Guy Gabrielson - Republican Politics

Republican Politics

With few prospects in elective politics, he turned to Republican politics and became Republican National Committeeman from New Jersey in 1948. He was then elected Chairman of the RNC in 1949.

In a 1950 article in The New York Times in the wake of McCarthyism, he said homosexuals working for the American government were "perhaps as dangerous as actual Communists".

In 1951, Gabrielson became embroiled in a loan scandal, and freshman Senator Richard Nixon (R-Calif.) called for his ouster, as well as that of Democratic National Committee chairman William M. Boyle, a close ally of President Harry Truman, who had a similar loan involvement. Nixon feared Gabrielson would favor California's senior senator, William Knowland for any national office, and desired his ouster to clear his own path to higher office. Boyle resigned, Gabrielson, whose offense was much more that of appearance, did not resign. Because of the enmity between Gabrielson and Nixon, the senator's name was never entered for formal consideration as a keynote speaker at the convention. Gabrielson would also be one of the few Republican politicians not to offer him support after Nixon, by then the Republican Vice-presidential candidate, placed his fate in the hands of the RNC in the Checkers speech, saying that Nixon's speech (which he had not heard) did not "make sense" because it would take ten days to assemble the RNC.

Gabrielson supported Taft at the 1952 convention, and the Eisenhower forces were afraid he would tilt the close convention for the Ohio senator. However, when the chairman came forward to open the convention, both sides burst into a round of applause for Gabrielson.