Drew Pearson

Drew Pearson is presented as a powerful and fallible Washington commentator whose columns and broadcasts could intensify political pressure, but whose judgments were also challenged by events. His role in the book pivots from misreading Harry S. Truman’s electoral prospects to campaigning against James V. Forrestal, then defending his account of the pressures surrounding Forrestal’s resignation and death. Across these episodes, Pearson’s public influence repeatedly collides with Truman’s insistence that the president, not the press, decides who serves in the Cabinet.

The election and a mistaken forecast

Pearson had been among the journalists most plainly mistaken about the outcome before November 2. After Truman’s unexpected victory, Pearson acknowledged the force of Truman’s refusal to accept defeat. The admission places Pearson among commentators compelled to reckon with a campaign that had outrun their expectations: the outcome was not only a political reversal, but evidence that voters could not be reliably classified by the polls.

Pearson’s response also registered a quality he believed had mattered to the public: courage in a candidate who kept fighting despite apparent defeat. His recognition came after the election, when the campaign’s result had made the limits of journalistic prediction unmistakable. The episode gives Pearson a dual place in the narrative—as a public interpreter of politics and as a commentator whose own interpretation had been overtaken by events.

The campaign against Forrestal

Pearson later became one of the leading press critics of Forrestal, alongside Walter Winchell. Their attacks had grown since Forrestal’s unpopular position on Palestine, and were especially painful for a defense secretary who had long cultivated relations with the press. Commentary portrayed him as serving Wall Street and oil interests, as an imperialist, and as anti-Semitic. Pearson and Winchell also sought to cast doubt on Forrestal’s personal courage, drawing on an account that he had fled through the back of his New York home when jewel thieves confronted his wife.

The press campaign extended beyond that story. In January, an NBC Radio guest alleged that the I.G. Farben works in Frankfurt had escaped wartime bombing because Forrestal owned shares in the company. The charge was false, and NBC later retracted it. The episode shows how criticism of Forrestal could move from dispute over policy to allegations about personal conduct and wartime decisions; Pearson’s role in the broader attacks made him part of a controversy whose claims did not all withstand scrutiny.

A public confrontation with Truman

Pearson’s criticism also reached Harry Vaughan, whom he attacked in February for accepting a decoration from Argentine dictator Juan Perón. The decoration had previously been received by several others, including Dwight D. Eisenhower and Omar N. Bradley, without drawing comparable comment. Pearson called for Vaughan’s dismissal, prompting Truman to condemn Pearson publicly. The rebuke provoked another storm of adverse comment, but Truman took satisfaction in asserting that decisions about Cabinet and staff appointments belonged to the president.

The confrontation reveals a conflict over who could exercise authority over the administration. Pearson used his columns and broadcasts to scrutinize officials and press for consequences; Truman rejected the idea that a commentator could determine when an appointee should leave. That opposition became particularly consequential in Forrestal’s case. As criticism intensified, Truman, who was reluctant to dismiss people, became more inclined to keep Forrestal in office rather than have him depart under public attack. Forrestal himself told a friend that Truman had treated him fairly and was a good employer, a judgment that complicates any simple picture of the press campaign as the only force shaping their relationship.

Forrestal’s departure and its contested aftermath

Forrestal told Truman in early February that he intended to resign and leave by June 1. Truman concluded that the departure would have to come sooner. On March 1, he summoned Forrestal to the White House to ask for his resignation and urged him to take a vacation, but did not raise the subject of medical care. After Forrestal’s death, Truman was angry and troubled, and blamed Pearson for hounding him. Pearson, in turn, wrote that Truman’s request for Forrestal’s resignation had worsened the illness. Another columnist argued that Forrestal had been undone not by work but by the President’s loss of confidence.

These competing claims leave Pearson within a larger dispute over responsibility, rather than establishing his account as settled fact. The book records criticism of his attacks and Truman’s accusation, while also showing Forrestal’s deteriorating health and the administration’s decision to remove him from office. Pearson’s contribution to the episode therefore has two sides: he helped amplify pressure on a vulnerable Cabinet secretary, and afterward he made a public claim about how Truman’s action affected Forrestal. The unresolved disagreement keeps the consequences of commentary, presidential authority, and personal accountability in view without reducing the tragedy to a single cause.