1940 U.S. Presidential Candidate Wendell Willkie: Background information when reading The Golden Gate

1940 U.S. Presidential Candidate Wendell Willkie

This article relates to The Golden Gate

The Golden Gate by Amy Chua begins with the murder of Walter Wilkinson, who is a fictionalized version of Wendell Willkie, a Republican presidential candidate who lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940. Wilkinson and Willkie both died in 1944, but their cause of death was vastly different — Willkie died of a heart attack instead of the gruesome murder outlined in Chua's novel. Yet, despite the author's imaginative liberties, there are some connections between the two.

Overall, Walter Wilkinson follows the same political arc as Wendell Willkie, launching a presidential campaign against Roosevelt in which he builds up significant support within a short period of time. Willkie unexpectedly obtained the Republican nomination in August of 1940 against the isolationist, fascist, and anti-Semitic Charles Lindbergh. The Golden Gate recognizes Willkie's much more politically nuanced and socially liberal stance, stating that "Wilkinson was a strange combination, a ladies' man and a flamethrower, a man of passion and an opportunist, with points of principle thrown in for good measure."

Being a noir crime novel, The Golden Gate is focused more on sex, scandal, and murder than political machinations. History generally comes to us more sanitized than any sensationalized fictional counterpart, but Willkie did have libertine tendencies. It was well known he had an adulterous affair with Irita Van Doren, an editor and member of the board of directors for the New York Herald Tribune, and the fictionalized Wilkinson is described as "carrying on pretty brazenly with a divorcee from New York City's literary circles." Additionally, he is characterized as a "womanizer" and as being quite upfront about his affairs, despite pleas from those around him to keep a lower profile.

One point of contention from the novel is whether Willkie ever had an affair with Meiling Soong, aka Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, the First Lady of the Republic of China. Despite Willkie's unashamed admission of his affair with Van Doren, historical references to a potential fling with Madame Chiang Kai-Shek are much more coy. Perhaps this was due to Willkie's changing political aspirations, as he met the First Lady after his defeat in 1940 when he went on a goodwill mission to China to support Roosevelt's foreign policies. It was reported that the two disappeared for a period of time during a reception one evening, after which Willkie supposedly intimated an affair to his traveling companion, but it has never been confirmed.

Wendell Willkie, 1940, photo by Bachrach Studio

Filed under People, Eras & Events

This "beyond the book article" relates to The Golden Gate. It originally ran in September 2023 and has been updated for the August 2024 paperback edition. Go to magazine.