7: Truman Likes Ike

Upon returning to the U.S. in the summer of 1948, former Ambassador William Douglas Pawley immersed himself in President Truman’s re-election, meeting off-the-record with the President on July 6th. In attendance were several cabinet members including Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal and Attorney General Tom C. Clark, who some two years later would be sitting as an Associate Justice serving on the United States Supreme Court when Annie Pawley’s case against William came before it.1

Truman was feeling out of place as President. Personally, he hoped that General Dwight D. Eisenhower, fresh off his victory in Europe, would run as a Democrat in 1948—with Truman stepping down to be his Vice President—but the General rebuffed the offer, and the reluctant Truman was compelled to run against New York’s popular Governor Thomas Dewey.3

That same day Pawley had written from his Belvoir farm address in Virginia to the Secretary State to let him know that while visiting Cuba in June he had spoken for an hour to Cuban President Carlos Prio Socarras who was “looking forward to an invitation to visit the United States in the immediate future." 

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