This is CBSi and the world. I'm John Bachelor. The historian Nick Bonker in the Shadow of Fear, America in the World in 1950.

We've met the Democrats in charge of Congress and the executive.

Now we need to meet the Republicans.

Bob Taft, Mr. Conservative, the son of a president, a man who dominates Ohio except for he's

running for re-election. He's bald, he's energetic,

he's extremely exciting because he comes up with arguments that are intellectual at the same

time populist.

And he drives his own car around Ohio.

However, there's much more to Bob Taft

than just talking about Ohio.

There is his foreign policy visions. Nick, Bob Taft, surprising

to learn, was pro-Taiwan, was very much a man who was thinking about the world outside of the Middle West,

which is where the Republicans were strong at this moment.

He has ambitions. First he wants to get reelected in 1950.

Is he thinking about himself as president at this time?

Oh yes, I think he was definitely thinking about himself as the presidential candidate for 52.

And I think generally speaking, most commentators at the time

thought there was going to be a choice between Dwight D Eisenhower or Taft

as the candidate in 1952.

That was really a very common view. Now Taft was very interesting character.

It's really rather unfair that of course he's rather been forgotten and neglected nowadays.

The reason really being simply that he died quite young. He died of pancreatic cancer

...