Abstract
General and popular accounts of the presidential election of 1948 invariably emphasize the importance of domestic issues and pass over the issues of foreign policy. In the course of graduate research in contemporary American history, I found this paradox to be especially interesting. How might a nation so conclusively assume its complete role in world leadership, facilitate an international policy for world order, function through the monstrous uncertainties of the cold war, and so clearly determine its national leadership on the basis of domestic policy? Hence, the inception of a thesis. | This work endeavors to highlight those issues in foreign relations which predominated in the campaign from January 1948 until the day of the election. It explores the reactions of the Truman administration to the many international crises and to the pressure of American politics. The candidates of the opposing parties, their platforms and their campaign speeches are analyzed to determine the extent to which the issues of foreign policy were bipartisan or partisan. Public opinion polls are used in the hope of revealing some insight into the relationship of public opinion to foreign policy, finally, this work does not pretend to cover the subject and, in some instances, presents extended coverage to those issues not as thoroughly explored in other accounts.