THE LAST CAMPAIGN: How Harry Truman Won The 1948 Election.

• Author: Duke, Paul
• Position: Review

THE LAST CAMPAIGN: How Harry Truman Won The 1948 Election by Zachary Karabell Knopf, $27.50

WHEN I ARRIVED IN WASHINGTON as a young reporter in 1957, Harry Truman was the country's most reviled political figure. Democrats barely acknowledged him as one of their own and Republicans scorned his presidency as a mishmash of bumbling, scandals, and wrongheaded politics.

Indeed, it would be another decade before this dreary cacophony would start to subside and Truman would begin his rise into the pantheon of illustrious presidents. Historians gradually shifted to the positive, as Truman was recognized for his towering role in confronting communism and in preserving the New Deal. Today he is routinely reckoned among the top ten presidents.

Harry Truman never catered to the popular view if he thought it was wrong. This proclivity repeatedly landed him in hot water in the early years after he succeeded FDR. It was the tumultuous postwar period when the country was making the painful adjustment to a peacetime economy. Not only was the White House frequently embroiled in political warfare with the Republican-controlled 80th Congress, but it also had to cope with labor conflicts and shortages of consumer goods. Truman bore the brunt of the blame, and by 1948, his popularity had sagged to 35 percent. Almost everyone echoed the gibe of one prominent Republican, Clare Booth Luce, that Truman was "a gone goose" in the upcoming election.

It was taken for granted that the more polished and debonair GOP nominee, New York Gov. Thomas Dewey, would be an easy winner. In fact, long before the 1948 Democratic convention in Philadelphia, there were rebellious calls for another candidate: The New Republic screamed across its April 5 cover "Truman Should Quit." Although FDR had personally tapped Truman as his vice president in 1944, the entire Roosevelt clan felt he was an unworthy heir and should be dumped. James Roosevelt, one of FDR's sons, energetically promoted a Good-Bye Harry movement aimed at drafting Dwight Eisenhower.

Truman would not be swayed. He persevered and won the nomination for a full term at a chaotic but gloomy convention. For one brief shining moment, the delegates came alive when Truman gave a rousing give-'em-hell acceptance speech ripping into Congress for disregarding the country's social ills. It was a clear signal that he would not go down without a fight, revealing a gritty side to his character that had largely gone unnoticed but would...