For more information go to our website, studentcam. Org. This week on q and a, meijer inc chairman, hendrik meijer, talks about Arthur Vandenberg, the man in the middle in the of the american century. Brian hendrik meijer, author of of the man in the middle of the american century. When was the first time you ever thought about writing a book this about this man . In 1989 i thought of a biography. But i was casting about for another idea. Ill a failed fiction writer and poet looking for a character i wouldnt have to create but could explore and explain. Was talking to freand of mine historian in grand rapids, saying Arthur Vandenberg, i am intrigued by him. I love foreignpolicy. I kept running across his name. But some professor back in 1970 published the first of what was supposed to be a twovolume biography and i thought the world doesnt need two biographies. That year my friend was responsible for the local state Historical Societys annual meeting. He was putting together the program. He said i have to fill out my agenda. Why dont you come and talk about some episode in Arthur Vandenbergs life. I gave a little lecture on the debate over the repeal of the arms embargo in 1939 before world war ii. And the eight weeks later i get a call from the daughter of this professor who was said to be working on the second volume of his biography. Turns out he had a very difficult life, had been very ill. Had died and his adult daughter was responsible for selling his house and he was teaching in chicago and didnt know what to do with all of his research for Arthur Vandenberg. It had no monetary value. This is back in 1990. Their door rocks copies of things from the Truman Library, roosevelt. Which she hated to cast her fathers lifes Work Research out on the street. She calls the Historical Society of michigan says do you know of anybody who has any interest in Arthur Vandenberg. The only person they knew was me because i had spoken at their conference eight weeks before. And i ended up bringing a vanload of papers back from chicago to my home in grand rapids and went from thinking the world doesnt need two biographies to having a sense of mission f. You dont do t. Who is going to . Brian 1989 was about 2728 years ago. Why did it take so long . Henry somebody said, where did you find the time with your day job snim also involved with our family business. I said, well, it only took me 26 years. Maybe i wasnt an efficient writer. I know that i had the biographers weakness for research and spent a great deal of time interviewing people working in the vandenberg papers at the university of michigan. Ending up with 1,000page manuscript that wouldnt be publishible. Publishable. Spent years bringing that down to 900, 800, taking out a paragraph here and sentence there. Then finally getting some editorial advice that said, no. Take out chapter 3. Combine chapter 7 and chapter 8. Finally two decades later i had a publishedable manuscript. Brian meanwhile, the last number i read was 72,000 employees in the meijer. Youre c. E. O. . Henry executive chairman. Brian you were c. E. O. . Henry briefly. Meijer for the those of us that live on the east coast . Henry my grandfather was a dutch immigrant who meijer for opened a Grocery Store in the great depression. Subsequently with my dads leadership that small, what became a small chain of super markets evolved into what became super centers. We call them the selfservice Discount Department store with the hometown touch opened a bec didnt know what else to call t it was a combination of a super market and a Discount Department store behind one set of checkouts. Brian how many Different Stores . Henry we have 235 now. Brian let me put on the screen a photograph of Arthur Vandenberg. I want to you tell us who he is. Henry Arthur Vandenberg was United States senator from michigan from 1928 until his death in 1951. He he had come from a background as a reporter, editor, and publisher of the local republican paper, the grand rapids herald. He had come from a background of what we now call isolationism. He was of that generation that came out of world war sr. Very i very disillusioned with the experience there and the peace conference at versailles that ended up to the viktor go the poils victor go the spoils. Nd sewed the seeds of discon discontent that would lead to world war ii. After world war ii that position of american isolating itself, retreating from the world, was no longer tenable. We were the most powerful nation on earth and had to assume responsibility for global leadership. Brian i wrote down some of the words you used to describe hifment one is pompous. Vest, if we can see in the picture, had he a vest. Spats, did he wear spats all the time . Henry no. In his early days. Brianon pinky ring. Cigar in his hand. How many cigars . Henry he finally switched later in life to denicotine cigars. He called them sexless. He smoked cigars throughout his life. He was notorious in the newspaper for the ashes that would heap behind the radiator. Notorious for never carrying a match and always needing someone with a cigar. But he has one in virtually every picture you see. Brian beau ties, congressiness. Any other ways to describe him . Henry i think it was the New York Times columnist reston or walter litman who described him as the only senator who could strut sitting down. He was almost a cake ture in that way of the kerik ture in that way. He was over six feet tall and large with a big head and very eyes. Ting so he way he carried himself also suggested someone a little larger than life. Brian lets listen to him and look at him on video. This is from 1936. Eyes. So he way he carried i think that sums it up. This is the most Important Campaign since the civil war. It is a campaign against various brands of socialism, fascism, communism, bureaucracy, and bankruptcy. It is brupcy. It is bankruptcy. It is a campaign to save the republic. Thats what it is. Brian 1936. Henry this is in the middle of the new deal. This is after Franklin Roosevelt is elected in 1932. Vandenberg coming from michigan wishing understanding how dire conditions had become in the depression joined with Franklin Roosevelt, supported some of his early new deal measures. In fact, against roosevelts resistance, pushed through the legislation to create the fdic. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. That was his babey. Even though roosevelt came to claim it and it was arguably one of the very most important new deal reforms. But in 1936, things were beginning to turn. Of course this is Election Year rhetoric. But we also see roosevelt becoming much more aggressive with the National Recovery act and some of his measures that republicans, conservatives, like vandenberg viewed as centralization of power. And a growth of federalism that was a step on the road to the distinction he always made was it was important to be social minded but not socialistic. This smacked to him of moving down that road. Of course right after that election is when roosevelt proposed the Court Packing measures on the Supreme Court that lit up vandenberg and all the conservatives like crazy with fear of where roosevelt was taking the country. Henry to the extents we can attribute a connection, it didnt help him. Brian you list Everything Else he was involved nsm the household words. Tell us what they are. Things like the u. N. And all that. What did he play a role in . Henry he played a role after world war ii, first of all Franklin Roosevelt, come interesting that postworld war i generation of leaders, recognized he and vandenberg had a bitter relationship. Vandenberg was such a critic of the late new deal measures, he called it the new ordeal, that roosevelt hated to do it, but he recognized that as vandenberg emerged as the leading republican voice on Foreign Policy, he would have o name vandenberg to the american delegation to the founding of the u. N. To write the charter in San Francisco in 1945. Then roosevelt dies. Harry truman becomes president. He had famously had lunch with president roosevelt once in their few months in office together. And so really came in as a decisive figure, but unschooled in Foreign Policy. Roosevelt had always been his own secretary of state in effect, and had used Harry Hopkins rather than the state department to carry out a lot of his Foreign Policy plans. Dead and a velt weak secretary of state, vandenberg goes to San Francisco as the strongest american delegate at the founding of the u. N. s facing off with the Russian Foreign secretary Russian Foreign secretary across the table in San Francisco, setting the groundwork for the United Nations. And then soon after that, truman asks vandenberg and his democratic counterpart, senator tom connolly of texas, with whom vandenberg alternated chairing the Foreign Relations committee, he asked them both to be delegates to the postwar peace conferences where the Foreign Ministers were meeting in paris at the luxembourg palace to settle peace agreements with italy, with romania, all the countries that had fought on the side of germany. Vandenberg spent the year, 1946, in a diplomatic role that was unprecedented and still is for a United States senator. And then hes chairman of the Foreign Relations committee when George Marshall proposes a very Ambitious Campaign to help rebuild europe. Becomes the Marshall Plan. Vandenberg is the legislative engineer who puts that through the congress. And then Economic Security isnt enough to rebuild europe, theres also the increasing threat of the red army occupying Central Europe and a new society behind, a phrase vandenberg used, the iron a ne curtain. So the western european democracies come to the u. S. And say we need a security agreement. We need a military alliance. And vandenberg, wrote the vandenberg resolution that was the enabling legislation for the us to us join nato. Brian how about some personal stuff. How much education did he have . Henry he was High School Graduate in 1900. He spent one year in what they then called the Law Department at the university of michigan. And then dropped out of the university of michigan. Ran out of money. And came back and got a job as a reporter. Brian where did he live all of his adult life . Henry at the age of 21, just before his 22nd birthday, he became the editor of the grand rapids herald. He was a bit of a wunderkind in midwestern journalism. The year later, in 1906, in 190 he built a house in grand rapids where he lived the rest of his life and died in 1951. Brian how often was he married . Henry he was married to his High School Sweetheart who died of a brain tumor quite young, her early 30s, 1918, left him with three small children. The following year he remarried. An acquaintance he became reacquainted with from his year at the university of michigan, hazel. He remarried. Married her. And was married until her death in 1950. He was twice widowed. Brian heres some video showing his wife, hazel, and the daughter. And its only 35 seconds. Well ask you more about this. Certainly sound like more war in europe. I hope america has sense enough to mind her own business and stay out of these foreign troubles. If we create a strong neutrality policy and if we make it mandatory, and if we decline all entangling alliances, we ought to be able to keep america in honorable peace. That is what our people want. And so far as i am concerned, that is what they are going to get. Brian you did a documentary back in 2011. Why . Why the documentary before the book . Henry i had a friend who was a filmmaker in grand rapids, and said you have nd all this material. Are you working on a book. Had he said you have all this material. Are you working on a book. Had he done a documentary on president ford, another grand rapids boy, said lets Work Together on vandenberg. It helped energize me, frankly. Was a great opportunity to do additional interviews. And take advantage of some of the work that i had done to do something that would be a little more immediate than the book. Because at that time i still ad years to go to edit the book. Brian that scene where you saw the wife and daughter, what was the relationship between him senator vandenberg and his wife . Henry they were i called them boone companions. They were very good friends. I think there was an element when he remarried of needing, wanting a mother for his three small children. But they were also very good friends. I want to say it was close. At the same time i would be remiss not to point out that he had what was for the time a rather high profile affair in 1939, 1940 with a woman named minutesy, the danish born wife of a canadian diplomat attached to the british embacy. It became controversial because embassy. It became controversial because alter wentzel, went on air and referred to the senator from mitzigan, and her husband, harold simms, was reputed to at the ode room british embassy. Very good friend of William Stevenson who ran the British Intelligence operation in the u. S. They were also neighbors at the hotel which was the premiere residence thole on connecticut avenue. So that provoked a crisis in their marriage. The daughter, betsy, who you saw there, i think she almost she married and divorced soon after, but i think it was almost in reaction to the crisis in the household. Where she talked about her father having to decide whether to stay or to go. And hazel never quite feeling the same, of course, after that traumatic situation. Brian how public was the mitzi simms affair back in those days . Henry it was again when you ve someone like walter wentzel talking about it. It was quite. An wentzel talking about it. It was quite public. There were rumors that she was the d been planted on him eldek Chicago Tribune correspondent said to me, of course theyaid t planted mitzi simms on vandenberg just like kate summers on ike. These are contentious issues that have never been resolved. The affair was clear. The love was sincere. I think it would have been logical that the british, since vandenberg was plotting with fellow republicans and democratic isolationists to keep us out of world war ii, this is in 1939, to keep us from aiding britain, that they would want to know what was going on among these opponents of their future. Brian hazel and the senator died close to each other . Henry yes. She died in 1950. In Georgetown Hospital here in washington. He died in 1951. In fact, they were side by side rooms for a while here in washington. He had half of his left lung removed in 1949 in ann arbor at the university of michigan. Then came back to washington briefly in 1950. But was never and hazel did as well. She died here and he was never Strong Enough to resume his seat in the senate. Brian heres some video from 1945. I want to ask you about the famous speech in january of that year. That was the big year when v. E. Day, v. J. Day. This is from detroit. How far is grand rapids from detroit . Henry about 160 miles. Brian hes talking about the importance of collective security here. No nation here after can immunize itself by its own exclusive action. Only collective security can stop the next great war before it starts. I propose that no other nation shall have any chance to use ur silence as an alibi for ulterior designs if such there be. I propose action instead of words. I propose action now before it is too late. I propose it for the sake of a better world, but i say again and again and again, but i propose it for our own american selfinterest. Brian you point out that january 10 speech, 1945, same year as this, in the United States senate that 59 senators present on the floor at that time. What was the point of the speech . Henry the point of the speech just anklin roosevelt had won the 1944 election. Hes about to be sworn in once again. And he is about to leave a few weeks later for his summit conference at yalta with Winston Churchill and joseph stalin. There are earlier conferences during the war have been about wartime strategy. The war is almost over in january of 1945. The germans are on the run. Ere approaching the rind. Were island hopping. Island by budding island against the japanese. And so this conference at yalta is to talk about whats going to happen with the peace and to create something called the nited nations. Vandenberg and certainly fellow republicans, but a lot of mocrats as well, know that roosevelts health is weak. Nobody knows how weak it is. He die as couple months later. They dont know what the americans are going to be negotiating. So he stands up in the senate, you saw that spee