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Above all else, Knowland brings to his leadership post an absolute, unflinching integrity that rises above politics. It inspires faith in his motives and gives weight to his words. Says Senate Democratic Leader Lyndon Johnson: "Any time Bill Knowland tells you something, you can believe it." In 1949 Knowland voted against the confirmation of Dean Acheson as Secretary of State in the Truman Administration, and he was the leading Senate critic of Acheson's Far Eastern policies. But he did not hesitate to stand on the Senate floor and pay tribute to Acheson's handling of the Japanese peace treaty. When Harry Truman was subjected to a below-the-belt attack by Idaho's pink-tinged Democratic Senator Glen Taylor, it was Republican Knowland who arose roaring in wrath. "As long as he sits in the White House," said Knowland, "President Truman is my President."
Such behavior is strange in the political rough-and-tumble. But Knowland has never known any other way to act. The essential to understanding William Fife Knowland is that although he is driven furiously by a sense of destiny, he is always controlled by the traditions of dynasty.
First Family. Billy Knowland was no ordinary kid growing up around Alameda; he was a Knowland of California. His grandfather had come West from New York to dig for gold, instead found wealth in an empire of lumber, shipping, mining and banking interests. Billy's father, Joseph Russell Knowland ("J.R." to most of California and "Papoo" to his now-adult grandchildren), served in the state assembly, the state senate, and was elected five times to the U.S. House of Representatives. Defeated as the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1914, J.R. bought into the Oakland Tribune (1956 circ. 208,000), assumed complete control, and turned it into one of the state's most formidable political powers. Of his three children, Billy, whose mother had died of an embolism following his birth, was J.R.'s great pride.
While his father was still in Congress, Billy lived part-time in Washington, became a familiar sight in the Capitol corridors. He was a political prodigy. "His idea of a game," recalls J.R., still alive and alert at 83, "was to get a box to stand on and make a speech." With a lisp caused by two widely separated front teeth, Billy Knowland would get up on his box and proclaim: "Wepwethentative government ith the way we do thingth in thith country." The inscription on his grammar-school graduation program read: "Appearance—politician. Besetting sin—politics." At twelve he spoke for the Harding-Coolidge ticket. He thrilled to the drama of his first national convention in 1924, returned to take over the chairmanship, from an adult who had fallen ill, of the finance committee of Alameda's Coolidge-Dawes Republican Club. Billy raised funds, paid bills and shared in the credit for Alameda's thumping Republican majority. His age: 16.