Harold Stassen (1907–2001) is perhaps most famous for running for president of the United States twelve times. At the age of thirty-one, Stassen garnered early accolades as the “boy wonder” governor of Minnesota. Soon thereafter he assumed a national role as aide to Admiral Halsey during World War II and as US delegate to the 1945 international conference on the United Nations Charter. When Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president in 1952, Stassen was named director of the Mutual Security Agency and later became the president’s special assistant for disarmament. Stassen came to Washington ad ... More

Harold Stassen (1907–2001) is perhaps most famous for running for president of the United States twelve times. At the age of thirty-one, Stassen garnered early accolades as the “boy wonder” governor of Minnesota. Soon thereafter he assumed a national role as aide to Admiral Halsey during World War II and as US delegate to the 1945 international conference on the United Nations Charter. When Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president in 1952, Stassen was named director of the Mutual Security Agency and later became the president’s special assistant for disarmament. Stassen came to Washington advocating the total elimination of nuclear weapons, but he quickly recognized that this would never happen. He refocused his efforts, working for greater international transparency and communication. The liberal internationalism Stassen espoused became embedded in Cold War policy for decades. He consistently provided a voice for peace in an increasingly hawkish national security establishment. Stassen, in many ways, was his own worst enemy; his ambition and ego undermined his efforts and clouded his vision. His feuds with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles were legendary, and while Dulles often prevailed in the meeting room, Stassen’s vision of nuclear restraint was one that Eisenhower shared.