This is John Batcher, conversation with the author Nick Bonker, his new book in the Shadow of Fear.

In this section, Nick tells us what we need to know about Bob Taft, the reigning Republican of the moment from Pearl Harbor until the depths

of the Cold War. Taft died young. He was always seen as a presidential candidate, the son of a president, from Ohio.

He took positions during the build-up to the Second War that were not especially wise saying that Japanese would not attack.

So after the war, in the period we went from being allies with the Soviet Union to being

adversaries with the Soviet Union, Taft was keen on his foreign

policy credentials.

He was a hard worker.

As Nick explains, he had everything needed to be president of the United States.

The one thing in his way was a man named Eisenhower.

Here's Nick Bunker and Robert Taft, Mr. Republican,

from the end of the second war, the beginning of the second war, the end of the

second war to the Cold War started testing atomic bombs including the Soviet

test.

More of this later.

Nick Bonker.

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 just a few years after the events were describing here.

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