When the New York Times Liked Ike: The Newspaper’s Controversial Presidential Endorsements of 1952 and 1956

Abstract

The New York Times has only endorsed presidential candidates during party primaries—interfering in intra-party politics—twice in its history: once, in January 2016, coming out for John Kasich for the nomination that would go to Donald Trump, and the other, in January 1952, endorsing Dwight Eisenhower over his main Republican rival, Robert Taft. Understanding the exceptionalism of the 1952 election sheds light on the unusually close relationships between top members of the New York Times and the military, as well as reveals tensions within the Times over editorial decisions that the news team feared undermined its coverage. This paper uses archival collections of the New York Times—in addition to papers from several other personal and institutional archival collections—to demonstrate how important decisions were made, as well as contested, on the ground.