Leaking Decisions

United Press correspondent Bill Lawrence recalled that 1940 GOP candidate Wendell Willkie “frequently dropped into the [campaign train press room] ‘drink in hand, on the prowl for companionship,’” according to Willkie biographer Steve Neal.

“He would often leak strategic decisions and major policy statements, sometimes inadvertently, in bull sessions with reporters. His staff chafed, but he seldom got burned.”

Source: Steve Neal, Dark Horse: A Biography of Wendell Willkie (New York, Doubleday, 1984), 150