Adlai Stevenson II (5 February 1900 – 14 July 1965) was Governor of Illinois (D) from 10 January 1949 to 12 January 1953, succeeding Dwight H. Green and preceding William Stratton, as well as ambassador to the United Nations from January 1961 to 14 July 1965. Stevenson was the Democrats' nominee for president in 1952, but he was defeated by US Republican Party candidate and World War II hero Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Biography[]
Adlai Stevenson was born in Los Angeles, California on 5 February 1900, the grandson of Vice President Adlai Stevenson I and the son of Illinois Secretary of State Lewis Stevenson. Stevenson was raised in Bloomington, Illinois, and he became the manager of a school newspaper at Princeton University. In 1922, he received a bachelor of arts degree in literature and history, and he became a lawyer. In December 1933, he became chief attorney for the Federal Alcohol Control Commission as a member of the US Democratic Party's conservative wing, and he would raise public support for entering World War II alongside the Allied Powers during the early 1940s.
Politician[]
Stevenson's campaign button, 1952
In 1948, Stevenson became the Democratic nominee for Governor of Illinois, and he defeated US Republican Party nominee Dwight H. Green to become Governor on 10 January 1949. Stevenson vetoed the passage of a law that would force suspected communist traitors to sign a pledge of loyalty to the United States on the basis of ridiculousness, as he stated that traitors would not hesitate to sign an oath of loyalty to deceive everyone. Stevenson became a famous public speaker with a popular, self-deprecating sense of humor, and President Harry S. Truman encouraged Stevenson to run for President of the United States in 1952 when Truman decided not to seek re-election. Unfortunately, he ran against the popular war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower, who won the presidency with 55% of the popular vote and 442 electoral votes. In 1956, he again ran for President, but he again lost to Eisenhower, who won 457 electoral votes and 57.4% of the popular vote. In 1960, John F. Kennedy beat him in the presidential primaries, but he nominated Stevenson as ambassador to the United Nations in 1961. Stevenson became famous for an incident in the United Nations in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when he asked the Soviet ambassador if the USSR was installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. Stevenson told him, "Don't wait for the translation, answer 'yes' or 'no'!". The ambassador told him that he was not in a court of law, and he told him that he would have his answer in due course; Stevenson retorted, "I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over." He died of heart failure in Switzerland in July 1965 while still in office.
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