The Political Perils of Cold War Foreign Relations: Adlai Stevenson’s Democrats and Foreign Policy in the 1956 Presidential Election

This analysis uses the case of the 1956 American presidential election between Adlai Stevenson and Dwight Eisenhower to highlight the ways that an obsession with foreign relations could prove problematic to a campaign. Focusing primarily on Stevenson’s advisors, long-standing problems in the Democrats’ strategy on foreign relations, coupled with the emotional attachments that several key advisors had to the issue, combined to ensure that the Democrats failed to develop an effective foreign policy platform—particularly when running against a president believed to be so successful in that arena. Ultimately, it argues that the Stevenson campaign’s failure to forge an effective position highlights the problematic relationship between domestic policies and foreign relations.