in college at Yale at about the time Adlai was politically active -- I think it was later, really, while he was at the U.N. -- and...

That I think of?

Well what I think of may be different than others, but to me he was someone who could be serious without being solemn. That he made important issues...

Well from the early days of the U.N. when he was in the Preparatory Commission in London and through two sessions of the General Assembly. And then...

Oh, yes.

Well, he was born in Bloomington, Illinois. He came out of a family with a long history of public affairs and public service. As a matter of fact, one...

That's his youngest son. That was one of his favorite pictures.

Than one was I think -- probably '49 -- '48 or '49.

That's alright. Ancestors are a little boring anyway, I think. But his father was very much involved in -- he was Secretary of State of Illinois. So...

He went to Princeton. F

Mainly the Princetonian. His main activity was working in the Princeton newspaper -- college paper. But he kept -- those days that were the F. Scott...

Oh, yes. Francis Plimpton one of the great lawyers who served as his deputy at the U.N. T.S. Matthews who was the managing editor of the Time for many...

Only once as governor in 1948.

Yes.

Four years and he wanted to serve another four years, but the nomination in '52 came to him quite unusually, I think almost uniquely in our history,...

Oh, he tried to avoid it. And avoiding it is what led President Truman to call him indecisive. He wasn't indecisive. He was very decisive about not...

Yes.

Both times he ran against Eisenhower and nobody could defeat Eisenhower. And Adlai knew he couldn't defeat Eisenhower.

Oh badly. I've forgotten the figures but, oh, I think about 6 million in '52 and even somewhat more severely in '56. That election of '56, you recall,occurred...

He didn't, but he should have. He quite possibly could have been nominated if he had let people know he really wanted the nomination. But he -- that's...

'65. He died -- fell down of a massive heart attack in the streets of London and died instantly.

Well, he was appointed as a young man in the early days of the U.N. and he was chairman -- well, Stennis was appointed the chairman of our delegation...

It's a marvelous picture. Particularly that expression on both their faces.

With difficulty. Truman never could understand how a man would be reluctant to accept the nomination as Presidential candidate, and this lack of understanding...

Oh, he was a president of it, and it was actually his chairmanship and spokesmanship of the Council that brought him to national attention. Particularly...

Well, if people think that, I feel I've failed because what I tried very hard to do was as an old newspaper -- was just to tell the story. And I tried...

Not a great deal except I have great respect for him as a journalist. And I don't know why he came to that conclusion. I had a feeling he disliked Adlai...

Yes. Came to -- well I -- it's not fair to say Columbia University. The letterhead that offered me a scholarship said Columbia University in the city...

Then I came down to Washington and tramped the streets to find a job and luckily found one as a newspaper correspondent.

Newspapers in North and South Carolina for which I qualified by coming from South Dakota. The Southerners would ask: "Where you from and who you kin...

It was a very great piece of luck because the Raleigh News and Observer which I represented was owned by Josephus Daniels. Roosevelt had been his assistant...

After the war -- when we were setting up the U.N. in London '45. I'm terrible on dates.

Well actually I work -- I never really did work for him. During the '52 campaign that was the only time I was directly involved in working for him,...

In Pelham, New York ,just outside of the city.

About two and a half years ago. I spent about a year talking to people and reading. There's a great reservoir of material, and there had been a very...

Well the first three are our natural children and Choliong is a -- well, not technically, but actually, an adopted son.

That's of course my wife and partner.

Well he's one of those three. We have two sons, one daughter, and Jimmy -- we call him Jimmy Lin.

Oh he's all over the world. At the moment he's playing out at the Aspen Music Festival. But he's, oh, I think it's fair to say he's one of the top ten...

When he was 15.

Accidently. If we'd know what we were getting into, we'd never have done it. When our children started coming along, we would have a foreign student...

That was I think at the end of the '52 -- no '56 campaign. Yeah, after the '56 defeat.

Oh, yeah. Newt Minow who was Chairman of the Federal Communications Committee is the first one. He's now a leading lawyer in Chicago then there's Clinton...

In the Johnson Administration. Is that Mayor Lawrence of Philadelphia? I think so. Then Adlai. Then behind him is Wilson Wyatt who was Mayor of Louisville...

I think that's Finnigan isn't it? No, Matthew McClosky, who was one of the leading Pennsylvania politicians.

Bill Blair who was President of the Kennedy Center here until recently. Then Arthur Schleshinger, and then George Ball who was Undersecretary of State.

Oh ,very closely. Most of them -- of course McCloskey, Wyatt, and if that's Lawrence, they were all involved with him in his political life. The others...

It's a very sad story. Very sad story.

Ellen Bordon Stevenson. Her father was one of the richest men in Chicago. Her mother was one of the leading social queens of Chicago at that period....

That's his wife. You can see how lovely she was. She was a fine poet.

She divorced him in 1948. I don't like to get into the business of diagnosis but the more famous Adlai became and the more attention that was paid to...

That's Alicia Patterson, who was the founder with her husband Guggenheim was the founder and publisher of Newsday. And she was a niece of Colonel McCormick...

I think the only other serious one. Later on, he had a lot of good lady friends. But I think the only really serious ones were his wife and subsequently...

Sixteen years older.

It was a very intimate relationship. I think I refer to it as a almost a spiritual relationship. It was so intense and lovely and mutually rewarding....

Oh, he had a lot of good lady friends. Most of them were rich and most of them were married. Nearly all of them were married.

Yes, oh yes.

I wish I knew. It is a fact. I'm not sure why. As I talk to some of these ladies -- went back through the correspondence and so on -- I think one of...

Well, for a long time he never gave up being in love with Ellen, his wife. He really held on to that for a long time. I think the only other person...

Well, he never that I know of was as overt in suggesting she get a divorce as you've just suggested, but clearly, the correspondence indicates a very...

Let's see. When was Kennedy assassinated?

This was a month before Kennedy was assassinated.

Her tongue is sticking out.

This is in Dallas a month before the President was assassinated.

Well because they were in the middle of a convention there of extreme right people who wanted to get the United States out of the U.N. General Walker...

Because he said the mood in Dallas was so ugly and the hate was so evident and so palpable, he worried about it, and when news came to him that the...

Well, it means a lot to me. I can tell you that because I sent the advance galleys of the book to Mac not expecting an endorsement. I sent it to him...

Isn't that marvelous? I was just so moved by it. And actually Mac had written years ago when he was a professor up at Harvard a biography of Henry Stimpson....

Well, he was guilty of that, if that's guilt. I think one of the chapters is titled something like "This Will Lose You Votes." And I got that from John...

Oh, yes. I think that he never got credit for it, but most of the legislative agenda, particularly in the social field, of both Kennedy and Johnson...

They traveled a lot. It was a family -- the family owned the biggest newspaper in southern Illinois, and they were not rich, but reasonably well off,...

Yes.

I think he'd be sorry that we haven't gotten further with it. He probably was ahead of his time. Well, he was ahead of his time. He had a profound belief...

That I don't like?

Well, as an American I feel very keenly that we have not consistently been vigorous in our leadership there. I think we, even during the Truman administration,...

Yeah.

He was Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs. There were some giants. You know Vandenburgh.

Here's Vandenburgh, Stennis -- Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The delegation to the San Francisco Conference and actually our delegations...

Adlai described himself during that period as the official leak of the delegation. There were so many prominent political figures there that both Republics...

Third.

I think he had his father's luck. The first time he ran I think he lost by about 4,000 votes. So he decided that he'd run this next time around. But...

Very good. And it got closer as the years went on because Ellen in her paranoia could not -- there was just no way that Adlai could be in touch with...

Eunice Shriver.

A Kennedy Shriver, yeah. She was Eunice Kennedy in this photography.

Dorothy Fausdick and Ernest Ives, who was his brother-in-law, and Bill Blairs whom we identified earlier.

Yes. He became Ambassador of the Philippines and Denmark and then head of the Kennedy Center.

Of course my wife and I are in there too.

The lady in front. The short lady.

Well, she was very influential in the U.S. delegation and in the whole -- from Dumbarton Oaks on and the whole creation of the U.N. She was a very important...

Well, we all wound up down in Springfield on a weekend. Adlai was, I thought at the time -- actually she and Bill Blair were good friends, but very...

Yes, he was the operating head of the Merchandise Mart.

That's his mother. A very strong domineering woman, and a protective mother. That was again one of his struggles in life was to get out from under the...

By smothering him. She even went to -- she would -- when they would go away to camp in the summertime she'd get a hotel very nearby and even when he...

That's his father and Adlai -- the little one there is Adlai, and the other one is his sister Buffy who's still alive.

Less so. They had a a good relationship when he was Secretary of State and just before that. They traveled a lot together around Illinois particularly...

Which one are you ...

Oh, that's the Pulitzer-Prize-winning photograph of Adlai with a hole in his shoe, and it tells you an awful lot about Adlai because he was a terrific...

That's right.

This was during the '52 campaign. As you see also, he was writing his speech while he was being introduced, which is part of his pattern. But it really...

Yes, he was then Governor of Michigan and later Assistant Secretary of State for Africa and the Middle East.

No. He was careful of it because I think it was drilled into him as a child. One of his grandparents kept -- like the elder Rockefeller kept -- an account...

Well, I feel badly about the first one. That's Marietta Tree. She's far more beautiful that that picture suggests. And the other is Jane Dick, Mrs....

Yes, both Dicks and Marietta, still very much alive.

Well he he began to consort with royalty quite actively after the '52 campaign. And he was welcomed in almost every palace, or as the picture above...

That's right.

No, but he was visiting a friend who took him to the race track, and when the Queen heard he was there, she invited him to come and join her in her...

Why? I think because he was annoyed at Adlai from the '52 campaign because Adlai felt he had to disassociate that '52 campaign from the record of the...

That's Adlai the Third and his wife, and that was taken at their wedding which was not quite as happy as that picture suggests. Ellen came to that wedding...

That's right.

I think it was part of her mental illness. Well, it clearly was part of her mental illness. This paranoia showed up by her saying that the politicians...

Then he's writing his concession of defeat and telegram to President Eisenhower at the end of the '56 campaign.

Yes.

Why couldn't he beat him?

Oh Eisenhower was as great a national hero as we've probably had since General Grant at the end of the Civil War.

Yes.

Oh, yes he did. Now there's very little record to establish that statement, because once you're nominated you're job is to keep up the moral of your...

Well, it was interesting. Five publishers were interested in this book, which astonished me. Two of the offers were the same, and I actually went to...

They gave me an advance of $35,000.

I feel it's a success just to get it done. I don't know. For me it'll be a success if it attracts the attention of at least a few people in -- younger...

No. This has come along after the publication. I'm not doing a lot of it. I'd love to do more cause I want to get out and try to let young people know...

Well, usually most of the programmers and stations are in their late 20s, early 30s, as you know, and often the reaction is: "Adlai -- who?" On the...

Yes. Because I was told otherwise.

Oh, heavens no.

I didn't even think about the money side of it. I was doing it because I thought the time needed for the ideas and what Adlai represented. I really...

That public life can bring out the best as well as the worst in our society, and that it's important for the best to win. That losing an election is...

Oh, fantastic. Yes. He would be writing a speech in middle of profound hubbub. I used to go back to my very early days as a newspaper when you'd have...

Oh, yes. Now he was insatiable in reaching out to people for ideas and phrases and you could give him what you thought was a finished draft and he would...

The first one?

The picture was taken by his son.

And we have another picture here -- looks like it has some signatures on it. Where did you get all these pictures, by the way?

Is he in this picture?

Who else is in it?

Down here?

What was their relationship?

Why didn't his brother like him? You're talking about Robert?

Why did he fail to nominate him?

Do you think the criticism that has been leveled at you or this book about Adlai being indecisive -- and I've seen many reviews go back to it time and...

What do you think Adlai Stevenson would think of this period we're going through right now with ethics?

Here's a photograph and we'll see it here in just a second of Uthant, the former Secretary General of the U.N, Lyndon Johnson, Adlai Stevenson, Mrs....

What would Adlai Stevenson or what did Adlai Stevenson think of our policy in Vietnam in 1963 and '4 and '5?

It's in the book stores and it sells for $25.00, if you pay full price.

And the name of this book is: "Adlai Stevenson: His Life and His Legacy," by Porter McKeever. Mr. McKeever, thank you very much for your time.