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Thank you for making our documentary project part of your charitable giving. We appreciate the support we receive from the Grand Rapids and Grand Valley communities, and from all over the country. Contributions from individuals like you make our work possible. Gifts are tax deductible.
To make a gift online by credit card, please click here and specify "Vandenberg Documentary Fund" under gift information.
To make a gift by phone, please call Grand Valley State University's Development Office at (616) 331-6000 between 8am and 5pm, Monday through Friday, and a staff person will take your information.
A significant historical documentary about Arthur Vandenberg is long overdue. In his biography of Harry Truman, David McCullough had this to say about Senator Vandenberg:
"Truman knew the three Republican leaders [of the Senate] from years of experience. Vandenberg, whom he knew best and like best, had been a friend since Truman's first days in the Senate, and Truman considered him both able and trustworthy. A former newspaper editor from Grand Rapids, 'Van' had been an all-out isolationist until the war, but Pearl Harbor, he liked to say, had ended isolationism for any realist. (Once in London during an attack of German robot bombs, Vandenberg remarked to a friend, 'How can there be immunity or isolation when men can devise weapons like that?') It was a conversion of far-reaching consequence. Not only was Vandenberg one of the Senate's inner circle, among Republicans the undisputed authority on foreign affairs, but he was a formidable force as a speaker. Large and hearty, he had the mannerisms of a somewhat pompous stage senator -- the cigar, the florid phrase, and more than a little vanity, carefully combining a few long strands of gray hair sideways over the top of his bald head. When making a point on the Senate floor, he favored the broad gesture, grandly flinging out one arm in a sweeping arc. His prestige reached beyond national boundaries, and like Truman during his years in the Senate, he had made no enemies."
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Last updated: November 19, 2009, 9:10 AM
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Copyright Notice: The Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies is a non-profit organization that serves to encourage study, reflection, and discussion of the U.S. presidency. All documents, quotations, links, book reviews, movie reviews, illustrations, photographs, tables, and essays are posted for the benefit of visitors to this site. Permission to use the Web-based resources of the Hauenstein Center is hereby granted, provided that full attribution -- including URL address -- is given.
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