Abstract
Ellsworth Barnard wrote the first scholarly biography of Indiana native Wendell L. Willkie. In his book Wendell Willkie: Fighter for Freedom (1966), Barnard cast doubt on an aspect of Willkie's life that subsequent biographers have accepted as fact: the 1940 Republican presidential nominee's affair with Irita Bradford Van Doren, book review editor of the New York Herald Tribune. Barnard portrayed the Willkie-Van Doren relationship as a friendship, which he discussed in less than a page. Yet he also penned an article-length, unpublished essay on the purported romance and his interpretation of it. Published here for the first time is that essay, with an introduction, notations, and commentary by political historian and biographer (of Indiana's Paul V. McNutt) Dean J. Kotlowski.
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