Harold E. Stassen

In 1938 Harold E. Stassen was elected governor of Minnesota at age 31. He went on to a distinguished career as a key political figure of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. In 1943 he resigned as governor to enter the United States Navy at the height of World War II. In the postwar years he participated in writing the charter of the United Nations, and later served as a key diplomat in the Eisenhower administration, very nearly achieving a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union. He is perhaps most famously known as being a perennial candidate for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States, seeking it 10 times between 1944 and 1992 (1944, 1948, 1952, 1964, 1968, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988 and 1992), but never winning it. This book covers all these activities.