Headlines on the 2012 presidential election are already in focus, but a Scotia man’s book revisits the iconic and erroneous 1948 Chicago Daily Tribune headline, “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.”
Author David Pietrusza is looking back at how Harry Truman’s unlikely upset can change public perception on modern history.
Award-winning author Pietrusza, 62, will speak at the Mabee Farm Historic Site’s George E. Franchere Education Center on Sunday, March 18, at 3 p.m., about his book “1948: Harry Truman’s Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America.” Theprogram features Pietrusza sharing some of the backstage events resulting in Truman’s victory, which are detailed in his book published last October.
The event is also the first in a speaker series partnership between the Schenectady County Historical Society and Schenectady County Public Library.
Karen Bradley, reference and adult programming librarian for the County Library, said Pietrusza has extensive knowledge on presidential election history.
“He really has just a wide, varied background on things related to our presidents,” Bradley said. “I think this would have fairly broad appeal, particularly this year when we are in an election year.”
Bradley said many people probably remember the iconic photo of Truman holding up the earlier misprinted edition of the Tribune, which is the book’s cover, but Pietrusza can tell “the true story” behind it.
“It is a very interesting juncture in our history where the post-war world starts to take shape,” Pietrusza said. “You are also looking back a lot to see how things are going to shape up after the New Deal.”
Researching and writing about presidential elections has long interested Pietrusza.
“I guess I started this as a kid really. There were fewer presidential elections to cover then, but I was always fascinated,” he said. “The elections are the great milestones on how they get in. … They encapsulate these moments in time and they have the conflict and drama.”
Searching and going through archives of information is something he enjoyed about writing the book. He tries to pick out information other historians ignored, but still played key roles in the election outcome.
“There is a lot of stuff in the papers of that time that the historians tend to ignore,” he said. “There were some wonderful writers and columnists out there … they were very good at telling folks what was going on.”
Discovering odd, often unknown, stories also is interesting to him and he incorporates it into his book.
“You can sometimes drag in or revive the stories that were known then and tell something that people don’t know,” he said, “because if I am spending 400 pages telling you what you already know then I am wasting your time and my time.”
One odd story in the book is tied to Richard Nixon’s investigation into Alger Hiss, who Nixon believed had been Soviet spy. Nixon, as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee, uncovered incriminating documents on Hiss, leading to a perjury conviction.
Pietrusza also tells the story of a woman who was a tutor at a Russian embassy in New York who decided to escape.
“She tries to escape and runs away to a farm and Soviet agents grab her and bring her back,” he said, “and there are ordinary people that are just trying to get her free, just ordinary people trying to have a lawsuit to be able to go into the embassy … she hears about this on the radio and says ‘people care about me,’ … and she jumps out the third floor window onto the concrete to escape.”
The woman ultimately survived and Pietrusza said it shows the “human cost” of communism the country was up against.
Also, he strives to create portraits of important characters surrounding the election campaign. When one of the characters then does something significant, he said people can now better understand the decision, so it is “not just strangers doing something.”
Framing the story in captivating and logical structure, he said, was one of the most challenging aspects of writing the book.
“You have got to form it into almost like a song or something with a rhythm to it,” he said. “You are dealing with very large amounts of data and it is easy to get lost in all that. You got to bring it to where it is meaningful to the readers.”
The Internet, while readily providing massive amounts information, can also lead researchers easily onto detours, he said, which don’t always add to the story. Doing a lot of “self editing” to only include important or interesting information for readers is key so readers don’t get lost, he said.
As far as the current election, he isn’t readily offering any predictions, although he does see a comparison to the Dewey-Truman battle.
“A lot of people have compared this election to 1948, with Barack Obama going against the congress quite a bit and pointing fingers at the congress,” he said.
Truman similarly battled congress and went as far to call congress “the do nothing congress,” he said.
Outside of the political realm, Pietrusza has done a lot of work surrounding the American pastime of baseball.
He sees baseball being similar to political campaigns, because both are pieces of competitive Americana. Also, historic issues surrounding baseball have transcended the ballpark.
“They are competitions and you can’t tell the score without a scorecard,” he said.
The Open Door Bookstore will be holding a book sale and signing after the program at the Mabee Farm Education Center. There is also a 20 percent discount on the book if it’s ordered before Tuesday, March 13. To order a copy, call The Open Door at 346-2719. Books will also be sold at full price the day of the program.
Also, Pietrusza will talk about his book “Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series” on Tuesday, April 10, at the Scotia Branch Library at 2 p.m.
For information on Pietrusza and his works, visit his website at www.davidpietrusza.com.
