# Harold Stassen _Governor of Minnesota 1939–1943, delegate to the San Francisco conference that wrote the United Nations Charter, and Eisenhower's foreign-aid director and disarmament assistant — the instruments he signed, the offices he held, and what the record does and does not connect to him_ | Harold Stassen | | |---|---| | Full name | Harold Edward Stassen | | Born | April 13, 1907, Dakota County, Minnesota | | Died | March 4, 2001, Bloomington, Minnesota | | Party | Republican | | Dakota County attorney | elected 1930 (the Legislative Reference Library says 1929); two terms | | 25th Governor of Minnesota | January 2, 1939 – April 27, 1943 (elected 1938; re-elected 1940 and 1942; resigned for naval service) | | U.S. delegate, United Nations Conference on International Organization | named February 1945; conference April 25 – June 26, 1945 | | President, University of Pennsylvania | 1948–1953 | | Director, Mutual Security Agency | January 28 – August 1, 1953 | | Director, Foreign Operations Administration | August 1953 – 1955 (the State Department dates the end March 19, 1955; other records say he stayed on for a time) | | Special Assistant to the President for Disarmament (Cabinet rank) | March 19, 1955 – February 1958 | | Instruments signed that remain in force | Laws 1941, ch. 238 (now Minn. Stat. § 181.59); the 1939 acts whose offices survive (Revisor of Statutes; the Department of Administration; the conciliation function now in the Bureau of Mediation Services) | | Parent article | [[How Minnesota Got Here]] | | Status | architect article; restates the record and sets out the readings; adjudicates nothing | **Harold Edward Stassen** (1907–2001) was the 25th governor of Minnesota, elected at thirty-one in 1938 and re-elected in 1940 and 1942, who resigned in April 1943 to serve in the Navy.[^1][^2] He was one of the eight members of the United States delegation to the 1945 San Francisco conference that drafted the Charter of the United Nations, president of the [[University of Pennsylvania]] from 1948 to 1953, and in the Eisenhower administration director of the [[Mutual Security Agency]] and the [[Foreign Operations Administration]] and then Special Assistant to the President for Disarmament, with Cabinet rank.[^3][^4][^5][^6] MNopedia counts ten campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination between 1944 and 1992 and calls the number a record; the Historical Society's finding aid says he ran in every election except 1956, 1960 and 1972.[^7][^2] This article treats Stassen as one of the six figures the project calls architects — officials whose acts the record ties to the Minnesota instruments at issue in [[How Minnesota Got Here]]. For Stassen the documented acts are the session laws he approved as governor. On April 22, 1939 he approved, in one day, the act that reorganized the executive branch (Laws 1939, ch. 431), the [[Minnesota State Civil Service Act of 1939|State Civil Service Act]] (ch. 441), the [[Minnesota Labor Relations Act]] (ch. 440) and the act creating the [[Revisor of Statutes|Office of the Revisor of Statutes]] (ch. 442).[^8][^9][^10][^11] On April 16, 1941 he approved Laws 1941, ch. 238, which put a clause on race, creed and color into every state and local contract for materials, supplies or construction; it is now [[Minn. Stat. § 181.59]], amended twice and never repealed.[^12][^13] The civil service act of 1939 is the beginning of the line that the record traces to [[Minn. Stat. § 43A.191]], one of the provisions — with § 43A.19, the statewide affirmative action program enacted in 1981 — that the United States cites in its 2026 Title VII suit against the State.[^9][^14][^15][^16][^17][^18] Each link in that line is a statute or a revisor's source note. The 1939 act itself contains no provision keyed to race or sex: its one nondiscrimination clause concerns political and religious opinions, and its one preference is for veterans.[^9] Chapter 43 was repealed outright in 1981 and § 43A.191 was enacted in 1985, thirty-eight and forty-two years after Stassen left the governor's office in 1943.[^15][^19] Whether the 1939 act is the "vessel" the later instruments were poured into, or simply the merit system those instruments later amended, is the question the two readings at the end of this article answer differently.[^20] Several claims about Stassen in the project's own corpus do not survive the primary record. He did not create the Governor's Interracial Commission; his successor, [[Edward J. Thye]], appointed it in December 1943, some seven months after Stassen resigned.[^21][^22] No document read for this article puts Stassen in the [[Minnesota Experimental City]] project, credits him with founding a peace center at the University of Minnesota, or ties him to § 43A.191.[^23][^24] The corrections are collected in [[#Corpus claims checked]]. ## Scope and method The article follows the method of its parent: individuals appear in their official capacity, instruments are described by what they require, and the readings the record supports are stated side by side without a verdict.[^25][^26] Every statute is cited to the session law or the Revisor's current text; every federal act to the *Foreign Relations of the United States* series, the American Presidency Project or the Congressional Record; and biographical facts to the Legislative Reference Library, the Minnesota Historical Society's finding aid for the Stassen papers, and MNopedia.[^9][^6][^27][^1][^2][^7] Where those sources disagree with one another — on the year he was first elected county attorney, on the number of his presidential campaigns, on when he left the Foreign Operations Administration and the Eisenhower administration — the disagreement is reported rather than resolved.[^1][^7][^4][^2][^28] The session laws of 1939 and 1941 survive as scanned pages. Quotations from them in this article are short and were matched against the text layer of those scans; longer provisions are paraphrased and cited to the section.[^9][^12] Stassen's federal career is covered at the length the Minnesota question needs: what he signed or directed, and where it touches the other architects. ## Early life and Dakota County Stassen was born on a farm in Dakota County on April 13, 1907, the fourth of the five children of William A. and Elsie (Mueller) Stassen; his grandparents were immigrants from Norway, the Czech lands and Germany.[^2][^4] He graduated from St. Paul's Humboldt High School at fourteen by the Historical Society's account (MNopedia and Penn say fifteen), took his undergraduate and law degrees at the University of Minnesota, and finished law school in 1929.[^2][^1][^7][^4] In November 1929 he opened a law office in South St. Paul with Elmer J. Ryan; that month he married Esther Glewwe.[^2][^7] In 1930 he ran for [[Dakota County Attorney]] while recovering from tuberculosis at the Pokegama Sanitarium, won, and served two terms; the Legislative Reference Library's biography gives the year of his first election as 1929.[^7][^1] The same biography credits him with mediating a stockyards strike in South St. Paul in 1933.[^1] In 1935 he helped found the Young Republican League of Minnesota, and in 1936 he was elected its first chairman; the University of Pennsylvania's biography places the league's founding in his college years instead.[^7][^4] Two later governors began their careers near him in Dakota County. [[Harold LeVander]], who as governor approved the 1967 acts creating the [[Metropolitan Council (Minnesota)|Metropolitan Council]] and the [[Minnesota Department of Human Rights|Department of Human Rights]], served as an assistant Dakota County attorney from 1935 to 1939 and spent thirty years at the South St. Paul firm of Stassen & Ryan.[^29][^30][^31] [[Edward J. Thye]], president of the Dakota County Farm Bureau from 1929, befriended Stassen in those years and supported his 1938 campaign.[^22] ## The 1938 election Stassen won the Republican primary of 1938 with 123,634 votes, a 47 percent plurality over three opponents, including Minneapolis mayor George E. Leach.[^32] In the general election on November 8, 1938, the State Canvassing Board recorded 678,839 votes for him against 387,263 for the Farmer-Labor incumbent, [[Elmer A. Benson]], 65,875 for the Democrat Thomas Gallagher and 899 for John William Castle — 59.9 percent of the vote and a margin of 291,576.[^33] [[C. Elmer Anderson]] was elected lieutenant governor on the same ballot at twenty-six; the Legislative Reference Library describes the two as the youngest team ever to hold Minnesota's highest executive offices.[^34] He was re-elected in 1940 with 654,686 votes (52 percent) against Hjalmar Petersen and Ed Murphy, and in 1942 with 409,800 (51.6 percent).[^35][^36] Before the 1942 election he announced that he would resign during his third term to enter active naval service; he had been commissioned a lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve in March 1942.[^2] Thye, his dairy and food commissioner, ran for lieutenant governor in 1942 with Stassen's support and won.[^22] ## Governor, 1939–1943 ### The inaugural program Stassen took office on January 2, 1939.[^1] His inaugural message the next day named four matters as the session's business — civil service, the consolidation and simplification of the government, labor relations legislation, and the State's finances — and told the Legislature that these "are the major considerations before you."[^37] On civil service he said that what the executive could do to improve public service was limited "unless the legislature enacts a real civil service law for state employees," and he commended a bill drafted by a citizens' civil service council whose members included the League of Women Voters, the Farm Bureau, the Federation of Labor, the Minnesota Education Association, the Junior Chamber of Commerce, the American Legion and the Federation of Business and Professional Women.[^37] He anticipated a proposal for a "blanketing in" of sitting employees — to give them civil service status without examination — and opposed it: coming after what he called the rule of the spoilsmen, such a proposal "is, of course, unsound, since it would only serve to continue inefficiency," and he recommended competitive examinations for all employees instead.[^37] On organization he counted at least sixty-four boards, bureaus, agencies and departments which, he said, had "just grown," and he asked for their consolidation.[^37] On labor he described two draft bills, one from the State Federation of Labor and one from a committee of the State Bar Association, and noted that both provided for a labor relations board with conciliation powers and both rejected compulsory arbitration.[^37] The Legislative Reference Library's agency history puts the civil service request in a longer line. Bills for a state civil service were introduced and failed in 1889, 1895, 1911 and 1913; a commission of thirty citizens appointed by Governor Eberhart reported to the 1915 session with a plan for reorganizing the state government, and civil service was discussed in every session from 1915 to 1925; and bills to create a Department of Civil Service failed in 1933, 1935 and the extra session of 1935–36.[^38] ### The acts of April 22, 1939 Four acts of the 1939 session carried out the program of the inaugural message. All four bear the same approval date, April 22, 1939.[^8][^10][^9][^11] **Reorganization (Laws 1939, ch. 431).** H.F. 1270, "An act relating to the organization and administration of the state government," created a [[Minnesota Department of Administration|Department of Administration]] under a commissioner who was ex officio the state budget director and state purchasing agent, appointed by the governor with the Senate's consent and removable "for cause, after notice and hearing."[^8] The same act created a Department of the Public Examiner, a Department of Social Security (with divisions of public institutions, social welfare, and employment and security) and a Department of Taxation, and it gave the commissioner of administration the power to decide the lowest responsible bidder on all state purchases.[^8] Stassen's 1943 message counted the reorganization, the state business manager, budget allotment control and single-headed departments among the results of the cooperative work of the administration and the Legislature.[^39] **The State Civil Service Act (Laws 1939, ch. 441).** H.F. 601 created a Department of Civil Service; a three-member Civil Service Board, appointed by the governor with Senate consent "without regard to party affiliation"; and a director chosen by the board on the basis of merit and fitness after an open competitive examination.[^9] It divided state employment into classified and unclassified service and required that appointments to classified positions be made from lists of eligibles, with the director certifying the three names at the head of the list and the appointing officer choosing one "with sole reference to merit and fitness."[^9] The [[Minnesota Civil Service Department|Civil Service Department]] it created operated from 1939 to 1973.[^38] Four provisions of chapter 441 bear on the later history. - **Section 15, "Discrimination forbidden."** It provides that "No discrimination shall be exercised, threatened or promised" by anyone in the civil service "against or in favor of any applicant" or employee because of political or religious opinions or affiliations. It is the act's only nondiscrimination clause; the act contains no provision keyed to race, color, national origin or sex.[^9] - **Section 31, "Veterans' preference."** It adds ten points to the examination rating of a disabled veteran, whose name, if the augmented rating passes, "shall be placed at the head of the eligible list"; it adds five points for other veterans.[^9] - **Sections 10 and 38, transition.** Employees with five or more years of state service received civil service status without examination, subject to classification and a six-month probation; so did State Employment Service staff who had passed a federal Employment Service examination. Section 38 gave veterans and the others entitled to preference under section 31 who held classified positions on the act's effective date permanent status without examination or probation. Other incumbents in the classified service on August 1, 1939 were to take a non-competitive qualifying examination within two years. Except as the act otherwise provided, and subject to laws it did not repeal, persons in the classified service could until August 1, 1939 be laid off, transferred or discharged at the will of the employing authority.[^9] The enacted law thus included the "blanketing in" of long-serving employees that Stassen had argued against in January, and he approved it.[^37][^9] - **Sections 3 and 4, the board and director.** The governor appointed the board; the board appointed the director by examination, and the director's examination was expressly exempt from the veterans' preference of section 31.[^9] **The Minnesota Labor Relations Act (Laws 1939, ch. 440).** H.F. 352 created the office of labor conciliator, appointed by the governor with Senate consent for a four-year term, defined unfair labor practices, set a notice procedure before strikes and lockouts, and provided for voluntary arbitration.[^10] Where both draft bills Stassen described in January had proposed a labor relations board, the enacted act centered on a conciliator, with a three-member commission the governor could appoint to hold hearings.[^37][^10] Its definition of "employer" excluded public employers: the term "does not include the state or any political or governmental subdivision thereof."[^10] The Legislative Reference Library treats the act's Division of Conciliation as the forerunner of today's [[Bureau of Mediation Services]], which now also administers the [[Public Employment Labor Relations Act, PELRA|Public Employment Labor Relations Act]] of 1971.[^40] The library's biography of Stassen calls the Labor Relations Act his "major achievement."[^1] **The Revisor of Statutes (Laws 1939, ch. 442).** H.F. 746 created the office of [[Revisor of Statutes]], appointed by the Supreme Court "at an annual salary of $5,000" and holding office at the court's pleasure, and charged it with preparing the compiled *Minnesota Statutes* and recommending revisions.[^11] The session laws and statutory history lines cited throughout this project are that office's work. Stassen vetoed eight bills of the 1939 session. Two were pocket vetoes on April 22, the "bank tax bill" (H.F. 1378) and a cigarette-license bill (H.F. 328); the same day he vetoed S.F. 10, which would have repealed the statutes on the Executive Council.[^41] ### The contract clause of 1941 On April 16, 1941 Stassen approved H.F. 417, Laws 1941, ch. 238, "An act relating to the promotion of opportunities for employment, and for the prevention of discrimination on account of race, creed or color."[^12] It required every contract made by or on behalf of the State, a county, city, borough, town, township, school district or other district, for materials, supplies or construction, to contain the contractor's agreement that in hiring common or skilled labor no contractor, material supplier or vendor "shall by reason of race, creed or color, discriminate against" qualified and available citizens of the United States, and would not otherwise intimidate them or prevent their employment on that account.[^12] A violation was a misdemeanor; for a second violation the public body could cancel the contract and forfeit the money due under it.[^12] The act is in force as [[Minn. Stat. § 181.59]], whose history line reads "1941 c 238 ; 1973 c 123 art 5 s 7 ; 1984 c 609 s 11": two amendments in eighty-five years and no repeal.[^13] It is a prohibition clause — it forbids a contractor to act by race, creed or color — and not a plan requirement of the kind the State later imposed through certificates of compliance under [[Minn. Stat. § 363A.36]].[^12][^42] The research for this article did not find an earlier race-keyed contract provision of the State still in force. Ten weeks later, on June 25, 1941, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, barring discrimination "because of race, creed, color, or national origin" in defense industries and in government.[^13][^43] ### The 1941 session, the Senate seat and the war At the end of the 1941 session Stassen vetoed eleven bills, eight by pocket veto on April 24. Two of the pocket vetoes concerned the system he had built: S.F. 1176, "A bill relating to civil service in the State of Minnesota," and S.F. 767, "A bill relating to Veteran's Preference in public appointments."[^41] The texts of the two bills have not been pulled, and what each would have changed is an open item.[^41] When Senator Ernest Lundeen was killed in a plane crash on August 31, 1940, Stassen appointed Joseph H. Ball to the seat; Ball was sworn in on October 14, 1940.[^44][^45] Ball was later elected in his own right and voted in 1945 for the Charter that Stassen helped write.[^45][^27] In 1942, after several states had refused it, Stassen agreed to take in the Army's Japanese-language school, which moved to Camp Savage in Scott County in June 1942 and became the [[Military Intelligence Service Language School]]; many of its later students came from the camps to which Japanese Americans had been removed under Executive Order 9066.[^46] MNopedia records that Stassen agreed after other states had rejected the school; the corpus's claim that he was the "only" governor to accept is not established by that source.[^46][^24] ### The 1943 message and the resignation Stassen's third inaugural message, on January 6, 1943, reported the "complete civil service system" among the results of four years and said of state employees that they had become public servants "instead of corporals in a political army."[^39] On the subject this project follows, it said: "Action should be taken to clearly indicate that we are opposed to intolerance or discrimination for race, creed or color in employment. We must stand four-square against race or religious prejudices in our democracy."[^39] Whether the 1943 Legislature enacted anything on that recommendation has not been established.[^39] The same message looked past the war — "the walls of isolation are gone forever" — and asked the Legislature to fund University of Minnesota scholarships each year for "a young man and a young woman from each of the United Nations," meaning the wartime Allies; the international organization of that name did not yet exist, though the same message spoke of "citizens of a United Nations of the World."[^39] In his farewell address to the House on April 21, 1943 he spoke of "developing a new and higher level of government" and of the difficulty of "developing legislative or parliamentary houses by the nations of the world."[^47] He resigned on April 27, 1943, when ordered to active duty, and Lieutenant Governor Thye became governor that day.[^2][^22] On April 21, 1943 he had pocket-vetoed four bills of that session.[^41] ## From chapter 441 to § 43A.191 The record's companion document, *The Instrument No One Will Name*, traces the state personnel system that § 43A.191 now regulates back through "Stassen's 1939 civil-service reorganization."[^48] The statutes bear out the sequence. They do not settle what the sequence means. | Step | Instrument | Date and governor | What it did | Source | |---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | Laws 1939, ch. 441 (State Civil Service Act) | approved April 22, 1939 (Stassen) | created the Department of Civil Service, the board, examinations, eligible lists and certification; § 15 forbids political or religious discrimination; § 31 gives veterans 5 or 10 points | session law[^9] | | 2 | Minnesota Statutes 1941, ch. 43 | codified 1941 | carried the act section by section into §§ 43.01–43.36, including § 43.15 ("Political or religious discrimination forbidden") and § 43.30 (veterans' preference); source notes cite Laws 1939, ch. 441, and Laws 1941, ch. 533 | 1941 statutes[^14] | | 3 | Laws 1973, ch. 507; Laws 1980, ch. 617 | 1973; 1980 | replaced the Civil Service Department with a Department of Personnel, renamed in 1980 the Department of Employee Relations | agency records[^38][^49] | | 4 | Laws 1981, ch. 210 | approved May 15, 1981 (Quie) | repealed chapter 43 and enacted chapter 43A, with the policy "to take affirmative action to eliminate the underutilization of qualified members of protected groups," a statewide affirmative action program (§ 43A.19) and "expanded certification" of protected-group eligibles (§ 43A.13, subd. 7); § 53 continued the rights and obligations created under chapter 43 | session law[^15][^50] | | 5 | Laws 1985, 1st Spec. Sess., ch. 13, § 172 | 1985 (Perpich) | enacted § 43A.191, agency affirmative action programs, as a section of an omnibus appropriations act | session law; statute[^51][^16][^48] | | 6 | Amendments to § 43A.191 | 1987–2023 | thirteen amending acts, seven signed by Republican and six by DFL governors; no repeal | statute history line[^16][^19] | | 7 | *United States v. State of Minnesota* | filed January 14, 2026 | Title VII complaint citing § 43A.19 (the statewide program), § 43A.02, subd. 33, § 43A.191, Minn. R. 3905.0100 and an agency's hiring-justification policy | complaint[^18] | ### What carried forward The 1981 act did not amend chapter 43; it repealed it, "repealing Minnesota Statutes 1980, Chapter 43" in its title, and wrote a new chapter.[^15] Its transitional section, numbered 43A.47, provided that "All rights, privileges, liabilities and obligations possessed or created under chapter 43" would continue if consistent and compatible with the new act.[^15] The continuity clause carried forward rights and obligations — including the status of employees who held positions under chapter 43. The new chapter re-enacted, in its own terms, the elements of a merit system that chapter 441 had first set up: a classified service, examinations, lists of eligibles and the certification of names to an appointing authority.[^9][^15] The 1981 act's protected-group provisions attach to those elements. The "expanded certification" subdivision operates at the certification step: where the commissioner finds a disparity between an agency's work force and its approved affirmative action plan, "the commissioner shall ensure to the extent possible that eligibles who are members of the protected groups for which the disparity exists are certified for appointment."[^15][^9] Section 43A.191, enacted four years later, requires the head of each executive-branch agency to prepare and implement an agency affirmative action plan.[^16][^48] The record also fixes the distances. The 1939 act has no protected-group provision; the protected-group provisions were written in 1981 and 1985; and the governors who approved them were [[Al Quie]] and [[Rudy Perpich]], forty-two and forty-six years after Stassen approved chapter 441 in 1939.[^9][^15][^51][^52] The one group-keyed preference the 1939 act did contain — for veterans — is not among the provisions the federal complaint cites.[^9][^18] ### The Interracial Commission and the Department of Human Rights The corpus credits Stassen with creating the Governor's Interracial Commission by executive action in 1939.[^24] The commission's own first report says otherwise. *The Negro Worker in Minnesota*, addressed to Governor Thye on March 10, 1945, states that "Governor Edward J. Thye in December of 1943 appointed a Governor's Inter-Racial Commission," and Thye's foreword says he established it to act as an advisory body — "It was my wish that the Commission acting as an advisory body would examine the interracial trends within the state" — and to report to him.[^21] The Legislative Reference Library's biography of Thye also says that he created the commission.[^22] Stassen had resigned on April 27, 1943.[^2] The commission's later history connects it to the institutions the parent article follows. Its third report went to Governor [[Luther Youngdahl]].[^53] In 1956, after Minnesota enacted a fair employment practices law, "the commission's name changed from the Governor's Interracial Commission to the Governor's Human Rights Commission," and in 1967, when the Legislature created the [[Minnesota Department of Human Rights|Department of Human Rights]], the new department "absorbed the duties of the Governor's Human Rights Commission."[^54][^31] The governor who approved that 1967 act, Harold LeVander, had been an assistant Dakota County attorney from 1935 to 1939, during Stassen's tenure as county attorney, and spent thirty years at the firm of Stassen & Ryan.[^29][^7][^31] Stassen's own connection to this line runs through people, not instruments: Thye, whom he appointed dairy and food commissioner and backed for lieutenant governor, created the commission; LeVander, an assistant county attorney during Stassen's tenure and a lawyer at Stassen & Ryan, signed the act that absorbed its successor.[^22][^29] No document read for this article records an act of Stassen's concerning the commission.[^24] ## Naval service and the United Nations Charter ### The Navy, 1943–1945 Stassen was commissioned a lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve in March 1942 and reported for a month's training at Great Lakes, Illinois, on April 6, 1942. Ordered to active duty in April 1943, he resigned the governorship, took a two-month course at Fort Schuyler, New York, and joined the staff of Admiral William F. Halsey in the South Pacific as aide and flag secretary.[^2] When Halsey took command of the Third Fleet in June 1944 Stassen became his assistant chief of staff for administration; he was promoted to commander in December 1944.[^2] The Historical Society's biographical note says he was "decorated three times, awarded six major battle stars."[^2] In August and September 1945 he drew up evacuation plans for Allied prisoners of war held in Japan and took part in their rescue before the formal surrender, for which he received the Bronze Star; MNopedia puts the number evacuated at "nearly twenty thousand Allied POWs."[^2][^7] He was released to inactive duty on November 15, 1945.[^2] A corpus claim that he was aboard the USS *Missouri* for the surrender on September 2, 1945 is not supported by any source read for this article.[^24][^2] ### The San Francisco conference On February 13, 1945, the White House announced the eight members of the United States delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organization at San Francisco: Secretary of State Stettinius as chairman, Cordell Hull (also senior adviser), Senators Tom Connally and Arthur Vandenberg, Representatives Sol Bloom and Charles Eaton, "Commander Harold Stassen," and Dean Virginia Gildersleeve.[^3] Roosevelt had approved the list at Yalta on February 11 and sent the formal invitations on February 28.[^3][^55] The editors of the *Foreign Relations* volume note that ill health kept Hull from taking an active part in the delegation's work.[^3] The Legislative Reference Library's biography counts "one of seven U.S. delegates," which matches the number who took part but not the number named.[^1][^3] The corpus's statement that Stassen was named in late 1944 is incorrect.[^24][^3] The Navy detached him from active duty from April 13 to July 11, 1945 for the conference, which met from April 25 to June 26.[^2] He was assigned to the committee drafting the trusteeship system (Committee 4 of Commission 2, the General Assembly) and to the commissions on the Security Council and the International Court of Justice. On trusteeship he chaired a consultative group of the five powers and prepared a working paper that aimed to reconcile the British, Australian and American positions.[^2] In a 1983 interview for the United Nations oral history project he recalled that the State Department asked him to take onto his staff, for the trusteeship work concerning Africa, a young officer named Ralph Bunche; by his account he took Bunche on for a general staff position instead, and the two worked together through the conference.[^56] The conference closed on June 26, 1945.[^2] A Truman Library photograph captioned "Tom Connally signing United Nations Charter with Harry S. Truman and the American Delegation," dated in its record June 25, 1945, lists Stassen among those pictured, with Truman, Stettinius, Connally, Vandenberg, Bloom, Eaton and Gildersleeve.[^57] A 2001 release by the American Baptist Churches called him the last surviving Charter signatory among the eight U.S. delegates; the corpus's broader claim that he was the last living signer of the Charter has not been checked against the full list of signatories.[^58][^24] On July 28, 1945 the Senate consented to ratification, 89 to 2. Minnesota's two senators divided: Joseph Ball, Stassen's 1940 appointee, voted yea; Henrik Shipstead and William Langer of North Dakota cast the two nays.[^27] ## The University of Pennsylvania and the campaigns of 1948 and 1952 Stassen sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1948 and lost it to Thomas Dewey — at the national convention, in the Historical Society's account; "in the primaries," in the Legislative Reference Library's — and then became president of the University of Pennsylvania, serving from 1948 to 1953.[^2][^1] The university's own archives credit him with "a measure of success": he raised money, cut costs, concentrated resources in a few departments, carried forward a campus expansion plan and reformed athletics for the new Ivy League. They also describe a tenure given more to fundraising and campaigning than to administration, including a 1952 presidential campaign and an extended speaking tour in Asia, and conclude that it "was ultimately brief and relatively unproductive"; they add that "Stassen kept few ties to the University after his term ended."[^4] A 2001 release by the American Baptist Churches credited him with raising the university's academic standards.[^58] In 1952 he ran against Senator Robert Taft for the nomination that went to Dwight Eisenhower.[^2] The Minnesota Stassen for President Volunteer Committee was chaired by Bernhard W. LeVander; his files as chairman are among the Stassen papers.[^2] ## The Eisenhower administration, 1953–1958 ### Mutual Security and Foreign Operations Eisenhower appointed Stassen Director of the Mutual Security Agency on January 27, 1953; he entered on duty the next day.[^5] Reorganization Plan No. 7 of 1953 abolished the agency and transferred its functions to a new [[Foreign Operations Administration]] effective August 1, 1953; Stassen was authorized that day to act as its director and was appointed on August 3.[^59][^5] The State Department's record ends his appointment on March 19, 1955; the *Foreign Relations* editors and the President's announcement of that day say he would remain director "for the time being"; and the Historical Society dates his departure to his new appointment in March 1955.[^5][^6][^60][^2] He sat in the Cabinet and on the National Security Council.[^2] On March 5, 1953 Stassen created within the Mutual Security Agency the position of Assistant Director of Personnel Security and Integrity, appointing Thomas E. Naughten; the office investigated current and prospective employees and contractors and moved with the agency into the Foreign Operations Administration.[^2] Executive Order 10450, issued April 27, 1953, made each department head responsible for such a program.[^2] [[Harlan Cleveland]], who in 1952 had been the agency's Assistant Director for Europe under W. Averell Harriman, recalled decades later that Stassen "had to get the staff down somehow" and removed a number of people as "security risks"; Cleveland said he had already decided to leave and did so "about March of '53"; in the same interview he described Stassen as someone "whom I have gotten to know very well since."[^61][^62] The Princeton finding aid for Cleveland's papers dates his agency post 1952–1953.[^63] The two men's overlap at the agency was therefore a matter of weeks; the corpus's dating of the overlap to March through August 1953 is not supported.[^62][^24] The Foreign Operations Administration also directed the escapee program begun in the spring of 1952. A White House release of December 8, 1953 said the program, under the direction of the Foreign Operations Administration, had resettled "more than 6,000 escapees," "primarily in Canada, Australia, South America, and the United States," and would continue under a $9 million authorization from mutual security funds; it also operated in the Far East, aiding refugees from Communist China.[^64] It was a federal program, administered abroad, twenty-seven years before the [[Refugee Act of 1980]].[^64] The Foreign Operations Administration also reached the University of Minnesota. A history of the school published for the 1986 dedication of the Humphrey Center says that the Public Administration Center's Korean training program, "lasting from 1957 to 1961," began when Stassen, as head of the Foreign Operations Administration, gave the university the job of helping Korea train government officials; university advisers helped set up an in-service training center in Korea, and Seoul National University faculty trained in Minnesota.[^65] The account's dates do not fit together — the Foreign Operations Administration was abolished in 1955, and Stassen had left it — and the contract itself has not been located. It is the one document read for this article that ties an act of Stassen's to the institution that became the Humphrey Institute.[^65][^5] ### Disarmament On March 19, 1955 Eisenhower announced Stassen's appointment as Special Assistant to the President for disarmament, with Cabinet rank.[^6][^60] The *Foreign Relations* editors record that the appointment followed the agencies' failure to agree on new proposals, that none of the names the Departments of State and Defense and the Atomic Energy Commission had suggested was Stassen's, and that he continued for a time as director of the Foreign Operations Administration.[^6] He presented a revised disarmament plan to the National Security Council on June 30, 1955.[^66] At Geneva, on the evening of July 20, 1955, Stassen read to the President and his advisers a draft statement on disarmament. The White House staff secretary's record of the meeting says that he "handed out a draft statement on Disarmament," whose most striking idea was a willingness to permit American and Soviet overflights for aerial photography as a means of inspection.[^67][^68] The same record notes that the President had told the British at breakfast that a plan for mutual overflights "would not be unacceptable to him."[^67] Eisenhower made the [[Open Skies]] proposal the next day.[^69] The idea had another source as well: a panel of advisers convened by Nelson Rockefeller at Quantico, Virginia, on June 5–10, 1955, whose deliberations Walt Rostow later published under the title *Open Skies*.[^70] Historians divide on the question: one scholarly review concludes that "The more influential sponsor of the plan was Nelson Rockefeller," while the article it reviews, by Shaul Tal, gives Stassen a larger role.[^71] The record supports neither the corpus's statement that Stassen "drafted" Open Skies nor the opposite statement that he had no part in it: his Geneva draft carried the aerial-inspection idea, Rockefeller's panel had worked on related questions in June, and the documents read for this article do not establish who first proposed it.[^68][^70][^24] Congress built its own disarmament machinery in the same months. The Senate created a Subcommittee on Disarmament of the Foreign Relations Committee by resolution on July 25, 1955; its chairman was Senator [[Hubert Humphrey|Hubert H. Humphrey]]. It held hearings from January 25, 1956 to August 1, 1958 under the title *Control and Reduction of Armaments*, including public hearings in Minneapolis.[^72] The disarmament series of the Stassen papers holds a correspondence file for Humphrey, undated and 1956.[^2] Whether Stassen testified before Humphrey's subcommittee is an open item. In July and August 1956 Stassen took leave from the administration and tried without success to persuade the Republican convention to replace Vice President Nixon with Christian Herter.[^2] From March 18 to September 6, 1957 he led the American delegation at the London talks of the United Nations Disarmament Subcommittee.[^2] On May 31, 1957 he handed the Soviet delegation an informal memorandum outlining new American positions, although his instructions were that the decisions first be approved by the interested agencies and submitted to the President; the British minister in Washington called at the State Department on June 1 to express concern, and on June 4 Secretary Dulles met his staff on "remedial measures."[^73][^74] On February 14, 1958 Stassen wrote to Eisenhower that his studies were complete and that he could do more for "a durable peace" "by reentering the active political field in the Pennsylvania Governorship campaign."[^75] Eisenhower accepted the resignation on February 15; the Historical Society's finding aid dates his departure February 18.[^28][^2] Five days after the letter, Dulles told General Alfred Gruenther that disarmament work should be "an integral part of the State Department activity and not operated independently."[^76] ## Later life Stassen practiced law in Philadelphia, ran for governor of Pennsylvania in 1958 and 1966 and for mayor of Philadelphia in 1959, and after returning to Minnesota ran for the U.S. Senate in 1978, for governor in 1982, for the Fourth District congressional seat in 1986 and, at eighty-seven, for the Republican Senate nomination in 1994.[^1] He was president of the American Baptist Convention in 1963–64 and took part in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.[^1][^2] At the dedication of the University of Minnesota's [[Hubert H. Humphrey Center]] on May 26, 1986, with Dean Harlan Cleveland presiding, the published program listed Stassen among the former governors giving dedicatory comments, and the building's Harold Stassen Conference Room "contains memorabilia of Stassen's" peace efforts.[^65] The State's Stassen Building in St. Paul, completed in 1998, is named for him.[^77] He died in Bloomington on March 4, 2001.[^1] ## Connections to the other architects The project's corpus places Stassen at the head of a chain running through Humphrey, Mondale and Cleveland — a "documentary chain" along a University of Minnesota–United Nations axis.[^24] The table records the contacts the documents show and what they do not show. | Figure | Documented contact with Stassen | What is not documented | Sources | |---|---|---|---| | [[Hubert Humphrey]] | Chaired the Senate Subcommittee on Disarmament (created July 1955; hearings 1956–1958, including Minneapolis) while Stassen was the President's disarmament assistant; a Humphrey correspondence file, 1956, in Stassen's disarmament papers; the 1986 Humphrey Center houses a Stassen conference room; a 1986 university history credits Stassen, as Foreign Operations Administration head, with giving the university's Public Administration Center (the Institute's predecessor) its Korean training program | any joint Minnesota instrument; the Korean program's contract and dates | [^72][^2][^65] | | [[Walter Mondale]] | Both appear in the May 1986 Humphrey Center dedication events | any act, appointment or instrument linking the two | [^65] | | [[Harlan Cleveland]] | Assistant Director for Europe of the Mutual Security Agency when Stassen took it over in January 1953; left about March 1953; presided as dean at the 1986 dedication at which Stassen was listed to speak; later said he had come to know Stassen "very well" | a working relationship in 1953 beyond those weeks; any Stassen act concerning Cleveland's deanship (1980–1987) | [^61][^62][^63][^65] | | [[Amy Klobuchar]], [[Tom Emmer]] | none found | — | [^24] | | [[Edward J. Thye]] | Stassen's dairy and food commissioner (1939–1942), backed by him for lieutenant governor in 1942; his successor in 1943; created the Interracial Commission in December 1943 | a Stassen act concerning the commission | [^22][^21] | | [[Harold LeVander]] | Assistant Dakota County attorney 1935–1939; thirty years at Stassen & Ryan; as governor approved the 1967 Department of Human Rights and Metropolitan Council acts | any Stassen role in the 1967 acts | [^29][^30][^31] | In 1956–1958 the President's special assistant for disarmament studies, a Republican from Minnesota who had become a Pennsylvania resident, and the chairman of the Senate subcommittee examining disarmament, a Minnesota Democrat, worked the same federal subject from the two branches.[^72][^6][^5] ## Corpus claims checked The project's corpus contains a governor's file, a biography stub, a wartime file, election and convention files, an Experimental City file and a five-part essay series on Stassen, some of it treating Stassen and Cleveland together.[^24] The table records each checked claim against the primary record. | Corpus claim | Verdict | What the record shows | Sources | |---|---|---|---| | Stassen created the Governor's Interracial Commission by executive action in 1939 | false | Thye appointed it in December 1943, after Stassen's resignation | [^21][^22] | | The commission's core function was to count and classify Minnesotans by race | not supported as stated | Thye's foreword describes an advisory body to study interracial trends and conditions that might cause social disorder | [^21] | | The 1939 act required all incumbents to requalify by examination | corrected | five-year employees, veterans and others entitled to preference, and qualified Employment Service staff received status without examination; other incumbents took a non-competitive qualifying examination | [^9] | | The 1939 act is the "procedural ancestor" of § 43A.191 | a reading, with the links documented | 1939 ch. 441 → 1941 ch. 43 → repealed and replaced by 1981 ch. 210 → § 43A.191 (1985) | [^9][^14][^15][^16] | | § 43A.19 is the 1981 pay equity act | false | § 43A.19 is the statewide affirmative action section of 1981 ch. 210 | [^15] | | § 43A.191 was enacted in 1981 | false | enacted 1985, 1st Spec. Sess., ch. 13, § 172 | [^16] | | Stassen's labor program included public-employee bargaining | false for 1939 | the Labor Relations Act excluded the state and its subdivisions as employers | [^10] | | The 1938 margin was about 200,000 | corrected | 291,576 | [^33] | | Stassen was the youngest governor in U.S. history | contested | the Legislative Reference Library says one of the youngest; the Historical Society and Penn say the youngest in Minnesota's history; a 2001 American Baptist release says the youngest in U.S. history | [^1][^2][^4][^58] | | He was the son of Norwegian and Czech immigrants | corrected | his grandparents were immigrants, from Norway, the Czech lands and Germany | [^4] | | His law-school cohort included Edward Devitt | false | Devitt's law degree is from the University of North Dakota | [^78] | | Roosevelt named him to the delegation in late 1944 | false | announced February 13, 1945; invited February 28 | [^3][^55] | | Cordell Hull signed the Charter for the United States | not supported | Hull did not take an active part in the delegation's work; the signature page has not been checked | [^3] | | Senator Lundeen died October 31, 1940 | corrected | August 31, 1940; Ball sworn in October 14, 1940 | [^44][^45] | | The 1944 Republican platform was drafted with Stassen's substantial influence | not supported | the platform text contains no attribution; Stassen was on naval duty in the Pacific | [^79][^2] | | He was aboard the USS *Missouri* at the surrender | not supported | his papers document the prisoner evacuation, not the ceremony | [^2] | | Penn built international-relations programs under him | not supported | Penn's biography of him mentions no such programs | [^4] | | He became Mutual Security director in March 1953, of a Mutual Security Administration | corrected | appointed January 27, 1953, to the Mutual Security Agency | [^5] | | He drafted the Open Skies proposal | partly supported | his Geneva draft of July 20, 1955 carried the aerial-inspection idea; who first proposed it is not established | [^68][^70][^71] | | He was the cabinet-level architect of the International Atomic Energy Agency | not checked against a primary source | no document read for this article addresses the claim | [^24] | | He served with Cleveland at the Mutual Security Agency from March to August 1953 | corrected | an overlap of weeks, January–March 1953 | [^62][^5] | | A Stassen Center for World Peace exists at the University of Minnesota | not supported | the documented commemoration is a Stassen conference room in the Humphrey Center (1986) | [^65] | | A Stassen–Humphrey–Mondale–Cleveland documentary chain runs along a University of Minnesota–United Nations axis | not supported as a chain of instruments | contacts are documented — the disarmament subcommittee, the 1953 overlap, the Korean training program, the 1986 dedication — but no instrument joins them; see [[#Connections to the other architects]] | [^72][^62][^65] | | The Experimental City and helium vector runs through Stassen | not supported | he does not appear in volume III of the Experimental City project's archived report; the other volumes were not checked | [^23] | | He was the only governor to accept the Japanese-language school | not supported | MNopedia says several states rejected it before Stassen agreed | [^46] | ## The two readings The parent article sets out two readings of the record and builds each to be cited by its own side; this section applies them to Stassen.[^20] Neither is this article's conclusion. **The inheritance reading.** On this reading Stassen built a merit system and nothing more. The 1939 civil service act forbids discrimination for political and religious opinions and contains no provision keyed to race, color, national origin or sex.[^9] Every protected-group provision in the line that ends in § 43A.191 was written by later legislatures under later governors: chapter 43 was repealed in 1981 and § 43A.191 enacted in 1985.[^15][^16] The race statements in Stassen's own record are statements against discrimination: the 1941 contract clause forbids contractors to discriminate "by reason of race, creed or color," and the 1943 message asked the Legislature to act against discrimination for race, creed or color in employment.[^12][^39] The civil service bill was drafted by a citizens' council of labor, farm, veterans', teachers' and women's organizations, after similar bills had failed for fifty years; the enacted act blanketed in long-serving employees, which he had recommended against.[^37][^38][^9] The Interracial Commission was Thye's.[^21] Stassen's federal posts were federal.[^5][^6] **The structural reading.** On this reading the 1939 act built the machinery the later instruments run through. Classified service, examinations, eligible lists and the certification of names to the appointing officer passed from chapter 441 into chapter 43 and, through the 1981 act's continuity clause, into chapter 43A, where "expanded certification" of protected-group eligibles was written into the same certification step.[^9][^14][^15] The 1939 act contained a status-keyed points preference from the first day, with disabled veterans placed at the head of the list.[^9] The 1941 contract clause naming race as a forbidden ground — a prohibition — is still in force as § 181.59, amended twice and never repealed.[^13] The 1939 reorganization put budgeting and purchasing under one commissioner appointed by the governor, and the civil service act's transition section left most classified employees removable at will until August 1, 1939.[^8][^9] The people around Stassen built the later institutions: Thye, his appointee and successor, created the Interracial Commission; LeVander, an assistant county attorney during Stassen's tenure and for thirty years a lawyer at Stassen & Ryan, signed the act that created the Department of Human Rights and absorbed the commission's successor.[^22][^21][^29][^54] As director of the Foreign Operations Administration he gave the university's public-administration school, the Humphrey Institute's predecessor, a federal training program, by a 1986 university account.[^65] In 1941 he pocket-vetoed a civil service bill and a veterans'-preference bill whose contents are not yet known.[^41] **What both readings foreclose.** Both readings accept the same session laws, dates and signatures; they differ on whether a merit system that later legislatures amended is the origin of those amendments or only their host.[^9][^15] Neither reading is supported by attributing to Stassen the Interracial Commission, § 43A.191, the Experimental City project or a United Nations chain that the documents do not contain.[^21][^16][^23] ## Open items 1. **The 1941 pocket vetoes.** The texts of S.F. 1176 (civil service) and S.F. 767 (veterans' preference), from the 1941 Senate Journal.[^41] 2. **The 1943 recommendations.** Whether the 1943 Legislature enacted anything on the race, creed or color recommendation or the scholarships for students from the Allied nations.[^39] 3. **Laws 1941, ch. 533.** The amendments to the civil service act cited in the 1941 statutes' source notes.[^14] 4. **The first Civil Service Board and director.** The department's first report, for 1939–1940, is listed in the Legislative Reference Library's agency record.[^38] 5. **The Charter signature page.** Confirmation from the treaty text of the seven U.S. signatures and of Hull's absence.[^57][^3] 6. **The Humphrey subcommittee.** Whether Stassen testified in the *Control and Reduction of Armaments* hearings.[^72] 7. **Open Skies.** Stassen's disarmament-office records at the Eisenhower Library, for any earlier Stassen draft of the aerial-inspection idea.[^68][^70] 8. **Section 181.59 in practice.** Whether current State and local contract forms for materials, supplies or construction carry the clause the statute requires, and whether the same forms also carry the affirmative-action certificate requirement of § 363A.36; and whether the clause's misdemeanor or forfeiture provisions have ever been enforced (case law, attorney general opinions, cancellations).[^13][^42] 9. **Source discrepancies.** The year of his first election as county attorney (1929 or 1930); when he left the Foreign Operations Administration (March 19, 1955 or later); the date he left the Eisenhower administration (February 15 or 18, 1958); the number of his presidential campaigns — nine between 1948 and 1992 (Penn; the 2001 American Baptist release) or ten between 1944 and 1992 (MNopedia), the difference turning on whether 1944 counts; and whether he lost the 1948 nomination at the convention or in the primaries.[^1][^7][^4][^58][^5][^28][^2] 10. **The Korean training program.** The contract between the Foreign Operations Administration (or its successor) and the University of Minnesota, and its dates.[^65] ## Red-link work list Titles linked from this article that the wiki does not have yet, grouped by project; the cross-spine list is `_spines/redlinks.tsv`. - **Stassen's 1939 and 1941 instruments:** [[Minnesota State Civil Service Act of 1939]] · [[Minnesota Labor Relations Act]] · [[Revisor of Statutes]] · [[Minnesota Department of Administration]] · [[Minnesota Civil Service Department]] · [[Minn. Stat. § 181.59]] - **Institutions after Stassen:** [[Governor's Interracial Commission]] · [[Hubert H. Humphrey Center]] - **Federal offices and events:** [[Mutual Security Agency]] · [[Foreign Operations Administration]] · [[Open Skies]] · [[Military Intelligence Service Language School]] · [[University of Pennsylvania]] - **Corpus subjects:** [[Minnesota Experimental City]] ## See also - [[How Minnesota Got Here]] - [[Federal nondiscrimination certifications of the State of Minnesota]] - [[Minn. Stat. § 43A.191]] - [[Laws 1981, ch. 210, chapter 43A vessel]] - [[Minnesota Department of Human Rights]] - [[Humphrey, Freeman and Mondale]] - [[Hubert Humphrey]] · [[Walter Mondale]] · [[Harlan Cleveland]] · [[Amy Klobuchar]] · [[Tom Emmer]] - [[Edward J. Thye]] · [[Harold LeVander]] · [[C. Elmer Anderson]] · [[Luther Youngdahl]] ## Notes [^1]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, "Governor Harold Stassen" (governor no. 25; biography courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society) — assumed office January 2, 1939; born April 13, 1907, died March 4, 2001; the Labor Relations Act as his "major achievement"; FDR named him "one of seven U.S. delegates" (the State Department and the President's letter name eight). https://www.lrl.mn.gov/mngov/govbio?govid=14 [^2]: Minnesota Historical Society, *Harold Stassen Papers* (finding aid 00202), biographical note and the sections "Naval Service," "United Nations Conference on International Organization, 1945–1948" and the Eisenhower-administration series — birth, law office with Elmer J. Ryan (Nov. 1929), resignation as governor April 27, 1943, naval assignments, the UN committee work, the 1958 resignation. http://www.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00202.html [^3]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945*, vol. I, doc. 17 — the eight-member delegation announced February 13, 1945, including "Commander Harold Stassen"; the editors' note that Hull's health kept him from active participation. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v01/d17 [^4]: University of Pennsylvania Archives, "Harold Edward Stassen" (Penn People biography) — parents and immigrant grandparents; the Penn presidency 1948–1953 and its assessment. https://archives.upenn.edu/exhibits/penn-people/biography/harold-edward-stassen/ [^5]: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, "Harold E. Stassen (1907–2001)" — Director of the Mutual Security Agency (appointed Jan. 27, 1953; entry on duty Jan. 28; terminated Aug. 1, 1953); Director of the Foreign Operations Administration (appointed Aug. 3, 1953; terminated March 19, 1955). https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/stassen-harold-e [^6]: *FRUS, 1955–1957*, vol. XX, doc. 16 (editorial note) — the March 19, 1955 appointment as Special Assistant with Cabinet rank; no agency list had named Stassen; his cabled reply from Karachi. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v20/d16 [^7]: Steve Werle, "Stassen, Harold (1907–2001)," MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society (first published Sept. 21, 2015) — the county attorney race of 1930, the Young Republican League (1935–36), the 1940 keynote, the claim of ten presidential bids. https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/person/stassen-harold-1907-2001 [^8]: Laws of Minnesota 1939, ch. 431 (H.F. No. 1270), "An act relating to the organization and administration of the state government," approved April 22, 1939 — art. II, the Department of Administration and its commissioner (ex officio budget director and purchasing agent; governor's appointee with Senate consent; removable for cause after notice and hearing); the departments of Public Examiner, Social Security and Taxation. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1939/0/Session+Law/Chapter/431/ [^9]: Laws of Minnesota 1939, ch. 441 (H.F. No. 601), "An act creating a department of Civil Service for the State of Minnesota," approved April 22, 1939 — §§ 3–4 (board and director), § 10 (status without examination after five years' service; qualifying examinations; removal at will until August 1, 1939), § 15 ("Discrimination forbidden": political or religious opinions or affiliations), § 31 (veterans' preference: ten points for disabled veterans, placed at the head of the list; five points for other veterans). https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1939/0/Session+Law/Chapter/441/ [^10]: Laws of Minnesota 1939, ch. 440 (H.F. No. 352), the Minnesota Labor Relations Act, approved April 22, 1939 — § 1(b): "employer" does not include the state or its subdivisions. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1939/0/Session+Law/Chapter/440/ "does not include the state or any political or governmental subdivision thereof" [^11]: Laws of Minnesota 1939, ch. 442 (H.F. No. 746), creating the office of Revisor of Statutes, approved April 22, 1939 — § 2: appointed by the Supreme Court, to hold office at its pleasure. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1939/0/Session+Law/Chapter/442/ [^12]: Laws of Minnesota 1941, ch. 238 (H.F. No. 417), approved April 16, 1941 — the contract clause on race, creed or color in the hiring of labor, the misdemeanor, and cancellation with forfeiture for a second violation. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1941/0/Session+Law/Chapter/238/ "An act relating to the promotion of opportunities for employment, and for the prevention of discrimination on account of race, creed or color" [^13]: Minn. Stat. § 181.59 (2025), "Discrimination on account of race, creed, or color prohibited in contract," history "1941 c 238 ; 1973 c 123 art 5 s 7 ; 1984 c 609 s 11". https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/181.59 [^14]: Minnesota Statutes 1941, ch. 43, "State civil service act" (§§ 43.01–43.36), with source notes to Laws 1939, ch. 441. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1941/cite/43 [^15]: Laws of Minnesota 1981, ch. 210 (S.F. No. 876), approved May 15, 1981 — repeals Minnesota Statutes 1980, chapter 43 and enacts chapter 43A: § 1 [43A.01] subd. 2 (the affirmative-action policy), § 13 [43A.13] subd. 7 ("expanded certification"), § 19 [43A.19] (the statewide affirmative action program), § 53 [43A.47] (transitional provisions). https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1981/0/Session+Law/Chapter/210/ "All rights, privileges, liabilities and obligations possessed or created under chapter 43" [^16]: Minn. Stat. § 43A.191, "Agency Affirmative Action Programs," with history line. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/43A.191 [^17]: Minn. Stat. § 43A.19, "Affirmative Action." https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/43A.19 [^18]: Complaint, *United States v. State of Minnesota*, No. 0:26-cv-00273 (D. Minn. filed Jan. 14, 2026), Title VII §§ 703(a)(1)–(2), with the Department of Human Services hiring-justification policy as Exhibit B; the complaint cites Minn. Stat. § 43A.191. https://www.justice.gov/crt/media/1423361/dl [^19]: Minnesota record, *The Instrument No One Will Name* (densified companion, June 18, 2026), note 14 — § 43A.191 history line: enactment 1Sp1985 c 13 s 172, then thirteen amendments (1987 ×2, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1995, 1996, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009, 1Sp2019, 2023), no repeal; seven signed by Republican governors (Carlson 3, Pawlenty 4), six by DFL governors. [^20]: Minnesota record, *How Minnesota Got Here — Minnesota's Administrative Discrimination Regime* (merged master, footnoted; compiled June 12, refreshed June 19, 2026), §0 and §6 — the defense (inheritance and immunization) and prosecution (structurally compromised apparatus; receivership argument) readings, and the third reading both foreclose. [^21]: Governor's Interracial Commission, *The Negro Worker in Minnesota: A Report to Governor Edward J. Thye* (March 10, 1945), foreword and introduction, Legislative Reference Library scan. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/docs/pre2003/other/I537.pdf "Governor Edward J. Thye in December of 1943 appointed a Governor's Inter-Racial Commission" [^22]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, "Governor Edward Thye" — assumed office April 27, 1943; Stassen's dairy and food commissioner and deputy commissioner of agriculture (1939–1942); supported by Stassen for lieutenant governor in 1942; created the Governor's Interracial Commission. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/mngov/govbio?govid=13 [^23]: Minnesota Experimental City Project, final report, vol. III (Legislative Reference Library, document 171047). https://www.lrl.mn.gov/docs/2017/other/171047/volumeIII.pdf [^24]: Minnesota record, Stassen corpus files (Gov_Stassen_Harold.md, Stassen_Harold.md, Stassen_Harold_WWII.md, Election_1938_Stassen_Sweep.md, the 1930s and 1940s convention files, Stassen_Humphrey_ExperimentalCity_Helium_Geopolitics.md, and the Essay I–V Stassen and Stassen–Cleveland series), as checked in the Stassen fact sheet of Oct. 28, 2026. [^25]: Minnesota record, *How Minnesota Got Here — Minnesota's Administrative Discrimination Regime* (merged master, footnoted; compiled June 12, refreshed June 19, 2026), preface and §0 — the discipline (structural claims about institutions; individuals in official capacity only; verdicts reserved to the grand jury, the court and the Division) and the two readings built to be cited by both sides. [^26]: Minnesota record, *The Instrument No One Will Name* (densified companion, June 18, 2026), opening register and method note — combative to the game, critical of each team, neutral on the players; judges the container, never the merits; "symmetric or void". [^27]: 91 Cong. Rec. 8190–91 (July 28, 1945), Senate roll call on the resolution of ratification of the Charter of the United Nations — yeas 89 (Ball among them), nays 2 (Langer, Shipstead), not voting 5. https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1945-pt6/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1945-pt6-21.pdf [^28]: Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Letter Accepting Resignation of Harold E. Stassen, Special Assistant to the President" (Feb. 15, 1958), American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/letter-accepting-resignation-harold-e-stassen-special-assistant-the-president [^29]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, "Governor Harold LeVander" — a thirty-year career at the South St. Paul firm Stassen & Ryan; assistant Dakota County attorney 1935–1939. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/mngov/govbio?govid=1 [^30]: Laws of Minnesota 1967, ch. 896 (Metropolitan Council), session-law PDF, "Approved May 25, 1967." https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1967/0/Session+Law/Chapter/896/pdf/ [^31]: Laws of Minnesota 1967, ch. 897 (Department of Human Rights), approved May 25, 1967 — the commissioner's at-pleasure term. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1967/0/897/ [^32]: Wikipedia, "1938 Minnesota gubernatorial election" (secondary; results tables citing the Minnesota Historical Election Archive) — Republican primary: Stassen 123,634 (47.42%), Nelson 76,532, Leach 57,028, Northrup 3,501. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Minnesota_gubernatorial_election [^33]: Minnesota State Canvassing Board, *Report of State Canvassing Board, General Election, November 8, 1938* (compiled by Secretary of State Mike Holm), "For Governor" — Stassen 678,839; Benson 387,263; Gallagher 65,875; Castle 899. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/docs/2023/Other/232070/1938.pdf [^34]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, "Governor C. Elmer Anderson" — elected lieutenant governor with Stassen in 1938, "the youngest team ever" to hold the two offices. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/mngov/govbio?govid=11 [^35]: Minnesota State Canvassing Board, report of the 1940 general election, "For Governor" — Stassen 654,686; Petersen 459,609; Murphy 140,021; Castle 3,175; Mackie 360. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/docs/2023/Other/232070/1940.pdf [^36]: Minnesota State Canvassing Board, report of the 1942 general election, "For Governor" — Stassen 409,800; Petersen 299,917; Sullivan 75,151; Mackie 5,082; Brandborg 4,278. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/docs/2023/Other/232070/1942.pdf [^37]: Harold E. Stassen, Inaugural Message to the Legislature of Minnesota (Jan. 3, 1939), Legislative Reference Library scan, pp. 4–5 and 12 — the civil service request, "blanketing in," the sixty-four agencies and the four major matters. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/docs/2007/other/070500.pdf [^38]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, agency record "Civil Service Department" (1939–1973; authority Laws 1939 ch. 441; succeeded by the Personnel Department), with its history of failed civil service bills from 1889 to 1936. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/agencies/detail?AgencyID=241 [^39]: Harold E. Stassen, Inaugural Message (Jan. 6, 1943), Legislative Reference Library scan, p. 8 (race, creed or color in employment) and pp. 19–20 (scholarships for students from "each of the United Nations"). https://www.lrl.mn.gov/docs/2007/other/070499.pdf "Action should be taken to clearly indicate that we are opposed to intolerance or discrimination for race, creed or color in employment." [^40]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, agency record "Mediation Services Bureau" — the Division of Conciliation created by Laws 1939 ch. 440 § 2 as the forerunner of the Bureau of Mediation Services. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/agencies/detail?AgencyID=1010 [^41]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, vetoes of Governor Harold Stassen, 1939, 1941 and 1943 — including the 1939 "bank tax bill" (H.F. 1378) and S.F. 10, and the 1941 pocket vetoes of S.F. 1176 (civil service) and S.F. 767 (veterans' preference). https://www.lrl.mn.gov/vetoes/vetodetails.aspx?gov=14 [^42]: Minn. Stat. § 363A.36 — certificates of compliance (affirmative-action plans) required of state contractors. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/363A.36 [^43]: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Executive Order 8802, "Reaffirming Policy of Full Participation in the Defense Program by All Persons, Regardless of Race, Creed, Color, or National Origin" (June 25, 1941), American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-8802-reaffirming-policy-full-participation-the-defense-program-all-persons "because of race, creed, color, or national origin" [^44]: Wikipedia, "Ernest Lundeen" (secondary) — died August 31, 1940. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Lundeen [^45]: Wikipedia, "Joseph H. Ball" (secondary) — appointed by Stassen to the seat of Ernest Lundeen; sworn in October 14, 1940. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_H._Ball [^46]: MNopedia, "Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS)" — several states rejected the school; Stassen agreed; the move to Camp Savage in June 1942. https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/group/military-intelligence-service-language-school-misls [^47]: Harold E. Stassen, farewell address to the Legislature, April 21, 1943, *Journal of the House*, 76th day, pp. 1868–69 (Legislative Reference Library scan). https://www.leg.mn.gov/docs/NonMNpub/stassen19430421.pdf [^48]: Minnesota record, *The Instrument No One Will Name* (densified companion, June 18, 2026), §3 and notes 13–18 — § 43A.191's vessel and rider, its entry as section 172 of an omnibus appropriations act, and the Democratic Attorney General's defense of the statute in federal court. [^49]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, agency record "Personnel Board" (1973–1980) — Laws 1973 ch. 507 and the 1980 renaming of the Personnel Department as the Employee Relations Department. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/agencies/detail?AgencyID=1254 [^50]: Laws of Minnesota 1981, ch. 210 (S.F. No. 876) — the state personnel act creating chapter 43A; approved May 15, 1981. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1981/0/Session+Law/Chapter/210/pdf/ [^51]: Laws of Minnesota 1985, First Special Session, ch. 13 — omnibus state-departments appropriations act; § 172 enacts § 43A.191. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1985/1/Session+Law/Chapter/13/pdf/ [^52]: Minnesota record, *How Minnesota Got Here — Minnesota's Administrative Discrimination Regime* (merged master, footnoted; compiled June 12, refreshed June 19, 2026), §3 — the modern architecture 1971–2026, nine administrations and three parties, every load-bearing clause re-fetched from the Revisor in validation. [^53]: Governor's Interracial Commission, *The Negro and His Home in Minnesota*, third report, addressed to Governor Luther Youngdahl (Legislative Reference Library scan). https://www.lrl.mn.gov/docs/pre2003/other/I540.pdf [^54]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, agency record "Governor's Human Rights Commission" (1956–1967) — preceded by the Governor's Interracial Commission; renamed in 1956; duties absorbed by the Department of Human Rights in 1967. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/agencies/detail?AgencyID=2027 [^55]: Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Letter Inviting Delegates to the United Nations Conference at San Francisco" (Feb. 28, 1945), American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/210049 [^56]: United Nations Oral History Project, interview with Harold E. Stassen by Joan Bush, April 29, 1983 (transcript; index entries "Stassen's Staff" and "Ralph Bunche"). https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/477266/files/Stassen29Apr83TRANS.pdf [^57]: Harry S. Truman Library, photograph 59-684 (signing of the United Nations Charter), "People Pictured" list. https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/photograph-records/59-684 [^58]: American Baptist Churches USA news release on Stassen's death, March 2001 (archived). https://archive.wfn.org/2001/03/msg00050.html [^59]: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, "Director of the Mutual Security Agency" — Reorganization Plan No. 7 of 1953 abolished the agency and moved its functions to the Foreign Operations Administration effective August 1, 1953. https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/principalofficers/director-mutual-security-agency [^60]: Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Statement by the President Announcing the Appointment of Harold Stassen as Special Assistant to the President for Disarmament Studies" (March 19, 1955), American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/234057 [^61]: *United States Government Organization Manual* (1952), "Mutual Security Agency" — W. Averell Harriman, Director for Mutual Security; Harlan Cleveland, Assistant Director for Europe (George C. Marshall Foundation scan). https://marshallfoundation.org/library/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2014/05/Mutual_Security_Agency_1952.pdf [^62]: *Interview with Harlan Cleveland*, by Warren Nishimoto, University of Hawai'i Presidents Oral History Project (1996; transcript 1998), p. 68 — the 1953 staff reductions at the foreign aid agency and his departure "about March of '53". https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/06664c59-9afe-47e1-a739-155aafc827a2/content [^63]: Princeton University Library, *Harlan Cleveland Papers* (MC234), biographical note — assistant director of the Mutual Security Agency for the European program, 1952–1953; left government in 1953 for *The Reporter*. https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_MC234 [^64]: Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Statement by the President Concerning the United States Program for Assisting Escapees and Refugees" (Dec. 8, 1953), with the release note, American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/232503 "more than 6,000 escapees had already been resettled" [^65]: University of Minnesota, Humphrey Center dedication file (May 26–27, 1986), news-service items and program (University Digital Conservancy scan) — Dean Harlan Cleveland presiding; former governors including Harold Stassen listed for dedicatory comments; the Harold Stassen Conference Room. https://conservancy.umn.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/eedb268b-537e-4ab2-9736-23501fd09f08/content [^66]: *FRUS, 1955–1957*, vol. XX, doc. 45 — memorandum of discussion at the 253d meeting of the National Security Council, June 30, 1955 (Stassen's presentation of his disarmament plan). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v20/d45 [^67]: *FRUS, 1955–1957*, vol. V, doc. 208 — meeting at the President's villa, Geneva, July 20, 1955, 6 p.m.: Stassen hands the President and reads a draft statement on disarmament; the "open skies" proposal discussed. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v05/d208 [^68]: *FRUS, 1955–1957*, vol. V, doc. 209 — Goodpaster's record of the same meeting. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v05/d209 "Governor Stassen handed out a draft statement on Disarmament" [^69]: *FRUS, 1955–1957*, vol. XX, doc. 48 (editorial note) — the Geneva conference of July 18–23, 1955 and the President's July 21 "Open Skies" proposal. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v20/d48 [^70]: *FRUS, 1950–1955, The Intelligence Community*, doc. 224 (editorial note) — the Rockefeller panel at Quantico, June 5–10, 1955, and Rostow's account of it published as *Open Skies: Eisenhower's Proposal of July 21, 1955*. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950-55Intel/d224 [^71]: H-Diplo Article Review (Chernus) of Shaul Tal, "From the Open Skies Proposal of 1955 to the Norstad Plan of 1960" — secondary; describes Rockefeller as the more influential sponsor of Open Skies. https://issforum.org/reviews/PDF/Chernus-Tal.pdf [^72]: *FRUS, 1955–1957*, vol. XX, doc. 99 (editorial note) — the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Disarmament (S. Res. 93, July 25, 1955), chaired by Hubert H. Humphrey; hearings January 25, 1956 – August 1, 1958, including public hearings in Minneapolis. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v20/d99 [^73]: *FRUS, 1955–1957*, vol. XX, doc. 213 (editorial note) — the informal memorandum Stassen handed the Soviet delegation in London on May 31, 1957. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v20/d213 [^74]: *FRUS, 1955–1957*, vol. XX, doc. 221 — meeting in Secretary Dulles' office, June 4, 1957, on "remedial measures" after the May 31 memorandum to Zorin. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v20/d221 [^75]: *FRUS, 1958–1960*, vol. III, microfiche supplement, doc. 290 — Stassen's letter of resignation to Eisenhower, February 14, 1958. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v03mSupp/d290 "by reentering the active political field in the Pennsylvania Governorship campaign" [^76]: *FRUS, 1958–1960*, vol. III, doc. 139 — Dulles–Gruenther conversation, February 19, 1958, on folding disarmament work into the State Department, with the editors' note on the resignation letter. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v03/d139 [^77]: Minnesota Department of Administration, "Stassen Building" — built 1998; named after Harold Stassen, Minnesota's 25th governor. https://mn.gov/admin/government/buildings-grounds/building-management/buildings/stassen.jsp [^78]: Federal Judicial Center, "Devitt, Edward James" — education. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/devitt-edward-james [^79]: Republican Party Platform of 1944, American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1944